Devil Electric are a riff-heavy, four piece rock ’n’ roll band from Melbourne, Australia. Taking musical cues from the hard rock greats of the ’70s and combining them with powerful, female fronted vocals they sound refreshingly new and absolutely essential. We caught up with lead vocalist Pip to find out all about them and the wonderful new album ‘Godless’… Apologies to the band for the lateness of the interview recorded back in November last year and just retrieved from a hard drive that died shorty afterwards.
Mark: Great to be able to chat today, when I got sent the album I wondered how the heck I didn’t know about you guys, I guess it’s because of not being able to get over East for the last two years. You’ve put an album out that’s made me want to dig into the back catalogue and I also have my eye on the splattered vinyl of ‘Godless’.
Pip: Awesome.
Mark: But it is an album made for vinyl isn’t it?
Pip: It’s is yes and I think that’s been part of the joy of this kind of music, it’s not meant to be heard in snatches digitally, it’s meant to be heard in one sitting as an experience.
Mark: It absolutely is. For those out there like me that don’t know, let’s cast things back, where did it all began for Devil Electric?
Pip: Well, we all kind of somewhat knew each other. Everything I think from the beginning of our band kind of centres around one bar in Melbourne – the Cherry Bar. We all kind of were friends or in the periphery of each other through that bar. I was playing in another band at the time when Christos, Beek (Mark van de Beek) and Tom starting talking about Devil Electric. I had just played a gig with Christos’ other band ‘The Ugly Kings’ a month prior to that and they invited me in to try out for this new band they were putting together. I knew Christos and Beek quite well, but I hadn’t met Tom yet so I met him there the first time in the recording studio. So we all just sort of came together bit I always wondered why they wanted me in the band, as it didn’t seem logical as I was sort of playing in more Punk and Hard Rock bands. But I went in there and sung and I guess I got the job (laughs).
Mark: ‘Godless’ works so well, it’s an album that grabs you from the intro ‘I Am’ and doesn’t let go till the end, just my kind of music and I can guess a lot of the bands’ 70’s influences in there but there’s also a wonderful twist. To me it sounds a bit like a Heavier Metal version of The Nymphs, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that band from the early 90’s?
Pip: No, but I will be checking them out now!
Mark: They only did the one album before they imploded but I guess I get a lot of the mood of that band and so many others of course. Do you all have similar influences or is it as I imagine a nice melting pot?
Pip: We’re very different I think, but we do cross over in some areas, I mean you can probably hear the Sabbath influences in the band and some of that more traditional Hard Rock that we all share, but we’re all very different at the same time. I think that’s what really makes Devil Electric, Devil Electric. I think with the first album we were all pretty new and feeling each other out as musicians but this album we’ve been together a few years now, we know each other and we have a really tight knit friendship between all of us, and I think you can really hear that in the second album. And all those little twists and turns too, like all little bits of each of us peppered through, it’s the best way to describe it. We are the same but different in our likes and dislikes and we always make sure we tell each other! (laughs)
Mark: It all comes together beautifully and heavier than I imagined. I think when I got to ‘I Will Be Forgotten’ which is one of my favourites on there we were going to let a lighter moment but it was only for a few moments…
Pip: (laughing)
Mark: I love the fact that you keep the heaviness all the way through. The album is out of course.
Pip: Yes, it’s been out a week now, and it’s really exciting for us as we started releasing it early last year (2020) as singles as we went into Covid so it’s been the longest release ever! (laughs) Over 18 months of trying to get this out, but now it is it’s amazing. We’re so happy that everyone can finally hear it because we feel like we’ve been waiting forever.
Mark: When did you start the writing? Was it pre-Covid?
Pip: We wrote and recorded it all prior to Covid, we had a whole strategy in place to release the first single and then when the next was coming out, and videos and whatever. But the weekend that we released our first single ‘All My Friends Move Like the Night’ that was when the national lockdown was put in place. That was the end of March.
Mark: I was over in Melbourne two das before that! It’s crazy! What awful timing, but it’s here now. Such a crunching sound, so moody and atmospheric, everything from the shorter songs that just grab you to ‘The Cave’ at the end which has this wonderful groove and swing to it that almost had me thinking of what would happen had Tom Waits discovered Heavy Metal!
Pip: (laughs)
Mark: Let’s go even further back now. What got you into music in the first place? You said the band all had their own sets of influences – what was it that first grabbed you?
Pip: I was actually born into it I guess is the best way I can describe it. My Dad is a country musician and has been my whole life, so he had a recording studio growing up so I was always around it. I think it was always an expectation I was one of those kids whose Dad would go to work at 7PM and come back at 7AM while all the other kids had Dads with normal jobs, and I wanted that! (laughs) Having the day then playing gigs and going on tour and things like that. I remember feeling as a kid like ‘why can’t I just have a normal family?’ but now I’m very, very thankful I had him I guess as my mentor to open the door to a life of bands and playing music. It’s good now! (laughs)
From: https://www.therockpit.net/2022/interview-devil-electric/
