Interview: Dalmas

We had a chat with Jacob and George from Manchester-based indie rock band Dalmas, all about their lockdown experience, musical inspirations, how they came to be and their plans for the future.

So how did Dalmas come to be?

Jacob: Well, me and George lived in Halls together at university: we’re at the Royal College of Music in Manchester, and all three of the band members are on the same course. We were recording music, and in different bands, and did a lot of jamming and ended up singing together.

George: Me and Augustus, who is from Norway, were in a band that was playing 80s rock music, it was quite cringy… after that dis-banded we started Dalmas. We are the only rock band at RCM – there’s a lot of theoretical or jazzy music.

Jacob: Yeah, we get some funny looks when we’re playing around college, playing loud.

You’ve got a new single out now, do you have anything else coming in the pipeline?

George: We do have something coming out hopefully this summer, around July. We’re mainly looking forward to getting back to gigs really; the last gig we did was last February, more than a year! We’re playing at the Blues Bar in Harrogate in July, and then we have a set of gigs in Loafers in Halifax and another place in Leeds – we’ll play in both on the same day which will be really cool. We love gigging up North – we find that our type of music goes down really well up here and we always have a lot of fun.

Jacob: Our EP is still quite fresh, but we do have new stuff coming out, we’re just keeping it hush for now. Gigs are also being booked now, so there’s good stuff coming up for us.

How have you managed throughout the pandemic to keep recording new tracks and carrying on as a band?
Jacob: Around the first lockdown, we had loads of gigs set up but of course everything got closed, and we couldn’t rehearse, so we all just wrote on our own for a bit, but then from September onwards we were pretty productive, because obviously we are all at university together. We could go and rehearse, because it was technically “work”, which was nice, and we recorded for about 2 weeks in January which was great. We’ve released new music which has gone down well, so if anything we have probably been more productive in that sense, than if we were doing loads of gigs.

George: Song-writing and the focussing on the band are definitely something that we could all do in lockdown, to fight the boredom and keep your brain from not going crazy.

What bands or music do you listen to, that inspired the vibe of Dalmas?

Jacob: Our bandmate Augustus loves Muse, and a lot of people say we sound like them, but I’ve never really heard any of their stuff. I also like Nothing But Thieves, George always laughs because I always talk about them. My Bloody Valentine have put all their music back on Spotify so I’ve been listening to them a bit recently, they’re cool to listen to.

George: I guess for me, it’s big stadium rock bands, like Foo Fighters and Queen – people like that. We like Biffy Clyro as well, Jacob’s seen then a couple of times. I used to like Royal Blood a lot too.

Do you have a song-writing process?

George: It varies really. The best songs seem to be written when we are playing together and we just write a song quickly, but then sometimes someone will have a song they bring in. The best products are when we just sit in a room and it happens.

Jacob: It’s kind of off the cuff, which is a bit annoying because it’s hard to find that right song so quickly. Sometimes we spend 5 months on a song, keep changing it up, and we just end up hating it. Then we write a song in 2 days and it’s great, so it does vary, which is nice and quite refreshing. Like, I’ll bring something in, the guys will change it up or take what they can from it and mould it into a track, and vice versa for all of the bandmembers – we all chip in and it’s collaborative.

Finally, what led you to the name Dalmas?

Jacob: that’s my doing. It’s based off a film called Dalmas, or at least I think that’s what it’s called… The pronunciation depends on where you’re from: I say “Dahl-mes”.

George: Unless you’re American – they say “Dal-Mas”.

Jacob: But yeah, it’s a film from the 1980’s, and it’s really bad, really not good. It’s about these policemen trying to find acid dealers or something, it’s a really bad film but I thought the name sounds quite cool – sounds a bit like Dallas. At first I thought it sounded a bit naff but written down it does look quite cool.

George: And if you say it long enough, it sounds good.

There are definitely some exciting things to come for this unique group as we come out of lockdown.

Interview and Words: Emma Bailey