Last month Rock Sins’ dynamic duo Lisa and Laura hit the south coast for the first of the UK’s major festivals of the year, Takedown Festival 2014. In the last of our interviews from the event, Laura caught up with Danni and Matt from up and coming UK rockers The Dirty Youth. Here’s what they had to say for themselves…
Hi this is Laura for Rock Sins and I’m with Danni and Matt from The Dirty Youth. How are you guys?
DANNI: Good thanks.
You’ve been supporting Heaven’s Basement and Glamour Of The Kill, how’s it going?
MATT: Good, really good, we’re only on day three but yeah it’s cool.
And you’re playing the Total Rock stage which has a lot of British talent, do you think British rock is at a good place at the moment?
MATT: Definitely, there’s a lot of bands coming through now and bands that we’ve known for around five years that we’ve kind of come up through the banks with and stuff so its exciting.
Your new single Alive has now been released, what’s the reaction been like from fans?
DANNI: Awesome!
MATT: Yeah awesome and we’ve only done three shows playing it live.
DANNI: And everyone knows, well not everyone because it’s not our headline tour but everyone singing it is singing every word, which is nice, it’s cool.
Do you think female fronted bands are too likened to the likes of Paramore and Halestorm?
DANNI: To be honest when we started out yeah we was but now theres loads more bands breaking through, you’ve got The Pretty Reckless, a few pop punk bands springing up. There’s loads of different genres with Lacuna Coil etc. I think if I was a journalist or anyone interviewing I’d be like “you’re a female fronted band, what makes you different?”
So what makes you different?
DANNI: To be honest I think we don’t follow a fad or stick to any genre, we just do what we do and straight up rock.
MATT: I don’t think there’s any other band that sounds like us, so come and watch us.
DANNI: Yeah.
Do you think there’s any pressure on you to be fierce as a female vocalist?
MATT: There is that aspect.
DANNI: Looking back I think I used to be a little too fierce, but now ive started to smile and just be a bit more nice [laughter]. But no definitely, we do what we do at the end of the day.
Girl power definitely! What are your biggest influences?
DANNI: We’ve got a lot of old school influences. There’s loads, Freddie Mercury, Queen, I mean Skindred you absolutely love Benji, the new Freddie for me.
MATT: We listen to so many genres from metal to country and blues, everything so we just do what we do.
After this tour with Heaven’s Basement, what have you got planned?
DANNI: We’ve got festivals lined up, we’ll be getting the single released and a headline tour which we will announce in the near future.
MATT: There’s a big festival announcement coming soon, next week.
Interesting, we shall keep our eyes peeled! Where do you see yourself this time next year?
DANNI: Doing a headline tour and selling it out, hopefully.
Is that the main goal?
DANNI: That’s our building our way up to Wembley, but I think that may be a bit of an ask for this time next year!
How would you describe your music for new listeners?
MATT: It’s just awesome, straight up awesome. If you like listening to music, you’ll like our band. Go buy our CDs and check us out.
DANNI: If you like music with big catchy choruses then come and take a listen.
The Dirty Youth were recently announced to play Download Festival 2014 this Summer at Donington Park. The Dirty Youth will also headline the final night of Les-Fest 2014 in Scotland at the end of June, alongside Bleed From Within and Savage Messiah.
