EQUATE Meets Sad Night Dynamite
“We wanted it to feel as though you’re sort of sinking through your own brain…”
Sad Night Dynamite can only be described as The Blair Witch Project meets Gorillaz, and aptly so, as the hotly tipped UK duo has made fans in the Gorillaz themselves, alongside the likes of FKA Twigs, Pa Salieu, and Shygirl. Their self-titled debut mixtape released last week and pulls the listener into a world of “zaney weirdness” (in the band’s own words). Unlike their image, which is very well thought-out, incorporating fantasy elements and a nightmarish, deranged world, their sound is hard to pin down. Experimenting with lo-fi elements but pulling from both the west-coast hip hop sound and a quintessentially British, minimalist, alternative, Sad Night Dynamite layer their music even further with a grandiose, cinematic feel, pulling inspiration from the size and depth of a feature film score.
Their new single, Smoke Hole, is accompanied by an otherworldly claymation video from Director Edie Lawrence, exploring the feeling of getting lost in your own thoughts – “We wanted it to feel as though you’re sort of sinking through your own brain”. We had a chat with the boys, Josh and Archie, about the upcoming mixtape, its standout tracks, and their plans to translate this world they’ve created into a live show (which is looking nearer by the day!)
Interview by Oliver-James Campbell
EQ: Hey guys! Talk to us about the visuals you guys recently posted on Instagram for Smoke Hole.
Josh: We made a video with Alfie Dwyer, who is a good mate of ours, and he’s just a mental weirdo…
Archie: Talented freak is what he is!
J: He puts out these ridiculous videos, and I think he must take loads of acid. He says he doesn’t, but he’s just doing his thing, and there’s a good connection between our music and his visuals, so we work well together.
EQ: Let’s start with the importance of Glastonbury to your music, apparently you guys grew up not too far away?
A: I didn’t grow up too near it, but Josh is a stone’s throw away from the festival.
J: I’ve been going since I was about 4, I remember seeing all of my favourite acts there. I literally walk on that ground all year when I’m at home. When the festival is on, I obviously don’t remember too much – so much cider.
A: If you do it right mate…
J: Just cider I promise. But yeah it’s just like home, and the thought of playing there is mental.
A: It’s a right of passage. When you’re 16, you all go together as a big group and I’ve never experienced anything like it. 5 or 6 days of chaos. It goes on for 5 days, and it’s just amazing.
J: We had a religious experience there one year didn’t we?
A: You could call it that yeah.
J: We died and came back to life. I think you left a bit of yourself there didn’t you?
EQ: What is this narrative about you guys and sampling? Is it something you do regularly or not? Plus, tell me about the inspiration you get from film scores.
J: We actually don’t sample really at all.
A: I don’t think we’ve ever sampled from a film score, but we do take massive inspiration from
films, like Blade Runner.
J: I think we like cinematic stuff. Sampling isn’t actually a big thing for us. It’s a weird one; it’s the narrative that’s been spread in the media about us. Most of our music is made on just a midi-keyboard. We love anything film-based as inspiration. We’re obsessed with Tarantino and stuff like that, so it’s a big thing for us.
“As we get more comfortable, we are coming up with more ideas…We’ve put a lot of thought into the wider idea of what we want to do, and after this mixtape, you’re gonna start seeing that.”
– Sad Night Dynamite
EQ: We’ve got to talk about the visuals for Killshot. It reminds me of the French film, La Haine. Anyways, did you know that outside of China, the UK is the most surveilled country in the world?
J: Yeah it’s like 1984. It’s mad when you think about it, and I’ve got to give props to Sam Davis who made the video. He was the one who was keen to do CCTV. It just fits perfectly with the vibe of the song. So we can’t take credit for that but it definitely felt right, and it felt like it was the natural thing to do for us as well.
EQ: Your most recent single, Smoke Hole, has a claymation video to accompany it, and it gives me a vibe comparable only to the likes of Coraline or Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. Was the use of clay for the visuals due to the limited COVID-19 restrictions?
