After an extremely hot and uncomfortable rush hour tube ride (made worse by the untimely heat) I arrived at the Scala red faced and flustered, water bottle in hand. Luckily I didn’t stand out too much as there was a lot of running around being done by the tech guys and their faces were nearly as red as mine. Fortunately my interview was in a nice air conditioned bar. Although I had turned up expecting to interview Grog she was otherwise engaged. Instead I had the pleasure of interviewing Drew Richards. As we sat down to the interview Drew sympathised with my rush hour tube experience and then we begun….

First of all can you give us a brief history of the band such as how you came together and came up with the name Die So Fluid?
Grog and I have known each other since we were kids really and originally I wasn’t playing but I was managing her first band and then I think it was one of situations when it’s a gig and the guitarist doesn’t turn up and I said “Oh well, I’ll do it” and decided we enjoyed playing together better than the guy she was working with so I started playing than. and Al is a kind of drinking buddy who I wooed because he was the best drummer in London and I wanted him and to get him I had to woo him away from other bands and that took about two years to happen but you know we’ve stuck together ten years now so I guess it was the right combination. He actually thought of the name. but we were trying…we wanted something poetic so that was a real problem with the saturation of bands and you know and you can find out about them now so easily on the internet. It was very hard to find an original name that someone else hadn’t done with fourteen other bands with the same name in the states or something like that so we wanted something with more of a poetry phrase to express what we wanted to do as a band. It kind of means to live well and leave a beautiful legacy. I know the emphasis is on the die but that’s just kind of saying after you die have something to leave behind. We were drunk.

That’s a really beautiful drunk phrase
I know you get into some deep stuff but it doesn’t necessarily make sense the next day but yeah we stuck with it.

Who would you say your main musical influences are?
Well, all three of us like there’s certain keystone bands that all three of us like and they are The Cure, Led Zeppelin, Sonic Youth and The Deftones. So yeah, I think we’re somewhere in between all that. I think we got described by a friend as Susie meets Slayer. Kind half new wave goth punk and part metal so that’s the way I see it as well.

What are you listening to at the minute?
Well I’ve got to say my listening at the moment is not particularly contemporary. I keep going back over things from the past. I was on a real David Bowie kind of binge that lasted about two months were I sort of went through all the albums. I keep going back and listening to Blondie’s ‘Parallel Lines’ because it’s such a brilliant album and everyone is sort of familiar with the singles but all the album tracks on that are brilliant and I guess I’m on a kind of new wave kick listening to a lot of pure new wave things. I went out to see the Kerrang tour when it came around but I’ve got to say the current crop is not really to my taste you know of the metal bands there’s a lot of A-symmetrical hair cuts and unmemorable melodies are at the front. I like something a bit more cutting edge.

You are due to release your third studio album ‘The World Is Too Big For One Lifetime’ in the UK on the 7th June, what can people expect from the album?
I think it’s a real consolidation of a lot of different things: the song writing, the production, the performances. I think the performances of Grog and AI on it are just amazing you now I think it’s a big step up…and here he is, Mr Fletcher. (Al comes to join us) I think for people who are familiar with the previous albums it’s almost like a charade being pulled apart. I think this album really lays things on the table really nicely, it’s a real in your face kind of record compared to what we’ve done in the past and if you’re a new listener it’s actually not a bad starting point

What themes and stories do you cover within the 11 tracks on the album?
This is the second time we’ve done this. We’ve sort of created the title of the album before writing the songs and that kind of forms a canopy under which the theme is basically…its not like a concept album, I’m not saying that but theme the theme kind of comes under that canopy so we were all going through a lot of life changes and wondering what would of happened if we’d taken a different path in life or if we change path now so a lot of the songs explore that really. Sort of yellow brick road kind of thing you know

You have recently released a music video for your latest single ‘Mercury’ what was it like to record?
(Al) Pretty easy doing it on the day. Took a while to get edited but we got there in the end
(Drew) – Yeah, the guy is a great director but I think he’s got a lot on at the moment and he kind of lost his way on the editing and he had a core vision at the start and didn’t follow it through and I had to remind him what he was thinking at the start and then it got done. It’s quite frustrating for us because we’re very quick usually with what we do the album was the same. We recorded it and then nine months later it was finally mixed and the previous album took years to finish. It’s nice because the actual day we knew we were going to get the shots…..we recorded two in the same session and I knew the next single is going to be ten times better. It’s a totally different concept with lots of art work and green screen kind of stuff, kind of like ‘Sin City’ or something.

