The Others Interview
How's the tour been?
The tour's been amazing! Our first tour was back in April/May, we did half the tour as a support band for The Cribs, who are my friends, and half as a headline band. This is our second tour now, and we're promoting our second single which is Stan Bowles, which came out last week and got us to Number 36 in the Top 40 which is our first Top 40 hit, and to get in the Top 40 with your second single is pretty good really. We've sold out everywhere but three venues. My voice has held out, and I've worked hard to eat properly on this tour. If you are going to go and do shitloads of drugs and drink yourself into a stupor each day, it's probably a good idea to work out what vitamins and what minerals and nutrients your body needs to survive, to clear the toxins out of you and keep your voice strong... to get through and have no fatigue. I've focused hard to make it a good tour, as well as partying hard to make it a good tour!
How have the audiences been at the gigs?
Ah well, you're dealing with the 853 Kamikaze Stagediving Divisional Members! The band's been going for a couple of years, and we've had a very loyal fanbase. Over the last two years, you gain loyalty and you gain adoration from your fans if you treat them like human beings. So it's all just about promoting the idea of equality, the idea of doing things ethically right - and whether that's getting people into concerts for free, or making sure they have somewhere to stay after the gig... or making sure that you drink and do drugs with them and make it a party together... you inspire devotion. The 853 Kamikaze Stagediving Divisional Members are a very devoted crew! The amount of work we do to make sure they have the best night possible and are part of something we think is a community.
What have you got planned for after the show tonight to celebrate the end of the tour?
I shall be doing several things after the show tonight which will be most enjoyable, but I generally don't do much before I go onstage. Smoke some hash and have a drink maybe - then afterwards I do what the fuck I want!
How would you sum up the band's music to someone who hadn't it before?
We're not like a band of brothers, we're four individuals. So Johnny's into Sisters of Mercy and Joy Division, Martin's into Stone Roses and The Charlatans, James is into Buzzcocks and the Sex Pistols, and me into Pavement and Sonic Youth. We come from different spectrums of music, but at the same time we've got quite a unique sound. We don't sit down and write a song together. I write the lyrics on my own, then they write the music to my lyrics. Then I listen to the tune and try and put my lyrics on top of their tune, and you end up with a strange kind of sound. In the studio I prefer to have us all playing together, to give it a live sound. All of my vocals are usually done in one take - like Frank Sinatra.
How's work on the album going?
Finished virtually apart from the mix. Alan McGee would like the album out as soon as possible, but I want to delay it a bit, it's got to be perfect. It should be out at the end of January. People who've come to see us will have a rough idea of what the album will sound like already. The average 853 Kamikaze Stagediving Divisional Member can pretty much guess the twelve songs that are gonna be on there! We've got the other bonus that 7000 people saw us at Reading, 7000 people saw us at Leeds, 7000 people saw us at Glastonbury, another 400 at Brixton Academy and Liverpool, 200 at the Astoria... We've played a lot of big gigs!
How did the band get started?
Crazy really, I'd spent a while being a bit depressed after the break-up of my marriage with my wife. You know what it's like when you come out of a relationship, you go out and party otherwise you get depressed! So I partied a lot, drinking heavy and doing lots of other things too. Fortunately people kept recognising me cos I was going to the same clubs, and after a few months of people knowing my face people were like "hey, so what do you do?" and I was like "yeah yeah, er, I'm in a band!". I couldn't just say that I had a shit job! Well, I got away with that for about three months, then I started hanging out with other bands, telling other bands that I was in a band, when I wasn't in a band at all. It was getting a bit complicated, then one day in front of the whole pub my drinking partners - a Portuguese band called The Parkinsons - asked me "so what's the name of your legendary band?". And I was like "er, er, we're called The... The Others!" - and that's how we got our name! And then Max came over - this portly guy, looks a bit like Kojak - and gets out his little book and goes "well, I think we can put The Others on in two weeks, headline band, we'll sell it out". Obviously I didn't want to lose face with my drinking buddies, so I phoned up James, who was guitarist in my first band, and asked if he wanted to form a band. James being James said yes, and we got hold of Johnny and wrote six songs in three days! So we got onstage for this gig and people were laughing thinking that it was amazing that here was Dom with this legendary band that nobody had actually ever seen - and we played a good gig, a really good gig. And that's how I formed my band, and since then we've played ever toilet-venue in London!
Where abouts in the UK do you prefer playing?
The north, I really really like the north! I'm from Somerset, moved to London when I was 18 just to escape really - had no choice, Somerset was very dull, nothing there if you're young. I like Sunderland, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester...
Do you hope to continue playing small intimate venues or are you aiming to expand the scale with your success?
Well, big within reason... our next tour has all been upgraded to venues double the size!
What about a venue like Wembley?
It'd depend how many people we can get in for free!
Had you always planned to go into music?
My first band failed, you see. I was really disillusioned, I spent two and a half years with my first band, and the best success was supporting the Buzzcocks at this particular venue here. That was nearly five years ago, so my first stab at being a pop star made me so depressed I stopped listening to music and hid, just stayed in with my wife. It was really important with this band that I was in charge, that I was the manager. I got us signed on my own. I fucking started it, I got us signed, they just wrote the music.
What advice would you give to anyone thinking about starting a band?
I shall tell you what I used to do in a working week, and if you think you can do the same I reckon you'll get signed. On a Monday, get up at 7am, go to work at 8.30 am and every time my boss went into a different room I'd pick up the phone and call a record company, management, promoter... I'd get away with that all morning, then go for lunch and do the same thing in a cafe somewhere. I'd get away with a few more free calls in the afternoon, then go home, take a shower and a shit, go out all night and go to sleep at 2 and do the same thing at work all day on Tuesday. In the evening I'd do a gig and throw an after-party for a hundred kids, have no sleep, work Wednesday, go out, work Thursday, do another gig and after-party, work Friday, go out clubbing, then Saturday is for sleep, and on Sunday rehearse all day. So yeah, it depends how much you want it!
The band are becoming well-known for the guerilla gigs, which was been your favourite so far?
The tube, definitely, that was amazing. Two hundred and fifty people going across London on a tube train doing a concert, waching all the commuters looking at you like you're a nutter.
How did the guerilla gigs start?
Being in a band is about giving memories to the fans, making sure the fans get a different idea of what a gig is. Fans go to a hundred and fifty concerts a year, usually at ten venues, so all the memories merge into one big memory. We offer a way out of that, put the gig in unusual circumstances.
If you could perform one anywhere in the world, where would you choose?
I could do with a bit of a holiday - a hash cafe in Amsterdam would be adequate for me!
What are your hopes for 2005?
I hope we win the Mercury award, release a five-million-selling album, tour the world, and that The Others' message of community and solidarity spreads to other bands...
Brighton, 4th November 2004.
Interview with Dominic Masters.