J: We were aware of this girl called Edie, who made clay videos and we’d seen some of her videos before, just as fans. I think she wanted to do something for Icy Violence, and we thought it’d be perfect for Smokehole, just because it has that zany weirdness, it’s familiar but not overly familiar, and clay is exactly that, it’s fucking weird. We are trying to build a world around our music, and we wanted to incorporate clay for this video. She’s just as genius. We love stop-motion clay.
A: It’s also very sexy.
J: Yeah sexy in clay – that’s the main reason we do it.
A: Yeah we’d love to do it in person as well, but limitations with corona were one thing.
J: Making SND into a kind of cult is a big plan of ours and eventually it will be a full-on cult mate, so you need to get ready for that.
A: For that festival, you see in clay, that will happen at some point live.
EQ: Your visuals are always so striking – how do you guys come up with such ambitious video ideas?
J: As we get more comfortable, we are coming up with more ideas. There’s a specific area we want to go into as a band. We’ve put a lot of thought into the wider idea of what we want to do, and after this mixtape, you’re gonna start seeing that. The visuals will have to go in a certain direction after that, otherwise, it won’t make any sense. It’s quite exciting.
A: For sure.
EQ: We’rw curious to know what the writing process is like for guys with such a specific image or presentation.
A: It’s different every time. Usually, we’ll start an idea separately, then come together when there’s something there. Josh focuses a lot more on the music side of things. We both do both roles, but the idea usually comes from one of us individually.
J: That’s right. The process changes song to song. But mostly, yeah, there’s an essence of a song that we then work on together.
A: I don’t think we’ve ever started an idea together.
EQ: Krunk is such a bop – but quite a detour in terms of musical sound for you guys. How did this one come about?
A: Yeah we did this one apart. I was on holiday and he sent that first bit, I was like, what are you on? We built around it and finished it really, really quickly. I really love that song.
J: I was listening to a lot of G Funk, like Dre and all those producers. A: It’s got a D12 feel that one.
EQ: Talk to us about Skully. Are those children’s vocals throughout?
J: It’s not children’s vocals, it’s just my really weird high voice [laughs]. I seem to have an endless choir of little girl voices in my arsenal… A: and boy voices!
J: Yeah both. We love The Specials, and they did it in Ghosttown. Skully is massively influenced by Ghosttown. It’s a bit of a homage to them. It’s something we do a lot with our songs, like in Killshot.
A: That’s really what Skully is about. We even reference Ghosttown in the lyrics. What’s going on now and what they were talking about – there’s a proper connection. We just wanted to recreate that feeling.
EQ: How do you guys plan on incorporating that “zany weirdness” on Smoke Hole (and throughout much of your other songs) onstage, and into a live environment once shows and live events are allowed to resume?
J: We are actually just working that out on stage right now like we’ve just started doing live practice sessions. In terms of the set design, that’s a good question, we’ve got loads of ideas about what we’d do for that. Certainly making it part of the world is important. At this stage, though you’re still working with what the venues can do and stuff like that. I’ve got all sorts of ideas of what we could do if it was our own headline show – we’d probably have a limo there and we’d burn it.
A: You see some acts now, like FKA Twigs, and if you watch her it shows there are endless possibilities for what you can do live – it’s amazing.
J: We wrote the songs for live performances, and the building will be where people will be able to step into our world. It’ll be weird.
EQ: How would you classify Sad Night Dynamite?
J: Like a nightmare, it’s quite unpredictable. There’s darkness, nightmares, and unpredictability. You know in nightmares, you have nice moments and bits of weirdness – we like incorporating those elements and keeping it different every time.
EQ: Talk to us about the future of the band, and let people know what to expect from the mixtape.
J: The mixtape makes sense when listened to from beginning to end. You get a sense of the scope of it, the size of it, and where we are heading. Krunk is going to be a big moment hopefully, we are doing a video for that and that’s quite exciting. It’s basically the start for us, and we’re on the journey of Sad Night Dynamite, getting to know our sound. We’re already working on a second mixtape, which will really hone in on what we are.
Watch the visuals for ‘Smoke Hole’ below…
YouTube/SAD NIGHT DYNAMITE
Stream ‘Smoke Hole’ HERE
Keep up with Sad Night Dynamite on socials
Instagram – @sadnightdynamite
Twitter – @SadDynamite