Preview: Appetite for destruction?

You know Bristol’s Celtic mayhem merchants Sheelanagig? Well, imagine they’ve crashed into a brass band and then been thrown onto a stage to make sense of the consequences and you just might get an inkling of The Destroyers, the 12-strong Balkan breakdown collective from Birmingham coming to The Exchange to celebrate the coming of Spring. Trumpeter Aaron Diaz says the band are always pleased to head off Bristolwards down the M5 :

“Oh yes, we’re really up for playing in Bristol – we always have a great time with you people!”

Aaron Diaz blows his own

Born from a Balkan music pub session in Birmingham some ten years ago, the band’s reputation for instrumental wizardry and on-stage chaos made them an instant festival sensation, with Radio 6’s Steve Lamacq describing them as “The sort of rogues who would take you out for a night, fill you full of mead, strip you to your underwear and then tie you to a lamp-post” while Songlines described their 2009 debut album as “a blow-your-mind original… Minimum pretence and maximum style: Out Of Babel is a sophisticated tour de force.”

So what exactly is it that they do? Aaron explains: “Well originally the most succinct tagline we could come up with was turbo-folk-thrash-pop-punk-poetry-fancydress’orama, which just just rolls off the tongue. The thing is, every member of the band has brought their own bag of musical tricks into the band sound. We’ve got players of African Kora, traditional Irish Uillean pipes, Second Line brass band music, contemporary Celtic folk, Flamenco, Jazz Manouche, live Dubstep orchestral arrangements….it all finds its way in somewhere, hopefully. I think ‘megafolk mentalism’ sums it up best!”

Taking it lying down

Last year the band released their Licence to Sing EP and there’s a new album in the pipeline for the summer of 2017. How does such a high-energy live outfit fit into a recording studio?

“There’s definitely a different process for us in recording music than performing it. Capturing the raucous atmosphere of our live set in a recording studio takes some jiggling, and 40 to 60 minutes of  mad dancing mayhem is a tall order to fill an album with. On a recording, there is more light and shade, we’ve got some slower, more colourful tunes and arrangements. Recording gives us the opportunity to try something that would not fit into a 30-minute festival barnstormer.”

So what are the Destroyer’s plans for the summer? Not very surprising, really …

“We’ll be bothering some venues in April & May to warm up, then it’s the festival season, of course. After that we’ll put out the album and head off on a release tour through August and September.”

The Destroyers appear at the Valley Fest Spring Fling at The Exchange on Friday March 24th with support from Brass Junkies