Wigan band, Dirty Circus, return with a point to prove and reveal name of new single
We’ve got Binns, frontman of the band with us. Alright man, how’s it going?
Good mate, just trying to adjust to this new world we live in as well as trying not to drink too much.
You guys have recently, over the year or so returned to the scene after a long time away. What made you come back and how would you compare the music scene now to how it was then?
Long story shortish...after we split from Sony we carried on for a few years but all wasn’t well within the band and cracks had started to show and we split in 2010. Even though we we’re all best friends the heartbreak of the split with Sony caused us to start blaming each other. We didn’t speak with each other for 8 years pretty much but there may of been an occasional text etc. Then in 2017 Stevie invited us all to his wedding and 3 of us decided to go and as soon as we saw each other we realised that the magic was still there. We decided to book a rehearsal room and see what happened, I contacted the other 2 lads they didn’t want to do it so we moved on as a 4 piece. Soon as we started playing we knew we wanted to play some shows again we had unfinished buisness. We booked a comeback show at the Old courts and sold it out it was only meant to be 1 show but because of the reaction we decided carry on.
The music scene now is completely different, it’s not enough to just be a musician anymore you’ve got to be so many other things. If you want to be successful, social media manager, record label owner, video director etc it’s great in the way that you don’t need to have a big label to release a record but it’s more difficult to really make a mark if you don’t know all the other stuff. But at the same time there’s always new music to listen to and new bands coming through. I just wished a few more of them would get the credit they deserved.
It’s mad how when we originally came through all it was about was finding a label now you can run your own label from a phone.
A real shame it didn’t work out with the label though isn’t it. Why do you think that was?
Yeah mate it just wasn’t the right time. Labels were losing so much money especially the big ones. Mad thing is we had our pick, we met with 6 labels 4 majors and 2 big indie labels. We could of picked any but unfortunately we chose wrong. If we would have had a manager in place before signing I reckon we would of signed elsewhere.
The Suzukis were on Deltasonic during their career and Moco we're well liked on the scene so Wigan bands were being looked at it seems.
Every band wants to sign to a major (in theory) but so many smaller labels do well now, Modern Sky are doing well with the bands they have on their roster. Are they a label you will approach?
We are good friends with Pichilingi who runs the label. We nearly signed to him and his previous label Robot.
The plan was to get the record off Sony and put it out on Robot. So Pichilingi paid for us to go to Wales for a week to record B-sides.
We recorded ‘Middle class masterclass’ on those sessions but couldn’t get the masters for the record in time and due to this it didn’t get released on Robot.
You mentioned interest from other labels, any stories about that?
When we were signed , Atlantic offered us a pretty big US deal including publishing. We turned it down because we were told Sony wanted us to sign a global deal with them so we missed that boat as well. It’s mad, I genuinely think we were cursed!
During the time you were signed to a major label like Sony, how was it? What positives have you taken from that experience?
It was mad really everything happened so quickly we had only been together 6 months with that line up we didn’t have a manager or anything and we started getting label attention. It was weird, after the first label reached out to us it felt like a different label was in touch everyday and were gradually getting bigger and bigger. It got to the point where we were playing small shows and people from Sony or Parlophone were pretty much the only people in the crowd, in-fact once we played a small festival on the back of a wagon in Ribchester which is near Preston and there was A&R from Sony there. We were all pretty intoxicated as we had been drinking all day and we pretty much told him to fuck off because we thought he was lying. Mad really, it got to the point where we had spoke to pretty much all the major labels and quite a few of the big indies.
Being signed was amazing at first. We got to quit our jobs and got paid for pretty much rehearsing and writing all day, it was the dream. We had all come from working class backgrounds and had that work mentality so we treated it as we would a normal job. We had a rehearsal room just outside Manchester City center and we would practice Monday to Friday 9ish till gone 6 everyday and learnt a lot in that time. I think it stands us in good stead today, we just fit together now we all know each other as musician and know exactly what each other are thinking on stage. We could go weeks between proper practices but as soon as we play it’s like we’ve been playing everyday.
In regards to our experience, like I said, it was amazing at first all our dreams had come true but it started to become frustrating. At about 8 months in, before we signed, we had a huge amount of momentum. Labels were all over us. We were selling all our show’s out, our MySpace (remember that) was going mad at one point we were getting about 600/700 plays a day which at the time was huge. We were playing every week, sometimes twice. We had just been mentioned in NME as part of the radar page and clash magazine had named us ones to watch. Then we signed the deal and the label told us to stop playing live and spend the next 6 months writing our album with the promise they would put everything behind us when we’ve finished the album. That completely derailed all the momentum we had built. We stopped booking shows and spent everyday writing and we wouldn’t see anybody from the label for months, when we did they would tell us yeah we’re speaking with producers about the album. At one point it genuinely looked like we were recording the record with Butch Vig in the US, well that’s what we got told. We had started to look at visa’s and stuff but then that went quiet. We had a manger at this point it was Phil Saxe who had managed the Happy Mondays and worked for Factory for years but he was appointed by Sony so he had his hands tied. Anyway, it got that bad we started to book some shows on the sly and we booked ‘in the city’ not on the main stage but one of the fringe shows we smashed it and had another raft of labels approaching us asking what’s the deal with Sony. We even got named as one of the acts of the festival by Clash Magazine. We hoped this would give Sony the kick up the arse they needed but it wasn’t. It’s key to mention, this was the mid noughties and illegal downloading and counterfeit Cd’s where rife. There was no Spotify or Apple Music and the labels were losing huge amounts of money. Sony had just put out kasabians second record and lost a huge amount of money on it . We had heard that a few our our label mates had been offered settlements to terminate there contracts, The Go Team and infact Primal Scream. So the label had started to cull less profitable bands. We had a meeting and got told they were still happy with us and to keep preparing the record so we cracked on for another 3 months but nothing happened and we still weren’t playing regularly. It was then we got an offer.
