It’s been a while since Lower Than Atlantis played Nottingham so it’s only fair that we caught up with their drummer Eddy Thrower before hitting the main stage in Rock City for the first time in their history…
So then Eddy, how’s tour been so far?
Good mate thanks, only had two dates so far but they’ve both been quality. It’s good to back in the UK.
You’ve been up here quite a lot haven’t you?
Yeah yeah, last thing we did here was A Day To Remember.
Think I remember that – heard you guys ended up doing Karaoke in Rescue Rooms after?
[Laughs] Yeah that was bad, we’ll probably end up there tonight as well.
What do you think of Nottingham in general then?
In general I love it. It’s my favourite place to play. The town is sick, the people are always up for a laugh and this venue [Rock City] is amazing as well. We started off in the small room here, moved onto Rescue Rooms and now the main room in Rock City in that order as well.
Do you know anything about the unis?
Errrrrm…nah.
I was going to ask you the old ‘Trent or Uni Of’ question…
Mate I’ve got no idea [laughs]
Well the answer is always Uni Of, in case you were wondering.
That’s were you go I take it?
Yeah [laughs]. Was Uni ever an option for you?
I went to Uni actually but dropped out, I did Music Journalism there in Southampton and it was so shit, it was awful. I went to one lecture and they were like talking about Black Sabbath and no one knew who they were. And I was just like, “this is bullshit”. If you don’t know who they are, you’re in the wrong lane. I’m sure your uni’s better!
Southampton and Nottingham aren’t too dissimilar – i’ve got a fair few mates who enjoy it?
It was Solent though. You can go and do a Make-Up course there…
So obviously your Black Edition has been released recently; it’s got a lot of covers and b-sides – which I really like by the way – but having listened to you guy growing up the latest album is a bit of a change from what I think is a normal sort of sound; moving from very early Bretton to Far Q…it’s obviously getting slightly less…in your face as it were.
Yeah well we don’t really listen to heavy music any more. It’s cliched but it was just a natural progression. It just happened, it wasn’t what we set out to do but especially on this album, if it was pop, rock, hip-hop, indie – whatever it may be, if it was good it was good, whether it was a specific genre or not, we didn’t think about it too much. We just did it, and if it was good it stayed on. We’ve got Ain’t No Friend on there and then we’ve got like Damnation…
Yeah two very different things, because Ain’t No Friend is quite electronic?
Yeah exactly, that’s all it is.
Obviously Mike’s been writing for some other bands, he wrote for 5 Seconds of Summer didn’t he? Do you think that influenced you guys?
Yeah he wrote a song for them, but the song he wrote for 5 Seconds of Summer was a rock song anyway; but because its 5 Seconds of Summer everyone looks at it as being pop but it’s just a rock song really, so it’s what he normally does anyway.
In terms of the actual writing of the music, it’s not a straightforward sound – whenever I’ve tried to learn it on guitar it’s not your bog-standard run-of-the-mill chords…how would you encourage a young musician who wanted to replicate that?
Yeah yeah, they’re very different, especially chord-wise. I think it comes with personality and what you’re used to doing and what music you like as well. We grew up on heavy music, so it’s going to be that influence and stuff, not necessarily just major chords, it’s going to be a lot of minor chords and a lot of variations. It’s like drumming as well, there’s a lot of heavier aspects in there but at the same time we all love pop music now – we always have, but we listen to it more now…it’s just combining the two.
Yeah i’ve noticed that actually, Nottingham is a place where you can be a bit edgy if you want to with little niche nights which was the main thing last year. But this year, even in my house….it’s Bieber for example….
Yeah mate EVERYONE is getting on it. We listen to it before we go on mate. It’s fucking sick mate! You listen to it and you’re like, “ahhh that’s good. That’s really good.”
Thing is, it’s written by an amazing set of musicians and producers who know what they’re doing, and whether it’s complicated or not, it’s the fact everyone is still singing it. And you can’t help but nod your head along to it and get into it. And that’s the sign of good songwriting.
Yeah so what would you say to, it’s a cliched question but, if I were to next year join a band or whatever, what would your advice be?
Just listen to everything. Like, learn everything, every genre of music, be nice to people, meet people, be positive, go out and meet people. Especially with social media. You can meet people without even meeting them if that makes sense. I’ve chatted to people, musicians and stuff who I know quite well but I’ve never met some of them, it sounds quite weird but just use everything that you can.
Turning to touring, you were in the USA before this?
Yeah yeah, and Australia.
And before that you would have had the summer festival run…time for a little break after this?
After this tour we’re having a little break for Christmas, but then we’re back out in Europe like February or March. And then yeah it’s straight back out to America.
Keep going, fair. Obviously you’ve released the new edition recently but any new stuff planned?
We’re always writing, because we’ve got our own studios so there’ll be new stuff soon.
Not stopping soon then.
Nah.
By Luke Morenas-Jones
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