Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
JOIN THE CLUB
shooting pains everywhere. When I got off the plane someone injected something in my bum and I was fine.”
Thankfully, the band don’t foresee any emergency bum-injections anytime soon.
“We’re older and a bit more boring now – and take care of ourselves” says Kev, convincingly. “We’ll be backstage at a venue somewhere thinking – is this the least rock n’ roll this dressing room has ever been? All this tea and kombucha and coconut water? It’s actually pretty embarrassing how much alcohol we leave behind at every gig. Some nights I’ll have a couple of Ipas…then got a headache and need to go to bed.”
Sticking to the coconut water also helps the band deal with a number of insecurities. Sam in particular is a sort of apologetic rockstar, almost ashamed and embarrassed by what he does for a living.
“I’ve always felt weird talking about the band to strangers, especially if I meet someone for the first time and they ask me what I do. I worry about coming across arrogant. Between albums when we’re off, when people ask what I do – I’d sometimes shrug and say ’I don’t really know…. nothing at the minute’.
“Everyone has a story of meeting a band who were arrogant so and so’s” adds Kev. “We should be more confident that – on the whole – we are perfectly nice people. But we’d still worry that some stranger that we’d never meet again walks away with this idea we think we’re real hotshots or something.”
You can see how these guys – and any young band – could end up anxious on tour, detached from themselves and unnecessarily paranoid. You can see how young bands end up melting down.
But being older, the boring hospitality riders, the way they deal with each other’s foibles – it’s clearly resulted in an new and improved Two Door 2.0. They’re confident enough to talk politics, in fact – despite being a band who traditionally have kept lyrically content relatively neutral, focusing more on the dance floor. To quote Kev “this band has always been about having a laugh.”
“When we do say something political online, we’re usually told to ‘shut up and stick to the music’. Thats an idea we can’t get behind – because we do take a keen interest and think about how we’re presented in that regard.”
“I see myself – and I see this as a positive thing – as a champagne socialist” explains Kev.
“What a glorious thing – I’m not struggling to put food on the table and clothes on my back – but I understand that a lot of people are. So I think it’s important to do certain things, not because they effect me – but because they’re the right thing to do.”
Being from Northern Ireland, I wonder if they’re prepared for a lot of questions this summer regarding the recent election?
“I wholeheartedly agree that Northern Ireland deserves more money – and more investment” Kev continues.
“But I also believe in equality, equal marriage and just…. human decency.”
Sam adds, “I just totally disagree with the way religion is brought into politics. I think that’s really divisive – that’s my main issue with the system that’s been created here.”
“Home is certainly different from when we grew up” concludes Kev. “But it hasn’t changed all that much – I feel like there’s this strange move towards everyone feeling that they’re one step away from the other side eviscerating their whole way of life. Then I bounce back and consider that it’s the Northern Ireland people who have been committed to peace and creating the great place that it is today – which is something we talk about a lot. The overiding thing is that most people just want to be happy.”
I do genuinely love Two Door Cinema Club. Tourist History is an outstanding debut album, the proud culmination of those early years, when they went from wide eyed kids on a TV battle of the bands I presented (search ‘Life Without Rory’ on youtube, ignore my dodgy haircut) to playing for next to no-one at Queens, to small gigs across Belfast to stealing the show at Oxegen, selling out shows in Dublin, across the UK and – remarkably – the states.
Then there was the shimmering follow up Beacon – which for me, remains their most underrated work (for some reason, the band themselves have dissed it on occasion). Last year’s Gameshow was another belter, full of slow grove, falsettos and fun times – yet peppered with thoughtful lyrics, weird paranoia and an entertaining air of detachment. So I’m delighted they’ve sorted everything out, even if they’ve had to sacrifice the rock n’ roll lifestyle. For now, they’re a band with plenty of life left in them, and that’s something of a relief.