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Jan 25, 2025 Web Exclusive By Dom Gourlay

Brighton based noise rock outfit DITZ released their eagerly anticipated second album Never Exhale on Friday (January 24th). The follow-up to 2022’s critically acclaimed debut The Great Regression, Never Exhale takes their sonic explorations to the next level while focusing on personal, political and social themes within the ten songs’ lyrics. (Read our review HERE)

DITZ can also lay claim to being one of the hardest working bands on the circuit right now, having seemingly been on the road for the best part of three years. Indeed, it’s on the road where we caught up with vocalist C.A. Francis and guitarist Jack Looker prior to their show at Porto’s Hard Club last month.

Dom Gourlay (Under the Radar): How are you? You seem to have been permanently on tour since early 2022.

Jack Looker: It does feel like we’ve been on the road all that time to be fair!

DITZ’s second album Never Exhale is out in January. When did the writing and recording process start, as a number of those songs have been in the live set for a while now?

Jack: A couple of the tracks were written pretty much as soon as we’d finished the first album.

C.A. Francis: There was at least a skeleton there. Same with “18 Wheeler”. There was always a few bits and pieces. We didn’t really have time to finish or do anything with them. That’s when we decided to start practising. If you’re away for 100 days a year, you have to work the other 200. This doesn’t pay enough money yet, so we filled the time in those bits.

Jack: Most of it was written on the road. For instance, “Taxi Man”. If we had a day off here or there we’d find somewhere to rehearse and finish a song. “Taxi Man” was finished over two days in Cologne. We knew we wouldn’t be working those days so we thought we’d may as well get cracking on finishing a song.

C.A.: The first song we actually finished and played live was “18 Wheeler”. We wrote it in Eindhoven then played it first in Bordeaux a couple of weeks afterwards. We had a practice there and put the finishing touches on it.

Did any of the songs change over time while you were playing them live from where they started?

Jack: Yeah, definitely. They do naturally, even when we play songs off the first album. A lot of those sound different because we didn’t really get chance to tour that before it came out. So, I think the songs on this record will probably change from hereon out as well.

C.A.: That’s what I really like about these songs as well. We recorded it in January 2024, then went on tour throughout February and March and played around 30 shows in that time before we mixed it. Then we listened back to the mixes, and there’s parts on the album that don’t sound anything like how we play them live. We didn’t really want to hold back the development of playing those songs live, so in a way it brought them ahead of themselves. Because we’d already recorded them it meant we could go back and do things again until they sounded really different.

Jack: There are two songs off the album we’ve only just started playing live as of last week. Mainly because they’re a little bit more sonically than just two guitars, bass, drums and vocals.

C.A.: The set up’s got a bit bigger over the past three shows just so we can accommodate those songs. Before that, we were just playing everything. Some that were written then road tested on the same night. There are a few songs on the album we did that for. “18 Wheeler” and “Taxi Man” for instance.

Jack: I think “18 Wheeler” has been in the set for every show since we wrote it.

C.A.: That’s probably our favourite live one as well. It was good. I liked doing that. I don’t like pretending you haven’t written a bunch of songs. The more natural reaction is to get excited about something and play it. I think if you’re able to hold back then maybe you weren’t excited enough about it.

Jack: You have to just go forwards. The amount of shows we did for the first album – we’d finished recording it almost a year before it came out. I got a bit bored playing the same songs over and over again so it made sense to try something new.

C.A.: We could do with a third album now to break up the live set!

Were there any other songs written over the same period that didn’t make it onto Never Exhale and if so, will they be revisited in the future?

C.A.: We’ve got newer bits that we’ve done over the past few months, but we haven’t got anything finished.

Jack: There’s one from the first album that never made it.

C.A.: You always hear these stories from bands saying they’ve got 20 songs for the next album so they’ve just got to pick the best ones whereas I think we capture our best ideas early on, and if we’re not feeling something or it isn’t working we’ll abandon it there and then. We’ll start something new, so there isn’t really a huge backlog of songs.

Jack: There’s no dead horses being flogged.

C.A.: Some bands will release a single after the album comes out and it’ll be a song that didn’t quite make it. I can think of a few examples where that’s happened recently, but my take is if it wasn’t good enough to make the album, is it really good enough to be a single afterwards? I don’t see the point in doing that. If something isn’t working we won’t finish it so we’ll never get to that point.

The first two albums have been made in very similar ways in that the songs developed over time, mostly through writing then playing them live. With the next album, will you approach it the same way or try something different?

Jack: I’d really like to be able to hire a studio then take time out to write and record it but we haven’t really got the money to be honest. We’ve also got full time jobs that we combine in between with touring so it can be difficult trying to balance everything. I’d like to think there might be a bit of that.

