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It goes without saying that it has been a phenomenal twelve months for one of the UK\u2019s most up and coming acts; the one and only Don Broco<\/strong>. Their list of achievements is seemingly endless: having bagged a Top Ten spot in the mid-week Album Chart with\u00a0d\u00e9but\u00a0full-length \u2018Priorities,\u2019<\/em>not to mention the hype of their upcoming tour which, since the interview, has now sold out.<\/p>\n With so much more ahead of them, we caught up with front man Rob Damiani to chat about the tour, festivals, \u2018Priorities,\u2019<\/em>the “Broco walk” and who he thinks out of the band would last the longest in a push up contest; read on to find out!<\/p>\n Already Heard: Firstly, congratulations on your headline \u2018Priorities<\/em>\u2019 tour being so close to selling out! Your Underworld date sold out within minutes and your added Koko date in April has also sold out; when the idea of adding the extra London date was discussed and especially in such a prestigious venue as Koko, what were your first feelings?<\/strong> AH: You head out to play in February and then again in April, what is your top tip for being out on the road?<\/strong> AH: We can imagine you must need a lot of things to keep you busy travelling such long distances!<\/strong> AH: Good luck with that! We\u2019re slowly edging towards festival season now and it\u2019s all kicking off with brand new Radstock, with it being in its first year what are your expectations for the festival?<\/strong> AH: You played Rock City Basement at Hit The Deck Festival last year and you\u2019re headlining the festival this year; how does it feel to be asked back yet again and for this year to have moved so far up the line-up?<\/strong> AH: While we\u2019re on the subject of live shows it would be rude not to bring up your on-stage routines including the well known Broco walk; how did that all come about and who invented the “Broco walk”?<\/strong> AH: Arguably one of the most well received songs when you perform live has to be \u2018Thug Workout\u2019 where fans take to the floor to partake in push ups. You\u2019re always encouraging those brave enough to do as many as they can, but if the four of you were asked to do it yourselves who would last the longest?<\/strong> AH: We reckon so! Your record ‘Big Fat Smile’<\/em> saw you edging towards big things and then ‘Priorities<\/em>’ was released and it\u2019s arguably at that point when Don Broco really hit it off. How would you say your sound has progressed from ‘Big Fat Smile’<\/em> to ‘Priorities’<\/em>?<\/strong> AH: In terms of recent achievements, you were named \u2018Best New Rock Artist of 2012\u2019 by iTunes and Google Play made \u2018Fancy Dress\u2019<\/em> their first ever \u2018Single Of The Week.\u2019 On top of this and as previously mentioned you\u2019ve almost sold out your headline tour, you\u2019ve had a lot to celebrate recently. What does a Don Broco celebration involve?<\/strong> AH: When you first started the band back and you looked ahead into the future, what did you expect you would have achieved at this point?<\/strong> AH: Even just going through our conversations in this interview we\u2019ve established that both 2012 and now 2013 have been extremely successful for you as a band. What\u2019s your next aim?<\/strong> AH: Any final words?<\/strong> \u2018Priorities<\/em>\u2019 by Don Broco<\/strong> is out now on Search And Destroy Records<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Don Broco<\/strong> links: Website<\/a>|Facebook<\/a>|Twitter<\/a>|Youtube<\/a><\/p>\n
Rob: (laughs) Well at first you know, we thought can we really do this, can we pull this off? I mean Koko is probably one of our favourite venues: we got to play there earlier last year supporting Four Year Strong and it was probably one of the highlights of last year gig wise for us; so when the idea came up we thought straight away that would be amazing let\u2019s do it! When it had been discussed last year obviously it\u2019s booked for April, it\u2019s quite a way of so we were confident we could do it but you know we were still kind of excited and nervous; but then when it pretty much sold out in the first day we were just amazed so we definitely made the right decision!<\/em><\/p>\n
