Alexisonfire – ‘Familiar Drugs’
Mark Hudson (bass): Just before Alexisonfire released ‘Otherness’, they released a couple of singles, one of which was ‘Familiar Drugs’, which has this driving bassline that I was inspired to try and emulate several times throughout the new record. I may never be able to match Chris Steele’s dance moves, but I might just be able to match his tone!

Hell Is For Heroes – ‘Only the Ridiculous Will Survive’
Toby Warren (drums, vocals): On our single ‘High Achievers’, one thing that was really important to me was that there was a point where the drum beat at the end was on its own, providing a bed for the call-and-response vocals. This was partly inspired by a fantastic track from Hell Is For Heroes’ (hugely underrated) third album, ‘Self Titled’. There’s an epic track called ‘Only the Ridiculous Will Survive’ (which, thinking about it, is also a good motto for how we write our more complex songs!), where at the start of the second verse there are just vocals and a great 7/4 drum beat, and it goddamn slays. So yeah, I stole that!

Kaki King – ‘Doing The Wrong Thing’
James King (vocals, guitar): I use a Passerelle bridge, as co-designed and used by Kaki King, on our instrumental track ‘Telegraph’, as well as most commonly playing in a tuning that originated from trying to learn how to finger-tap and play ‘Doing The Wrong Thing’ from the ‘Into The Wild’ soundtrack… so I’d say she’s a pretty direct influence! Sadly, we’re not related.

Arcane Roots – ‘Everything (All at Once)’
Warren: When we were working on ‘Come Home’, I had been listening to a lot of Arcane Roots (I was made up when they came back!!), and I loved the idea of the bass and drums going heavy and offset, while the guitar stayed straight and on the count. The result was the glorious noisy mess that you get at the end of that second chorus, but it really creates this wonderful juxtaposition between that mayhem and the soft beauty with which the track closes. The track ‘Everything (All at Once)’ also showcases this contrast of tenderness and savagery – plus, the drums are just next level. Big up Jack Wrench!

David Byrne – ‘We Dance Like This’
King: A premium yelper – obtuse and ordinary all at once – Byrne has that same off-kilter warmth as Bob Mortimer; joyfully strange, but deeply human. He can turn the simplest phrases into something profound, just by nudging the surreal up against the everyday. It’s all in that juxtaposition, man!

La Dispute – ‘The Last Lost Continent’
Hudson: La Dispute’s ‘The Last Lost Continent’ played a direct role in shaping ‘Shadow Weight’, as it is a song of many halves and really helped me to write and mould the second half of the track. They’re just an incredible band, able to shift from beautiful soundscapes to the biggest riffs, always peppered with poetic, powerful lyrics.

Every Time I Die – ‘Map Change’
Warren: ‘Second Guess’ was one of the tracks that James wrote and demoed at home in the garden studio (AKA a shed with plugs), and sent through to us. That intro immediately put me in mind of Every Time I Die’s absolute belter ‘Map Change’, with that high-intensity intro setting the tone for the track. This approach created a great punchy intro for ‘Second Guess’, but in the case of our track it creates a contrast with the softer verses, whereas ‘Map Change’ starts hard and stays hard. Basically, I will find any excuse to shoehorn some ETID-inspired drumming into a song!

Tom Waits – ‘Who Are You’
King: Any one of Waits’ apocalyptic, carnival-ringmaster sing-a-longs might have been a more obvious choice of influence if we’re talking about the literal sound of some of our tracks, but this track is a songwriting… well I always come back to – there’s something so perfect about it that I’ve long aspired to recreate. Waits once said, “Some songs come out of the ground just like a potato… Others, you have to make out of things you’ve found…” – I’d venture that ‘Who Are You’ was a “potato”, and when thinking about our own “potatoes”, they’re invariably my favourites.

Sleater-Kinney – ‘Jumpers’
King: A great reminder that you can write the catchiest, most fun goddamn songs without sacrificing the emotional weight of the lyrics. The songs on ‘The Woods’ feel like excited dogs let off their leashes – I think in the past I’ve often written too prescriptively. ‘Jumpers’ reminds me to let go and allow each song to breathe.

Alexisonfire – ‘Sans Soleil’
Hudson: Anything by Alexisonfire will always be a heavy influence on my writing, but during the writing of ‘A Sleeper, Underneath’, their latest record ‘Otherness’ was on heavy rotation. This record had a somewhat more mature feel to it that perhaps rubbed off on us all (or maybe we’re just getting old), as I feel this is our most mature-sounding record to date. A standout track is ‘Sans Soleil’, which has easily one of the catchiest sing-along choruses ever written – hearing the whole of Brixton Academy belt that out was a live highlight of last year. How did this track influence us? Well, we actually wrote some proper choruses for once – so there’s that!

Civil Villains’ new album ‘A Sleeper, Underneath’ is out on 8th May via Thundersnuff Records.