After a well-earned break in their home town, the Sydney trio are back on UK soil rigorously touring their brand of no-nonsense rock to British festival goers. We witnessed DMA’s offhandedly stylish performance at Kendal Calling 2017 and caught up with guitarist Johnny Took from the band to talk about their debut album, festival season and… house plants.
Kendal Calling is one of the later festivals of the year for DMA’s as they wrapped up their Australian festival circuit in February due to the Summer season ending. Johnny explains they’ve been “chasing summers for a while now” and the UK “are definitely rowdier,” compared to their home crowds. The bucket-hat cladded audience at Kendal Calling are no exception to this as they sing along whole-heartedly to opener, ‘Play it Out’.
Despite his admiration for the UK, Johnny admits he was “kinda enjoying things in Sydney,” and explained how the band have started recording a couple of tracks of the new record in the their recently established studio there. Between the trivial tasks of making a new album and touring, Johnny says how he has “bought some plants” for his new crib before stressing their importance in a house. His attitude towards music is much the same as house plants. He is refreshingly casual about it but understands its importance to those who admire it. When asked about the future of DMA’s Johnny simply replies, “We don’t wanna piss about for too long, we wanna get more stuff out there and play live.”
This attitude is replicated in DMAs’ set as they rattle through tracks from their debut album Hill’s End with no trivialities, just the music, tracksuit bottoms and frontman Tommy O’Dell’s jingle sticks.
It can’t be ignored that their performance occasionally paints like a messy caricature of Oasis, but at their best the trio revitalise the sound of Britpop rather than imitating it. ‘Delete’ their penultimate track is a euphoric jangly love ballad which echoes a time when Liam and Noel didn’t sound like copies of themselves. The track is fully supported by the crowd who open their arms and sing along.
DMA’s have racked up an impressive indie fanbase through the traditional and respectable technique of relentless touring. “About two years ago we played Night and Day [Café] in Manchester to about 14 people or something, but recently we played the Ritz, and that was a special show for us,” says Johnny.
The band close the set with the mosh-pit inducing ‘Lay Down’. The anthemic track generates a real buzz which bounces back and forth from the crowd and band, loosening up Tommy’s performance as he engages with the crowd. ‘Lay Down’ truly opens the lid on DMA’s capabilities as a band but we can only wait to see if they can exceed the foundations they have set for themselves. Thankfully Johnny seems to fully grasp this situation, saying: “We just need to prove now we can keep producing more tunes which I know we have, so it’s just about getting them right.”
You can watch DMA’s Kendal Calling performance with Twitch below.
Super Early-Bird Tickets for Kendal Calling 2018 will be on sale very soon – you can sign up for email alerts here. Meanwhile DMA’s have multiple gigs in the UK this year – head over for to their website for the full list.
Interview conducted by Will Fisher