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: Hi Pip, how’s things?
Pip: Hey Mark, very good thank you.
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 bad 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 al 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)
Mark: I guess the big question is with a record like this is do you get to play it live and how soon can people get out there and see you?
Pip: We’ve been talking obviously about getting out and doing our ‘launch’ shows because I think the hardest thing about launching the album last week was not being able to play launch shows. Normally we’d have all that set up, but I think we’ll probably look at early next year for touring this one, just so that we have time to rehearse again! (laughs) Because we haven’t rehearsed or played since March last year (2020) so we’ll have to get back and remember how to play everything! But we’ll definitely be out and touring because we’re all super eager!
Mark: You never know one day we may even get you in Perth even though I know it’s like travelling to another country with a lockdown obsessed border-closing ruler.
Pip: (laughs)
Mark: I love the ‘Runes’ on the album artwork, but I can’t place them are they some obscure language or a Zeppelin-like creation?
Pip: They’re ours! We made them specifically for this album. It was kind of and idea that we’d all talked about and me and Tom, the bassist we sat down one day and sketched some things together and then he went away, he’s a graphic designer, so he literally went away and turned them into a proper font. So we’ve literally been able to translate all of our lyrics (laughs) and the lyrics on the album won’t be in English they’ll be in our own Devil Electric Rune language that we invented! Which I’m sure will be super frustrating for everyone! (laughs) It was just something we wanted to do, kind of playing on the idea of music being universal. A lot of our fans don’t speak English as a first language so why not make something for everyone?
Mark: A nice idea. Taking the Zeppelin thing one step further!
Pip: (laughs) Yes!
Mark: There’s some great lyrics on the album who writes the English versions!
Pip: (laughs) Yours truly!
Mark: Where do your inspirations come from?
Pip: I think a lot of it is like whatever is happening to me of my experiences, friends that I look at, or trying to picture types of people in my head, or trying to tell a story through analogies. But ‘I Wil Be Forgotten’ I remember I rewrote the lyrics on the day it was recorded. I went in there with something totally different with a totally different approach and it just didn’t feel right. I had been reading a few things in the news, and stuff was happening, and there was this temperature that was sitting there at that time – and that influenced a lot of those lyrics. It was literally on the day I rewrote that and I’m so glad you like it because I think lyrically it’s one of my favourites on the album, it’s quite poignant, it means a lot and it’s quite opinionated so I’m glad that you like it.
Mark: I do, that and the moodier tracks like ‘Mindset’. But ‘Take the Edge Off’ is another I really like.
Pip: Thank you.
Mark: I know what I like musically but what makes a great song for you? What do you think are the essential ingredients? What draws you in? Is it the crunching riff and the lyrics? The melody? What makes a great song for you?
Pip: For me it’s definitely the lyrics, I obsess over lyrics when I listen to other people’s lyrics. When I was writing for this album I didn’t listen to a lot of heavy music or anything in a similar genre to what we were writing I tried to listen to songs outside of that and pick bits I liked and ask myself why I liked that? And what I didn’t like and build my ideas and my approach to melodies from there. That’s why in ‘The Cave’ for example, that Billie Eilish album had just come out and that sort of helped influence the vocal approach to that song because she’s so delicate in how she approaches her vocals, and I thought that was amazing so I wanted to incorporate a similar style. But there’s all different bits and pieces that I like that make a good song. But to me it’s lyrics first and foremost – they need to make sense they need to be poignant and important. You know if you’ve got something to say, then say it, donlt waste it!
Mark: It’s interesting isn’t it a lot of the music I listen to has a great hook and a riff and if it’s got decent lyrics it’s always a bonus but some of the albums that are most meaningful for me are teh ones where the lyrics are the focus that draws you in and the music almost becomes just the delivery for the words and thoughts and ideas.
Pip: That’s it!
Mark: We always ask our first time interviewees these next two questions as a sort of Rockpit tradition. The first, before we get to the really easy one, is ‘If you could have been a fly on the wall in the studio for the creation of any great album, just to see how the magic happened what would you love to have been there for?’
Pip: Ummm, I have never thought of an answer to this question! This is the only one that’s coming into my head right now, I always found it fascinating that ‘Rumours’ was written by a bunch of people that were breaking up and also doing a shit ton of cocaine! (laughs) That sounds like the absolute biggest recipe for disaster so I have no idea how they produced such an amazing album off the back of it! So I don’t know if I would have liked to have been there for the process but something special happened there.
Mark: I guess the raw emotion added to the pot but I think it was quite a long process so whatever happened definitely took a while!
Pip: (laughs)
Mark: And the easy final question as promised. ‘What is the meaning of life?’
Pip: Oh! (laughs) You know if I could answer that I would be the most sought after person on the planet. I don’t know the answer yet but I hope to one day know.
Mark: Maybe it’s the not knowing that’s the answer.
Pip: Maybe.
Mark: So I guess I have to ask. If ‘Godless’ was put together before Covid hit us all and we’ve been locked away for two years now is there another record all ready to go?
Pip: There might be! Definitely watch this space! I think Covid was so difficult for everyone but in other ways its been so interesting to see what is coming out of it. As hard as it was I think there’s going to be this huge explosion of music coming out.
Mark: As long as we don’t get a slew of Covid-related albums, that might be a bit of a downer!
Pip: (Laughs)
Mark: I’m just kicking myself I didn’t hear of you guys sooner, but at least I’ve caught up now, thank you so much for your time and the best of luck with the shows.
Pip: Thank you Mark.
Mark: Take care.
Pip: Watch this space we’ll be back!