(photograph by Jez Sheard)
Celebrating twenty years, worriedaboutsatan’s Gavin Miller discusses music, his wide range of influences, and his thoughts on culture in depth. Plus, reflections on his excellent new album: No Knock No Doorbell.
Welcome to Magazine Sixty, Gavin. Many people may find your band name particularly relevant in today’s climate. Do you find that politics, events, geography or location feed into how you make music, or influenced directly?
Hello! thanks for having me. The name, incidentally, comes from a song by one of my favourite bands – a Belgian art-rock band called dEUS. It’s a long story (I wrote a whole thing on it here, if you’re interested! (click here) but in terms of politics and geography influencing my music, they all absolutely do – I’m always suspicious of people who say the old line of ‘keeping politics out of music’ because how can you do that? How can you keep it out of anything?! We’ve made it this all-encompassing beast, it’s impossible to ignore, so for me, I try to at least acknowledge the state of things as much as I can, maybe through a track title, or a sample or just a mood, but it definitely has an impact. Living up here in Yorkshire definitely influences things too – you’re apart from the hustle and bustle of say somewhere like London, or Manchester, etc. so you feel a lot freer to do whatever you want to do. There are so many pockets of good people doing good things up here too, so it’s nice to be a part of that.
Tell us about the title of your excellent new album, No Knock No Doorbell? Likewise, the stunning cover photograph?
The title is pinched from an episode of the most recent series of Twin Peaks – I absolutely devoured that when it came out, and I still regularly re-watch it now. I had the episode guide open when I was finishing the record and the title just leapt off the screen at me. I repeated it a few times and thought ‘holy shit, that’s the one, I can’t call it anything else now!’
The cover was taken by my girlfriend Sophie when we were walking home from our local pub quiz one night last summer. We live in Saltaire, so it’s all victorian buildings everywhere, and on our walk home there’s a street lined with these trees and it was so still and quiet and the streetlights just threw this incredible beam right at this one tree – it lit it up so the top of it sort of fades into the night but the bottom of it is so illuminated you can see everything. I think I loved that idea of it being so in your face, but at the same time has this real sense of mystery about it. If anyone’s interested or in the area, it’s right at the top of Victoria Road, just opposite the co-op!
While the music is drenched in atmosphere, the drumming is punchy and intense. What more can you tell us about your obvious love of drums and drumming? Could you name a favourite drummer (from any era)?
Oh yeah, those drums are great aren’t they? I’m always so enamoured with rhythms and I put the extra work into programming drums, but these were just from a jazz sample pack. I wanted to sort of push myself really, and not rely too much on drum machines, or samples or anything like that – I wanted something that sounded real, just to experiment with at first, so I could use it to push the more atmospheric side of things on it, and I quickly discovered it fit the whole satan ‘vibe’ so well! I don’t know that many drummers, so I sort of used a short cut by grabbing this sample pack, but I suppose the whole satan project has always been about using shortcuts and working with limitations, so it fit in a weird way! As for my favourite drummer, I couldn’t say anyone else other than Jaki Liebezeit from Can. When he passed away, I went and got the Future Days trident tattooed on my arm, as his work on that album (and in general to be honest) is just phenomenal. What a legacy he left.
You also played various instruments, which lend the music an added depth. What do you feel organic instruments can add that electronics can’t?
Well I’ve always been a guitarist – I’m not the most technically gifted, though haha – but in my pre-satan days I was in bands playing guitar, so have always had that to hand. I’m a big believer in trying to push the sound of it as much as possible though, so using loops, effects, etc. basically I’m always trying to make it sound like it isn’t a guitar. You can get so much heart and so much emotion out of not very much with a guitar, so I’ve always loved trying to incorporate it into satan stuff as much as possible. It fits with the electronic side of things really well too, more people should give it a go!
Who are your most important influences from outside of the world of music? In terms of painters, writers, cinema etc?
