#the hydrant

Read "That Same Night..." Here: https://ninetwofiveuniverse.wordpress.com/2025/12/24/that-same-night/

(with festive apologies to @aristidetwain for the edit below)

I remember one of my first shows outside the mass sizes of Wembley Arena and Brixton Academy was a show at the Carling Islington Academy, featuring a support by little band -at the time- You Me At Six and headliners The Audition -a band I had been waiting years to see. Who would know that as education and my love for music lead me down the path of music journalism, that I would be sitting across from Danny Stevens in sunny Brighton, picking his brain about new EP Chapter II and the recent Slam Dunk festivals. Here's what he had to say..

You’ve been away for a very long time, how does it feel being back? It’s good, it’s hot. WRR:You’ve come at a good time, normally it’s just rain. Really? WRR:Yeah, I think we have our summer this week. [laughs] That’s it? For the rest of the summer? Nah it’s been good, it’s been a lot of fun, the shows have been excellent. So can’t complain.

Chapter II is released here June 11th (yesterday!) How does it differ from previous records? Uhm It’s very rock n roll, it’s very soulful. It’s kind of on both ends of the spectrum.  Y’know with everything we do we try to progress, and not write the same album. So I think that we accomplished that again with this one.

Was the writing process different at all with this record? We took a lot of time to write these songs, we wrote about 30 songs and yeah, we have a ton of songs left over... we took a lot of time. We took our time to have fun with it mainly, we didn’t pressure ourselves and we didn’t set a deadline or anything. We wrote organically and it was good.

Your previous records were on Victory Records, whereas this EP is self-released. Do you find it harder being a band without the support of a major label? The only thing that’s tough honestly is just that uhm... the money.  Y’know because  the label is just a big bank anyway, and it’s difficult to pay for everything yourself.  But everything else y’know with the management, PR people and booking agents, that’s all the same. But the only thing that sucks is the money[laughs].

Any new outside inspirations that influenced this record? No, I mean our music taste evolve all the time, so it’s kind of just a reflection of what we’re listening to at the time. Lyrically, it’s about a bitch of a girl so... [laughs].

You’ve been up and down the country doing the Slam Dunk circuit, how are the shows? They’re amazing man, they’re a fucking awesome way to come back to the UK. I’m glad we did that rather than go for headline shows right away, it built our confidence alot y’know so...

WRR: Hatfield was a really good show Yeah, it was fucking awesome.

How do you feel the new material went down? Really well, I was surprised that people actually knew all the words to the new songs, which is cool.

WRR: Good ole Spotify Yeah right [laughs].

What’s your favourite songs to perform live? Uhmm... I think Talkin’, the last song on the EP at the moment is my favourite song to perform. It’s just fast energy, very rock and roll. It’s a lot of fun.

Is there anyone you would want to tour with at the moment? I would love to tour with Fun., I would love to tour with Foxy Shazam too, well them and You Me At Six are our boys, I would love to tour with them again.

How do you keep motivated on tour, especially being so far away from home? I love it man, I love it. So it’s easy for me to stay motivated to have fun. I don’t wanna do anything else, so it’s fun. We know that Seth is no longer in the band, but how does it feel having Joe back? It’s nice, uh I don’t know... it’s different but the same. Having Jimmy is different but it’s nice. He’s a great dude, he’s a great guitar player so can’t really complain much about that.

Have fans welcomed Jimmy? Yeah they have actually, Its nice. Nobody’s booed him off stage yet [laughs], that’s always a plus.

Yesterday in Southampton saw your first headline show in the UK since being back, How did that go? It was cool man, there wasn’t like a ton of people there, but the people who were there were nuts and it was fun. I mean we haven’t played Southampton in like 5 or 6 years so, the fact that anybody came out was a miracle. Same with here (Brighton), we haven’t played here in like 6 years either.

What can fans expect from The Audition in the coming months? We’re actually taking the summer off to start writing again, so hopefully in the fall we’ll be back over here, and we’ll  hopefully do another US tour in the fall and stuff or late summer mainly.

SFR Archive: Free Swim - 'I Want to be a Moutaineer!'

Live at The Hydrant, Brighton, UK (June 2011).

From 'Yolanda the Panda' EP.