DECLAN WELSH & THE DECADENT WEST SHIFT UP A GEAR WITH PROFOUNDLY POETIC ALBUM ‘2’
“A LOT OF IT FEELS CLAUSTROPHOBIC…”
Ours for 2 weeks now, Declan Welsh and The Decadent West’s (DWDW) much anticipated second album ‘2‘ is a collection of some of the bands finest work yet.
A slow burner at first listen but one which will continue to unravel layers upon layers of depth, introspective lyricism and orchestral genius. Prolific in his art, Declan Welsh is a modern bard. He has a unique talent to capture and transpose normal day to day mundanity and turn it into something profoundly poetic.
Released October 27th 2023, the Glasgow band had been releasing music under the DWDW name for many years before their first album Cheaply Bought, Expensively Sold back in 2019. The SAY Award shortlisted album propelled the young band into the forefront of Glasgow’s notoriously active music scene. Not one to quietly retreat, they continued to deliver new music with a new EP release every year in between. Relentlessly touring and advocating for the voices that aren’t being heard, DWDW are a group with a strong political conscience and who use their platform to support others.
In the past year, Declan and the guys have seen themselves ticking off bucket list ambitions. 2022 peaked with them selling out Glasgow’s infamous Barrowland Ballroom and 2023 brought them to TRNSMT’s main stage. They put on what is probably the first ever official World Tour of Glasgow and ahead of the albums October release, they joined new UK Number 1 Champions The Reytons on tour across the UK.
After all of that, you might feel the new album comes as a bit of an anti climax for the band, however, it appears Declan Welsh and The Decadent West have shifted gears yet again and have joined the premier league of the UK’s biggest and best emerging artists. We had the pleasure to chat with the guys not once, but twice this year and as they are deep within their UK/EU headline tour, we share what – in their words – ‘2’ means to them.
Interview conducted 22/09/23 Drygate Brewery with Declan Welsh (lead vocals/guitar) and Duncan McBride (lead guitar).
INTERVIEW
What would you like to say about the album? How would you introduce ‘2’ to fans old and new?
Declan; I think if you are casually aware of us or if you were really big on the first album then ‘2’ is kind of trying to understand normal life – but maybe turned inward a bit more. It’s still choruses, it’s big choruses. Every single song on this album has this emotional theme, like the damn is nearly bursting. It’s kind of this idea of numbness, distance, denial and trying to get away from the emotion but it breaks through anyway. But it’s very emotional and it’s very introspective. It’s very layered texturally, there’s multiple layers and multiple meanings – a lot of it feels claustrophobic. Like it’s multiple voices in your head but then I think every song it just erupts to this moment.
Trying to draw and reflect on my own experiences but I’m not special and I imagine that various different people across the word will have a very different experience. And what that experience of modern life is not trying to acknowledge anything which is wrong or celebrate anything which is great. It’s like this middle ground numbness and every now and then something massive breaks through – something horrible or something really great breaks through. I think that denial of the very fundamental part of being a human which is feeling stuff is a feeling which is explored amongst the lyrics.
It’s quite different to the first album though, are you worried that people who really liked the first album may not ‘get’ the second album?
Declan: Listen, I don’t want to sound like I don’t appreciate people who have liked our music – if you have liked anything that we have ever done that’s amazing and I am grateful, but I’m not worried. You make music because you want to make it. If you start trying to make it for other people then you’ll eventually get that. You’ll think ‘I thought everybody would like this song’. How many times has that happened? ‘This is the one, no it’s that one’. All you can do is make the music that you like. That’s where it’s good being in a band because you get to share that with people. You can ask, do you like this? How about this?
Duncan: To be honest, so much of our back catalogue is so varied anyway so people expect change from us so I don’t think the variety and difference will be much of a shock anyway.
Do you feel it shows development as a band?
Declan: Yeah, I like to say that. Some people don’t. I don’t like to say bad words about anybody but I like to see bands evolve. Even when they do things that I don’t like, I would prefer – give me an Alex Turner who tries something new every time over Noel Gallagher who has been doing the same thing for 30 years. I mean, that stuffs really good. Noel Gallagher is a great songwriter, but I prefer artists who go in different directions.
