Paul: For the uninitiated, please give us a brief history of Dave House the one-man band.
Dave: I’m 24, been playing and writing music since I was a youngster. I have
always written and recorded songs on my own just like anyone else does. I
played in Clingfilm from 1998-2000, we did a 7″ and a small run EP, Lucky Thirteen from 2000-2004 who did a couple of EP’s and now i’m doing solo stuff full time. Ever since i’ve been in bands I have made some solo material, even if it has ended up as band songs in the end. Pre-Dave House my solo stuff was under the name of P.L.A.T.S but that was only for a couple of shows and a super limited demo tape (I don’t even have it).
Paul: Is it true that you only started out as a solo artist because members of Lucky Thirteen were injured in the run-up to a gig?
Dave: It’s kinda true yeah, obviously as I just said it’s something i’ve always done. However I had done very few shows and it was always something I did for myself rather than doing it in public. Then when our drummer broke his wrist the day before we were leaving on a little tour I just decided that there was no way I was gonna cancel the shows and I was gonna play solo. I had a run through in our van 15 mins before the first show and it turned out to be one of the best shows i’ve ever done. After that I couldn’t get enough of it.
Paul: How would you describe your sound to someone yet to hear you?
Dave: Honest Pop.
Paul: Which artists influence your sound?
Dave: With the songs I wrote for Kingston’s Current they were so natural and personal that sounding like anyone else wasn’t really considered in the writing process. It’s easier for me to listen back to it and say…oh I listen to the Weakerthans, Death Cab, Damien Rice, Neil Young, Aimee Mann, Get Up Kids, Piebald etc but it influenced me purely subconsciously. There
would have been no point making this record under my own name if i had gone out of my way to make it sound like someone else. It’s just me.
Paul: You’re closely linked in with the Gravity crew – how has being part of such a tightly-knit ‘scene’ helped you as an artist, and how has it helped to put Kingston on the musical map?
Dave: Gravity changed my life entirely. I think alot of people have got Gravity wrong over the years. To explain in short, Gravity just want to help people achieve what they want to achieve, some people seem to think DIY labels shouldn’t get involved with press, big booking agents etc but all Gravity do is try and help people get the most out of their music. They give up so much of their time and lose ridiculus amounts of money over people like me and all they take from it is the love of being involved because they love music. This view is also extended to putting on shows, I regularly help out as much as I can with the Gravity shows now and whatever band it is, big or small, our main aim is that the bands get treated how they should be treated. We’ve all been on tour and got fucked over by bad promotors so Gravity as a whole just make sure all the bands get fed / paid well and for the most part the bands always seem to want to come back to Kingston because of it.
Paul: Your album is obviously very personal, when did you start writing the songs and at what point did you realise you had the opportunity to go solo?
Dave: A couple of the songs are ideas i’ve had over a few years however the majority were written over a couple of months at the beginning of 2004. The final song ‘As You Want’ was written the day before I started recording. The recorded version is probably only the 3rd or 4th time it had ever been played which I think really worked out well. Most of the overdubs were written while recording, once I had enough base songs I just woke up one morning and rang up Dan Sloan (from Lucky Thirteen, now in Kill Kill Disconnect) and we started recording in his living room the next day. I think doing everything from recording to assembling the digipaks DIY made this record what it is. I just wouldn’t have felt comfortable doing it anywhere else in any other way.
Paul: Did you always intend to write an album? How did you wind up releasing it through Gravity?
Dave: The original plans for a Dave House release came from Gravity. The first idea was to do a split with one of the new bands on the label. However once I started writing I just realised it was going to be an album. I had been making music for so long and only having EP’s to show for it really pissed me off. It’s pretty cool that this ended up being my first ever album as it’s how I started, just me in my bedroom paying guitar.
Paul: How long did you spend recording it? What was the recording process like?
Dave: The recording process was one of the best experiences of ever making music i’ve had. It took about 7 days to track all my parts and a couple more to arrange and record the cello parts. We recorded in 2 different living rooms in different towns completly DIY. I had such a good time making it, I have never felt so comfortable in a recording situation in my life. If we could go back and do it again i’m sure we could technically do it better but the fact is it is a document of that time and very real. I wasn’t at that time expecting my solo stuff to be my ‘main’ thing and I just made the record I wanted to make, I had no idea if anyone would like it or not but i’m overwhelmed by the response so far.
Paul: What was the Hundred Reasons tour like? Were you better received than you thought? What was the overall crowd reaction?
Dave: The HR tour, like all tours was a mixture of absolute shit and fucking amazing. It was so hard to judge whether people were into it or not, opening a rock show when you are playing fairly quiet music is a very weird experience. However at some of the shows I had an unbelievable response. The 2nd night in Oxford was one of the best shows of my life. I was selling at least a few cd’s a night so even if I thought nobody was into it I always played as hard as a I could for the handful of people willing to give it a go.
Paul: What does the future hold for Dave House and for Lucky Thirteen?
Dave: Record wise I hope to have a EP, Split or Single out in the next 6 months. The last show I did I organised my own 6-piece backing band made up from members of Twofold, Kill Kill Dissconnect, Tyler & others. We’re going to do a few shows as a full band, if its listed ‘Dave House‘ its just me, if its ‘The Dave House Band’ its the whole 7-piece chebang!!! As for Lucky Thirteen, we have all moved on. I am doing the solo stuff aswell as a new (secret) band, Chris is in a 3 girl / 1boy indie rock type band called ‘Metro Corskol’, Dan as I mentioned has started Kill Kill and
Jon has started a new band with Tom from Archie and The Instincts and spends most of his time on tour as a roadie. I still see all the guys all the time and last time we were all together we were discussing the possibility of doing an album in our spare time, just as a document to all the songs we had stored up that nobody has ever heard. However I don’t think we will be a fully functioning band again.
Paul: Submitted by Sam Get Cape: If Kingston’s current what is the future?
Dave: Uncertainty.
Paul: Submitted anonymously: Did you appreciate my request for Slayer at the Leicester HR show? Did it make your life complete? I know it did mine!
Dave: Anyone who knows me knows I love dusting off the old metal riffs and it certainly got you onside that night. I don’t know if it was the first live acoustic slayer riff off there has ever been, but i don’t think I can live up to it, so that was the 2nd and last time I’m doing that in public!