South London band Milk Disco have worked with the likes of Rex Orange County and Frank Ocean, and are currently exploring their very own brand of wonky pop. Matt R (vox) Dan (guitar) Matt M (drums) Gianluca (synths) and Sacha (bass) introduce their band.
When did you first realise you wanted to make music, what did you grow up listening to?
Dan: When I was 7 I discovered the Blur video ‘Coffee and TV.’ I was obsessed with it, and would search the music channels for it. I adored the song, and the video is beautiful. Until then, I saw musicians as otherworldly. At the end of the ‘Coffee and TV’ video, it cuts to a shot of the band playing in a basement. They looked so normal; I thought, “Oh, I want to do that’. Six months later I started playing guitar.
How did you meet, and who made the first move when it came to getting together?
Matt R: The band started with just myself and Dan initially playing around with drum machines and bass loops. We were recording some demos and put them up on SoundCloud, we played a few shows as a two-piece and met each other at different shows through our close friends, it all came together really quickly.
How has your sound developed so far?
Matt M: Before I joined the band, Matt R and Dan had been using a drum machine for a couple of months. The songs they’d written were great, but I think the lack of live drums and bass was slightly limiting, as it makes it hard for the songs to vary structurally and dynamically. When I first joined, I tried to mimic the drum machine, which was fine but I think the natural groove of the songs was missing. However, over the past year, I feel we’ve really developed the songs Matt and Dan started out with, and they fit in well with the newer material we’ve worked on as a band. With regards to how our sound has developed, I think we are moving away from the ‘indie’ sound and towards a more ‘dancey’ aesthetic. One of our newest tracks entitled ‘I Want to Feel Close to You’ takes a lot of influence from house and disco and is unlike anything we’ve written before.