I suppose the biggest has to be David Lynch – he’s the absolute master of setting a mood, whether that’s exciting or terrifying, he had this real knack of making you very very uncomfortable by not showing you very much – he put it all in your head with the way he presented things. Just an absolute genius, and it sticks with you. I used to love reading Philip K Dick books when I was just starting out too, so they’re always a big influence. Again, just a master of presenting things in a way that aren’t necessarily comfortable, but invite you into these bizarre (but strangely very real) worlds.
Should electronic music be about being radical or incorporating ideas of nostalgia?
A bit of a cop-out answer coming, but I think it can do both. I’m never one for looking back too much, but sometimes, and especially as you get older, I think it’s unavoidable really. You just have to be really careful you don’t get stuck in a rut with it. I’d like to think satan isn’t really a nostalgia-bait project, and it’s why I’m always wanting to switch things up with each release, even if it’s only a little, I think it keeps you on your toes and you don’t end up falling down a hole of stuff like ‘oh, let’s make an album that sounds like 70s synth stuff’ all the time – it’s good to break out of that, but sometimes a considered look in the past is quite alright, you just can’t make it your whole deal haha.
You have released 20 albums with No Knock No Doorbell. How do you keep yourself excited about creating music?
To be honest, I can’t imagine myself doing anything else! I’m constantly just having ideas for things, or just noodling, or just recording something, even if it’s just a little interlude or a tiny idea, I’m always of the thinking that I should be doing something, however small. It’s just the way I’ve always done things. I think it’s also important to keep your head open to new ideas and new music – I always used to joke you could definitely tell when an artist or band hasn’t really listened to much outside of their preferred genre, and it’s something I always keep with me. It’s hard, and it’s understandable sometimes, but I really think you have to force yourself to break out of whatever it is you’ve been comfortable with and try something else – there’s so much out there! It really gets you going though, and fires off a lot in my head, so I’m a big believer in it.
How important is live performance in all of this? Your next gig is at KCC Shipley. How do you prepare, and what instruments do you rely on most?
I love playing live, don’t get me wrong, but it’s been becoming so much harder to do over the past few years – venues shutting down, promoters being squeezed, prices rising, it’s insane really. These days I limit myself to just a few local shows a year, not because I particularly want to – I mean, if Radiohead came calling and needed a tour support, you better believe I’d be there every night haha. It’s just being very DIY, it’s basically all down to me putting on shows, promoting them, as well as playing them and all the rest. It’s difficult, and as I get older, it’s something that just gets harder and harder. That said, we try and make the live stuff something worth watching, so it’s all brand new material – semi-improvised between me and Sophie, so we want to make it something really special for people coming to see us. You won’t get the hits, or anything you recognise really, but you will have fun! The setup is quite big considering it’s just us two, but I think it really works – the synths and drum machines interact really well with the guitar and violin, so it’s just a matter of keeping up with it and making sure it all sounds listenable!
(buy tickets for the Kirkgate Community Centre, Shipley show here)
How do you feel about the way artists are supported in the UK? And externally, how does streaming affect things along with social media?
I feel like, especially for artists outside of the M25, there’s precious little support for anything. Having said that, Bradford was the City of Culture last year, so there was a ton of really well funded and really well executed stuff going around, which was great, but aside from that, I honestly feel like there’s just nothing out there. There are funding options for things, but unless you’re adept at filling in those applications, it’s just a waste of time. With streaming and socials, I mean it’s like anything – it could be good, it has the option of being good, but as it’s just rich arseholes that run it all, it can’t be good or helpful to musicians, it just has to be about money and them making more of it at the expense of us, which isn’t exactly a new or groundbreaking thought, but I do think it’s true. It’s exhausting, and I try my level best to do the bare minimum, as they wouldn’t think twice about making my life any easier really.
What have you learnt about being a musician and releasing music over the past twenty years that you would pass on to others?
Haha, oh wow, good question. I’d say just have fun. Everything else is bollocks really, it’s your life, your art – you can do whatever you like with it. The minute it stops being fun is the minute you should stop.
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Download/Stream No Knock No Doorbell on Bandcamp
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