"A Message Like A Blunt Instrument!" Clash Meets TV Priest
Frontman Charlie Drinkwater on releasing their new album in a plague year...
There are not many bands whose name doubles up as a pretty apt description of their musical style, but* TV Priest*, whose singer Charlie Drinkwater rants and raves commandingly over his band’s breathless post-punk attack, do indeed sound like a bunch of bug-eyed televangelists. “All the things that those televised sermons are – frustrating, angry, a bit humorous, strange… it felt like the music was kind of doing that as well,” laughs Charlie when the comparison is put to him, “There was a knowingness to it, to the way that the songs were coming out and the way that I was singing.”
Rather than religious invocations, however, the group’s lyrics deal rather specifically with the trials and tribulations of modern British life, from seeping nationalism and dwindling arts budgets to the ubiquity of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. “I think I was really conscious that I wanted to communicate in a relatively straight up and honest way,” he muses, “I’ll stay this stuff to my friends in a pub, when we could go to the pub, but felt like, why would I try to obscure this or abstract this in my art? Why aren’t I just speaking about this?”
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There’s a track on their new album ‘Uppers’ titled ‘Journal Of A Plague Year’ which, incredibly, was actually written in late 2019 after guitarist Alex Sprogis read the Daniel Defoe book of the same name. “We thought ‘What would this be like if it happened now and would our leaders get it so wrong?’ And then it fucking happened and it was fucking horrible!”
Charlie explains, “We had couple of weeks where we thought we shouldn’t put that song on, but it’s about the absolving of responsibility in leadership, which broadly matched up with what we felt was happening. Also sometimes it’s good not to feel super confident in everything that you’ve put together, to have that discomfort or disquiet in a piece of work. This record is a flawed statement in a lot of ways, because we’re flawed people!”
Songs like this and ‘This Island’, about the divisions caused by Brexit, are emblematic of the band’s willingness to eschew timelessness and make a record that dates. “I was very conscious of not trying to make a last will and testament, but something that feels prescient. Perhaps in two years, four years, ten years it won’t anymore, but can at least transport a listener to a time and a place. A lot of my favourite records do that.”
And, though there is political anger peppered through the record, there are far more cheers of joy than sneers of judgement. “The anger is a bit of a feint. It’s a useful emotion because it delivers a message like a blunt instrument. But it’s also the case that the anger on the record isn’t always sincere, but rather a tool to dress up abstractions or be humorous or, hopefully, inject hope.”
The innate joy of TV Priest comes, in part, from its inception as an excuse for the four childhood friends to hang out and reconnect musically, or, as Charlie puts it, “To carve out a time and a space to just be friends with each other again, because we are all a bit older and have more responsibilities. And like in any friendship, whether forged through sport or walking or kite-flying or whatever, those activities become deeply embedded. I can say things to those guys when we’re playing together that I couldn’t dream of saying when just having a drink round their house! You access another part of yourself that maybe even your partners or other friends don’t know about.”
The group’s shared musical history (“15 years head start on everyone!”) proved to be a real blessing, as it cut out the typical initial period of working out one another’s musical tastes, allowing them to get on recording their debut album and finishing it right before COVID-19 hit. “We finished the final song the last day I went into London - March 16th just as the first address was on the TV saying, ‘Don’t go to pubs but we’re not closing them’. Nick (Smith, bassist) sent me the mix of the last song ‘Saintless’ and it was like ‘Right, I think that’s the album is done!’”
Since then their experience has been rather surreal, sitting at home unable to tour while their singles gained more traction, until eventually ‘Uppers’ was picked up for release by a certain legendary Seattle label. “We met Sub Pop on a Zoom call and they offered us a record deal for this album,” he recalls, “And then I closed my laptop and went and played with my son! There were no traditional reference points for what you imagine it would feel like getting signed as a band.”
Whether they will ever get to tour this album or merely continue to be a promising band that exists in “the meaningless void of the internet” is something Charlie tries not to spend too much time worrying about. “We have got dates in the diary and the plan is to go out and play as soon as possible. Another reason why we formed the band was to go out and play with people. It’s an elaborate way of getting into gigs for free! In the absence of that we’re writing, writing, writing, mainly because I think it keeps us well. We’re artists. What do artists do? We create art.”
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'Uppers' is out now.
*WHAT:* Four old friends ripping out high-energy post-punk
*WHERE:* London
*3 Songs:* ‘Press Gang’, ‘Slideshow’, ‘Saintless’
Words: *Josh Gray*
Photography: *Dan Kendall*
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