Life In The Kingdom Of ShitDisco

“It looks like anything but the coliseum� exclaimed bassist, guitarist and vocalist Joe Reeves in a weakened Geordie accent, on being asked what he thought of tonight’s venue, the Coventry Coliseum. Shitdisco are coming to the end of their UK tour supporting The Rapture and will spend the rest of March at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas; “Aye it’s gunna be weird, I’ve never been before, I can’t wait to see how we go down there.� So from Coventry and Middlesbrough tomorrow night, to Texas the day after, these lads sure get around.

Shitdisco have been on a constant tour for nearly an entire year, playing a variety of venues and Gigwise asks which ones are the best? “We love gigging all over the UK really, especially Glasgow, London and Leeds, but Paris was amazing…We had all been before separately and thought that they would never get us…we thought the Parisians would be very snobby and we had low expectations but they went crazy, they loved it!â€�  Their penchant for Paris does not really surprise Gigwise; surely four lads who met at art school would be united in their love for the Louvre. Gigwise enquires how the band began.

“We met at art school in Glasgow and that’s where we class the band as a whole as coming from. There’s me an Joel who are Geordies, then there’s Jan who’s nearly Scottish as he’s from Berwick and Darren is from Leeds…we were all foreign to Glasgow and it took us ages to be accepted.� So how did they come to be accepted and how did the band become inspired to be Shitdisco? “We began as a band by accident. We started properly after we graduated in 2005, but we had been doing stuff together since 2003…we played in train tunnels and portakabins as well as house parties. We try to recreate that atmosphere at our gigs…random remixes of our songs…we’re believers in fate.�

Shitdisco have done things live and on the spur of the moment at a lot of gigs to prevent a “routine, same-old performanceâ€�. “We try to push the boundaries and be open minded."explains Joe. "We want to be creative and use an uncomfortable energy to step out of the ‘luxuries’ of a normal band.â€�  One example of this is their insistence to still play house parties, just like the good old college days. For instance after a Rapture gig in Leeds the other week. “God we had lasers, strobes and smoke machines…While we were playing I could see a portrait of Liam and Noel from Oasis straight opposite us….they were folding their arms and giving us a menacing stare as if they disapproved! The house was destroyed by the time that we had left!â€