Rob: Erm, I would say keep busy because when you\u2019re doing long tours like this it can get quite boring in the van and you can start winding each other up which isn\u2019t always the best idea! Luckily we all get on pretty well but this is going to be the first time that we have an actual crew with us; so you know before it was pretty much just us with one or two mates acting as sound guy or whatever, but this time we\u2019ve got a proper tour manager and tech and stuff so it\u2019s going to be a full van for the first time which is going to be interesting, because we don\u2019t have the biggest van so it\u2019s going to be a little bit of a squeeze! Last tour we did, the hit of the tour was iPad Monopoly; it just really kicked things off I don\u2019t know why, we got really addicted to it and it definitely kept us busy!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Rob: Yeah I mean when we were actually writing \u2018Priorities\u2019 [the album] we had just the four of us in the van so we had space behind in the back, so we actually wrote the album while we were touring; but this time there\u2019s just no way we can fit anything in. We put more seats into the van so it\u2019s all going to be really squashed in the back, so we\u2019re going to have to find alternative ways to keep us interested!<\/em><\/p>\n
Rob: I guess even though it\u2019s the first year expectations are high in a way; we always have absolutely insane shows in Liverpool. The last two, three years actually we\u2019ve been lucky enough to play Liverpool Sound City Festival which has always been amazing and Hub Festival which is more sort of catered to rock acts; Young Guns played it, The Blackout did, We Are The Ocean and it was an insane line-up. I see this as taking place over that, I mean we know the venue well; the other bands are all great; it\u2019ll be a sick show. In fact we haven\u2019t played a show there in a while now so it\u2019s going to make it even more special!<\/em><\/p>\n
Rob: Yeah, amazing; last year I\u2019d say it was one of the highlights of the year because it was sort of one of the first festivals to kick things off really, now it\u2019s Radstock and Hit The Deck so yeah it\u2019s amazing. When we got the offer we were beyond happy you know, it was a crazy gig last time, the room was completely packed out and people were queuing up to get in the basement; I mean it isn\u2019t the biggest of rooms! So to get invited to go back and be in the main room headlining is just going to be insane. We got to play it on the last tour we did: we supported Billy Talent and that was our first taste of playing the big room in Rock City and we loved it! It was one of our favourite shows of the tour and well, Nottingham is pretty special because me and Matt [drummer] went to Uni there so every week we\u2019d be at Rock City you know, for one of their club nights or to see our favourite bands because it\u2019s such a hot spot for touring so we\u2019re massively stoked about that!<\/em><\/p>\n
Rob: (Laughs) Well we actually kind of argue about that amongst ourselves who came up with it! It\u2019s all a bit of a blur now because it basically started as a joke in practice and we\u2019re big fans of Prince. If you\u2019ve watched the ‘Purple Rain’ movie, they\u2019ve got sick moves and the rival band in the movie they\u2019re the winners when it comes to dance moves on stage. So we were into that and it was actually a couple of weeks before I think that we\u2019d gone to see Bruno Mars\u2019 live show, he had like a one off in London. We weren\u2019t really Bruno Mars fans before but we got invited to it and we went and we were just blown away by the live show and they\u2019ve got some sick moves as well; it just got us thinking in practice, laughing about having a joke and yeah that was one of the moves that came out of it. We thought we\u2019d try it out once at a local show for a laugh but it actually turned out well; it was actually the first time we\u2019d ever played \u2018Priorities\u2019 as well and the crowd went absolutely mental so we thought right, we\u2019re onto something and it\u2019s stayed in the live show ever since!<\/em><\/p>\n
Rob: Ooh that\u2019s a toughie! Erm I think if it\u2019s between us four, I\u2019m probably going to get told off by Tom for this because it\u2019s not nice being knocked out of the race that early, but I think Tom (<\/em>\u00a0Doyle – Bass)<\/em>\u00a0would be out there because he\u2019s quite lazy when it comes to the gym! Me, Simon (<\/em>Delaney – Guitar)\u00a0<\/em>and Matt (<\/em>Donnelly – Drums)<\/em>\u00a0I\u2019d say it\u2019d all be pretty even. I\u2019ve just been on a little holiday and I\u2019ve come back and asked Matt what he\u2019s been up to and he\u2019s been hitting the gym every day so he\u2019s in really good shape at the moment, so I\u2019d probably put my money on Matt! Plus he\u2019s a drummer as well; I guess it depends on whether it was before or after the show. If we have a competition can we do it after the show, and then I\u2019ll have a bit more of a chance than Matt because he\u2019d be tired after drumming?<\/em><\/p>\n
