Interview: Dry the River

The Tab caught up with Peter Liddle and Scott Miller of Dry The River: the folk rock band currently recording their second album.

Hi guys, how are you liking Oxford so far?

Peter: I grew up in Newbury so I know Oxford pretty well- we’re having Mission burrito for dinner, one of our favourites!

Do you know and get on with a lot of other bands you play with around the British circuit?

You know when you were younger and you imagine all the bands backstage hi-fiving? In reality that doesn’t really happen – we don’t know that many bands. But when you do see the ones you know it’s really cool, like in the movies. Alabama Shakes, Ben Howard.

John said the other day that we’re the fishbone of our genre – we know loads of bands and they support us early on and then get way bigger than us!

You’ve shot to fame recently, how have things changed?

We’ve been really surprised by the reception. Our first tour we were playing hundred capacity rooms but to only like 10 or 12 people – now we go back and there’s hundreds.

People know the songs better now too – people sing along which is always mindblowing.

Where did the name ‘Dry the River’ come from?

I always wish there was an exciting interesting story behind it but there isn’t really – I just plucked it out of thin air and liked the sound of it.

We heard recently that Dry The River in America means when you go out for a heavy night drinking you finish the bottle. In the Mid-West when they’re going out to party they say ‘I’m gunna dry the river tonight!’ – so maybe we’ll just pretend that’s where the name came from!

What inspires you musically?

We all listen to really different music so everyone’s pulling in a different direction which for us is our source of strength.

Drum and Bass, Prog, Hair Metal, Post-Rock… Lion’s Den started off as a really sparse acoustic track, then the rest of the band got hold of it and I turned into this epic 6 minute song with solos all over the place.

Do you have much creative input into your music videos?

Well originally it was going to be the same top-down shoot, but with us lying on the floor at a music festival – people dropping beer and fag ends on us. Then I [Peter] met with the director and we chatted about it, and I had this idea of maybe there was some sort of ritual going on, like a weird ambiguous religious ritual – and then he really ran with it and went all out.

What advice do you give to budding or struggling musicians?

Scott: Just stick at it. I joined my first band when I was 10, so like 18/19 years ago, and I’ve never stopped being in a band.

You get to a point when you’re around 25 and people say ‘you’re still in a band?!’ – spending half your wages on guitars and amplifiers, and then there’s loads of 18 year old kids in bands travelling the world and selling out venues while you’re still playing local venues – it can be disheartening, just do it for the fun of it and enjoy it.

There’s only really like a couple hundred serious, talented unsigned bands in the UK at any time – so you’ve just got to turn the odds in your favour by working hard.

What’s your opinion of X-Factor culture?

Peter: It’s also nice that one of the biggest shows on TV is still about people playing music. People are a bit too quick to call it complete crap – the cool thing about it is that music still matters to the general public – of course alongside the drama and crap about people that can’t sing.

Like look at One Direction, there the first British band to go to #1 with their debut album in America since the Beatles!

Scott: I’d love to be in One Direction, I’d fit right in!

Catch Dry The River at various British festivals this Summer, including Truck Festival in Oxford July 19th-20th: truckfestival.com