Leeds five-piece The Plight have been laying down rubber on the highways of Britain and Europe for a few years now, building a reputation for themselves as one of the UK’s most hard working and intense live bands in the process. Planet Loud clambered into their anonymous white tour-van following their recent gig in Brighton to talk their past, present, and future.
Planet Loud – Hi guys, thanks for your time. What did you make of tonight, good gig?
The Plight – Yeah it was good. It was nice to play probably one of the smallest venues that we’ve played on this tour; it was good to be in a venue of that size again because they’ve all been a bit too big to be honest. It’s been a while since we played the Engine Rooms as well, so there’s a bit of nostalgia.

Planet Loud – How are you finding the tour so far overall?
The Plight – It’s been good… Well there’s been a couple of bummers with no one there, and there’s been a couple of venues that we’ve played which were way too big that no matter how many people turned up it would be enough, but… (laughs.)

Planet Loud – Ah, right. Could you give us any indication of what to expect from your upcoming debut album, ‘Winds of Osiris?’
The Plight – I guess that you can expect a load of songs that we’ve written since the EP, that reflect all the same influences that we had before, but maybe a bit more leaning towards the rock. It’s still like, it’s still punk rock, just doing what we want I guess, expanding. Not just doing short fast ones but doing songs that are like four minutes as well, and stuff like that. I think we’ve got one that’s five minutes long. Anyone that’s been down to see us in the last two and a half, two years has probably seen a few, if not five or six songs off that album.

Planet Loud – Where did the new album’s title come from?
The Plight – Well the album title’s got quite a few meanings… it’s quite personal to me, like one of my best friends died last year, and there’s a song off the album that’s dedicated to him, written about him. The title ‘Winds of Osiris’ is to do with the Egyptian god of the underworld, spirits and that. It’s to do with what he believed in, but there’s a few meanings to it really, it’s kind of self interpretation. The song’s about him, dedicated to him, but he was a very thoughtful dude, but you can interpret it how you want really. It’s a bit of a reference to a lot of the stuff that Rick was into as a dude, he was an amazing guy, and did a lot of research into how power operates in the world, where religion could possibly stem from. It says in the album when you buy it, there’s a link, his name’s Rick Clay, he’s one of the best friends that we ever had really. There’s a website, www.Rikclayfoundation.org, and you can just search for Rik Clay on the net. There’s a couple of blogs somewhere around. The stuff that he was looking into… a lot of people were looking into similar things, but he seemed to have a really clear view of what it all meant. (raucous singing outside) That’s our Bassist singing outside… (laughs.) But yeah, it’s all worth checking out, looking at the world and consciousness in a way that you might not have done before.

Planet Loud – Wow, I’ll definitely check it out on the net… How did the recording process go this time around? Many bands seem to fall into one of two camps, ‘studio bands’ who tour in order to record, and ‘live bands’ which record in order to tour… would you say that come under either of these, or a bit of both?
The Plight – I think that we’re a lot of both, we dig writing, we write whenever we can, but we also tour as much as we can, whatever comes kind of thing. We’ve been a bit held back with the writing because we’ve been waiting for our album to come out for so long, as it was all done about a year ago really. It was all recorded in October so we’ve been waiting since then… Don’t really want to go into it, but it’s been a pain in the arse to get it out, but it’s coming out on the (leans in to Dictaphone) 26th of October.

Planet Loud – (laughing) We can underline it if you like?
The Plight – (laughs) Yeah, we can’t wait to get it, start writing some new songs, start touring again as much as we can.

Planet Loud – So we can expect to see you on the road in the UK after the album’s release?
The Plight – Yeah, as soon as possible… For the nineteenth time, (laughs.)

Planet Loud – Ah yeah, you’ve been touring heavily for a long while now, and shared stages with a host of different bands… Would you say that any of these have impressed you especially with their live show, and if so why?
The Plight – Converge were pretty cool, yeah Converge were amazing. They play so hard every night, when we played with them in Europe… they were playing venues that had a really good turnout, but… when they come over here it’s all a bit crazy, but over there, I dunno, it was cool just watching them play, that was really cool. They’ve worked so hard, they’re fully awesome, hands down. We did play with Sick Of It All a while ago and they were fucking amazing live, but we’ve never toured with them, but we should do (laughs.)

Planet Loud – Any idea where you’d like to take The Plight in the long term, international touring or…
The Plight – The moon? (laughs) As big as Bill and Ted. In terms of touring we’d love to do whatever we get offered as long as we can afford to do it. Anywhere and everywhere really.

Planet Loud – Thanks again for chatting to us today… anything that you’d like to say to those reading this who’ve come along to the shows this month, and those who are perhaps new to the Plight?
The Plight – Just check us out really. If people are into it it’s awesome, I mean I’m not saying that we’re doing anything, y’know, different, but sometimes we do straddle the lines where people don’t know necessarily whether we’re a hardcore band or a rock band, or a punk band… we just do what we do, and it’s all music really, it’s all rock and roll. All of these terms are like, invented by all these magazines…

Planet Loud – like, post-whatever core…
The Plight – Not just that man, but right the way back, way back, they’d designate music coming out of a certain area at one time under a little banner, to make it easier to write about and easier to sell. Bands are often defined but what people read about them as opposed to what they’re actually about. There’s like this new wave of British hardcore that doesn’t really mean anything, but the magazines are keen to just bunch us together. We’ll play with anyone, but don’t want to be lumped in with other bands, not because we don’t like them, there are some really great bands, but just don’t really want to be associated with that. We’d like bands to have a lot more dignity, just be regarded as like ‘the band,’ and I hope that people appreciate that we’re trying to do things our own way. For more information on the life and work of Rik Clay, www.Rikclayfoundation.org is a good starting point.

Interview by Rob Sayce