Hello! Who are we chatting to and what is your role in Damn the Maps?
Martin Green, singer and bass player.
Congrats on the release of the new album, Something Is Askew. Does the sound differ much from your previous album, Input Output?
Thanks. We are delighted with the way it’s come out. It is a little bit different to Input Output, yes. Nick’s guitars have gone much more down a Minus The Bear or Circa Survive kind of direction, with clever delays and layers that still sound like real guitars. This has freed up more room for the big bass fuzzes and an even more vocal-centric album than the last one. We recorded on a Neve console this time as well so sonically it is just what we wanted.
Would you rather be able to play any instrument in the world but unable to write decent song lyrics, or write amazing words for your songs but struggle to learn any instrument?
I would pick the former of those two somewhat unappealing scenarios so that I could at least continue to make music. If I could play any instrument in the world, I’d probably spend the rest of my life searching the world for all its instruments just to be sure that I could. Whereas, if I can no longer play an instrument but I’m a total wordsmith, there are no songs anymore, just beautiful poems.
What’s next on the cards for Damn The Maps?
The next thing for us is filming more videos. We tend to make a lot of videos for each album. We’ve just released our first video for the track Wrong, and we’re working on two more. Our next video involves us filming me doing as many fun things as possible. I’m confident that it will be one of the most fun music videos ever made.
DAMN THE MAPS’ new album Something Is Askew is out now. Catch their new clip or check out their archive of excellent videos and posters at damnthemaps.com.