C.A.: Ideally, I’d like to demo the whole album before we go into the studio. All the songs we’ve written off these two albums were band songs as in we can go straight in and play them as a band so it would be nice to try some new stuff and use the studio in a different way. Hopefully get a bit creative with the structure of the album.

Jack: Mainly, not be limited by what we’ve got but also get more involved with what we haven’t got at present.

C.A.: Then hopefully get to the point where we need to play these songs live now. That should be a challenge.

You’ve played and toured with a lot of bands over the past few years, IDLES being one. Is there anything you’ve learned or picked up off those experiences you’ve since incorporated into your sound or the way you write and record?

Jack: Speaking to IDLES about how they made Tangk, before they went into the studio they had nothing apart from a few tape loops Bowen had made yet it all had to be finished within the next two weeks so it was a bit hectic towards the end. I don’t think I’d want to do that.

C.A.: That sounds like the exact opposite of what I’d want to do.

Jack: We had the songs but its very similar to the new album. Never Exhale was very rushed in how it was recorded and I think in our case it suffered as a result.

C.A.: I think the album is a perfect time stamp of where we were at and what we were doing at that time.

Jack: Which is kind of rushed and hectic!

C.A.: I’m looking forward to doing something a bit different. Hopefully enough people buy it so we can spend some money on the next one.

Jack: Hopefully we can indulge a bit and get all pretentious so nobody buys the next one after that!

C.A.: In terms of seeing other things, we’ve been looking back a lot more recently when we talk about doing a third one. We had a Beatles kick for a while then before that it was Talk Talk. Looking at all these types of things and seeing how they made something new from what existed at the time. That’s more inspiring at the moment.

A lot of the lyrics on the album cover personal, political and social issues but some are also quite abstract – “Britney” for example. What was the inspiration behind a song like that?

Jack: I wrote that in my mum and dad’s living room. I just wanted to do something different and was listening to Mogwai a lot. It wasn’t a direct rip off but it sounds like it is! There’s a bit of Talk Talk in there as well, the last two albums Laughing Stock and Spirit Of Eden. I was really into Jockstrap at the time as well. I think the ending is more of a nod to Sleep or Kyuss as I was massively into those at the time. I got into the idea of playing the same riff over and over again.

C.A.: Its got that Swans thing as well. That’s something else I think we can do a bit more of on the next record. Something I’ve realised in retrospect about both albums is that they have a long track at the end that does the whole outro thing. It just feels really natural when you’ve only got one of those. If you have a couple of those it could change the dynamic or flow of the album. We played “Britney” last in the live set for the first time last week at Zeitgeist Festival in the Netherlands. It felt a bit weird to do that one at a festival other than “No Thanks, I’m Full” which we usually play at the end. We haven’t written our setlist for today yet but I think we’re going to stick “Britney” somewhere in the middle or slightly earlier and see how it plays out. We’re still messing around and tweaking things. We haven’t decided what we’re going to do setlist wise for the tour. We’ve never done that before. Write one setlist then try and stick to it for a bunch of dates in a row. We’re going to try and do stuff like that so maybe it won’t sound as spontaneous.

Jack: It’s quite good when people like yourself ask us what the plan is as it makes us think about it more. The next record can’t be the same as the first two. They’re of a similar ilk. I find that most of my favourite bands’ third albums are where they’ve veered off on a completely different track. Arctic Monkeys’ Humbug for example. That’s one of my all time favourite records. The Beatles’ Revolver is another. So, for me, I won’t be very happy if the next one sounds in the same vein as the first two. To a degree anyway.

If you had the benefit of hindsight, would you change or do anything different with either of the two albums you’ve made so far?

Jack: No.

C.A.: I’m inclined to say no as well.

Jack: At the time the first record came out there were things I personally wasn’t happy about but looking back I’m proud to have put that out as our debut.

C.A.: If we hadn’t released that album we wouldn’t be sitting here today in Porto at the end of this summer run. We’d be somewhere cold in the UK.

The Great Regression received an overwhelming level of critical acclaim. Were you surprised at the response it got?

Jack: Yes and no.

C.A.: There were a few surprising ones. The Pitchfork review, I was really taken aback by that. It was also a slow burner. We got a lot of good press straight away but we didn’t have any vinyl ready until a long time after the album came out. So, it charted after that. We’d been selling pre-orders at shows for about six months prior to that.

Jack: It was delayed until we went out to Europe but we’ve always done better in France and mainland Europe than the UK. It bums me out a little because you always want to do well in the place where you’re from but at the same time, I’m not complaining in the slightest. We get to play sick venues and go to places we’d otherwise never get to go.

C.A.: We’ve sold quite a lot of albums now because we take them to shows. We sell 10-15 of them every time we do a show, and since the album came out we’ve played around 200 shows so that’s probably where we sell the most records.

