We caught up with the band, formed of twin brothers Dan (guitar) and Tom (drums) Thould and Chris Simpson (bass), on the release day for their debut album Dawn Chorus.
If someone had never heard the band before how would you pitch yourselves?
Chris: “We used to describe ourselves as “for fans of Meshuggah and McFly which still mostly applies but there are bands that I think do that better now like Superlove. I guess now we’d say we’ve got heavy riffs but we’re also super poppy.”
Dan: “And harmonies, harmonies are key, we’re like a boy band with riffs.”
Your debut album is out now, what are each of your favourite tracks from the album?
Tom: “Mine is probably ‘Surrender’, it was supposed to be an interlude but we liked the vibes so much that we kept it going!”
Chris: “That one’s so different from what we normally do, we’re usually very verse, chorus, verse, chorus, riff but Surrender is just one long sausage of poppy goodness.”
Dan: “I like ‘Surrender’ as well but to say something different I’ll say Give Up because it’s the only time I’ve written a song front to back.”
Chris: “The strongest song for me is probably ‘Flawless’, it’s a slightly deeper cut but it was such a no brainer for the opener. It has everything that we try and do as part of our sound in one song, it’s got these weird riffs but it’s also accessible and poppy with a big chorus.”
Dan and Tom, as twin brothers how much did you play together before starting the band? How did Chris come into Blank Atlas?
Tom: “We were jamming in the womb! Even as kids we used to pretend to play together.”
Dan: We’d jump around with pretend guitars to Busted or McFly DVDs and then as soon as we got real drums and guitars at 10 years old we’d play together. Chris came in when we were about 15.”
Chris: “They were playing in a band before me and I was always jealous, we all liked the same music but were in different friend groups. Their bass player at the time didn’t seem too fussed and we’d had a few jam sessions playing Iron Maiden and Avenged Sevenfold songs.”
Tom: “Dan tried to teach our old bassist a song and he just couldn’t do it, we showed it to Chris and he got it immediately, the rest is history!”
“harmonies are key, we're like a boy band with riffs”
The band uses a ton of atmospheric layers on the album, are there any challenges playing these parts live as a trio?
Tom: “Backing tracks, the click track is our friend.”
Chris: “In our previous songs we had the odd bit here and there, things like extra vocals, but it was mainly one guitar, one bass, drums and three vocals. For the album we really wanted to break outside of that box, if we were going to do that we thought we might as well go all out and fill it with atmosphere. We had to fully invest in the backing tracks because it’s a lot of effort to bring them out for one or two parts in a set.”
Tom: “Some of the songs we didn’t even know how to play until we had to play live, we had to learn our own songs for the set.”
Dan: “It sounds kind of lame, stood there in a room trying to figure out your own riffs.”
Chris: “We wrote a lot of it remotely during the pandemic, we’d come up with stuff in our own bedrooms and then, when you could meet in small groups, we’d bring all the ideas together.”
You already had some fantastic guest vocals on the album, who would be your dream feature for one of your songs?
Chris: “For me it would be Lucas Woodland from Holding Absence, we’ve played with those guys a couple of times and I’ve been following them since the Falling With Style days. They’ve absolutely deserved their meteoric rise and to get him on a song would be a nice full circle.”
Dan: “I think I’d get Rou from Enter Shikari, I’d love to get him to program some stuff too, do a full collaboration.”
Tom: “I was also going to say Rou, if we hadn’t already had one of the Press To MECO guys I’d say them, we had Jake on one of our tracks but I’d love to have Luke on one to do a little shred.”
Is a follow up to your debut already in the works? What can we expect from Blank Atlas in the future?
Chris: “We had a little writing session a couple of months ago and wrote a couple of things. It’s too early to tell what a follow up is going to be like but they both feel like deep cuts. I don’t think we’ve settled on a main sound but these feel like we’re going weirder.”
Tom: “But right now we’re touring a bunch, trying to get the word out about the first album before we worry too much about another.”