3 or 4 months after we left, Mani asked us to go and play a show he had put on. We played and the same A&R guy we told fuck of back in Ribchester who we had since become friends with came to watch us. He’d lost his job as part of the cuts and he told us that one of the reasons the label initially signed us was because they saw us a threat to Kasabian who were also on Sony and they wanted to keep us out the hands of other labels.
Which looking back made sense because early on in signing us they started asking us to write some ballads etc which we thought was strange.
Definitely seen the highs and lows of being on a label there. If you were in a new band starting out now, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give them? And also looking back, would you do anything differently?
Trust your own instinct definitely and don’t rush it. Wait to make the right decision and don’t get blinded by the lights. The music industry was a different beast back then it wasn’t as easy to put your own stuff out streaming services were in their infancy as was social media and you needed a label to release music properly. Just take your time and release your own music and don’t get obsessed with getting a label you don’t need them anymore you’ve got google.
The one thing I will say though is gig as much as you can, don’t refuse shows big or little even if it’s in someone’s back garden, play it. That’s why we got signed because we played everything, 2 or 3 gigs a week but never really got any money. We did it for the love of it and the crowds just got bigger and bigger.
Would we of done anything different, yeah we would of taken our time and not rushed. We got blinded by Sony a little before we signed. They sorted us a manger and took us to loads of fancy London parties and paid for everything. It was amazing but it was all just buttering us making sure we didn’t go elsewhere and it worked at the time we had the pick of the labels indies, majors, big indies the lot. We should of listened to what they had to say but we got blinkered. It could of been a completely different story if we would of given one of the other labels the time.
Great advice that but you make a important point about the strength of social media and labels not necessarily being as important as they were. Though there are some good ones about especially indie labels. I do believe in gigging as much as bands can, obviously do your research first and network with bands from other towns first maybe.
Can we talk about your new material? How’s that sounding? And also how much are you releasing and how are you going to about it?
Yeah it’s sounding really good mate. We’re super happy with it. We were always more experimental and been influenced by more than just guitar music. We loved dance music, hip hop, garage etc back in the day. We had a huge set up with loads of analog synths and drum machines only problem was we never really worked out how to use them properly so we were limited and never really got to the sound we wanted.
In a weird way though it worked and give us a kind of rawness at the time.
The difference is now in 7 or 8 years we were apart I got more into the electronic side of music through the likes of four tet, Jamie xx, SBTRKT. So I decided to buy a MacBook with logic and teach myself how to use it with the aim of doing something on my own. In that time I wrote and wrote learning more and more how to use it properly. I never planned on doing anything solo and when we reformed I had a raft of ideas to take to the lads. I wasn’t sure how it would translate with the lads because it was a lot more routed in Dance music with loads of samples and more modern drum patterns but they litterally lapped it up. We managed to build songs really quickly and I’d say we sound more Dirty Circus now than we did when we recorded the first record.
We’re going to release our first proper new music in over 10 years in August. We’re putting it out on our own label ‘Clap it off’ and we’re hoping we can do a video etc. It’s an absolute summer banger hugely influenced by Chicago house and punk rock! With the new stuff, I always say imagine Jonny rotten on ecstasy in the hacienda. The plan is to do it old skool like a lot of the late 90’s bands we are into and do the single with 3 or 4 remixes on it and here’s a world exclusive...it’s called SUNSHINE.
After that we’ve basically got another 5 songs in various stages of mixing but the plan is to do another single after this then put everything together for an EP.
Unfortunately, everything costs money so things don’t move as fast as they would do if we had a label behind us but we’ll get there.
We’ve got a point to prove and that’s what we want to do with these songs.
Well, there you go people...some exclusive news! I love the sound of that though the Johnny Rotten comparison. Is the songwriting process much different to how it was back then?
Not really just a bit more advanced plus there’s only 4 of us now as opposed to 6 back in the day. It’s usually starts with a synth line or drum machine loop then we build it up from that although we have loads of samples and loops we still structure the song pretty traditional. A little secret...we got a deal and we didn’t have any verse lyrics to the songs! I used to make them up every gig and freestyle them. We had choruses that were always the same and a melody but I genuinely used to make the verses up on the spot.
That’s mad innit, but you got away with it and was enough to impress people.
You’ve told us so much about the band and the stories of the highs and the lows of the band.
We’re gonna end on some quick fun questions...
What venue would you love to play?
Wherever you could fit as many people as possible. Not bothered as long as there is 60k+ people watching.
id like to do a massive hometown show in Wigan at the DW or something.
Streaming or Vinyl?
Streaming
If you could gig with any band (alive or dead) who would it be?
It’s difficult, but probably peak Happy Mondays, around 89-90 era.
Facebook or Twitter?
I’m personally more Instagram, but out the 2 Facebook, just.
Thanks for taking the time to chat to us, we’ve learned so much about the band!
Thanks for everything mate. Thanks for all the support over the last few months mate.
