Liverpool has always been a city that breeds musical magic - where raw talent collides with ambition in the damp basements and backrooms of Merseyside's underground venues. The latest embodiment of this spirit arrives in the form of DBA!, a trio who are making their way from subterranean rehearsal spaces to festival stages with a sound that's chaotic, cathartic, and defiant.

"We are DBA! a collection of odd parts in the Liverpool scene that somehow crashed together and clicked into place," explains frontman Sam Warren, who handles vocals and guitar duties alongside bassist Jamie Lindberg and lead guitarist Josh Grant. The band's line-up is rounded out by Tom Rush on drums for live performances, with sound and lighting expert Ricky Crawford serving as their unofficial fifth member.

The band's start reads like a fever dream of Liverpool's nocturnal underbelly - their first creative space carved out beneath a nightclub where techno thundered overhead and roller skaters glided past unknowing. This unlikely genesis point would prove instrumental in shaping their sound and ethos.

"Starting out last year, we set out to build a small demo studio in the basement (literally in the drain) of a Liverpool nightclub," Warren recalls. "It was a bit of a mad location for us to choose, with a lot of funny looks from friends and fellow bands for our decision to rent the space, but we found there was something raw, and what was great about it was that it was a place for us to make a mess, to be as loud and as weird as we wanted, whenever we wanted."

This makeshift laboratory became the crucible for DBA!'s earliest experiments, with Warren describing surreal late-night sessions where they would "hide in our drain, playing for hours on end... loud, next to a sealife-themed section of the venue, which was usually full of hard techno heads, topless, eyes like piss holes in the snow."

It wasn't long before they discovered that directly above their underground lair sat Nan's House, a studio run by Sophie Ellis, an engineer Warren had long admired. This serendipitous revelation led to the recording of several tracks, embodying what Warren poetically describes as "the seemingly chaotic progression of things that always tend to come together."

The band's evolution from there has been swift and decisive. Their debut single 'sinkorswim' emerged in late 2023, quickly followed by 'Whisky' and 'D.P.D.' - each release showcasing an increasingly focused vision of guitar-driven urgency paired with introspective depth. Now, with their debut EP 'skip! worried', DBA! are ready to present their first proper statement.

"I've described our EP, 'skip! worried' as a snapshot of that moment when everything goes up in flames, and you're inside the wreckage, watching it all burn," Warren explains. "A deep cut from a world slipping through my fingers. It's about addiction, escape and the sick wrongful sort of freedom that comes from sinking further into your own shit."

The raw honesty in Warren's words reflects DBA!'s artistic touchstones - they cite influences like Eels, Beck, and Elastica, but their appreciation is broad. "I suppose it isn't as much about the sound, but I like artists like those you mention, and Sparklehorse, Silver Jews, Daniel Johnston, The Fall - to name some more," Warren reflects. "Those artists' work feels like you've just stumbled across something messy and fractured. There's a tension in their music that I gravitate towards."

This concoction manifests throughout DBA!'s work, creating what Warren hopes listeners will experience as "the tension between destruction and euphoria." His aspirations for audience response are equally direct: "I guess the best reaction for someone to have about the EP is that it made them dance, it made their day a little darker, or a little brighter. Somebody to say this sounds like the end of the world, but I just can't stop dancing."

In curating their EP's tracklisting, Warren emphasises the importance of natural flow and emotional resonance: "I try to keep a bit of chronological narrative, I suppose, but really the fact that at heart I am just a music lover, way above being a 'musician', who loves to listen to records front and centre." This approach reflects their commitment to creating work that speaks to "normal people who just like to listen to music. Those people are the most important to me."

The band's rise coincides with a particularly interesting period in Liverpool's musical underground. Warren, though quick to distance himself from what he calls "the Scouse tribalism thing," acknowledges the city's rich creative ecosystem: "Merseyside is a great place to cut your teeth in as a young musician; it's a great part of the world to be from, to live in, to form ideas around."

He points to venues like Kazimier Stockroom, Quarry and Commune as vital incubators for local talent, while highlighting acts such as "Gladness, European Taxis and Hunky Dory" and "Beija Flo, Two Blinks, I Love You, Nil00, Bill Nickson, and Broken Down Golf Cart" as criminally underappreciated peers in the current wave of Merseyside creativity.

Looking ahead, the band's ambitions are in sustainable growth rather than meteoric rises. "Slow life is the new rock'n'roll, and you heard it here first," Warren muses. As DBA! prepare to take their sound beyond the city limits - with dates confirmed at London's Shacklewell Arms and Signature Brew, Bristol's Outertown Festival, and Rotterdam's Left of the Dial Festival - they remain grounded in the ethos that sparked their formation. Warren, currently balancing band duties with impending fatherhood, captures this moment of transition: "I'm buried under an amalgamative pile of unfinished mixes, muslin clothes, song ideas, emulsion paint and slow cooker recipes. And loving it."

It's this embrace of chaos and the ability to find beauty within it that makes DBA! such a compelling proposition. As Warren puts it, describing both their music and perhaps their entire approach to existence: "It's about the mess I've made. It's me trying to figure out who I am and what I am doing, and most of the time, failing spectacularly. Like most people, it's full of contradictions."