The Leeds band on their fusion of dance and guitar music, their newly released debut album and heading out on tour.

Leeds-based six-piece dance-punk act Adult DVD have just released their self-titled debut album via Fat Possum Records. ‘Adult DVD’ captures the breadth of the band’s scope, from their guitar-based roots, all the way to the depths of acid house, led by a bellowing voiceover which honours their ethos of never taking themselves too seriously. Ahead of their tour, which kicked off yesterday, we spoke to lead singer Harry Hanson about the writing and production of the record, weird people on Reddit, and getting out on the road (full dates here).

You’re nearly two weeks post-release from your debut album, the response has been glowing to say the least! Are you still basking in all the praise or keeping a level-head and moving forward?

Harry: Because it was the first album we’ve put out, both as a band and as individuals, we just tried to absorb ourselves as much in it as possible. But yeah, not getting too ego-driven for sure. We’ve got the tour starting next week so I think all our heads are in that, we’re in deep practices and stuff at the minute, so as nice as it is to put an album out, we’ve just been looking forward to that really.

So it’s been a lot of rehearsals at the minute prepping for the tour?

Harry: Yeah, which is funny, we never normally rehearse, we’re kind of slack with it. We spent last year and the year before playing all the time meaning we never rehearsed. For some reason we’ve left it up to the last two weeks before we go on tour to learn the album tracks, but we’re getting there with it.

Would you mind giving us a timeline of your coming together as Adult DVD, how you all met and ended up arriving at this point?

Harry: Me and Greg (Synths, Vocals) met like five years ago. I was working at the Brudenell in Leeds, we decided we wanted to make music that wasn’t just what we’d always been playing, we wanted to get into dance music and we’d both just bought some synths. I think the first three years you’re like figuring stuff out, playing shows as much as you can. I guess in the last two years where we got management and a label, that’s when things really started to step up. I feel like the last two years has been really when it has happened.

How was the process of recording the album? The production is marvellous I must say.

Harry: Well, the production is Danny (guitar, synths,) and Jake (synths). When we went in the studio in December, we only did drums, redid the vocals and some other production bits. We kind of do everything at our home studios, writing in two’s and then we send it around and each do our bits. With synths you can just do that stuff at home, so when we went in the studio, we just replaced all the midi drums and the vocals. We don’t do any writing in the studio really.

I really noticed the sound of the drums on the record, with all these synths going on, there’s still a really present acoustic element through the drums.

Harry: I said this to someone the other day, it’s not a DVD track until Jonny put his drums on. As much as we can put 808s on and stuff, until you put a real kit on and have that human feel to it over this dance music, I don’t think it’s us.

You’ve said in a previous interview the album sort of runs like a live set. Your live act is a huge part of your appeal, how important was it to showcase your skills on stage on the album?

Harry: Because we kind of do guitar music and do straight up dance music, on this album it’s like both ends of the spectrum. The way we do it live is we start with the guitar tunes and then before you know it, you’re in more of a sort of club environment. We kind of wanted to replicate that by making it more aggressive as it goes on.

You even have a sort of interlude track on ‘The Steaks are High’ which splits the record up, that’s a cool touch.

Harry: Yeah, which is kind of funny because most people listen to music on Spotify or whatever now. I imagined people owning the record of it and having this song in the middle. It’s our friend from TVOD, who we made friends with last summer when they played in Europe. It just felt right to put that in, but it is a quite a funny track really. We’re so used to it now, but when people hear it, like my friends were like ‘What are you doing?’ and I’d kind of forgotten about it.

Someone could hit shuffle on ‘Adult DVD’ and that be the first thing they hear!

Harry: Yeah I don’t think the reviews would be as glowing if that was the case!

My favourite track on this record has to be ‘Rolling Face’, especially that break in the middle. What were the origins of that tune?

Harry: Yeah, that’s also my favourite song actually. I think it’s my favourite just because it came about so naturally. Especially on my side of it, Jake kind of did that whole tune himself and then asked if I had any melodies for it. It just clicked straight away which never happens, I usually have to fuck around with it so much just to get a vocal. It’s such dancey music, to try and put a vocal on to make it a song is usually quite hard. Then Jake pitched my vocals up and down in the studio, so I had to learn that in the studio and sing it like that. It’s my favourite and a good summary of where we’re heading.

You’ve also mentioned not liking the use of the word ‘fusion’ when talking about multi-genre music like your own. Is it important for you as a group to kind of leave any elitism or preconceived notions about music at the door when writing and performing?

