It’s no shock to any regular reader of this parish that your good mates at Dork are big fans of Brighton noise-rock upstarts DITZ. You may recall – or indeed have attended – the sold-out launch show we helped present to you ‘the other night’ in London. A launch show for what, you ask? Well. Let us furnish you with ‘the deets’.
The band are “delighted” to announce they’ve inked with indie mega-label Alcopop! Records, and are releasing a new single ‘Total 90’. Today!
“This song touches on the general public’s reaction to LGBTQ+ individuals on a day to day basis, both positive and negative,” explain the band of the new track, which follows on from 2019-best-of-list-banger ‘Gayboy’. There’s more to come too for 2020. With that in mind, we got hold of vocalist Cal and guitarist Jack to get better acquainted.
When did you first realise you wanted to make music?
Cal: I was probably about 9/10.
Jack: I can remember getting bollocksed in like Year 1 for using some other kids pencils as drumsticks and breaking them on my desk.
Is being in a band living up to the hype so far?
Cal: Totally! I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than travelling around and playing shows.
Jack: Yeah, it’s amazing. We’ve seen most motorways in the UK, eaten at some of the best Road Chefs that the motorways have to offer, we got stopped for apparently trying to smuggle people over the border at Calais, and we’ve played some shows in-between.
Give us the tl;dr of your time together?
Cal: It bears a resemblance to a modern-day Breakfast Club, combined with a Spinal Tap-esque drummer situation, except none of them are dead.
What’s your songwriting approach like, how do you go about it?
Jack: Just like every other band, it’s nothing special. We’ve recently started trying the whole ‘jamming’ in the same room recently – it’s never worked. The last time we tried it we began with a Basic Bitch bass and drum thing that ended up evolving into what was basically a crap Andy Kaufman song.
What are you working on at the mo?
Cal: We’re working on a few things.
Are you creative in non-musical ways too?
Cal: Maybe, but in a less direct way. We’re all very conscious of different forms of visual art without actually putting pen to paper. For example, with our new video, we worked very closely with the director Jay to develop the subtext throughout.
Jack: Yeah, the video for ‘Total 90’ (coming soon) is one where we got onto the topic of how insane it is that there are barely any male footballers that have came out as LGBTQ in the history of football, and we began questioning that and why it was so different in other sports. Especially those that can be seen as being more ‘masculine’.
It’s fantastic that there are now a fair few initiatives set up to support LGBTQ footballers and sports players.
If you could pick one guaranteed career achievement for Ditz – anything you like – what would it be and why?
Cal: It’d have to be to still be together in at least 30 years’ time touring around, probably looking like a really bad pub skittles team by then, playing music, showing no matter how bad your band sound or might look together you can still get away it.
Which bands and musicians do you think are doing particularly exciting things in music rn?
Cal: Lice, Sleep Eaters, Street Sects, Pom Poko… honestly, this could just be a list of bands we’ve played within the last 12 months.
Do you have big plans for 2020?
Cal: Hopefully more touring!
