DMA’s ready to Glow for it
The Aussie trio hope their new album will chime with a world emerging from lockdown
BY RIGHTS Australia’s DMA’s should be one of the world’s biggest bands.
With a love of Britpop, singer Thomas O’Dell and guitarists Matthew Mason and Johnny Took have given us the same singalong tunes but with third album Glow, they’ve added beats following the likes of New Order, Primal Scream and The Killers.
They have teamed up with Stuart Price (The Killers, Madonna, New Order) for the new album, out next Friday, which follows 2016’s debut Hills End and 2018’s For Now.
DMA’s had been due to support Gerry Cinnamon at his postponed Hampden gig, so fans will have to wait till next year to hear them live – but The Glow will keep you warm.
Here, Tommy tells all…
Did you have second thoughts about putting out The Glow during lockdown?
We postponed the album once so we couldn’t delay it again. I felt bad for our fans after delaying in the first place, so continually holding off until we can tour is not an option.
Music is helping people so much through this period, giving people a chance to escape and switch off so, I hope people enjoy the new tunes. We’ve tried to stay connected with fans by doing isolation performances and live streamed stuff. From the responses, people have enjoyed it.
Was the album ready before lockdown?
It was all completed, mixed and ready to go, we haven’t changed anything. The only thing we did was release Learning Alive early because we felt it was a relevant track to get out there at this time.
How has lockdown been?
As good as it can be, I suppose. We’re just trying to make the most of our time and make more music. We’re all quite different but when we come together musically it just seems to work. Johnny lives in Melbourne while Mason and I are in Sydney. We’ve started hanging out a bit more now because the restrictions have eased and Johnny is in town more often. We are stinging to play live again.
Is the album a mix of uplifting rock and dance? Even pop?
I guess so. I think we dive into a whole bunch of genres, kind of something for everyone on this record.
That’s why I’m most proud of this album. We challenged ourselves on heaps of different levels. We could have made a garage rock album again but that’s not what we are vibing at the moment.
How did you get Stuart Price on board?
He loved The End from our last album For Now. We somehow found that out then sent him a demo of Life Is a
Game of Changing. Once he heard that he said ‘‘let’s make an album”. He said that The Killers dug our tunes which is cool, I love The Killers.
Mason has Scottish heritage and Johnny lived in Edinburgh for 10 months writing for the album. Tell us about last year at TRNSMT.
That was one of my favourite gigs we’ve ever played. In that moment things really kicked into gear for us in Scotland, at that gig there was an epic energy. I can’t wait to go back. We spent time with Robert Carlyle after the show, who’s a fan, so that was sick because he’s an epic actor and a great bloke. We both used to be painters and decorators.
How was touring with Liam Gallagher?
It was epic, he’s a great bloke and is very humble. He’s one of the great rock ’n’ roll singers so