5 Questions with...

Jim Davies of VICTORY PILL
www.victorypill.com

1. If I knew absolutely nothing about Victory Pill, how would you describe the group’s music to me?
-- Its groove based electronic rock!! i think its got quite a dark edge to it, im a big fan of the later depeche mode albums which had that feel, like 'Ultra.' We tried to make the album diverse so it wasn't all 'balls out rockers' like the intro tune 'Downfall' which is a great track to open the album, it was important to have tracks like 'king and country' and 'salvo' which show a different side, as well as a few instrumentals, as we are all into our dance music and wanted to have a few tunes on the album that represented that.

2. If I were to buy your new self-titled album, what songs should I pay particular attention to and why?
-- i think my favorite 3 are 'King and country' 'Worst case scenario' and 'Another clone' they sum up the album and band well as each is quite different musically and represents the albums depth musically.

'King and country' is very electronic with very little guitar really for me! quite anthemic, where as 'Worst case' is one of the most 'live' sounding tracks on the album, it has live drums all the way though and is more punk sounding that other tunes on the album. 'Another clone' also sums us up well, i love music with big groove based riffs and 'Another clone' is one of them for sure! It always goes down well live, a real headbanger! probably the most personal song lyrically on the album. Below is an outline of the songs lyrically meanings.

King and Country: ive always been fascinated by both world wars, in particular how the men didn't give a seconds thought to joining up to defend our country,
especially in world war 1, i think that sort of patrioticness is almost frowned upon these days, i cant see the youth of england putting down their ciggies and xbox's for any cause! its amazing to think how young the soldiers were as well. 'king and country came about after i found out at a family get together that both my great grandads were gassed at the somme, both never recovered and suffered awful health for the rest of their shortened lifes, that really inspired me lyrically for the song. i wanted to get across in lines like 'question not what your told, they know best,soon be home' the complete blind faith most of the men
had in their incompetent generals, also 'forget your name, won't be missed' was meant to reflect the utter waste of life that occurred especially at that battle. I think its seen as pretty uncool of our generation to give a toss about what happened back then, but we should. The chorus 'Give my liberty to fight your enemy, i'll follow you to the end..its all for king and country' - was meant to show the absolute faith the men had in the cause and unfortunately their leaders.

Worst Case Scenario: anyone who has been in the music business for a while has probably had alot of ups and downs to say the least! i got introduced to it very young. The song is basically about getting to that point where you've
been let down and lied to so much that instead of thinking positively about things you plan for the 'worst case scenario' so you dont end up disappointed i've been there and its not good, when you first get in a band you-re full of enthusiasm for music and forget about the dark industry side of things!! ive been in bands that have been shafted and dropped and it made me quite twisted about the whole business..

BUT i have to say by doing this band and album im a changed man!! thats why we did it all d.i.y mostly, we wanted to have total control over it, there was no 'getting ready for the let down...no shock anymore' as we were in control, there was no need to have a plan c. the 3rd verse reflects that new hope and not letting the past taint the future "Don't care enough to dwell now, all good from now on" so although it may sound a 'doom and gloom' song its actually the opposite. musically im massive fan of The Jam, they never got much recognition outside of the u.k i dont think, bands like the clash were massive in the u.s, i think the jam were far better both musically and lyrically, the chorus of 'W.C.S' defiantly has a bit of weller about it!!

Another Clone: this is about how so many bands now sound and look the same, there was a period 10 years back where rock and dance started merging for the first time that loads of amazing , fresh sounding new bands came out, it was an inspiring time, these days i look in the rock mags and ever band sounds and looks the same, big emo fringe, iron maiden influenced lead harmonies and big 'melodic' choruses that come after the 'screamy heavy bit'!! im sure it wasn't always like this!! rock bands now seem to be as much manufactured as pop.

Thats were the whole 'bring out another clone' line comes from, its as if theres a factory somewhere churning out band after band that have the sound that 'hot right now' ive always just written the type of music i like and am best at, i dont give a fuck what big at the moment, im sure i good knock up an emo style album in a few days but i wouldn't ever want to play it!! i have to write music i believe in and want to hear. the line 'keep moving with the trends, your gonna have your time...(out)' is just a little dig at the longevity of those sort of bands, yeah feel free to follow the trend but i bet my house you dont get to album number 3!!!!

3. When and where did the band form, and where did the name come from? -- The band formed in 2003, i basically started writing alot of instrumental music which i eventually played to our bands bass player Kieron Pepper who was blown away and insisted we form a band and get the music out! That was obviously my plan but having no singer was a problem, we auditioned a few but none fitted so me and Kieron decided to do it ourselves. Id never done vocals or written lyrics before so i found i had loads of ideas and a voice! i like the fact that i dont sound like what is 'hot right now' my voice is very rough and ready and english sounding i think which was important to me, it had to sound real.

We the hooked up with a local producer called Pete Crossamn whoproduced a few tracks for us after which we realized he was exactly onour wave length so we asked him to join the band! He takes care of thesynths and laptops live.Ive always wanted to do my own album as i felt i'd done alot for'other peoples' bands in the past so its been a big ambition for-filled.

The name 'Victory pill' came about in quite an odd way, i had 2 mainideas for the band name, 1 was 'red pill' and the other 'v for victory'but neither were strong enough and had been done before by many otherbands,but by merging the 2 together we got 'Victory pill' which i loved,it fitted perfectly the whole atmosphere around the band that i wastrying to create through the artwork. Im a big fan of the soviet secondworld war propaganda and also the 1984, big brother, owellian theme. Sothe name really matched that vision, the idea of
a pill that guarantees victory being taken by an army or worker! icould imagine something like that in the novel 1984 or in the russianpropaganda posters, hence the album front cover.

4. What was your worst on stage experience? What was your best?
-- I always have dreams about my equipment not working but to be honest i haven't yet had a bad experience with this band! With Pitchshifter we all sorts of things happen, JS the singer was knockout cold by a stage invader who didn't like what he was saying about the state of our country and in America we've had 'gut tooting nazi's' waiting for us after gigs, again because of the anti-facist/racist stance of alot of Pitchshifters music. So compared to that Victory pill gigs have been quite uneventful! The best ones would have to be the ones we have been doing recently in England now the album is out as now people know the tunes and are really getting into it more live and singing along, which is great as we played so many gigs where no-body knew the music earlier in the year.

5. Do you think that the Internet (whether it be Internet radio, legal downloading, MySpace, streaming audio, etc.) is a good tool for musicians or is it a bad thing because it hinders profits?
-- its both good and bad, myspace in my opinion has been revolutionary, before that bands had to build up fan-bases by collecting email addresses at gigs or having mailing lists, with myspace all that is taken care of. You reach so many more people worldwide, obviously you can have your tracks up there to download but its up to you at the end of the day. Illegal downloading can hurt bands for sure but when i was a kid most of my music collection was made up of taped tapes from friends, it didn't stop us going out and buying our favorite bands albums when they came out though, even if we already had taped it, it was a real buzz going into a record shop and looking for that new album, even the smell of the inlay card!!

I think real music fans realize the damage illegal downloading does and may use that to check out the odd tune on an album before deciding to buy it which i think is fair enough, but for small more independent band its a problem as you rely on the sales to keep the band on tour and recording. Whether we like it or not the internet is going to be the future of music sales so record companies
will have to get with the program of become debunked. It may actually make things better for young bands who can actually realize their music without getting tied into a contract and never seeing any money!