Jack: I remember when we sold out the Louisiana in Bristol and I wanted to watch the first band but couldn’t get through the door it was so busy. To go from playing to 15 people to that in the space of two years was something special for me. We played the Shacklewell Arms in London and that was rammed as well. That was also probably the best show we’ve ever done to date.

C.A.: Then we did The Prince Albert in Brighton which was our first ever sold-out hometown show. Or that might have been 2020 as I think we did the Hope on that tour? It all blurs!

You’ve mentioned France and Mainland Europe already but which audiences are you looking forward to playing in front of the most?

C.A.: I know which ones are selling best. I know people in France, Belgium and the Netherlands go nuts for us the most. It’s always been those three. German ones as well, but the places I’m looking forward to visiting the most are Greece – we’re playing there for the first time. We’re doing Bulgaria for the first time. Rumania for the first time, Rome as well. I’m really looking forward to just seeing new places.

Jack: We’ve done a fair bit of Italy this year – two little ten day runs over there and we benefited from going south of Milan where no one ever really goes. We’ve probably toured Italy more than a lot of bands our size do so going back there will be good. France as well. Every time we tour there the shows get busier and the venues get bigger.

C.A.: There’s a huge difference between France and Italy though. The Italian food’s better but the French venues are all to spec and well-funded by the government. Whereas Italy is a bit like the wild west! The first we went I got several electric shocks. I went through three cables on stage one night, and that was a big show when we were supporting Turnstile. But that’s part of the fun as well. No two nights are the same in Italy. A bit of Mediterranean spontaneity and chaos!

There’s a big difference in the way bands get treated and paid in most of Europe compared to how it is in the UK for example.

Jack: I do think we are spoiled in the UK though.

C.A.: There’s more bands.

Jack: France is probably better. Music seeps into the arts more than it does in the UK. The audiences are a lot more receptive to weirder, noisier shit like we are. Maybe because they see it to be a bit more arty.

C.A.: They’ve got a stronger artistic history than the UK does in all aspects apart from within modern music. That’s the only area where the UK trumps France artistically. That’s only because we speak English in England and the Americans could get to it. If they’d never had the Louisiana Purchase maybe France would have been the cultural staple that the UK is. There is quite a defeatist attitude amongst the bands in France who we think are really good but in their eyes they’re just a French band. There’s a weird sort of hierarchy that exists but shouldn’t really where UK bands get preferential treatment from the audiences.

Jack: They’re more likely to go and see someone from the UK than they are from their own country. There’s lots of really good French bands like Lizzard or The Psychotic Monks.

C.A.: It’s a bit strange, because on the whole I think they do care more about their arts. They are proud, but seemingly not of guitar bands.

Thay have some great festivals too.

C.A.: La Route Du Rock definitely. When we stepped on stage there that was the most people we’d ever played to by a country mile at that point.

Jack: We were sandwiched in between Beak> and Ty Segall. Fat White Family headlined afterwards. Big Joanie and Wu-Lu were playing before us, who are bigger than us in the UK. We had no right to be there but I felt we did it justice.

What advice would you give to a new band that’s just starting out?

C.A.: Just graft! Don’t take anything for granted. I’ve seen a lot of bands that come up and I think they’re really good, but they’ll get jealous of other bands which I find… It’s not a competition. Maybe they did play more shows than you. Maybe they did put a bit more work in. Maybe your music is better, but you can’t just make good music and expect everything to just fall into place. You have to get in a van, basically…

Jack: Unless you’ve got rich parents.

C.A.: That’s the one thing you’re allowed to be jealous of!

Jack: Nepotism and elitism as well. You can be jealous of all those three things.

There does seem to be a lot more artists getting breaks from privileged as opposed to working class backgrounds.

Jack: I wouldn’t say it’s so much of a class thing. We’re not working class by any definition. I think it’s more of a London and outside of London thing than anything. To be able to live in London you need to have a fair amount of money behind you.

C.A.: The more I think about this working class and non working class thing, I’ve seen this definition slip over the years and we don’t consider ourselves working class. If your parents owned the house you grew up you’re not working class. I watch middle class people fight over the finer details of that and they haven’t really got a leg to stand on. You’ll see some of these bands that are real rich kids. Ones whose parents are paying for their flats in Farringdon. You see a lot of those people arguing over that point and I think its distasteful.

Jack: Also, you can’t help what you were born into whether its working class or your mum and dad are billionaires that can afford to send you to private school. You can still have a bit of humility whoever you are. There seems to be a lot of attitude from bands that call themselves “working class”. You can spot them a mile off. Not because of their accents but by how they are as human beings and people.

C.A.: They create that though because its part of the brand isn’t it.

DITZ play the following shows in support of Never Exhale :-

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

BANDCAMP