Have you got any favourites on the album that didn’t become singles?
Declan: Having played it, having played them all, two of the tracks that I probably have listened to the least are Come Outside and Okay Now. When we played them live I thought, oh my god these sound unbelievable.
Duncan: I definitely say both of them, Come Outside is like the third song on the album and it’s quite a sad song overall. Okay Now is in a similar vain but it kind of takes it to a much more funky place and takes the album from one place to another. The closure, The Comedian is the one I’m most excited about and probably one I’m most looking forward to play live as well as it has a big really long outro.
What can you tell us about the recording process?
Declan: For Visa purposes we won’t tell you if we were in LA or not. It was Gianluca Buccaletti who is a genius. A lot of the work went on his flat. He is super talented and we loved working with him. Heba Kadry who mastered it, these are people who have done stuff with people that we really like – people like The Mars Volta and Easy Life. When I listened to it, I thought ‘this is a slow album’. But I like that, I really really like that it takes its time. What will be the fan favourite one? You never know.
Personally Doing Great is one of my own favourites, it wasn’t at first but really grew on me. Do you think there is a lot of that on the album?
Declan: I get what you’re saying. Theres a lot of songs where you notice stuff on repeat listen. Once you’ve heard No Fun – and I love it – but you’ve heard it. You know what it goes like, you know how the chorus is like. There not texture, theres not heartbeat and there’s not subtilty to it and it’s good for that.
Duncan: We’re comparing our second album to The Wire now…
Declan: This album will be on repeat listens. Most of the songs will be like that as you said – ‘I quite like that, I might give that another listen’. Most of the tracks have 5 or 6 vocal tracks on them and layers of guitars. There’s a lot going on there.
Duncan: There’s two glockenspiels.
The final track on ‘2’ titled The Comedian – that’s a big track. What’s the story behind that one?
Declan: The reason it is called The Comedian is because when we were in LA we went to see a comedy show and we watched a man realise on stage that his dream was dead. We watched that happen. And for anyone who does anything creative – anything that isn’t just a job, a job that you would want to do – has that wee thing in them that thinks ‘Am I gonna be that guy?’ Will one day I be stood thinking ‘What was I doing’? And he wasn’t young, he was maybe in his 50’s. He had done a horrendous, inappropriate, offensive joke to start with that just wasn’t funny. I didn’t feel for him out of him being a nice guy and good but just watching his face. I wanted to try and recreate that moment of us standing in a comedy club in LA watching a man walking off into the distance having realised he was never going to be a comedian. There was this real serious, pit of the stomach bad feeling that all of us could be that guy. Deluded into thinking it was a thing and then you walk home thinking I’ve wasted my whole life. I thought it was a very powerful emotional moment.
What’s next after the album release?
Declan – The album comes out while we are in Birmingham with The Reytons and The K’s and then we head straight into our in store tour and that ends just as our UK headline tour kicks off and when that ends our Europe headline tour begins.
Duncan – We basically have like 3 days off in Glasgow between now and the end of the year.
Declan – It’ll be great. It’ll be tiring, it will be knackering, it will be all those things but it’ll be brilliant.
As minimalistic as it’s one character title, ‘2’ is a far cry from Cheaply Bought, Expensively Bought. There’s no big anthemic singalong moments like they have been most popular for. Like with their fan base, as artists the band has grown and matured. As Declan states himself ‘You can’t write about partying and going on nights out when you’ve not been on a night out in 2 years‘ (TRNSMT Northern Exposure Interview 07/07).
Over the past few years, DWDW have progressively became more ominous but with that have become more introspective for it. For a band who is most known for their poetic and relatable lyricism, they have surpassed even themselves as songwriters. What it may lack in energy at points, it makes up for in technical depth. There are layers upon layers of bleak goodness which will hook you into a never ending listening loop. Being fortunate enough to have watched the entire album played live from start to finish, I can 100% reassure that brought to life on stage it still has the same theatrical intensity that DWDW are well known for.
Listen, dance and feel. Declan Welsh & The Decadent West have this side of 2023 covered.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EXTENDED INTERVIEW BELOW.
Author
