Corby mathcore trio Drinsipa have just released a new single, ‘DOP’. Hear it below, along with an interview with singer/guitarist Beb Reed.
How did you guys get together? Why the switch to a three-piece after so long as a duo?
Beb: Josh and I are cousins, and basically in 2013 he came down from up north to live here! And we didn’t really know any other musicians in the local area who wanted to do the same sort of stuff we wanted to do, and had no connection to the local music scene, but we enjoyed jamming and rehearsing, so we started a band with our mate Arran. We played a few gigs, and we were really in to it. We started to write some songs on our own aside from that band, and then we got a gig and had to think of a name, thus Drinsipa was born. We started getting a lot of gig offers quite soon which we’d never had before, and we haven’t really stopped since then. We just love playing gigs and being around the people involved in the music scene. We started writing some more complex and experimental songs mainly due to different influences from different bands we were listening to. Having recorded a full length album, we felt it was time to switch things up a bit. We recorded the Poppy Fields EP from home at our old flat in Poppy Fields in Kettering. We played some gigs with the new songs and we had a really good response, but felt we’d benefit from a bass player to fill some of the more chordy and harmonic parts of the songs from the EP. We had toyed with the idea of having our mate Myles come and play bass for us, so when we decided we were going to get a bass player, we instantly thought of Myles. We taught him the songs and he picked up on them really quickly. We started playing some more shows and writing some new stuff and here we are now.
How would you describe your sound?
We find it hard to describe our sound as we try to make the songs sound as non-traditional as possible. We play with a lot of time signatures and obscure song structures, mainly for a laugh and to keep it interesting not just to perform, but to play, or in some cases just to listen back to ourselves. I’d say dynamics are a big part of the sound, as we have a lot of different sounding sections in songs, so they can go from oober brutal to melodic clean within the space of 4 bars, or in our case every 1 and 3/4 bars [that’s a joke]. But if someone asks, I usually say mathcore because it’s the probably the biggest influence of ours.
What was the reaction like to your debut album 42, from 2016?
The reaction was fantastically amaze balls. The album launch show was especially good. We played at The Hut in Corby, and it went fuckin’ mental!!! We didn’t push the album as much as people thought we should have done, but in all honesty, we only do things as a band we think are fun, because we really don’t want it to turn in to a chore for us. We just appreciate that people loved what we were doing and bought our album. We still get comments about it today, and it’s really cool that people dig it. We were quite out of touch with social media back then too, but it’s a lot easier to do now we have an extra helping hand.
Tell us everything about the new single, ‘DOP’.
It’s titled after the practice studio in which it was written; shout out to the The Pod in Corby! It was the first song we wrote after the Poppy Fields EP. We were going for a more visceral, aggressive sound and with the added help of Myles we were able to work out some pretty interesting sounds. The track is full of fuzzy bass and crazy weird riffs and time sigs. It has a cool major-key riff that floats in and out of the track between the more aggressive section and really stupidly stupid heavy section at the end, which is always fun to play live.
Are you part of a wider scene in Northamptonshire, playing with like-minded bands? Any favourite bands/venues to play with?
We play with a lot of different kinds of bands in Northampton, too many to name all of them! We don’t let a difference in genre stop us from playing with bands so it’s just one big mates fest! Skirt, King Purple, Monarchs, Sarpa Salpa are just a few of our local favs!
What has been your favourite band moment of the past year?
We just recently played The Guildhall as part of Twinfest, that was crazy! Huuuuuge hall with huge sound, had a great time! We also flew over to Germany as part of Twinfest and played some gigs over in Marburg, which was phenomenal. Probably one of the highlights our musical lives let alone the past year! We made some great friends and connections over there and it’s cool to be part of the Twinfest family.
What is your burning desire for the band to do in the future? What plans do you have?
We don’t have too many burning desires for the band. We love playing gigs and hearing feedback about our intentionally confusing music. We know it’s not for everyone, which is part of the reason we write the music we do. I think writing and recording is a big part of why we do what we do, and we like to have a physical copy of music that we have written and recorded, there’s something quite special about that. I guess we will have to see what happens, but for now it’s just a barrel o’ laughs!
DOP is out now for ‘name your price’ here
