It’s been nearly two weeks since their self-titled debut album was released, and only five days since they wrapped up a record store tour, when I catch up with Hanson over Zoom. After the obligatory small talk about the weather - it’s uncharacteristically rainy in my hometown of Brighton, while Hanson’s native Leeds is more typical - he says, “It’s our first time doing the instore/outstore thing. I think the crowd moves less, but they were definitely singing along.” He pauses, then observes, “The odd thing about these shows is people get the records as they go in.” He mimics a person shielding a square object: “They’re standing like this. They don’t want to jump too much, as they might damage the record.” Hanson seems to always be watching for material for their next album.
Initially starting as a way for Hanson and Greg Lonsdale to stave off lockdown boredom, Adult DVD has toured nearly non-stop since COVID restrictions lifted. They don’t seem to enjoy slowing down. “We did it in December, so luckily there were no gigs. We didn’t feel like we missed out on anything,” Hanson reflects on recording the album at The Nave Studios in his native Leeds. “We love playing live. When we don’t, we feel like we’re missing out on something.” This album draws from years on the road, creating a unique challenge in recording: capturing the intangible feeling that makes a room erupt. Hanson brushes off this issue: “We were lucky enough to try out a lot of the songs before making the album,” he says. “There were quite a few tracks we tried live that fell flat, or we didn’t enjoy playing live.” Ultimately, everything hinges on being as faithful as possible to that feeling in the room: “We very much did the record thinking about it in a live sense; we wanted to do an album where we could hopefully play all the tracks live.” Hanson mentions this wasn’t difficult: “It’s such a drum-heavy record, and it’s drum-heavy live; that crossover made sense. It wasn’t too much stress trying to replicate it.” When I ask if there’s any chance they’d return to some of the unreleased tracks later down the line, Hanson jokes, “It depends on how many songs we write for the next thing we do… Maybe we’ll think, ‘Oh shit, we’ve got no ideas at all!’” Ever-facing the future, he concludes with “Hopefully not. I think it’s good we tried; it didn’t work, and we can move on.”
Despite this desire to never look back, at least at discarded tracks, the universe started on debut EP ‘Fountain Of Youth’ is continuously being expanded. “Lyrically, there are callbacks to ‘Next Day Shipping’. I still think if ‘Do Something’ was on the record, it wouldn’t be out of place.” For any fans wondering, the connections are deliberate: “‘All I Need’ is about the guy who was warning everyone [from prior single ‘Doomsday Prepper’], building a bunker and saying the world’s ending; you’re all f*cked! Now he’s living in his bunker laughing at us all.” With one explicit connection, ‘Jesus Christ Supercar’ is more concerned with opposites: “It’s a callback to ‘Do Something’ - that one’s about someone who wants to try something so much, and just do something.” He rolls his eyes at the tautology of what he’s just said.
In a press statement by synth-player and lyricist Greg Lonsdale, the quote, "We don’t take things too seriously… The lyrics have got sillier, and the songs get sillier" appeared, seemingly implying a commitment to being apolitical. Hanson is quick to clarify, “We’re quite aware of everything that’s going on, or as much as we can be. I think rather than making serious music or serious statements, we’re taking the piss out of the idiots of the world.” Tracks across the album seem to reflect on a wider political climate by zeroing in on the types of people that define it: “We don’t write songs and think we need to put a message in. We’re just drawn to that because it’s the world we live in and the surroundings we find ourselves in,” Hanson affirms. He concludes with “When I say it gets sillier, we’re not very serious people, but there are serious things going on. We try to have both ends of it – take the piss as much as we can while still being aware of shit going on.”
