“I think the 90s really perfected pop music,” producer and guitarist of DMA’s Johnny Took tells Tone Deaf in a recent interview.
“It was just really organic. I feel there aren’t many rock bands around nowadays with an acoustic guitar – it keeping rhythm,” he adds.
The 90s have become undeniably cool of late, with fuzzed out guitar bands playing revisionist jams popping up every other day – the second coming needing only new episodes of Art Attack to be complete.
DMA’s however, also comprising of vocalist Tommy O’Dell and guitarist Matt Mason, draw on their vast musical backgrounds to approach the decade with a refreshingly scattered frame of reference. Drawing from the length and breadth of guitar music from the decade, their self-titled debut EP – released via I Oh You on 28th March – deftly curates an era when popular music took a sharp right turn.
Exploding onto the internet with lead single ‘Delete’, what immediately stood out was their preference for Britpop vibes over grungy jams. The nostalgic tune quickly exploded to high rotation on Triple J and gained significant blogosphere hype – for good reason.
The slightly gritty tone of O’Dell’s voice stands out immediately on the largely acoustic track as he pleads “Don’t delete my baby/Don’t defeat her now.” His voice soars as the track kicks up a gear from an acoustic ballad to a driving, electric jam joined by the rest of the band. The reverb soaked anthem is immensely catchy, capable of giving anyone with a pulse serious ‘feels’.
Considering the quality of O’Dell’s delivery, which never falters on the EP, it is surprising to learn that this is the first band he has sung in. O’Dell met Took playing in a band called Underlights, where Took – playing bass – was immediately taken by his drummer’s vocal chops.
“I’d hear him sing in practice and go, ‘man, he has a rad voice’,” Took recalls. “[But] he had never heard himself back [on recording] before. He came ‘round to my place one day and lay down some vocal tracks and was like ‘Do I sound like that?’”
Johnny’s house came to be the genesis of the band and crucial to the overall sound of the record. Took credits much of the EP’s charm to the decision to write and record at home, rather than book out an expensive studio.
“You can kind of freak out in a big studio, because you are paying for your time. It can also sound too polished.”
Living together the band wrote “hundreds” of songs over a period of two years before releasing anything, or even playing a show together. “You can kind of freak out in a big studio, because you are paying for your time. It can also sound too polished.”
“I’d be in the bedroom laying down tracks and Tommy would hear something from his room next door [in the hallway], come past and go ‘I’ll take a shower then lay down some vocal.’” The two years squirrelled away in their bedrooms, while playing shows with their other bands, gave the threesome, “time to think about what we wanted,” says Took.
The songs featured on the EP are some of the oldest from the band’s catalogue, ‘Delete’ in particular being written by O’Dell six years ago when he was 19. Going through “tonnes” of versions in the process.
‘Play It Out’, another track, originally “sounded ballad-y, it was all like ‘the intro’. We listened to it back and thought we sounded like sooks.”
The finished track, backed by an energetic drumbeat with some handy hi-hat work, brings fuzzy electric guitars into the fold, showcasing them more prominently than other tracks. Rather than just throwing them in your face, Took processes the shit out them, washing them out so they fill the empty space in the mix; forming a nice combination with O’Dell’s thickly reverberated vocal that gives the track a shoegaze-styled charm.
With DMA’s (The EP), the Newtown collective have given us a fantastic debut, showing once again that Sydney’s music scene is going from strength to strength, exploding with good young artists.
Brilliant lead single ‘Delete’ is a clear highlight, as well as the cracker of a tune ‘Feels Like 37’ – which rhythmically features a hint of Took’s love of country music.
“My favourite thing is being in the bedroom going crazy [recording]” Took said in his chat with us, and with their first offering the trio have shown this DIY approach really seems to work.
With two years of songs to draw from, as well as musical backgrounds as diverse as it gets (know anyone who has played in a psych-country band?), DMA’s look set to have an exciting future on Melbourne label I Oh You.
DMA’s Australian Tour 2014 Dates
Thu 22 May Sydney | Goodgod (18+ only)
www.oztix.com.au / 1300 762 545
Fri 23 May Melbourne | Shebeen (18+ only)
www.shebeenbandroom.com / 1300 724 867
Fri 30 May Brisbane | Black Bear Lodge (18+ only)
www.oztix.com.au / 1300 762 545
