Dry The River - Interview
Posted by Guest Writer on Tue, 03 May 2011.
Last year Grace caught up with Dry the River, and not only were they great to interview, but she loved their music too. So when a second chance came up to see them again, how could she refuse?
Have any of you ever been to any festivals other than to perform?
Pete: What to festivals that we weren’t playing at?
Yes
Pete: Yeah matt went to Glasto every year…
Matt: I've been going there for the past 6 or 7 years since I was a teenager, so to be playing it now is ridiculous and awesome.
Pete: And we’ve been to latitude before. Matt used to work in music so he's been to all of them before anyway.
Matt: I went to pretty much every festival last year. End of the road and green man and stuff like that are all brilliant. Reading, great times.
What were the best and worst bits? Did you camp?
Matt: Yeah I don’t mind camping. It was bad camping at Glastonbury cause of the heat last year, you had to literally dive out of your tent at nine in the morning. But yeah we normally camp, we normally rough it.
Have you got any top tips for camping?
Pete: If you’re going to a festival and your camping just don’t expect, you know there’s no way to soften that blow you've just got to suck it up. Just don’t shower, put personal hygiene to one side for a few days just rough it.
Scott: Take Imodium’s…
Pete: What for diarrhoea?
Scott: To stop you going to the toilet
Pete: I don’t even think that's medically sound.
Who’s the best person you've seen at a festival?
Matt: AC/DC were incredible. That's a really difficult question.
Pete: Stevie wonder
Matt: Who did we all see? Snoop Dogg, that was amazing. Oh Midlake at Glastonbury was awesome. Yeah Flaming Lips last year were incredible.
Obviously you played at Glastonbury last year, what was it like to actually play there?
Pete: Really hot. It was while the world cup football was on, England Germany, so there was nobody there until about 10 minutes into the set and then everyone left.
I was there
Matt: Good on you
Pete: Everyone came and watched when we were losing the football. It was good
Matt: Yeah it was good, enjoyed it.
You played on the BBC introducing stage, which was actually a brilliant performance, how did you get to play on that stage?
Pete: I'm not sure on the inner workings of it; it’s all a bit mysterious. You have to be put forward by a regional BBC, so we all live in London now but used to live in Berkshire, so we got BBC Berkshire to put us forward and then it went to a panel with Huw Stephens and some other people and then they chose us to play.
Matt: And we had a lot of support before from BBC Berkshire.
And of course your playing there again this year, are you playing twice?
Pete: Yeah were playing on what use to be one of the dance stages, its now called something strange
Will: Oxlyers West
Pete: Yep that’s one and then we’re doing John Peel on Saturday.
Will: 3:30
Pete: 3:30 cool.
How does it feel to be back again and on a bigger stage?
Pete: I'm alright with it now, when we get there will probably we pretty terrified. But it’s a good thing to say you've done isn’t it. I hope the weathers good.
Matt: Although if it’s raining it’s in a tent so more people will come in. I'm going to pray for rain. For that 45 minutes.
No don’t pray for rain!
Matt: Just those 45 minutes when we play of the whole weekend.
Pete: We’re playing for 45 minutes?!
Matt: Might even be more than that
Pete: We better write some more songs
And your playing in my hometown of Leicester at Summer Sundae festival in august, where else are you playing?
Pete: All over the place. Really, all over. Were doing Sheffield Tramlines Festival , Hop Farm
Matt: End of the Road we’re playing
Pete: Lounge on the Farm, Wilderness Festival, Greenman. We’re playing in Latvia at Positiva Festival. There’s a lot of things.
Matt: Yeah pretty busy summer!
So what is the best festival in your opinion?
Jon: High Voltage
Pete: Ignore those guys
Matt: You’ll get 5 different answers.
Pete: Yeah, well I love Latitude actually. I've got a thing for Latitude.
Interview by Grace
Their Twitter is well worth a look, with all manner of Band information, daft photo's and video clips. http://twitter.com/#!/drytheriver
Their Facebook page can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/drytheriver?sk=info