Glasgow-based three piece Donnie Willow are having quite the year so far. They’ve released their third record ‘Exhibition’, signed to Sunbird Records and completed a co-headlining tour around the UK with Rory Indiana. Having been on our radar for a little while, it’s fantastic to see their charm and energy starting to spread. We took the opportunity to catch up with the band during one of their shows to dig deeper into the band’s creative process and their plans for the rest of the year.
The band’s sensational mini-album ‘Inhale. Exhale.’, released in 2016, was the catalyst for putting the trio on our map, its math-rock complexities mixing fantastically with infectious melodies and raw energy. Most recent EP ‘Exhibition’ is less musically complex, but doesn’t hold back on melody, energy or volume, breaching the gap perfectly between accessibility and musicianship. This balance didn’t happen by accident: “with the mini-album we had loads of different ideas all pieced together and we went between them a lot. With the new EP we had an idea and we focused on that idea and formed a song around a riff,” drummer Peter Bunting explains. “For the mini-album, we played a riff and that was it, but instead of playing the chorus once, if something’s good and we think people are going to enjoy that part of the song, then we should definitely repeat it.”
Guitarist/vocalist Arthur Piddington continues: “for the mini-album we wanted to put more of a musicianship angle on it rather than making it accessible but what we’ve been trying to do now is reel it in a little bit and make sure that we can actually have all of those interesting things going on but not over complicate it.” Based on the reaction Donnie Willow have been getting at live shows, fans are also enjoying the new direction, something that energised the trio for the co-headlining tour. “I think people like it a lot more when it’s the punchier and hookier stuff that we’ve been doing recently. It’s nice that we can play and get good reactions.”
It’s no surprise the crowds have been feeling positive about the latest songs; as the band talk about ‘Exhibition’, the energy is palpable and this positivity naturally flows from them on stage. “They’re definitely songs that when it gets to them in the set, I’m most excited to play,” Bunting explains, something Piddington keen to reinforce: “for us it’s a little more interesting to write. Playing it live, we can get that angstyness across; it definitely plays into the stage performance. It goes hand in hand.”
On the lead up to recording ‘Exhibition’, the live element was a prime focus for the band and shaped the aesthetic of the record. Bruce Rintoul, who also produced the band’s previous records, helped them draw out and capture their stage performance on record, as Bunting explains: “[Bruce] got us thinking about the techniques of a live sound and a studio sound and also how to portray that studio sound live as well. With ‘Exhibition’ it’s got more of that grittiness to it that we have when we perform, so working with Bruce was definitely the right idea.” Bassist Sam Peppiette continues: “Before we might have tried to overproduce it and track more guitars but this time it sounds more like a three-piece because that’s what it is and we’re getting that across. We didn’t want to fake it and make it sound like there’s five of us – there are no extra effects.”
The guys are far from done in the studio this year, with Piddington revealing that “the rest of this year is definitely going to be spent on writing loads,” with Bunting adding: “we’ve got a bunch of tracks demoed in the process, there are definitely a lot of ideas being thrown around right now.”
Piddington jokes that “we’ll probably write way too many songs and we’ll have to condense it down,” something that results from the band’s songwriting philosophy. Bunting elaborates: “we write a lot of material. A lot of the songs we write aren’t played live and people don’t hear them; it’s almost like practice. In the same way you practice a song, or instrument, we practice writing as well. We only ever get better every time we write a song because we’re more experienced. The more we write, the better it will get. Hopefully it doesn’t plateau!”
Not all of these ideas are just for practice though. ‘Stuck’, the opening track from the band’s latest EP, was pieced together from one such idea: “we mucked around with the opening riff a year and a half ago and that turned into a song itself that was originally going to go on the mini album but just because we didn’t feel it had achieved its full potential with the riff, that’s when we decided to rewrite it and it became one of the good songs to go for with the new EP.”
The practice has certainly paid off, attracting the attention of Sunbird Records, who the band signed to earlier in the year. With the backing of the label, they’ve been able to press their music to vinyl for the first time, something that Piddington is particularly excited about: “It’s a little personal achievement to have your music on vinyl! It’s back to having music as an object. I remember when I was growing up and buying CDs I loved it because you hear the CD and flick through the booklet and read the lyrics. Especially now that everything is online to download or stream online – that takes that element of it being your own little thing away so it’s awesome having a hard copy of the record. Plus it sounds really good when you put it on was well.” Bunting adds: “They look class and they’re selling well. When it got delivered I sat and watched it go round thinking wow, that’s our music! They’re sick pieces of artwork as well as music.”
As well as vinyl, Donnie Willow have other pieces of artwork available in the form of music videos. “The visuals are very important and go hand in hand with the music,” Piddington explains. Peppiette adds: “when we play live, the ones people like to listen to are the ones we have videos for because they’ve seen them on YouTube. So if we pick the right songs for it, it works. We’ll definitely be doing more videos.”
Bunting’s brother has been responsible for all of the band’s videos, except for ‘I Like Flies’ which he was unable to free up time for. His latest visual for ‘Toys’ also stars Peppiette’s brother and has the whole band impressed, as Piddington explains: “all credit goes to Matthew who did a great job. It takes a lot of time to do stop-motion but he really exceeded expectations with it.” Bunting adds that “hopefully people get to that stage in the video and think “what the fuck?!” When we first watched it we didn’t think it would be like that at all, but the stop-motion makes the video.”
With another successful record to put to their name, Donnie Willow are now focusing on keeping busy for the rest of the year. As well as dedicating their time to writing more material they hope to be back on the road for another tour later in the year. “Probably in the last few months of the year. We’ve been talking to a couple of bands – we enjoy touring with another band because it’s more fun and we make contacts. We watch each others’ sets and we learn stuff from each other.”
Peppiette sums up the attitude in the camp perfectly, stating that “we just want to keep the momentum going.” We want that too – everything that Donnie Willow has put out to date has been superb and we can’t wait to continue this journey with them and see where it goes next.
‘Exhbition’ is available to purchase at Bandcamp and you can keep up to date with Donnie Willow on Facebook and Twitter.
Check out our review of the band’s latest tour here and our reviews of ‘Exbition‘ and ‘Inhale. Exhale.‘