Rob: I\u2019d say it\u2019s a lot more thought out in the sense that with Big Fat Smile the tracks pretty much entered the studio as they were and we didn\u2019t really mess with them at all. With ‘Priorities’ it all came about pretty quickly, probably quicker than ‘Big Fat Smile’ actually because we sort of messed around and it took us a while to get that out, because we were too busy touring and didn\u2019t actually get down to writing songs. ‘Priorities’ was written really quickly but once we actually got in the studio we\u2019d given ourselves like a week of messing around with different instrumentation and trying things differently and reworking the songs. So I guess it\u2019s broader in musical terms because we got to try out different techniques with recording and all the songs have definitely got their own vibe; the production on them is all quite different which is nice and gives a lot of variation on the album and obviously with more tracks to work, with we got to cover more ground musically and lyrically so it\u2019s definitely a bigger selling record!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Rob: It\u2019s pretty simple really: all our mates round, a lot of drinking and normally a bit of a night out! When we found out the album result we were just over the moon. We\u2019d actually been out the night before because we had an album release show in London, we\u2019d all gone out afterwards. We\u2019d been woken up the next morning and I guess that was our first biggest achievement was ‘Priorities’ when we found out that it had gone in the Top Ten of the mid week UK Album Chart, which we weren\u2019t expecting at all! So we were all pretty hungover at the time but it sort of gave us a new lease of life! Then we had one night off to recover and then the next night we got our management to take us out to the Playboy club which we\u2019d never been to before; we thought if you\u2019re going to celebrate anytime, now is the time to pull out all of the stops and make a bit of a fuss of yourselves so that\u2019s what we did for that! It was pretty fun, I\u2019d definitely recommend it.<\/em><\/p>\n
Rob: It\u2019s hard to say really because I think when you start a band, you\u2019re serious about the band and the music; you\u2019re hungry for it you kind of want it all at once and everything always takes longer than you\u2019d expect. Even just writing the album, we started writing it I guess two summers ago, recorded after the summer, not last Autumn but the Autumn before that and then it took like half a year to get it out into the world; it\u2019s only now that people are really hearing it and it has spread through word of mouth, and through different outlets like you guys and written press that people are sort of really cottoning onto it now. So I guess looking back you know you can\u2019t really ask for any more than you\u2019ve got at the moment. Like we\u2019re plugging away to grow our fan base but I think if we\u2019d been told a year ago that the album would do so well we\u2019d have been pretty surprised. We\u2019d have loved to have hoped that it would have taken us this far but to have actually got there we\u2019re really happy!<\/em><\/p>\n
Rob: Well we\u2019d love to obviously play the festivals again, we had such a good festival season last summer and we\u2019d love to do more this summer but bigger stages, higher up slots would be great. Further down the line we\u2019d love to get out and tour more. We got our first taste of Europe last year supporting Young Guns and we loved it; it\u2019s given us a real taste for playing overseas as well. After this big UK tour what else is there to do really in the UK? You don\u2019t want to over play and kids getting bored! So we\u2019d love to get out and travel a bit really, that\u2019s a big goal of ours and spread the Broco word amongst the world!<\/em><\/p>\n
Rob: I guess we just want to thank everyone who has known about us before and helped get the word out about the album: played it to their mates; put it on at a party, because I think in recent months with the album that\u2019s what we\u2019ve noticed: people getting on board, getting in contact with us saying \u201cYeah my mate hooked me up and I love it,\u201d so yeah to all of the people supporting us big up yourselves and we\u2019ll see you very soon on tour!<\/em><\/p>\n