TLOBF Interview // DD/MM/YYYY

Over a year and a half ago I was stood on a rooftop in Austin, drink in hand, watching Marnie Stern. The sun was shining and I was pretty damn happy. And then I looked at the time and realised I was completely missing DD/MM/YYYY. I ran like a frenzied idiot across two streets, through traffic, up an escalator, and into the middle of their set to find five bodies convulsing on stage, a million times more frantic than my sweaty little jog.

Despite the grey wire carpet and strip lighting of the conference room stage, they completely blew me away. So I was gutted to miss them last time they played the UK, especially after loving new record Black Square. The good news is they’re back this week. The bad news is I’m probably going to miss them again, but here’s some words with Matt King, their synth player/drummer/saxophonist to convince you they’re an awesome live prospect worth catching if you’re lucky enough…

Tell me what you’re doing at this exact moment.

I’m actually cleaning out a silk screen, for some t-shirts, for DD/MM/YYYY.

Ah, because you design all your own artwork and t-shirts and stuff, don’t you?

For the most part. Thomas, the guitar player/drummer/singer in the band also does some. He’s more like an illustrator, but I actually make all the shirts and do a lot of the design. Yeah, we try and do as much stuff like that as we can.

Is there someone at your door?

Oh no! I’m just cleaning out the screen, just so it doesn’t get… It’s a busy shop here.

Can you just tell me a bit about the band? Sort of the boring, basic story you have to tell every journalist you speak to.

Yeah, well basically we just came together in 2003, so that’s like, almost seven years ago. Two different bands that formed into one and started to really work at things and challenge ourselves and then people started asking us to play shows outside of our city, and outside of our country. And then people started asking us to play in the UK and all over Europe and we’ve just been making music together, and travelling and challenging ourselves, you know; physically and mentally.

Because you’ve played SXSW like 2008, 2009 and 2010, is it going to be four years in a row?

I don’t know if we’re going to because we had plans for our album to come out in Japan and Australia so that might still happen, which, as much as I love Austin, I think I would also really love Japan and Australia.

We’ll take whatever opportunity is given to us. So if the opportunity is in Austin then we’ll definitely go. We’ve always been a band that as long as it’s possible for us to do and it seems logical, might as well do it because it’ll be fun, it’ll be another experience.

I saw you play at SXSW, I think it was in 2009 in the conference centre in one of those horrible rooms with grey carpet and Formica divides.

Yeah, where people pick up their wrist passes and stuff like that?

Yeah!

Yeah, that was really funny. We just got asked to play at the conference centre and I forget… They offered us like, free hamburgers or something and we were like, yeah we could do that. We don’t have any plans that morning!

It’s kind of the most sterile place to watch a band ever. There’s just loads of old dudes sitting there cross legged on chairs…

Yeah! Bunch of Japanese guys taking photos of us at the front and it’s super well lit. Yeah, it’s really awkward but whatever, it’s a funny situation to be in so might as well put yourself into that situation and see how it goes.

Some old guy came up to us after and was like ‘Do you guys have management? Do you guys have representation? I’d like to work with you.’

Just like, some guy who, who knows; we just like, melted his brain or something. He didn’t know what to expect and we came out and tore into him.

Well, I was going to say, it was really hard on and energetic. I just remember you guys running about on stage hitting everything you could possibly hit and there was so much movement. That’s what I was expecting from the new record, but there does seem to be a progression where there’s quieter more thought through moments too.

Yeah, definitely. It seems like the more and more we write, the more methodical we get. It’s like ‘No, no. That part’s not right. Let’s try it six times. No, no, no. That’s not right. Seven. OK, how about six times and then I hit this thing two times and then you go UH, and then we’ll go into the next part.’ You know?

As much as we do stick to many traditional rock or popular music forms, we also try not to limit ourselves too much to play this four times, or eight times and then you go into the chorus three times and then we’ll do the bridge. We’re writing some new songs for this split we’re putting out with this band called BEAK >

What? As in the guy from Portishead?

Yeah, Geoff. We’re actually recording with Geoff and we’re writing these songs and we’re being a lot more visual about it. It’s like, oh, OK, this is like in Mario where you go into the tunnel level and there’s all that lava and then you get out of that part and then you’re back into the cloud. You know?

That’s kind of how we’ve been writing music now. It’s still really methodical but it’s also like, getting more and more visual and creating stories within songs and stuff like that.

That’s like taking Nintendo-core to the next level.

Yeah, totally. It’s literally the next level.

The new record is just out in the UK, but didn’t it come out in Canada in 2009?

Yeah, it came out last year in Canada and then we had a friend put it out in the United States on cassette tape. Then when we were on tour last year, that’s when we met BEAK > actually, and we nerded out about synthesisers with Geoff, and we gave him our record at the end of the night and he loved and he was like, ‘Man, people in the UK have to hear this!’

So I guess, he heard something in it that he thought was pretty cool. So he works with this label Invada and they were the ones who ended up putting it out. And now we’re gonna be playing there on Monday, and I’m making some t-shirts that hopefully one of your readers will want to purchase.

So you must have recorded that album ages ago?

Well, we’ve definitely learnt how to play those songs live. I think last year we played one hundred and forty shows, and I think at the end of this year we’re gonna have a hundred and fifty something. So it’s definitely getting to the end of the Black Square era! I read somewhere that somebody called Black Square a future tense classic, which I thought was very flattering.

Do you read a lot of your reviews online then?

Oh yeah! Come on – it’s the Internet, anybody can look at it. I mean you want to see what people think of what you’re doing. If you’re doing it for yourself then you’re doing it for yourself, but if you’re doing it and releasing it and going on tour then you want people to like it and you want people to engage with it and you want people to get what you’re going for.

Like, do they get these references? Some people like how it’s eclectic, some are just like ‘Ugh, it’s all over the place.’ It’s just really neat to see. I’m sure everybody Googles their own name.

When was the last time you Googled yourself?

My own name? Actually, me and a friend went to mattking.com which is like, this urban country artist who used to wear a cowboy hat and then he went to a trucker hat and now he wears these weird bowler hats.

Do people ever mispronounce your name? Because it’s actually really easy to figure out, but do you ever…

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The funniest thing ever, related to searching for us is people are always like, ‘You’re the hardest band to Google. What’s the problem? You’ve got a crappy name.’

It’s like, if you search Day Month Year or DD/MM/YYYY, we’re the first thing that comes up. It’s such a half assed thing.

Half the reason we choice this name is that it isn’t pronounceable, but at the same time it is totally recognisable and you can say it whatever way you want to say it. Like in America we always get billed as MM/DD/YYYY which I think is amazing, because that’s their system, that’s how they write it. So who knows; maybe in Burma they do year, month, day, so that’s what we’ll be called there. It’s universal.

That’s pretty cool, but you’re coming to the UK and we do it the right way in the UK.

Oh, UK always does it the right way.

DD/MM/YY are playing the following dates:

4 Nov – BRISTOL Start The Bus
5 Nov – BELFAST Auntie Annies
7 Nov – DUBLIN Crawdaddy
9 Nov – CARDIFF Undertone
10 Nov – MANCHESTER Night And Day
11 Nov – HULL The Adelphi
12 Nov – LONDON Old Blue Last