The inspiration for these larger-than-life characters has to come from something close to home, right? Harry laughs, before conceding, “There are definitely songs about people we’ve met. I said this in another interview: if we can take the piss out of people we don’t like or find annoying without them knowing, that’s great.” The media training kicks in as he cuts himself off with “I won’t say more than that.” With this idea of each character being based on someone in their own zany sitcom, there’s a casting call ready: “We were trying to get Joe Gilgun from This Is England for the ‘Real Tree Lee’ music video,” Hanson reveals. He’s less certain on other tracks: “I don’t know who we’d have for ‘Jesus Christ Supercar’. Maybe like a total Karen? It’s about someone who makes excuses and complains all the time. Like a male Karen?” This is oddly reminiscent of a debate my brother and I had; I mention we decided on Kevin as the male Karen. Harry agrees between barely stifled laughs. It’s Kevin: you heard it here first.
An already fan-favourite from the album is the drunken acid-house closer, ‘Rolling Face’. “It was a toss-up between a few tracks,” Harry explains. “It’s just such a big tune. To put something after it would’ve felt weird.” He discloses, “‘Ghillie Suit’ was actually going to close the album [...] I actually feel it works better before ‘Real Tree Lee’ as the sample calls back to it. It’s essentially a remix.” The album seems geared up the same way as the live set, intent on a big finish: “There’s so much going on in that song, it’s so musically intense,” Hanson justifies. “If you finish the album on the most intense song, people will turn the speakers off" - he widens his eyes - "and think ‘f*cking hell.’ At least that was the idea.” I mention that I love how ‘Ghillie Suit’ bleeds into ‘Real Tree Lee’, a moment of foreshadowing for how crazy the album gets: “The second half of the album creeps up, doesn’t it?” Hanson agrees, “It’s total dancefloor.”
As a current crop of groups fuse electronic and rock elements, Getdown Services and Fat Dog to name just two, the press has had a field day pigeonholing them as an extension of the 00s nu-rave movement or drawing comparisons to LCD Soundsystem. “When you meet people and mention you’re in a band, they always ask what music you play,” Hanson jokes, “I usually err and say electronic, but there’s six of us and a live drummer… That can’t go out in a press release though. That’s terrible.” He mentions, “People call us dance-rave-rock. Whatever people want to call us, it’s fine.” This reminds me of a recent interview with Man/Woman/Chainsaw; I explain to Hanson that they think they're hard to summarise and aren't offended by how people choose to describe them as a result. “Exactly.” Hanson agrees, “There are six of us in the band and we all like different music. Half the album is guitar or indie tunes, half of it is dance music.” He does admit, “If it was a clear one-genre thing, I’d be pretty offended if people were calling us the wrong genre. There’s so much going on and so many bizarre noises, just let them at it! As long as people like it, it doesn’t matter.”
Much of Adult DVD’s hype has come from one of the most raucous live shows in the country, with queues snaking round the block during Mutations Festival last year, and from both their shows at The Great Escape this year. Hanson jokes away their live impact, “I guess people who are into music equipment, or not, think six people and that many synths is a spectacle to go and watch. There’s a lot of stuff on stage: something could go wrong. I’m kind of a devil on people’s shoulders, saying, ‘That could go wrong any minute.’” He hesitates before getting serious on their appeal: “I think it’s really energetic; there’s lots of us on stage moving around. Because there are so many of us on stage, the audience doesn’t think it’s awkward, as it’s not one person on stage trying to make us move.” He closes with what could possibly be Adult DVD’s mission statement, “There’s some back-and-forth escapism. People can get loose. It’s party music and people still want to party.” I was at one of their more difficult shows: their first set at Komedia during The Great Escape. They faced a sea of stoic industry faces and lanyards, yet they still got the room moving. I tell him how impressive this feat is. “That’s hard work, yeah!” Hanson laughs. “I think I actually said during that set, ‘Just because you have a lanyard doesn’t mean you can’t dance.’ Half the crowd laughed. The other half shrugged their shoulders.”