You are currently half way through a massive UK tour how has it been going so far? And what have your main highlights been so far?
(Drew) Birmingham was really good, that was right at the start and Bristol. After five or six in a row it was kind of nice to take a day off and that’s a nice city to have a day off in
(Al) – And it was sunny
(Drew) – Yeah those two, Birmingham and Bristol

Tonight you are playing the Scala in London, have you played here before? And what can we expect from the show?
(Drew) – no
(Al) – Hopefully plenty of people
(Drew) – I think a lot of friends are coming down I mean it’s sort of a home gig even though I’m the only one that lives in London anymore but you’ve still got lots of friends here haven’t you
(Al) – Yeah
(Drew) – And I think that’s going to be nice you know, it’s always nice to get that sort of home support. I think it’s going to be quite an entertaining evening. I don’t expect anything huge to happen.

Can we expect to see you playing any of the major music festivals this summer?
(Drew) – We do actually have one in December in Wales but other than that no. It’ll probably be next year if we get on the festival circuit. I mean just the album coming out at a funny time really. It was released in February and we didn’t have something to book onto festivals with

Since you have been together since 2001 you must have some rock and roll stories from the road? Do you care to share any?
(Both laugh)
(Drew) – This is the question I hate. Not that we don’t have good road stories but a lot of them I can’t discuss. Actually a good one the other day I got told off severely. We were waiting by the van, we were waiting for the tour manager and he’d had a few drinks the night before and I noticed were we’d parked there was a rack of bike stands you know those things you lock your bikes to, the big tubular ones they weren’t in the ground properly so when he turned up I sort of kicked one over and went “What time do you call this?” and obviously the thing was just sitting there without being stuck in the ground fell over and he looked up and then realised it was a joke then the manager of the hotel came out and wanted my room number and said “Is that really necessary? Vandalism” and I got transported back to school she was a real school marm type you know this big hefty woman. Grog stepped in and defended me with her kung fu luckily.

MySpace seems to be a big tool in the music industry these days with artists communicating with their fans over it and some even ditching their own website and having just a MySpace site, what are your opinions on MySpace as a tool in the music industry?
(Al) – It’s all useful isn’t it?
(Drew) – Well it’s goof and bad because I think it’s good because it gives everyone the opportunity to get their music out and I like using too because the layout is so familiar from one band to the next so you know exactly what you’re looking for but I think it’s bad because of what I was talking about earlier and this over saturation of bands and in a way it creates a level playing field for bands that are seriously working and bands that maybe that just did a demo and split up the next week and everyone is taking up space and I think there might be a move away from it now I’m certainly sensing that more people are coming to the actual…if you have your own webpage you know that they want to see that you’re serious and that you’re going to be playing in their town and releasing records and stuff. These things change so quickly don’t they?

Where would you like to see yourself this time next year?
(Drew) Well hopefully queuing up to be on a few good festivals this time next year, fourth album written, not necessarily recorded and I’m hoping that we’ll I mean we did a short tour in the states a couple of years ago they don’t seem to be a place where they instantly grab on to what we do so I’m hoping we’ve made some more ground there.

One last random question that we ask every band, if you could be an animal out of a Zebra and a Giraffe which one would you be and why?
(Al) Zebras are weird so a zebra
(Drew) – I’d be a giraffe it’d be quite handy at gigs, good for seeing over the crowd
(Al) Good for looking in windows

Interview By Nicci Peet