The Paisley Daze are back in full force for the upcoming release of their sophomore album, 'Onto Better Days'. We at Cheated wanted to the celebrate the occasion with an ode to, and celebration of, the men behind the magic.
We caught up with the boys, alongside Paisley Daze flagbearer and Cheated alumni, Charlie, to discuss the past, present, and future.
It's been big year for the boys of Paisley Daze. Following hot on the heels of the release of their debut album Life in a Daze, they have hardly had the chance to take a breath. Shows at Wilderness Festival, Paris' Hoyz Market and Toronto's North by North East Festival, were the crowning jewels of a very busy summer for the pair.
However, currently at the time of our conversation, live shows have taken a backseat, and their focus is almost solely on perfecting things behind the scenes in anticipation of the new record.
Sat besides the steamed up front window of the Southampton Arms in Gospel Oak, the boys, both with a pint in front of them, and Peps with a sausage roll, begin to explain this recent change in focus.
K: Doing the shows was like, getting a bit troublesome.
Kish declared, with his characteristic manner. Peps agrees.
P: Yeah, look, if you're just playing the same show over and over again and it's the same people coming, there's not much benefit to doing that. You know, apart from using it as a rehearsal to get better and tighter as a band. By doing less in terms of shows, we get more of a chance to focus on other stuff, other aspects of being in the band.
As the sausage roll and pints went from wholes to halves, Charlie found himself reflecting on the boys' debut record and had theory of his own that he wanted the two to chew on.
C: I have a theory that the whole album is like a love letter to booze.
The boys chuckle.
P: In a lot ways, yeah actually.
K: I think it's because that's what our lives looked like at the time, we were playing those songs live and then recording them, we called the record Life in a Daze for a reason.
P: Yeah, I think it's like a snapshot of what our lives looked like at the time, apart from like, Brand New Day and Konfused, all of the songs were written in a year pretty much.
The boys themselves become reflective.
P: I mean, he (Kish) was fucking homeless, I had two jobs.
K: I was living above a pub, I got kicked out of that pub, and then I lived above another one, but somehow we still managed to record the entire fucking album.
C: Then maybe my theory's wrong? Maybe it’s a love letter to the pub?
P: Yeah. Or maybe it's just as much about losing a bit of love for it too.
Recently, the picture looks different for the boys.
Having both found a new home with one another over the summer, things are relaxed and the boys are more at ease than ever. It feels like they’ve found their feet, a feeling which can be felt musically throughout the upcoming LP. Making less appearances are the fervent vocals and riffs on tracks such as 'Life and Love’, and in its place are more sure-of-themself, piano led tunes, such as ‘Cathy’; a touching yet resenting string-amplified letter to an ex-lover.
P: I think who we are now comes through in the new album. The energy of it is a lot more relaxed and calmer, although it’s still got a lot grit to it.
K: Yeah, there’s less shouting and more singing.
P: Like we've alluded to, with the first one we were going out all the fucking time, and nowadays we don't really go out that much.
C: Why is that do you think?
P: I think it's because we like being at home, like being at home is actually quite nice now, you know? I'm reading The Doors' guitarist's (Robby Kreiger) biography right now, and he was saying once they got a bit of money after their first album, they all started buying houses in the Hollywood Hills away from all the Venice Beach mayhem, and that's when they really started chilling out and writing nice music: focusing on harmonies rather than just being loud and hitting shit.
The pints have multiplied by a few, the surroundings are warming up: the conversation turns to the topic of love. Love, relationships, and heartbreak are subject matters that have found themselves as somewhat cornerstones in the Paisley Daze discography. Whether it’s the feeling of breaking out of slump post breakup, sang about within Over The Moon, or the unrequited love song Sorry Darling, the boys have never been afraid to tackle such things head on.
C: How is a man even supposed to find love nowadays?
K: I dont really give it too much attention to be fair. There’s no time, there’s no money.
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P: Well, you haven't really had much luck have you to be fair!
K: I just find it hard to justify putting a woman through a relationship with someone like me. The music is always going to come first, especially at the moment.
C: But isn’t that quite ironic? You both write about it in such poetic ways in your music.
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K: Well I'm still a romantic, I still feel all the feelings, it’ll just never go anywhere because there's no space for it to grow, you need to nurture it. You need time, love and water: two things of which I don’t have very much of. You always try and tell them at the start, that you can’t commit to things in the same way, but things still grow and feelings can get hurt.
P: Yeah I think the penny’s dropped that we aren’t ever going to really have the most normal relationship if we’re going to pursue this or whatever. You know, unless they want to sit around in a smelly fucking studio all day.
C: I'm sure they’re out there somewhere.
K: Well if you are, come and find me!
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The boys, from their taste in music and fashion to their method of recording (completely live with their band in a studio), enjoy relishing in all things old-world. They try as best they can to live as old heads on young shoulders in such times of modernity, although even they can find themselves caught in the throes of social media and all the things that come with it.
C: There’s loads of lines that stick in my head, but ‘doomscrolling my life away’ is one of my favourites.
K: Yeah I do a lot of doomscrolling.
C: So you don't really see yourself as someone who’s defeated it then?
K: I don't think it's something that even necessarily has to be defeated. I’m quite productive with the rest of my time, I find it as a break from the constant stream of thought.
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P: Nah you’re scrolling a lot whenever I come into your room though.
K: Yeah it’s my down time. You might laugh, but meme pages are a pivotal part to a musician's life in 2024. It’s like the modern-day version of the town crier, you know? I find a lot of stuff in it, the comment section is best, I nick a lot of lyrical content from some of the shit people come out with.
C: Wait so you’re talking about a muse aren’t you? Like a doomscroll muse.
K: Yeah I like that!
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C: How do you feel about social media as whole when it comes to being in the band?
P: We fucking hate it.
K: But we have to do it you know? Our whole aim is to play to as many as possible, and the way you achieve that and engage nowadays is through the social media stuff. We’ve tried our hardest for the longest time to not do it, but feel like we’ve been left with no choice.
P: Yeah for sure. But we’ve also been trying other things, like recently we played a gig in our flat and that was so fun. I think doing stuff like this is more worthwhile for us than social media and the conventional gigs in the little pubs.
K: Obviously we want to help out the grassroot venues but they don’t want to fucking help us out at the moment. So we’re looking forward to just doing our own thing.
C: Do you feel a bit hung out to dry?
P: We do feel let down, but the people above them are being let down too.
K: I think it just comes back to the whole music industry being broken, there’s no money for people up and coming. It feels as if there’s money in the industry somewhere, it’s just all being siphoned off at the top.
C: It also seems to me there are newer bands out there who have the ability to pay to win.
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P: Oh 100%, and you can always tell which ones they are. You see these bands that don’t even have a record out, hardly anything on their social media, and they’re supporting this really big band. You're like, how they fuck have they gone from nothing to this? Then you hear from someone that their cousin knows someone's uncle who knows someone else, and you’re like ah, there we go.