As the venues get bigger, you’d expect the craziness of Adult DVD’s crowds to ramp up too. “Nothing too nuts has happened, luckily,” Hanson confesses, seemingly relieved. “It’s just getting bigger and a lot more lively. There are circle pits, which I find hilarious. At Truck [festival] during ‘Bill Murray’ or ‘Cowboy On Aisle Three’, people were just running around,” he makes a counter-clockwise spin motion with his finger, “which is just bizarre.” For a band that doesn’t take things too seriously, this can sometimes throw a spanner in the works: “As much as we try to concentrate on stage, if one of us catches the other’s eye, we’re gone. We’ll just start laughing.” The band are set to head out on their biggest UK tour yet, but Hanson downplays the step up: “I think it’s just bigger,” he shrugs, “We did a headline tour in February, and there were all like 150-300 cap venues. They’re all double the size now [...] the tickets are more expensive, so we have to put more of a show on. It’s more of the same, just on a big scale.”
When you think of the usual hubs of music, minds are immediately cast to the big two: London and Manchester. Yet, Adult DVD’s birthplace of Leeds has nurtured the likes of Mercury Prize winners English Teacher and nominees Yard Act. “I’ve been in Leeds my whole life, and I’ve seen it change a lot musically,” he reflects. “There was a big post-punk scene, now there’s a massive electronic scene. There’s Turnspit and Kiosk, who are doing some of the tour with us, or bands like Bathing Suits,” shouting out some of his city’s finest. “I think because Leeds is small, our music scene is thriving because people get behind each other [...] there’s no divide. I think people can take risks, make the music they want to make and people won’t laugh at them for it.” He then adds, “I think the size of Leeds helps,” before making a comparison: “Brighton’s the same. It’s tiny, but there are f*cking great bands coming out of there.” Brighton seems important to him and the band: “I’ve got a real soft spot for The Prince Albert,” Hanson reveals. “It was our first-ever headline, sold-out show [...] Jim from Hidden Herd put us on there, it was great.” He then moves into the characters populating the iconic pub: “I always find myself in there with a pint, chatting to the weird old blokes who’ve had careers in music. It’s hilarious; I love speaking to them.” I mention that Brighton is weird - you can throw a stone in any direction, and you’ll hit someone with a strange but high-paying job in music. Hanson quips, “Well, you’d need it to live there, f*cking hell!”
As Leeds consistently punches above its weight in the music industry, Hanson acknowledges their journey when I probe for advice for artists outside the usual hubs. “Not to pat ourselves on the back, we’ve worked really hard,” he reflects before revealing the ultimately mundane truth: “The amount of admin when you first start out, or even now, is insane. It’s like 40% music and 60% emailing people.” The expected reality of mid-tier hotels and service stations on the road now seems far more exciting than the unseen side of spreadsheets and cold calls. “If you do that and realise that’s also, if not more, a part of it when you’re starting out, then I think you’ll be alright. It sucks, but it’s a necessary evil.” Seemingly winding down, he offers a boilerplate “keep doing what you’re doing” before a final piece of advice springs to mind: “Don’t put tunes out all the time! That’s what we learnt. Don’t put music out too early; think about it and spread it out.” He hesitates slightly before saying, “There's no one asking for your tunes yet, which sounds horrible. Just take it easy, write the best things you can, pick from them, and go from there.” Hanson concludes his cautionary tale with, “We definitely didn’t do that, and we removed three tunes from Spotify not long ago.”
With the eclectic nature of Adult DVD’s album, it makes sense Hanson’s current listens are all over the place. “I’ve been listening to the new Greg Freeman record pretty much every day [...] it’s all new releases I’m on at the moment. Gilla Band’s new record is amazing. Protomartyr too,” he rattles through the list like he’s been waiting the entire interview for me to ask. He also shouts out “The million Leeds bands that I mentioned already.” Despite their self-proclaimed tendency of ‘taking the piss’, Hanson’s final mention of the Leeds scene brings us back to Adult DVD’s mission statement: building a community through music, and making fun of those who make life miserable. The world may seem hopeless at times, but Hanson said it best: “People still want to party.”
Keir Shields
Image: Sandra Ebert