Interviews

A Quick Chat With More Than Conquerors

• 20th Feb 2015

Northern Irish natives More Than Conquerors will release their first single of 2015 via their own label, Oil Tape Records. We caught up with bassist Danny Morton from the band recently to talk about ‘Red’ which comes out on 2nd March.

When we first started playing music…
We knew it was right. It was the musician version of ‘love at first sight’, and I think the fact we’re still together at this point after all we’ve been through together is testament to that.

If we had to choose a new name for the band it would be *insert name* because…
I’m not so sure we could pick one. We were presented with this issue early on and we decided to keep what we had. Danny, Jamie and I all live within 2 miles of each other where as Kris lives 20 miles south of Belfast so we would sometimes joke and call ourselves Kris Platt and the Newtownabbey three, so maybe we would end up settling on that.

We knew we were on to something when…
For me it was when I heard Kris playing and singing one night at some open mic, acousticy type thing; and as he was playing I knew that this kid of 17 or 18, at the time, was oozing with talent. And from being in a band with the other 2 before, I was aware of their abilities as musicians so I knew we’d came across something very special.

Our biggest non-musical influences are…
Each other, our friends, our family, our experiences and our beliefs. Everything we’ve done up to this point in our lives has influenced us and who we’ve become. Our music is a reflection of all these things. It’s a reflection of who we are. Lyrically and instrumentally. I think our style of playing can often reveal a bit of our character; whether it’s Danny’s playful lead lines or Jamie’s relentless punchy drums, we seem to play our instruments in a way that reveals who we are.

We’re most proud of…
Each other. We’ve put 6 years in to this band and it has tested us greatly. Yes, we’ve had to make sacrifices and yes we’ve made mistakes, countless times, but we’ve always pulled through. And we all have our parts to play in each success. We make a pretty good team. On top of that, we’ve grown immensely in the 6 years we’ve been together. Our songwriting has matured, we’ve learned a lot more about production, and the industry in general. We’ve still got a bit to learn but we’ve come a long way!

Our ideal support slot would be…
This answer would change depending on who you ask. Ultimately, it’s somewhere between Metallica and a live performance of Disney’s The Lion King! At the minute though I think we’d definitely all be up for supporting Queens of the Stone Age. Their last record was incredible. A couple of the guys got to hear it last summer at a festival in Belfast but I was setting up DJ equipment at the time for the after party and couldn’t make it. I did manage to catch a bit when I went outside for a smoke but it wasn’t the same as being there. And they made sure to tell me that.

Something we haven’t achieved yet which we’d like to is…
Arena tour maybe? There’s still a lot we want to achieve but in no way would we look back and think we’ve done nothing. We’ve picked up fans from the Scottish Highlands to Austria. We’ve been played on radio 1 by various DJ’s and we’ve played a major festival in the UK, and supported Jimmy Eat World and Dinosaur Pile Up, two of my favourite bands. We’ve ticked a lot of boxes so far that, as a kid, I never thought I’d do.

Our favourite place to hang out is…
If you just put all 4 of us together in a van we’re happy. We love so many places it’s hard to pick one that we all love equally, so if we have the van we can go anywhere. But, if I really really had to choose I would pick Belgium. Great food, great beer, great people! We want for nothing when we’re there. Usually thanks to Gino and Claudine who treat us like their own family while we stay with them. By the time we get to Belgium we’re usually in need of a good wash and some TLC and we find both there.

We can’t stop listening to…
The sound of Jamie living. Jamie doesn’t do silence. He always has something to say and if, on that rare occasion, he doesn’t he usually fills the void with the sound of bodily functions. It sounds gross and annoying but we’d honestly miss it if he weren’t there.

We’re not ashamed to admit that…
See above? .. Want more? Kris was a ballroom dancer as a child, Jamie took horse riding lessons as a child, my moustache was terrible as a child and still is, or that we’re all friends with Danny. We’re not really ashamed to admit anything.

If we could wave a magic wand and make anything in the world happen it would be…
It’s hard not to bring money in to that because although I hate money and how necessary it is to do things and how it can change people, it would be a means to us building our recording studio to the best possible spec, making us more independent and productive and also taking us all over the world. So I think us being millionaires would be my answer. However, we aren’t the kind of guys who like sports cars and stupidly big houses so we’d also find various means of using the bands profits for other worthwhile projects.

Someone you might not have heard of that you should check out is…
From Indian Lakes, As Cities Burn, Wintersleep, MeWithoutYou, Dinosaur Pile Up…I could go on. But a more local band that we took great influence from when we started out are SixStarHotel. Unfortunately, they’re no longer still making music together but if you do a bit of research on them you’ll see what they’re all at now and they’re still very active and very awesome.

Catch us next…
Our next show is in London (the first show of our tour), but if you check out our website or our Facebook they’ll keep you up to date with where we’ll be next.

27/02/15 – London, Garage
01/03/15 – Glasgow, Nice N Sleazy
07/03/15 – Liverpool, Blade Factory
11/03/15 – Belfast, Limelight 2
16/03/15 – 22/03/15 – Austin, Texas – SXSW Festival

http://www.morethanconquerors.co.uk