Ahead of the release of their new album, Planet Loud spoke to Obsessive Compulsive, one of the hardest working bands on the UK circuit to see what keeps them motivated…
Planet Loud – Hi there, hows it going?
Obsessive Compulsive – It’s going FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC thanks!
Planet Loud – You’ve been around as a band forever, what do you get out of the band these days?
Obsessive Compulsive – Hahah! We get pretty much the same out of the band as we always have, we just absolutely love playing music and touring so as long as we can continue to do that forever we’re happy. These days we’re getting to tour more than ever and we finally got our album recorded after many many setbacks along the way so there’s loads going on at the moment, we’re busy bunnies and very pleased with that!
Planet Loud – And you’ve got a new album coming out, care to plug it?
Obsessive Compulsive – It’s called ‘Dreams of Death and the Death of Dreams’ and it was written over a couple of years of miserable struggle for us, we weren’t sure when writing the songs if it was ever going to get recorded, we’d had our 3rd drummer quit twice in a year and were having a hard time finding a new one, our future as a band seemed pretty bleak, it’s a really dark album full of the kind of doubts and questions people go through when they’re trying to carve their path in life and it‘s proving difficult, it’s also got a lot of anger and rebellion going on. We’ve always been a band that has had to fight for what we believe in rather than being handed success on a plate, it says a lot about us that we constantly keep spitting in the face of adversity. Many of our friends have been going through similar times in their lives recently too so we think the subject matter relates to everyone’s lives, not just ours. We managed to rope in legendary rock and metal producer Russ Russell (Napalm Death/Evile/The Wildhearts) to produce the album and he was an amazingly inspirational guy to be around, we think he’s helped us to capture the heart of our sound on record for the first time and we even surprised ourselves with some of the ideas we came up with. We’re really proud of the record, the songs, the sound, the artwork, which was done by our friend, the incredibly talented artist, CARP, you really should buy it!
Planet Loud – What did you want to achieve with it?
Obsessive Compulsive – The main thing we wanted to achieve was to create something we were extremely proud of. We knew when making an album that a little more thought would go into how the songs worked together as a whole and we really enjoyed thinking along those lines, the songs came together as a reaction to a certain period in our lives so they all have something in common but we’re also really pleased that we have shown our eclecticism on this record too, it was nice to be able to write songs that spanned our creative spectrum and to have room to do that. We have poured our hearts and souls into making this record so the next thing is to get as many people as possible to check it out and get something out of it too.
Planet Loud – What inspired you as a writer on this album?
Obsessive Compulsive – As always with us it was the dark side of life, despair, rejection, anger, fear, hopelessness…. Chirpy things like that!
Planet Loud – Bearing in mind you’re a very hands-on, DIY band, what was the recording of the album like?
Obsessive Compulsive – We were lucky enough that Russ liked us as a band and was willing to work with our minimal budget, he slotted us in between a couple of other things he had going on in December so we did 3 short runs of recording time, playing some gigs in between, and then we formed such a good bond with Russ and felt so sure he would come up trumps that we let him convince us he should do the final mixes himself in his home studio without us, we’ve always been big control freaks, this was a first for us and quite terrifying but it worked perfectly. This saved us money on studio hire and travel expenses too which was really good. The budget for this album was all our own money, no label or manager invested in us, so we were incredibly lucky to get such a great producer who helped us cut costs too. We had an absolute ball making the album, it was the most fun we’ve ever had in a studio.
Planet Loud – Do you like being in the studio?
Obsessive Compulsive – Giz absolutely loves it, the rest of us enjoy doing our bits but it can be very tiring and quite boring sometimes when you’re in the middle of nowhere listening to drums being tracked for 11 songs with only each other for company! As I said though, this was definitely the most fun studio experience we’ve ever had, Russ is INSANE, hilariously funny and full of enthusiasm for what he does and for what we were doing too, plus we love each other to bits and are used to making boring situations entertaining, we’ve spent enough long hours together in a van!
Planet Loud – I read you describing the band in a biog on the net that you’re a dirty, hungry band. How do you keep that hunger?
Obsessive Compulsive – We just love music and we will always be hungry to create new songs, when we’re not on tour we’re bored out of our minds and always looking forward to getting back out there again, we don’t consciously need to try and keep our hunger for what we do, it’s just there, ingrained into our souls!
