Alt-indie rockers The Vouchers answer some questions from Dom Smith at Soundsphere about their new album ‘Oyez’, creative inspirations, and more!
Hi guys, how are you today?
Lovely thank you, appreciate chatting with us.
What would you say the biggest challenges you are facing right now as a band are?
Mark Langston] In a way the band has been influenced and forged by the challenges we’ve faced, the whole plan has always been to channel the ups and downs into something focused, progressive, and positive. We’ve always revelled in taking the punches; it’s like putting a moving target in front of us. We’re all from that kind of a background, ‘no one wants to be in a band with you?’ fuck it then we’ll start our own then…. There’s always been a sense of the underdog challenger about us, and it’s always been an excellent motivator.
Matt Clifton] I second Mark’s comments, but many of these challenges are the nature of DIY music creation. Every aspect of recording, mixing, social media and design is done by the band. Whilst it gives us full creative control over the content, this single and album was made in a room with a couple of SM58s, not a studio. That is a challenge.
Thomas Brown] Bands seem to have all hit a bit of a moment with the state of music venues right now so it’s a bit of a slog getting noticed and getting gigs, kind of why we focused so much on recording this album as a bit of a manifesto. But the industry is always trending up or down, so you’ve got to develop a thick skin because it can get to you if you let it.
What have been some career highlights, so far?
ML] Playing an abandoned Georgian mansion on a freezing snowy night was pretty memorable; some local teenagers had commandeered the space, booked us off the back of hearing our first single Out of Service. Seeing a couple of hundred 17-year-olds wired on energy drink chuck themselves around what was an ornate dining room with huge fireplaces and fleur de lis plaster ceilings will probably stay with me for a while. It was so early in the foundations of the band it was a real moment of ‘people are really feeding of this, lets fucking keep this going’.
TB] We bumped into two lads from the same gig outside a pokey bar a year later who’d recognised us and approached us, they were likely barely at drinking age. They started their own band called ‘Black Santa’ and said we were their inspiration. I thought we sounded terrible that night ha, but they said we sounded immense!
MC] That mansion gig was certainly memorable. You could say The Pyramid Stage was a career highlight, but nothing quite hits like bashing out the classics with a few cans of Mirinda at practice.
Who are your biggest musical influences, at the moment, in 2024 – there are some lovely classic post-punk moments in the sound!?
ML] I think we draw influences from all sorts of places, music, writing, TV, visiting places. We’ve never really felt part of any scene, always very much outliers. We always try to sound like ourselves and although influence permeate things and are there to be heard we never try to be contrived and we always let things happen naturally, we’ve never stopped in practice and gone ’hold on lads this doesn’t sound like a Vouchers song’. I guess that’s reflected in the record, there’s so many different tones and influences coming through but ultimately what your hearing is a reflection of us and we love doing it. Which is a nice feeling.
TB] Following on from that, too many bands stay in one lane, doggedly sticking to genre conventions.
There is a proper cool Korean Pop Punk band I like called ‘Drinking Boys & Singing Girls Choir’. Great spirit, really agro but with great melodic sense. They remind me that we really take for granted how ingrained popular music is into UK culture and identity, to a point it feels a bit disposable and is waning a bit. You can really see they love what they do, and they go out and preach the gospel to anyone who will listen. I hope we come across carrying the same sort of energy.
MC] I think music influences indirectly, most of the releases I’ve enjoyed over recent years, be it from Big Thief, Quade, Miss Tiny or Yussef Dayes, has had little audible effect on what I play on drums, which remains a stumbling rehash of the placebo debut. However, I’ve found the energy and wit behind the live shows of my friend Hang Linton particularly inspiring… not that I’ll be channelling any theatrics from behind the kit.
Talk us through the inspirations and ideas that run through the new single, ‘Dead History’?
ML] Dead History was born out of a chord progression Matt and I were messing around with on his Harmonium, long before we started the band proper. The song has been the one we’ve worked on for the longest, adding layers and new elements, it’s always been a bit of a signature tune and the first we’d go to in practice.
We shot the video in a shut down Sports Direct in a crumbling shopping centre near where I live that’s just falling to bits because no one wants to rent it out anymore, and its just decaying like an epitaph. The song reflects this decline of a sense of familiarity, the retreat into the online world of our generation and the idea that our common History is evaporating and being replaced with an individual, modular existence. It’s a call for action really.
TB] I really liked this old demo of Dead History we have knocking about that Mark made way back at the start. The recording was really sparse and had the German Motorik Beat thing going, and these long droning guitar passages, quite eerie and spectral sounding. On the album recording me and Matt added a bit of percussive muscle to it whilst keeping that sort of throbbing (ooer missues) relentlessness that’s always been a key part of the song.
And on a wider level, the album, ‘Oyez’ as a whole?
ML] We’re all lads from ordinary backgrounds with day jobs, and our inspiration has always been channelling the everyday, whether that’s into something intense, critical, or fantastical. Although, some people think we’re a bunch of miserablists, there’s actually a hell of a lot of joy in the songs, a stoic pride in facing the challenges and sticking two fingers up to doubt and anxiety. There’s gallows humour and then there’s what we do, which is lost on a lot of people, there’s shades to our band that channel the absurdity of our daily lives, I’m cracking up a lot of the time I write songs for the band. ‘OYEZ!’ is a reflection of this contradiction.
TB] We’ve really changed over the past 7 years, from the sort of frantic intense cacophony you can hear on our early live EP to the more measured melodic tone on our more recent songs and the reworked material on the album.
I’d say TV Part 1 + Part 2 is the best example off the album, it’s the final track, a really straight-ahead stomper with weird melodic segues that then goes on to finish with the album with a sombre six minute dirge. It really brings all our mad and disparate ideas and influences together, kind of a prog Punk moment?
What creative things are inspiring you guys at the moment, outside of music, think movies, people and places for example?
ML] I’ve been spending more time at the cinema lately, there’s a really nice volunteer ran one in my hometown in an old Victorian theatre and they show some interesting stuff, British independent films and from all over the world, the dedication of the staff running it for the love of it in their free time whist juggling jobs and family is also inspiring.
MC] I don’t know if it’s inspiration so much as relief, but witnessing the seasons change from winter through spring to summer is a small but welcome consolation for living in a world of horrors.
How important is the live representation of the band – and that energy you bring?
ML] We always lay everything out on stage, every show we’ve played we’ve conjured up something unexpected and different form the last one and what you see is the real us, its fight or flight for us on stage. We played a show in Bristol recently that had a similar atmosphere to a bullfight.
TB] I know they’re kind of cancelled rock dinosaurs now but we’ve started developing that weird telepathic thing like The Who in their early years where we lock in and proper smash it. I literally get a big grin on my face on stage when it all comes together. It’s kind of embarrassing cos I lose all my composure.
MC] We are worth seeing live (chortle).
What is your message to supporters?
ML] Thanks for all the support, more to come soon and hopefully a few surprises inall.
TB] Go outside for goodness’s sake!
Is there anything you’d like to plug and promote before we finish?
New album and single of course! Its available on all the streaming platforms, check it out and hopefully we will be playing at the next village fete near you!…
