Welcome to In Conversation, a special interview column on the site where we sit down with artists and dive deep into everything music. Dobbin chatted to all three members of Shooting Daggers on the eve of the release of Love & Rage. The members are Sal (guitar and lead vocals), Bea (bass, backing vocals, and piano), and Raquel (drums).
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Dobbin: Thank you very much for joining me. We’re recording this a day after the release of the new album, so congratulations on that. How are you feeling about the release?
Raquel: We’re really happy about it, it’s really exciting.
Bea: Ecstatic.
Dobbin: How long have these tracks been around? When were you writing, and when were you recording?
Sal: We started we wrote the songs in about three or four months, starting from November 2022. We recorded in April 2023. And now it’s out. It’s crazy.
Dobbin: As I understand for DIY bands, a lot of the time, it’s like “we’ve recorded it, okay, just put it out”. And when you’re doing when you’re doing it “properly”, you can’t like you can’t just put it out.
Sal: We came back to the studio several times, So we finished the album in August, actually. So it wasn’t such a long wait. But still, it was quite long.
Dobbin: This is such a varied album compared to your previous work. What was your motivation on that? I wondered, maybe individual members are pulling the band in different directions. So who wants to go heavy? Who wants to do the like really catchy songs? Or is it like you all have these ideas going in the same direction?
Bea: First of all, Sal‘s clean vocals are amazing. We wanted to let Sal sing properly, so that was one of the reason why we wanted to be a bit more melodic with his album. Also, I think in the long run, to preserve your voice. With the rest of the songs, I think it just came naturally, I think. Whatever we felt in the moment – with the more hardcore songs, it was because we were maybe inspired by other bands in that moment, and the same with the mellow tracks. I guess Raquel is probably the doom influence in the band with the drumming. I’m more the “emo”. Hardcore is always there, I guess. But probably more more modern hardcore, because we are more influenced by new bands. But yeah, this wasn’t a decision, it just came out like this.
Raquel: It’s just our influences and how we do our music. Also it makes it interesting because it’s not like we all just listen to hardcore music. All of us have different influences, different ways to play, right? For example, we have the piano song because Bea plays piano and we were like, why don’t we have a piano song? It doesn’t matter, one could think “oh no, it’s too mellow, it’s not going to fit a hardcore album” – we didn’t care about that.
Sal: We didn’t think about how catchy the songs would be, we just wrote them – I come up, or Bea comes up with a riff, and then we write the song in rehearsal. We can all express ourselves and the songs just end up the way they are. We will add our little personality into it, like the emo from Bea, and the doom from Raquel… And I don’t know, the hardcore from me? I don’t know what it is.. the punk, the “riot”…
Dobbin: I kind of had to Bea down as being a “doom” person because of that bass tone. I have to compliment you on the fuzz, I feel a lot of Sabbath coming out of that, but we love emo too.
Bea: I mean, I love doom. I never thought about it, I never thought about my bass to be something something specifically, I just liked the sound.
Dobbin: My favourite song is “A Guilty Conscience Needs An Accuser”, because I’m a big fan of more atmospheric moments, so I love the big sound. Additionally, the placement of it on the album is really nice. So would you ever do me like a full shoegaze album?
Raquel: Why not? Maybe.
Bea: We definitely enjoy playing this this song a lot. So we’re definitely gonna do some more. Not “full”, but we’re definitely gonna keep this influence.
Sal: This is not the last song that will sound like this at all. We’re already working on some new songs that sound like that.
Raquel: That song was really cool to create, because it doesn’t matter that it’s not a lot of riffs. That is something I used to do in doom and post metal bands I used to play in. It’s really repetitive and long, but you add so many elements to it. That was the fun part part, because we added a lot of guitars and vocals; all the layers of the vocals makes it good, and it builds up to this wall of sound.
Sal: It’s also got a weird time signature. I think that that’s why it’s special, because it’s just kind of experimental, odd, but it’s still a loop. I mean, we could have done something else with it, but it was supposed to be this way.
Dobbin: In terms of heavier tracks, “Smug” has a really cool video. And now that I see where you are, I can tell that’s where you you shot the video – it’s not a posed set. That was that looked really fun, you did that with Corey Eyres. Tell me about shooting that because it just looked like a fun day or two.
Bea: It was all in one day. Actually. It was really long. We were filming for maybe nine hours, and it was winter as well, so we had to get it done quite quick because we didn’t want the light to go down in the last scenes at the pub. We started at 9am and we finished like a six or something. We wanted to show our practice space, it’s like our home. We were walking from Greenwich to there by the river. So that took us like some time, and we were filming everything. We had to ask a friend of ours to help as well for Corey Eyres because all the walking.
Sal: We had to carry skateboards and stuff like that. So we needed someone to just carry our shit around. It was a fun day that we had a lot of fun.
Bea: It was really tiring. Mainly the scene with the fisheye because a lot of the scenes were filmed double the speed and then slowed down. So we were singing the song, double the speed and walking fast.
Sal: We had to be squatting and stuff, a lot of exercise. But honestly, it was really fun, and we looked so silly, it was so awkward. Honestly, we thought we’d never look sick on camera, this is gonna look so awkward.
Bea: We had to embrace the cringe.
Sal: We kept saying, “oh my god, it’s so cringe” all day.
Dobbin: There it is, folks. You gotta embrace the cringe, and eventually… Another one of the like, heavier tracks already, like his “Tunnel Vision”. It’s got such a fantastic beat, I love the cowbell, that’s really fun. Can I ask you about the lyrics on that one? Because it sounds like it’s like about weighing up ambition. It feels a bit different to the rest.