Harry: I just hate that word fusion, not because the genre is fusion. It’s like how people hate the word moist. But yeah, I think when we go into writing music there’s no plan, you can definitely hear that in the earlier stuff – it’s more coherent now. Yeah, like you say, just leave it at the door, just write the music you wanna write and we’re lucky enough that we can, so we just home in on that.

If I could compare the lyrical content to anyone else around now, I’d draw similarities to Getdown Services in particular. Why do you think this style of dance-punk with dry-witted British lyrics is gaining such acclaim at the moment?

Harry: I’ve got no idea! I think the music all goes back to guitar bands. We’re only just getting into dance music and feeling comfortable writing straight up dance tunes. There used to be more guitar because we were safe in that, it’s easier to write verse-chorus-bridge-chorus if you’re doing a guitar song. The lyrics thing is just because we’re not very serious people and don’t take things very seriously, unless we need to obviously. It’s always kind of been what we’ve done. Me and Greg kind of share a brain and think life’s sort of one big sitcom, and we both love people watching, I think it kind of works and we always bounced off each other. We thought let’s just do this, let’s just make stupid shit up and make it funny, we wanna have a laugh as much as anyone else does.

What would you say is the most serious song Adult DVD have ever written?

Harry: Well, I mean ‘Rolling Face’ is about a guy that nearly dies, and musically it’s pretty serious. I’d definitely say that on the album. I mean ‘Real Tree Lee’, as tongue in cheek as it is, is about people on the creepy side of Reddit – they are actually quite worrying people.

I suppose that’s also part of the thing, tackling serious issues in that kind of way.

Harry: Yeah, I mean we’re taking the piss out of idiots essentially.

I suppose if you were to make a super stern serious song about weird people on Reddit, it wouldn’t work in the same way, just because it is so ridiculous as a concept.

Harry: There are also too many creeps on Reddit, we’ve kind of done one tiny percentage of it and focussed on that. If we were to cover all the creeps on Reddit, we’d have to do a double album on it, which I think would become quite depressing after the first half.

You’ve mentioned the presence of guitar in Adult DVD still holding a lot of importance. Who are the big influences on how you apply guitar to your music?

Harry: My favourite bands are guitar bands for sure. I love Twin Peaks from Chicago, I love like early Blur, and just straight up garage rock, anything with a squalling guitar I’m into it. Danny and Greg go to loads of Hardcore shows so, I think on Rolling Face you can hear a bit of that, when he sound-checks and stuff he plays like Slayer and stuff. A sound engineer that has never heard us is like ‘What is this band?’ One of us is playing acid house and the other is playing Slayer.

You’re about to embark on a two-month long UK/EU/IRE tour in October and November, are you ready to cram all six of you into a van for that time? Or do you travel separately these days?

Harry: Well funnily enough, we’ve had one van, it’s my dad’s and I drive it, like a little Vito. This UK tour we’ve got a driver, sound engineer, and it’s a nice Sprinter van with a PS5 in the back. So maybe all this album stuff has gone to our head. For Europe, we’re going to Iceland first, we’re flying and my dad is driving us around Europe, we’re meeting him in Paris and doing two weeks around Europe in the small van again, which will be humbling.

But you’ve got your own engineer now, so no more baffling the poor sound-engineer!

Harry: Yeah, we have been a lot more streamlined and quick in the last year and a half. In the early days, fuck me it was bad. Stuff wouldn’t’ be working and we’d be arguing and plugging stuff in, but having an engineer will really help us out.

Hypothetically if you could bring anyone out on stage during this tour, who would it be?

Harry: I think I’d want someone to sing one of our tunes and I could just stand off to the side, that would be quite nice. I think because we are going to Iceland and that’s all I can think about right now, I’m gonna say Bjork, let’s get Bjork on stage with us. She like DJs loads of mad tunes.

Is there any particular places you’re excited about going to?

Harry: We’d love to go back to Japan, we did that in April. That was insane, and we’ve been seeing the record getting sold there, which is nuts. We’re playing in Prague, Copenhagen, places that we’ve never been before, we’ll go anywhere that will book us really. It’s so good to just get in the van and go and see new places. We’re very lucky to do what we do. I definitely prefer touring to the studio, I think meeting new people and making friends with new bands is nice for us. Everyone is so like-minded, which is what we’re in it for.

Being based in Leeds, you’re grounded in a very good music scene from the start, too.

Harry: I’m not going to say it’s the North/South divide, in the North you wave and say hello and in the South they just stare at you, which is true. But Leeds is tiny, everyone knows each other, so we naturally take that mentality of wanting to talk to everyone.