THE DEATH OF POP - INTERVIEW / REVIEW BY LOLA.

*Before you start reading and get confused - this is a new part to wewantshops where my friend Lola reviews new bands - all that was written below was by Lola, not me - ENJOY!B.x*

As a group, how long have you been making music together?
We've been friends for a couple of years now. We were both in separate bands but we had occasionally played together and started demoing tracks. In November 2012 we decided to finally do something seriously together and we got to work at Christmas 2012 and started writing songs. We uploaded two tracks on the 2nd January which got some interest and that was the start of the band. We have got some good friends and old bandmates to join us to form the live band. People who we enjoy playing with and have the same musical influences. 


Why did you decide to start recording/releasing tracks?
Probably a combination of having very similar influences and discovering together we formed quite a strong songwriting partnership. We'd enjoyed demoing songs together as little side-projects but we both decided that we should work at something bigger and more fully realised. We work at quite a fast rate and just want to continue to release consistent material for people to enjoy.


What are your musical influences?
It would take too long to list them, the last 50 years of pop music really. If we had to boil it down:
McCartney II (the album)
Carly Simon's "Why" (the track)
Howard Jones (the man)
The Smiths
Chris Rainbow
The Cure
Emitt Rhodes
McCarthy
The House Of Love
my bloody valentine
Ride
The Boo Radleys
Ash

What has inspired your latest singles? 
"Clear Sky" was about the light shining into our home studio and it hurting our eyes.
"Kiss Me Quickly (Kill me) is about a lost opportunity.

Which genre of music would you say best describes the The Death Of Pop?
shoe-pop

Will your band be going on tour any time soon?
Lots of dates planned for the summer. Gig on the 4th April at The Waiting Room in Stoke Newington, London.
How long has it taken for you to get to the point you are at now? 
3 months


What sort of media attention has your latest single brought you?
We've been really fortunate with all of our releases so far to have been met with some attention - getting blogged about, being featured in the NME Radar section of the magazine, and responses from people wanting to put our records out. We've got a 7" coming out in April with Manic Pop, a 10" out at the end of April with Pictogram, and we'll be featured on a School Of Abuse compilation tape released this summer.

The Death of Pop are a well-put-together mix up of ideas. They pretty much sound just like their influences – sunny, dreamy indie-pop. They seem cute – the album artwork is all in pale pastel colours (pretty pink and blue designs sat next to song titles like “we’re gonna get fucked”) and their singing style is really relaxed. It’s the usual indie thing – little groups of English boys singing about girls. It’s honest music – they don’t play about with stupidly confusing metaphors and apparently don’t bother to put deep inner meaning into all of their songs, if one is about the sun hurting their eyes. That’s where you can hear they’ve been listening to the Smiths, who wrote plenty of songs without taking themselves seriously, which is what makes them so likeable. As well as that kind of lazy humour they’ve got a weird contrast of depressing or dark lyrics sung in a really soft, happy way. The Death of Pop do this too, and impressive riffs and standout guitar stop them straying too far into super-cute summer pop. 

Lola x