MUSIC
Them Dead Beats… What's the origin of that name? Have you changed the band's name before?
So, origin the of the name… It was originally “The Dead Beats” – but that’s quite a generic name, one that everyone’s got, like if you look on the internet. So, instead of changing the name completely, we just thought that we’d cop out, do it the lazy way and just add an ‘M’ on the end. “Them Crooked Vultures” … “Them Dead Beats” – Easy! We did originally have another name, called… “The Suits”. But that was when we were in a three piece. And although that is a killer name, we decided to change it because it just wasn’t right for us at the time. But “Them Dead Beats” sounds, yano… three syllables. “Them Dead Beats” … Bit dirty, bit gritty so there we go. The legend was born.
What genre of music do you consider your work to be? Who are your major influences?
There’s only one really. The genre of music is Rock ‘n’ Roll. I don’t like the term “Blues Rock” – I hate that term. Just because it’s just so, again… generic. And just so, I dunno. When you think of blues rock, you just think of Stevie Ray Vaughan. Yano, like 20 minute solos and just… nah, not us. So, I’d say Rock ‘n’ Roll. But if you had to put us into a sub-genre it would probably be garage rock. But yea, our influences include: just off the top of my head… The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, The Clash. They’re the older ones. The more modern ones are: The Libertines, The Strokes, The White Stripes – of course… anything Jack White does, in fact. But also, stuff like Dr Feelgood – like the pub rock thing. But there’s loads of new things coming out like “Shovels and Rope” – this two-piece from, I think its North or South Carolina. There’s some amazing stuff that they do! It’s more like country stuff but that’s what we’re going for nowadays. Like, in the beginning it was always loud and fast and trying to be quite punk but, we’re trying to get more of a Country sound – well, not so much Country but sort of like… a folk-y kind of sound as well but, I digress.
How do you both listen to music personally? Do you prefer to shuffle a playlist or do you like to sit down, put an album on and really listen to it?
I probably prefer to shuffle cause not every album is amazing where you can just not skip. Album’s like for myself personally are “Exile on Main Street” and I know that Matt would agree on that and “Blonde on Blonde” by Bob Dylan. There’s no way that you can skip a song on any of those albums. But then of course, you have stuff that you can shuffle – it’s like a pick and mix, isn’t it? You don’t know what you’re gonna get. Not to sound like Forrest Gump or anything but it’s just the excitement of what’s coming next and you think “oh, I wouldn’t have chosen that but it sounds great. And plus, you can probably get from Johnny Cash to Bob Marley in one song and then maybe listen to Scooter – who knows!