Sal: We wrote a really long time ago. That’s like the oldest track on the album. It’s just about wanting to wanting to succeed and like being focused on your goal. It’s just like a manifesting song, about wanting to succeed and do whatever you feel like you’re supposed to do. And it’s about music, just sending the universe a sign that we want to we want to make it. It’s one of the few songs that doesn’t talk about like political stuff, or is not as serious, but it’s what we needed to say to the world.
Raquel: Athames was quite a dark EP. We wanted write something more uplifting, and that was the first track we wrote after that. That’s probably why it was completely different.
Sal: Also because the band is literally our entire lives. We’re doing band stuff every day, all the time. So we’re just like, kind of like, come on! I want it now.
Dobbin: In your press release you said that anger worked as a sort of bodyguard for personal pain and suffering. I think that talking about anger in punk and heavy music is so important because there’s always something angry about the music, so it’s important to understand why we are angry. What is the reason we screaming at the microphone? With this record, a lot of it is about queers and women and punk, and about the scene as well. Tell me a bit of bout what some of the things you wanted to say through this music.
Bea: The anger, I guess, comes from the frustration of not seeing enough representation, mainly. We wanted to write an album that was uplifting and encouraging for people to do music, mainly queer people and women. I think that the anger comes from the gatekeeping from everything that’s always been in the alternative scene. I think that’s the main anger that comes from just constantly being judged. This is the same anger in that in Athames. But instead of singing about the anger, it’s singing about what we do in with this anger. The anger hasn’t really changed, it’s still there, but we channel it in a different way. We just want it to be like, “Okay, what are we doing? Are we gonna just shout at cis men?” or are we gonna say, “Okay, girls, queers. If you don’t see any representation, then form your own band, do it”. With representation on stage, more people are going to do it, and we’re going to feel safer in the scene. “Break the cycle.“
Dobbin: I’ve seen you guys once supporting Death Goals which was a really sick show. You’ve also got an amazing list of bands that you supported as well: Scowl, Gel, Zulu – really exciting bands. What’s been your experience like supporting them?
Bea: That Death Goals album release show was really cool. Scowl, they’re amazing, people, they’re lovely. How many times I’ve played with them, four? Lovely people, really nice. And Zulu as well, it was amazing. I was really surprised about the room as well because we thought like, oh, Zulu is so heavy, like the audience gonna be so out of our depth, but – amazing. Never seen that many POC at a hardcore show, ever, it was amazing. We didn’t really get to meet Gel, but they’re cool, love them.
Sal: The vibe was always super cool of all these gigs. All these bands were really great.
Dobbin: Another fest that you are at was Beyond The Redshift, Cult of Luna’s London fest. It’s really cool that you got to be at that, it was such a mixed line-up. Tell me about like getting picked for that, how did that work out? I was quite surprised to see you on that list.
Bea: Actually, it’s a very funny story. Because they sent us an email, no subject. They’re like, “Hi, are you available on the 20th of October?” They didn’t even say the venue, fee, or the fest. Also we were really busy at that moment, we were like not even taking that many gigs any more. We almost kind of didn’t even reply, but I was like, “What is this about?” And they were like, in another email, “Beyond the Redshift at The Dome“. And then Raquel luckily knew the name of the fest, because I didn’t know. It was amazing, we didn’t expect it, and we were on the same poster as Napalm Death.
Sal: It was just a bit of a strange email, we just didn’t think it was genuine. And then and then we’re like, wait a second, whoopsie, we’re actually available!
Bea: Johannes Persson of Cult of Luna curated event, and he was watching every single band. He came onstage to after we played to talk to us. And then every time we were going into the three venues, he was also in the venue watching the bands – so cool. He really believed in the bands and what they do. And also, Cult of Luna are so sick. All the bands that played were amazing. Trench were really good. Our set was quite busy considering the time. We went to see Jo Quail and people were saying they liked our set, we were so honoured.
Sal: The fact that we got to share the like backstage with Birds In Row and other bands… we became friends with, I literally texted some members today, I can’t believe I’m talking to them online. I was listening to Birds In Row because I’m French, since I was 14 or 15, like 10 years ago. And now I literally talk to them! I’m such a fan, it’s so weird.
Dobbin: So upcoming, you’ve got your supporting Spaced, at least in London, right? And an album release show. Are there any other live things coming up?
Raquel: 2000 Trees and Unbroken in November for their 30th anniversary tour. That’s crazy as well, that the guitar player from Unbroken saw our message to support them in that gig!
Bea: We have Burn It Down festival and Manchester Punk Fest as well, as part of the Spaced tour.
Raquel: We will have good things coming up soon, keep your eyes peeled!
Dobbin: Would you like to make any shout-outs to your fellow bands in the scene today?
Bea: Shout out to Traidora, a new solo project that has expanded to a full band, punk, amazing.
Sal: Shout out to Nella. She only has one song out now. It’s called “Wind” on Spotify, which is going to have our first EP out soon. It’s sad indie pop rock project and they’re all queer, it’s really lovely and magical – it’s like fairy-core is is beautiful. And then shout out Trolls as well from Toulouse, they are a riot girl band from France. They’re really really cool. Live, they’re amazing. They don’t take shit from anyone, they will kick you out of the venue if you don’t behave properly, and they’re fucking sick. I love them so much.
Bea: Comeback Clit from Hastings. There are sisters from there, they’ve been there since day one. Of course there are more bands, but they don’t need really a shout out, they’re doing great, like Pupil Slicer, Death Goals, Pest Control, Stiff Meds, Out of Love, Going Off… the list could be very long!
Love & Rage is out and can be ordered here.