Oceansize Guitarist Steve Durose Talks About The Band And Their Music (Interview)
Tuesday, 05 October 2010
Written by Matthew Williamson
Earlier this year Manchester’s Oceansize announced a bunch of UK tour dates as well as details of their fourth full-length studio album ‘Self Preserved While The Bodies Float Up’. The new album was unleashed on September 6th, just before Oceansize hit the road for a UK tour. Oceansize's guitarist and backing vocalist, Steve Durose, recently took the time to talk to Stereoboard about the band and their music before their show at London's Koko on October 1st.
Firstly, so that all the readers know, can you please state your name and what you do in the band?
Ok, I’m Steve Durose, guitarist and backing vocalist.
Oceansize have got some criticism from some sections of the music press over the years. Has this concerned you at all?
No, not at all really. Most of the reviews have been very positive throughout. We’ve never really been bothered by any reviews. We got called ‘preposterous’ by the NME once, which we actually thought was quite nice!
Oceansize have always remained under the mainstream radar. How would you react if the band broke through suddenly?
Relieved I think. We’ve been together 12 years now, 4 and a half of those before we signed a deal. It’s been a long time so I think we’d definitely all welcome a break like that, for sure.
Steven joined Oceansize in 2006, what was it like to have someone different coming into the band?
Really good, it was like a new beginning of sorts. He had a completely different style to our previous bass player so he added a new dimension in a sense which was really exciting. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise I suppose. We lost someone we were close to in the band but when Steven came along it changed everything for the better anyway so it’s been great.
Mike and Steven have been on tour with other bands recently; Mike with Biffy Clyro and Steven with Future of the Left. Has that changed anything about Oceansize?
No, not really. It’s obviously made scheduling a little more difficult but it hasn’t changed anything musically or in terms of our ambitions in any way.
Your current tour is massive. Is it difficult to go out night after night and put on a great show?
You think to yourself that it’s not difficult but if you’re really, really tired it can be to be honest. However, as soon as you get on, you get some kind of energy from somewhere, so you don’t feel it as being a chore in any way. Just being on stage wakes you up.
So do you try and do anything to psyche yourself up before shows?
Yeah, you do try and wake up a bit. We all gargle throat specific and try to warm our voices up with high nights. A few karate kicks or something to get us going, anything like that, to try and psyche you up!
The new album has a few simpler songs on it, such as ‘Ransoms’ and ‘Pine’. Was it a deliberate move to write some simpler tracks or did it just happen?
They just came about. It wasn’t an intention to write simpler songs. They were just ideas that came along and we liked the way they sounded so we decided to include them.
People seem to overlook the lyrical side to the band sometimes. How important do you feel the lyrics are to the band?
In the early days it wasn’t that important I don’t think. We used to be a pretty much instrumental band but then more lyrics came along and now I think they’re extremely important. Hearing feedback on forums and stuff and people debating what lines mean or whatever is great and I wouldn’t want to lose that element of the band at all.
How important would you say guitar effects are to your sound?
Probably really important. The thing is that we’re all about texture. You can’t just keep repeating the quiet/loud/quiet/loud effect so effects give us a chance to write things that are a little different, not just the same things with the same formula.
If you could pick one song to sum up Oceansize’s career, what would it be?
Interesting...I’d probably have to say ‘Ornament/The Last Wrongs’. I think that pretty much does everything in one that we do; the heavy bits, instrumental parts, glorious harmony parts and gets very loud as well so...yeah, probably that one!
The songs on the new album are mostly a lot shorter than ever before. Was this a conscious decision or have you got a load of longer songs you’re going to release later on another album?
I don’t think it was a conscious decision. The direction of any record we make tends to come about by the first few ideas that make the cut, so to speak. It wasn’t a conscious decision at all; we’ve just got better at knowing when a song has finished. The songs are more to the point now. It’s not necessarily a big change in direction though. Who knows, the next album could have lots of long songs on it again. We just experiment with what we can do and try new things.
I think that’s it. Thank you very much for your time.
No problem.
Massive thanks to Ben Bland for helping and transcribing the interview.
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Steven joined Oceansize in 2006, what was it like to have someone different coming into the band?
