The Mercy House are one of the newer British metal bands on the scene recently and bring a fresh feeling to the rock and metal scene as a whole. We caught up with three of their members, Dany, Drew and Yam, at this year’s Download Festival, after a quite frankly, explosive accoustic set, to discuss new music, their set as a whole and their thoughts on the collapse of the local music scene.
Check out the interview below:
HTF: Hi how are you guys?
Dany – Doing good
Drew – Pretty raunchy
Dany – But very sober
HTF: That’s not very good for a festival
Dany – I know, but it’s brilliant, it’s the best way to play a gig man, with all your senses on
HTF – Well that’s true. So today you did just an acoustic set, whereas in the past your known for your heavier metal thing, how did an acoustic set go?
Drew – Oh I dunno, I would challenge anyone to do a heavier acoustic set than what we just did today.
HTF – I’m sure Jamie Lenman is putting down a challenge for that himself today.
Dany – We did acoustic, but nobody told us to tone it down so we… just… didn’t.
Drew – Yer we customised all the guitars so they looked like acoustics but they sounded heavier.
HTF – So it was similar really to a normal show?
Drew – Yer we got pretty pumped up.
HTF – How was the set in the end? Did you enjoy it?
Dany – It was fucking great man, it was rammed as well in there. You really couldn’t fit any more people in front of the Jaeger stage. I think we had the biggest crowd that you could have had there. It was unreal. We thought we were just going to be playing in front of just 40 people, clashing with Skindred and all, but it was just fucking rammed, it was insane. It was as much as you could have asked for at your first time at Download.
HTF – So carrying on with festivals, you just played Camden Rock and you’ve also got Bloodstock in a couple of months. So is this your favourite time of the year?
Dany – Well, I dunno, it’s just part of it. Its good fun, it’s just what we love to do.
Drew – Its good just to play along with whoever’s there you know. Just tear it up. We’re spreading the word at the moment; no one really knows who we are yet.
HTF – So yer, you’re not exactly new on the music scene, but you’re not that well known yet, and you just want to get your music out there.
Dany – Yer, I think to most people we’re still kind of new, which to be honest is still quite exciting for us because we still have to grab people’s attention.
Drew – Yer, you know we haven’t put a whole lot out there publicly so you’re going to try and grab us. But you know if you come and watch us you’re gonna get grabbed really fucking hard.
HTF – So is this sort of the time that you can be a bit more adventurous as such?
Drew & Yam – Yer definitely.
Dany – Well yer, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do anyway. We don’t like the idea of getting too comfortable with ourselves.
Drew – We don’t like playing out of the metal playbook dude. If you listen to about 95% of the bands here they’re going to all sound the same, and we’re not, and that can be both a blessing and a curse. Same old shit everywhere you look. Come and watch us, come down next time, and you’ll see what we mean.
Dany – Haha well you’re not going to get a better description than that, so you know.
HTF – Also, new music being released. You’ve just had ‘Conflict’ which has just come out. Is there more music on the horizon?
Dany – Well there’s far more. ‘Conflict’ is the first stage of what will become the second album, which is hopefully going to come out towards the end of this year, or beginning of next, so straight after this we’re going right back into the studio and keep tracking the album, so we’re going to keep messing with that and there’s some real hunger to show people what we’re capable of this time round. For us, a lot of people come up to us with the first album and told us that they liked it and they liked us. We’ve been around for about 4 or 5 years now so it’s an exciting time.
Drew – It takes a while to really find your sound. If you’re not ripping off someone else, it takes a while to find YOUR sound. we’ve found ours and we just want to show it to people, first time round we made an album, we were forced to do an album, we were happy with it but it’s time for a change. We’ve got new guys in, like Yam here on the drums or a new bass player (Mick) and we’re ready to fucking kill it.
HTF – So it definitely sounds like you’ve got a specific route that you’re following
Dany – That’s the plan definitely yer.
HTF – Just finally, recently there have been problems with the local music scenes in general, are you very much in support of trying to keep these scenes alive as you grow? Are you still going to try and focus on the smaller shows as well?
Dany – Dude, we’ve tried our best, but the biggest problem with the local scene is the bands themselves, there’s no fucking brotherhood of fans, there’s nothing. It’s like bands don’t want to stick out for each other, there’s nothing.
Drew – We’ve talked for years trying to stick with people and all you get are knives in your backs. Most people are complete cunts, and deserve it if they fall on their arse. That’s it, that’s the reality of it, and we’re happy to get behind anyone who wants to get behind us, and we’ll get behind them, and we’ll do it time and time again. But dude, people talk shit, and if it aint up to standard it doesn’t deserve to be there and that’s the problem, nothings up to standard. It’s easier to sit in your bedroom and stick some shit together, but it’s not too easy to do something that’s different.
HTF – So overall, are you having a great day?
Drew – Yer it’s been brilliant, it’s really nice.
HTF – So are you going to try and stay around for the weekend or do you have other plans?
Dany & Drew – Yer some of us are
Drew – We’ll just have to see what the hangovers like in the morning.
HTF – Well have fun.
Drew – Nah seriously man, been an absolute pleasure cheers.