Planet Loud – I also read that you’re not a band in it for the money? What if you won the lottery would you swap your van for a private jet?
Obsessive Compulsive – Nah we’d just pimp our van! If we were in it for the money we wouldn’t still be playing Grimsby after 7 or 8 years, we must be crazy!
Planet Loud – What is the nastiest venue you’ve ever played?
Obsessive Compulsive – We’ve played loads of grotty community centres and working men’s clubs but one of the worst places we played was Goole in Yorkshire, it was just grim, just before we went onstage there were riot vans, along with the majority of the audience, outside cos of some kind of chav/rocker war breaking out. It inspired ‘The Goole Rule’ which is that we never book gigs in pubs on estates in small towns in Yorkshire any more. No doubt we’ll break that rule at some point though!
Planet Loud -You’re obviously a band who are in it for the music, what kind of music fan do you think the band appeal to?
Obsessive Compulsive – We see all different types of people at our gigs, the only people we don’t really see are trendy scenesters, we’re real and genuine so we attract real, genuine music fans.
Planet Loud – You describe some of your fans as a bit mad, what is the craziest thing to happen to you?
Obsessive Compulsive – Luckily we’ve not had too many scarily crazy fan moments yet, but we always get the town nutter at our gigs, bless em!
Planet Loud – Have you got a big male following Kelli?
Obsessive Compulsive – We don’t really focus on the fact that we have a female singer, we’re just a band, our audience is roughly 50/50 male/female, I think most of the people that come to see us are there for the music, I don’t do the ‘sexy’ thing on stage like some girls feel the need to do, I think most boys are scared of me actually!
Planet Loud – What are your plans for the future of Obsessive Compulsive?
Obsessive Compulsive – We want to sell enough copies of this album to be able to afford to record a second and we would just like to tour so much that we don’t need to rent our flats any more, our biggest dream is to tour Europe, Japan and the States, we just want to play every day!
Planet Loud – Being a very DIY band, what is your view on the filesharing situation? Are you in the “don’t steal our work” category or the “if it’s up there then people are obviously interested in our work” category?
Obsessive Compulsive – We’re somewhere in between, file sharing, MySpace etc has done wonders for the underground scene, without the internet we’d have struggled to get a lot of the shows we’ve had over the years, the electronic revolution has made it so much easier to get across to new fans outside of your home town and it’s really cool that you can check out a band in a magazine or on a flyer and just pop online and hear their songs. But it’s also saturated the band scene, anyone can record some stuff and put it on MySpace, it makes it harder to raise your head above the crowd and downloading has devalued music, particularly for young people, it’s not so bad for huge rockstars that make millions from advertising deals and merch sales but bands like us really struggle financially and if no-one buys the album then we’re basically running at a massive loss, if we can’t afford to record again then no new albums will be made, so people really need to support the bands they like, if you check something out on a download and really love it then you should buy the album!
Planet Loud – Do you think Myspace has made being in a band too easy? Would you agree that too many bands expect success without doing little work? I personally think most bands would have given up a long time ago if they had to put in some real effort, do you agree/disagree?
Yeah this continues from what I said in the last answer, there are loads of poser bands with the right look and some slick tunes, pro-tooled to the nth degree, on MySpace, but put these bands in a cold van driving home from Aberdeen after playing to the other bands and bar staff, have them break down on the motorway at 4am in the rain and be towed home shivering and miserable, see how they survive playing night after night through bad PAs with crackling monitors, pulling out every ounce of your energy every night on stage after getting very little sleep on someone’s kitchen floor, no wonder many of the scene bands that are around get signed up to some flash label one minute and split up as soon as they’re put on tour! Your heart has to be in it, we live in a very fake, disposable society nowadays and everyone looks like a rock star online but it takes real guts, balls and soul to do it for real.
Planet Loud – Okay, thanks for your time, anything else to say?
Just support your local music scene, we’re constantly hearing about the awesome small venues we’ve played over the years closing down at the moment, people are spending far too much time on facebook and not enough time actually getting out there and experiencing life. Live music is one of the best pleasures to be experienced and there are bands like us playing your town for a few quid on the door night after night, the whole thing will die if you don’t support it and you’ll only have X-factor winners to listen to with no-one to blame but yourselves!
Interview by Graham Finney
