Doves drummer gives exclusive interview to Doves.net
Nearly half a decade has passed since Doves had released Some Cities, and now the English indie rock trio has been the studio getting ready to release Kingdom of Rust. I, for one, will be scrounging up the pounds and pence to purchase the album on April 6th. Who is with me?!?
Doves, no doubt, encompass a mystical aura surrounding their music. Their sound emerges like a crisp and fresh, spring morning. The bells and guitar in, There Goes the Fear, paint an image of reflected light off dew-covered grass, as I stroll to my 8 a.m. class. Ahhhhh, I feel relaxed and refreshed from the heavy lulls of the guitar. Thank You, Doves. Thank You.
LISTEN: myspace.com/dovesmyspace
It pleases me to bring you an interview that I found off of Doves.net. Andy Williams (Drums) talks about revisiting and readjusting to being on tour again, as well as early fan responses to Kingdom of Rust.
Hello Andy, how’s it feel to be back out on the road?
Really good, we’re all really enjoying it. We’re just getting used to being back on the bus again but it’s great to be out on the road again and gigging. I’ve forgotten how much fun it really is…
Do you all just slip back into a familiar touring routine?
Yeah, absolutely. We’ve done countless tours together so it’s just really easy to re-adjust. It’s really good fun to be back out on the road together. We’re still working the songs out really, but that was the whole point of this mini tour. For the first couple of gigs (Warrington and Middlesbrough) we were quite nervous but we’re really enjoying working on the parts and starting the process of developing the songs whilst being out on the road.
Have some of the new songs changed at all over the course of the first couple of dates?
Subtly, but not radically. That generally happens in the rehearsal room. Sometimes you have the recorded version of the song rigged-up and worked-out a little differently for live. For example with ‘Kingdom of Rust’ we de-constructed it a little bit and developed a new intro. Sometimes we have to re-look at things for when we play live and to be honest that’s half the fun of it.
How has the new material been going down?
Really, really good. Considering people haven’t heard the album yet its well beyond what we expected.
Is there a particular song you are looking forward to playing each night?
All of them really but ’10:03′ in particular for me. I always find that the songs that at the start are the most challenging, the ones that you dread playing, to be the ones you enjoy playing the most in the end. ‘There Goes The Fear’ and ‘Black and White Town’ used to be like that, it took us weeks to really get on top of those songs and I used to dread, well not dread, that’s quite a strong word, but worry about playing those songs live. I’m talking personally here but ’10:03′ has so many changes in the song and getting all the parts together is part of the challenge. I’m really chuffed to see it go down so well.
How did you decide on a set-list for these shows?
We really work hard on how the set starts, how it builds and we don’t like to radically re-do the set-list each night as it can really effect the flow. The set list is really working for this tour and that’s something that’s really important to us. We’ve swapped a couple of songs around, for example ‘Words’ and ‘Sea Song’ on a couple of nights, but we’re really happy with it. We’ll have another look at it for the spring tour though.
Of the old material you are playing is there anything that you feel re-invigorated playing again?
We’re really enjoying playing ‘Last Broadcast’ again, it was one of the songs we didn’t play at the Heavenly birthday event (the one-off gig to celebrate the anniversary of Heavenly Records back in Sept 2008). ‘Words’ is another one. We didn’t play that on the ‘Some Cities’ tour and haven’t played that for years. ‘Jetstream’ we’re also really enjoying playing, because it feels very different for us live. It’s just really good to get out there again, it’s been that long!
You must be pretty pleased with the early reaction to ‘Kingdom of Rust’?
We’ve been away for so long that we didn’t expect people to be so into us when we came back. Hopefully absence just makes the heart grow fonder! The first gig in Warrington we were really taken aback. All of us were knocked side-ways by the reaction we got. It was really, really nice for us. We never expected anything like that; it took us all really by surprise.
MIND INVERSION 
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