North East Hi-octane, alternative rock, champions ‘Digits’ have a busy few months ahead of them including a show at the o2 supporting Mc Lars. We spoke to vocalist and guitarist Chris Bradley to find out more about about the show, their current tour and their new EP.
Hi Chris, how, and where, are you?
Things are good; we’ve just got back from a long drive home after playing in Workington and are busy prepping for the rest of this weekend’s gigs.
You’re gearing up for a gig in Blyth tomorrow. As a band that’s regularly out playing live, do you prefer playing live or working in the studio?
Tough question! I don’t think you can replicate the feeling of playing live to a receptive audience; when everything falls into place, the experience can be up there with some of life’s best moments. Recording, however, is a much more creative experience and the whole process is very rewarding. I think many musicians need both to balance their two sides, the creative and the attention seeker!
And then you’re off on tour in April, including the show on the 21st at the o2 Academy in Newcastle supporting Mc Lars. That must be exciting, how did that relationship come about?
This will be our first proper tour since returning last year, so we’ve been very excited to get out on the road. Originally we were to headline at the O2, however they asked if we’d mind moving our headline to another date. In return they invited us onto the bill with MC Lars & Koo Koo Kanga Roo. We agreed to it, but only if the bands from the original gig agreed to it. I personally rang around them and thankfully got their blessings, they were all really supportive of it. I’m a big MC Lars fan and have met him a couple of times so I’m over the moon to be doing the show. Lars even messaged me on facebook to thank us for being so flexible, which I thought was a touch of class!
And then you’re going back to the o2 in the future for your own headline show, have you started thinking about that yet?
At the moment the date is on hold; we’ve got some stuff in the pipeline and stuff with EP3 to do that take priority at the moment. We expect we’ll have something sorted for around October/November as part of a tour then.
We’ve been watching some of the videos for EP 3, how’s that been coming on and what can we expect?
It’s going great! I own a rehearsal studio and Matt, our guitarist, has a degree in Music Production, so we assembled the equipment we needed and started recording at the end of January. It’s very Digits; it’s aggressive and abrasive, but very poppy and catchy too. It focuses on a turbulent time in politics to our culture of self interest and spans the changes from the line up before the split to the new one. When we reformed last year and Matt joined, we very naturally and quickly wrote 5 or 6 new tunes and with the prior songs and some extra tunes I had lying about we had an album’s worth. So very early on we felt the best way was to put the songs prior to the split 2 years ago and one new one written since, on an EP to pay our dues to the past, introduce the new and show that we’re still the same band. It was always a regret that we never released the other songs prior to the split so I think everyone was happy to get them down finally.
And when may we see the EP out for us to listen to?
Tentatively October or November, however, despite being an independent, we’re still subject to a lot of variables from others such as CD replication, Distributors, PR Company, Music Videos, Photography, etc. Generally we’re talking around a 6 month lead on time from the end of mastering to the release of the record.
Finally, what would a great year look like for Digits?
We’d like to add a few more festivals to our schedule over the summer, we’re already playing Tramlines Festival’s Fringe event in Sheffield and at ‘In The Fields’ Festival up near Morpeth, but more would always be welcome. I’d also like to see the EP and first single out by November, and recording for EP 4 wrapped up by New Years’ Eve. A quick follow up EP in Spring/Summer of 2019 would be the absolute ideal!
Digits will be playing the o2 academ on 21.4.18. For tickets, and to find out about EP3 the best place to catch them is https://www.facebook.com/pg/Digitsuk/about/?ref=page_internal