Dry the River

Band Crush

The band’s been called ‘Crosby, Stills, Slash

and Young’. What’s not to love?

I can’t help but love the band’s debut LP, Shallow Bed—it mixes rock and folk, harmonies and headbanging, in compelling and refreshing ways. The Londoners stopped by the Haus of Hipstamatic to chat with us about the album, their hardcore roots, and living the dream.

You were all in a similar scene before forming Dry the River. How did you move from metal and punk to something folkier?

Frontman Peter Liddle: I’ve always listened to music that was different, like acoustic stuff and singer-songwriters. I don’t think I ever exclusively listened to post-punk or post-hardcore or whatever. When I was at med school, because I was in halls of residence, I couldn’t really be shouting so much or have my guitar out at all hours. It forced me to move to acoustic stuff, to go back to singing a bit more and shouting a bit less.

And I just wanted to do something different—I’d been in all these hardcore bands for years, and just wanted to try something that was different and more melodic. So initially when these guys started working with us, I was trying to strip everything back and make it a bit softer. It felt a bit contrived, a bit forced and not really authentic, so our heavier influences crept back in. We had more fun, and people seemed to enjoy it much more live when we let our hair down. It turned out to be something people hadn’t really heard before, these acoustic-y three-part harmonies that exploded into some real riffs and some heavier stuff. It seemed like we hit on something that worked for us and worked for other people, so we ran with it.

What’s your creative process like?

Pl: A lot of the lyrical content just happens over time. I don’t really sit down and try [to write lyrics]... I’ll see a turn of phrase in a book that becomes a starting point, or I’m always making little notes in my phone, or I’ll dig up songs that never became anything and rehash the lyrics. It’s all quite haphazard. As soon as we’ve got a rough skeleton of [a song] we’ll start playing it live as much as possible, just to try it. It doesn’t really get settled until we’ve played it live a whole bunch, and it slowly comes together. Even when we get into the studio it might change again, and we have to relearn it... It’s a very long, very haphazard process. We don’t really sit down and write in a structured way, we kind of just kick songs around for ages.

What are some of your favorite experiences on the road?

Bassist Scott Miller: The first tour we did this year of the States was like a dream.

Drummer Jon Warren: It always has literally been a dream—ever since I was a kid I wanted to drive across America. And then we got to do it, hitting up twenty-seven states and driving the whole thing ourselves.

Pl: Nine and a half thousand miles.

Jw: That was the closest to something [I dreamed of] when I was a kid, and it turning out to be as good as you imagined is so great.

Sm: I think the reason I picked that tour was just because it was the most recent in my mind. But when I go back and think about the others, it’s just all been an absolute dream. I’d hate to have to pick a favorite thing.

If you guys could sum up your sound or style in one phrase, what would it be?

Pl: I think someone said ‘Crosby, Stills, Slash and Young’.

Jw: ‘Spinal Tap meets Mighty Wind.’ I think they meant it in a derogatory way.... we didn’t take it like that.

When I say I have a ‘band crush’ on Dry the River, I’m not just being cute. I’m legit crushing on the London quintet, with their folk-rock tunes and long hair and tattoos and...