Hello, please introduce yourself and your role in the band.
Hi, I’m Rob and I sing.
Who or what is a Don Broco and how did it inspire your choice of band name?
Well we get asked this quite a lot as you can imagine. In the past we’ve come up with one or two interesting and exotic full blown lies, as the true story is pretty boring to be honest! Basically, we had some songs written and gigs coming up, though still couldn’t find a band name that we all liked. We were stressing about it a bit as had a week left before our first show, when Simon (guitarist) got ruthlessly slide tackled during a game of 5-a-side and broke his wrist. We were all pretty gutted as we had to cancel the shows and put everything on hold until he was allowed to take his cast off. Now this is where it gets really lame…. one of the names we quite liked the sound of that our mate came up with, was ‘Don Loco’ though it was quickly dismissed, as on googling we discovered there was a German rapper already using it. On one very slow day at work we were writing on Simon’s cast and literally as just something to say, I piped up with ‘Don Bro-co’, as in his bro-ken wrist. Shit I know, but we decided to use it!
For those who have not heard of the band before, give us a very quick explanation of how you came to be a band? Which other bands are you influenced by?
We are all mates from school drawn together by a mutual love of bands like Biffy Clyro, New Found Glory, Brand New, Incubus, Glassjaw, and loads of other stuff.
You’re originally from Bedfordshire. What’s the local scene like? Has anything from home inspired you as musicians, lyricists or just general human beings?
Yes, and we all still live in and around Bedford. It used to be awesome. When we were growing up it really felt like there was some sort of a movement happening, we’d go and see bands like Sikth, Aconite Thrill, Fireapple Red etc who all came from nearby towns and the shows would always be busy. Things dried up a bit, but the scenes definitely getting back on its feet. There are some great local bands and promoters getting things going again. Well I wrote the lyrics to Thug Workout after witnessing a pretty brutal fight in a club in Bedford. There are plenty of chavs knocking about round here, and they’re pretty territorial about their females. It was an interesting night!
You release new single ‘Dreamboy’ very shortly. If you were a bunch of girls, who would be your dreamiest boy?
My hunk of the year award goes hands down to teen heartthrob and star of Gossip Girl, Ed Westwick. Pretty randomly, when we were about 13, he went to our school for 1 week. He sat next to me on the bus, tried to sell me weed, and was never seen again. Then about a year ago I found out he’s this huge celeb now in America! True story.
The poster for your October tour suggests you’re actually a stripping troupe. Are you secretly worried you’re going to turn up to shows and having drunk women on hen nights throwing their knickers at you and expecting you to strip off on stage for them? Seriously though, awesome concept for a poster. Who came up with it and why?
Think we’d quite enjoy that actually. It was in fact Luke’s (bassist) sister who helped us with that. In support of the single we decided to call the tour ‘Dreamboys On Tour’, and she pointed out to us that there are certain touring ‘Dreamboys’ who are basically an offshoot of the Chippendales! We found a photo of some, wacked our heads on, and hey presto sweet tour poster! You’d be surprised how many people don’t get it’s a joke though, girls thinking they’re our real bodies and loving it, and guys thinking we’re arrogant show offs!
Why did you decide to do a dance remix of ‘Dreamboy’? How’s the reaction been? Is it a one off or can we expect to get our rave on to more DB tunes in the future?
On tour, we were staying at our mate’s house in Cardiff after a show and he played us a remix he was working on for the Young Guns track ‘Weight Of The World’. They’re going to be using it for their upcoming single release and it sounds bloody brilliant! We asked him to have a pop at Dreamboy and that’s what he came back with! Check his stuff out at http://www.myspace.com/soundofeveryone People are absolutely loving it, and yeah we’re always keen on hearing different interpretations of our songs. Download it for free here – http://www.musicglue.com/donbroco
What’s the grand plan in terms of EP or album release? Do you have other new material scheduled? When can we hear more new tracks?
We’re going to be putting out our first proper E.P in February which we’re pretty excited about. We’ve now got all the material recorded, so the next single will be dropping early Feb.
How was this year’s Sonisphere festival? Dream come true to play such a well-known fest?
It was amazing, such an incredible weekend. We had a really fun show and got to hang out with a lot of cool bands we’d met on the road over the last year. Good times indeed! As well as all the big names it was really great to see a lot of the more ‘underground’ bands represented, such a decent line up. Also, Rammstein put on a free bar backstage! epic!
OK, ‘fess up. Who came up with the idea for the video for ‘Thug Workout’? Shit is genius! Surprised at how much of a cult classic it has become?
Me. All my idea! We have actually had one or two little arguments over this as it was done a year ago, and we can’t actually remember who came up with the initial concept! It was a proper team effort though and all happened pretty organically. We literally just looked around my house and cul de sac for inspiration, got our mate round to film it, then Simon edited it all together. Not really that surprised of its cult status, it’s amazing! Nah, its great people enjoy it, it always goes down well at shows.
What are your top five tips for a good thug workout?
This is more a step by step guide:
1.Get drunk
2. Hit the club
3. Talk to girl (preferably sexy)
4. See someone else talking to same girl
5. Start fight
Daddy or chips?
CHIPS! THICK ONES!
What’s the plan for the rest of 2010 going into 2011?
On Friday we set off on tour which will take us up until the end of October, and then we’ll start gearing up for the E.P release in February. We’ll be filming the video for the next single in November, and over Christmas will keep nice and busy writing some more new songs no doubt! We’ll be touring again in Feb to coincide with the release, really looking forward to playing these new tunes!
October tour dates :
8TH KINGS LYNN – KUDOS – FREE ENTRY!!!
9TH HEMEL HEMPSTEAD – GADEBRIDGE YOUTH CLUB
10TH BOURNEMOUTH – IBAR
11TH TRURO – WIG AND PEN
12TH READING – FACE BAR
14TH NORTHAMPTON – SOUNDHOUSE
15TH DARTFORD – AMAR HALL
16TH COLCHESTER – THE TWIST
18TH NEWCASTLE – PUMPHREYS BAR
19TH DUNFERMELINE – PJ MOLLOYS
20TH ABERDEEN – TUNNELS
21ST GLASGOW – CAPITOL
22ND EDINBURGH – GRV
24TH HULL – THE RINGSIDE
26TH LIVERPOOL – ACADEMY 2
27TH NOTTINGHAM – ROCK CITY
28TH MILTON KEYNES – CRAUFURD ARMS
29TH NORWICH – ARTS CENTRE
30TH LUTON – UBSU SUBCLUB
31ST LONDON – UNDERWORLD