“We’re betting our lives on this”: Talking with The Youth Play’s Diego Bracho
INTERVIEW | DIEGO BRACHO -THE YOUTH PLAY by Isobel O’Mahony
This month London based band The Youth Play will release their second EP, someday, forever, a more alternative and rockier development than their earlier more shoegaze tunes. Lead singer Diego Bracho takes us through the behind the scenes of the band, including some personal issues that make their promising future uncertain.
“The thing that we were doing before, it was basically the first thing that we wrote together as a band,” says The Youth Play frontman, fresh off a shift unbelievably serving Fontaine’s Tom Coll and Grian Chatten, “this one, there were like other inspirations that we had a lot more more post funk, a lot of Fontaines.
Some bands, we love or I love, and then maybe someone else in the band is not that keen on them. Fontaines is the band where we all meet and are all big fans of.”
The EP , someday, forever, is a collection of perfectly executed strings of chaos and truly excellent. It’s one of those listens that takes you back and makes you say, ‘why aren’t these guys bigger?’. Recorded over a year ago, and with tons of effort and love poured into mastering, Diego says “It’s been kept in our pockets for quite a long time.
We just like to get together and try to incorporate each other’s individuality because we all have different influences, different sounds, music that we listen to, especially right now.
The lyrics are mainly myself. Sometimes I write something that’s not very ‘Youth Play’ and the boys are like we need something Youth Play. Sometimes I get a little help and I’m like does this sound good or is this too cheesy? And they’re usually like, no, it’s fun. And I’m like, are you sure?
‘Last Day on Earth‘, the baseline, on the song that is like the thing that carries the whole song, that’s what we started with, Alex bringing the baseline and then we built it.”
Tracks on the record like “Last Day on Earth” and “Straight Line” have clear social and political messages, and although Deigo says they want to present these issues, they don’t see themselves as a political band.
“We don’t want to be exclusively a political band. We appreciate and love bands that do that, but we don’t want to be encased in only politics – we believe that the music that we do can be appreciated and enjoyed by the masses.
The reach is not there yet, which changes a bit in how you approach it. We definitely care a lot, I definitely care a lot and I think it’s impossible for me not to incorporate it into my music.
With my situation as a migrant and with just everything that is happening, it’s impossible not to be influenced or to want to convey a message.”
Diego grew up in Mexico City, the son of a working class Mexican and an Argentinian refugee, and has worked in an environmental lab in Bracleona before pursuing music. He’s currently undergoing the incredibly stressful VISA process to stay in the country and keep going with the band.
“I need to stay in this country, I’ve been stressed for the last four months and it is quite a process.
In that sense of the future, it’s looking super exciting, super nice and there’s a lot of nice people that want to jump into our team and help us out and support us.
Writing, it’s cathartic. It’s turning something that’s not very nice or good into something positive. It definitely is a vehicle for me to just get stuff out there and to be able to express my feelings and my worries.”
From the EP, Diego believes its some of the best music he’s written, and that his personal favourites from the record change over time. He says, “My personal favourite is ‘Last Day on Earth‘, I think it’s one of the best songs we’ve written. It’s a very hopeful song, it’s about following your dreams and any day could be your last day, so you’ve got to live your life like it.
‘someday, forever‘ is also one of my favourites. It’s got a very personal meaning for me, so that one carries a lot of emotion when we play it live.”
The Youth Play have had a few live shows dotted around the country, including support slots with indie-rock duo The Wings of Desire and Irish festival Forest Fest. With an upcoming album celebration at London’s Mascara Bar, Diego says that the band truly feel at home on the stage.
“There’s writing a song and there’s playing it live; that’s why I love doing this the most.
When you’re writing a song, you can’t help but think of how people are going to feel when you play it in real life. ‘Maybe This was All For Us’ was one where we were like we need a fast pace, quick song that people are already excited about live.
Just touring has been such an experience, it was amazing for us to get out, play back-to-back shows and just get into that certain flow.
We always know that summer is a bit quiet when you’re not playing all the festivals, hopefully next year we can play all the festivals, that would be great.”
The Youth Plays second EP someday, forever releases on the 15th August and they want to make it clear that despite frightening times, they are a band that matters and cares to serve the art and their audience.
“Something for people to know is that there’s a lot of emotion put into what we’re doing.
We always say that we’re not playing around, we’re betting our lives on this and this is what we want to do for the rest of our lives.
When you’re listening to us you’re not just looking at these four random dudes. You’ve seen into our lives, my emotions, into my experiences, into what concerns me or what moves me or what makes me happy.
The commitment, the seriousness is right there and there’s a lot of ourselves in the songs. It’s very open for us and it’s scary at times but when people react positively that’s the best.”
