Drahla are not your typical band, rather, a collective of artists who happen to also be musicians. The trio of singer/guitarist Luciel Brown, Bassist Rob Riggs, and drummer Mike Ainsley firmly believe that the artistic side of the project is equally as important as the music. They design all of their visuals and even self-direct their own music videos, including the “Stimulus for Living” video, which begins with the monotonous asking and answering of standardized questions about their formation and their motivation as a band. “At that time before we made that video, it was all of those questions all the time,” says Lu. “We had a few interviews where we’ve talked about more impressive things and they hadn’t made the cut and it was all the boring things that got included. The video response was a little bit of frustration but mainly humor.”
I had the opportunity to sit down with the group ahead of their Rough Trade show in an attempt to overcome the stigma and dig deeper beneath the surface.
You recorded your debut album over the span of 10 days. Did you go into those sessions knowing what you wanted to come out of it or did you kind of just improvise completely and it came out the way it did?
Luciel Brown: Well we recorded it in a little box over the span of a few sessions, around 5-7 days total at the end. So because we were just playing a bunch of shows, we never allotted a certain amount of time where we sat down and thought, “Right, we’re writing an album now,” or, “This is how we want it to sound.” It was just like, snippets of practice time and writing new songs, and we didn’t really know how it would come together until that final session.
Mike Ainsley: Some of the songs were literally written the night before we went into recording.
How did the title “Useless Coordinates” come about?
LB: So it came from a piece of artwork that I did where I’d just written it on. From there, it worked its way into a bit of poetry, and then it became the lyrics for “Stimulus for Living.” It just felt like the perfect overhead for the album. At the time we were recording and we’d all quit jobs to come on this first USA tour, which was last year. It kind of felt like we had a lot of direction, but at the same time no direction, in the sense of feeling quite lost, and I think the album title summarized our situation at the time as well.
Rob Riggs: I think it has different connotations as well. “Use less Coordinates,” as in predestination. People having full time jobs, getting to a certain age and feeling like they’ve got to start a family, get a house and stuff like that, so it’s kind of got that in it as well.
How has the reception been now compared to beforehand when you only had a handful of songs out?
MA: It’s been great. This last run, we did a tour in the UK for when the album came out in May. Before we came out here we were in Europe for 2 weeks and we played in Portugal for the first time, and in Madrid, France, and Germany. The reception’s been ace, I’m kind of shocked really. The rooms have been really full.
The album was recorded in the summer of last year, which must feel like ages ago. Have you started working on new things since?
LB: Yeah, and I think now we’ve probably got a bit more of a grasp on what we want to do. A similar direction but slightly different. We’ve already got a lot of inspiration and a direction of what we want to do next.
Is it hard to pinpoint inspiration since your tastes vary so much or was there anything collectively that inspired you?
LB: We’re all really into Jazz and that plays a huge part in it, as well as having Chris [Duffin, of XAM Duo] involved, who plays the saxophone. He’s introduced us to loads of Jazz musicians and opened barriers to a lot of things we weren’t aware of.
There is a definite comeback of the sax in the “post-punk” world, which I know you don’t like to be umbrellaed under. Your sound is unlike anything else. The instant I heard “Fictional Decision” shortly after the announcement of your signing with Captured Tracks, I was hooked. It’s crazy that now you have your debut album out and are touring in America, which is a very hard thing for foreign artists to do in such a short amount of time.
LB: It’s all just felt quite transitional really. Like when we did our first show, we just got offered a load of shows afterwards. Everything felt fluid in the way it happened, which is quite nice. It was never an intention or a real dream or anything, it was just having this outlet to be creative. It’s turned into something quite amazing experience-wise.
Something that you never thought would happen?
LB: Exactly.
And you all came from different projects and met along the way?
MA: We’ve known each other for a long time. We’ve been old friends since we were teenagers and we used to play in groups together. We reunited at a mate’s wedding. Riggs and Lu moved back up to Leeds and said that they wanted to do some stuff. We booked a practice for the week after.
Most people move to London and cities of the same likeness for inspiration, but you needed to move out to find it.
LB: It felt quite isolating when we were in London, just ‘cause it’s so expensive to be there and to exist there. So coming back just gave a lot of freedom in that sense. We could practice every week for pretty much next to nothing and have a car, which was super handy. Everything’s so much more accessible, even with the social scene. To be amongst friends and making new friends is a really nice situation to be in, and London felt very different to that.
How does the band living in two different places affect your writing?
MA: It’s alright, they’ll just drive up to Wakefield from London which takes about four hours. They come up and stay at mine’s.
RR: It’s probably worked out better doing that because we’ll come up and stay for like four days and just practice every day. When we were living in Leeds, we would still drive into Wakefield, which is half an hour away, if that, but after work, so we’d only have a few hours on an evening. Going straight into practice from work, we’d all be pretty tired, so it’s definitely been more fruitful.
When it comes to songwriting, your poetry plays a large role in your lyricism. Do you write poetry for this specific reason or do your poems sometimes find another life in your music?
LB: They’re never written intentionally for anything. But then, when we write music, we draw upon the writings I already have and kind of just rework them and add to them. I can’t think of anything we’ve done that’s had lyrics already written. We always go away from it, do something else, and then come back to it later.
Do you write on the road at all?
RR: No, but there might have been a couple of times where we’ve got to a show and sound checked or whatever and just played around with something and remembered a little bit. And then when we go home and practice, bring that in. I think maybe “React/Revolt” is one instance where that happened. I remember playing that baseline in Brighton when we played Great Escape.
LB: We’ve adapted a few things while we’ve been on tour. Just getting different ideas and changing things around slightly. I guess it’s creating in that sense.
You most recently released a cover of Psychic TV’s “Godstar.” What was your motivation behind it?
RR: I’m mainly a big fan of COUM Transmissions, just the artistic side of things. They made little postcards and sent them out to people and everything was just like DIY. I started recording it at home, just ‘cause I’d not done any recording for ages. Mike lent me his interface and I’d got a new computer, so I started messing around and then Lu put some vocals on it. We were meant to do a video or something to promote this tour, and we didn’t have time to really do anything. So we were like, “Oh, we’ve been working on this track at home” and then just released that. We even got an email from Genesis [P-Orridge, founder of COUM Transmissions and Psychic TV frontman] saying he liked it.
What’s in store for the future of Drahla?
MA: We’ve got loads of gigs!
As also being the artists behind your own visuals, have you ever thought about curating your stage setup?
MA: We’ve thought about it, we just haven’t been able to pull it off yet.
LB: We’ve got one specific idea that we really want to do.
Hopefully we’ll see it in the Drahla exhibition once you have a break from touring.
LB: We’ve planned a lot of it haven’t we?
RR: Yeah, we’ve got all the artwork categorized in how we’d want to display it. We’re just waiting for the right time and to find the right space.
MA: It’ll happen.