At Reading Festival we sat down with Chrissy Costanza, Will Ferri and Dan Gow, better known as Against The Current. Confirmed to support Good Charlotte in the UK later this year we couldn’t wait for a chat with the trio, even if Chrissy admitted she was upset that she couldn’t bring her wine in for the interview!
You guys played the main stage at Reading earlier today how was it for you?
Chrissy: It was awesome, it was kind of mind blowing as we’ve never really done anything else like it so.
Dan: It was great.
Will: It was beautiful and sunny.
It’s been so lovely and hot this weekend hasn’t it!
C: I wore leather pants that were also fleece lined for some reason. I didn’t realise they were fleece lined til I put them on at first. I just thought they were soft on the inside but when I took them off after they were just wet pants.
How did you find Leeds compared to here?
W: Cold, windy. It was actually cold.
C: I needed a jacket there.
D: Hopefully the sun starts to go down so we can have our jackets on!
As a female fronted band, you’ve no doubt heard the disputes over the lack of females on festival line-ups. Do you find that this inequality bothers you or just feel like it needs to be let go?
C: It’s definitely a tough question to answer because it’s I feel like a lot of people are looking to point the finger in one direction or another but it’s not really possible you know. It’s not the responsibility simply of the Reading promoters because you don’t know what females they asked which couldn’t do it, that were not in the place in their record cycle so couldn’t do it. Plus there’s also just a deficit of females in the band world. There’s not a lot of poppier acts at Reading Festival so there is that deficit in general. There are quite a few females they did add on that are playing like Haim, Halsey. Massive girl power acts and they’re playing later at the NME and they’re obviously amazing so we were here yesterday and got to watch PVRIS play and they’re an amazing group so. All I can say really is I hope more female groups like that, female fronted groups or female artists keep emerging and keep pushing through the mould to get up here.
Can you tell us more about the In Our Bones recording process?
W: We wrote a lot for that as it was our first records so we were just writing as much as we possibly could upwards of 40 songs. Over a long amount of time, there’s a lot of songs we wrote almost a year before that. Originally we almost did a third EP then we signed with Fueled By so it was like the time to do a full-length record. We collaborate with a lot of cool writers, a lot of different influences which is cool.
C: We definitely learned a lot about different approaches to writing songs. Different ways of writing about the same situation which before we hadn’t really ever experienced anything like that.
Are there any messages you’re trying to spread with your new album?
C: The one which is out or the one we’re working on?
Well, now you’ve mentioned an album which you’re working on…
C: I think to be completely honest we’re just trying to be honest. Trying to talk about things we’re going through and experiencing and learning. We’re all really young, we’re 21 and 22 and we’ve been doing this since we were young. Trying to write music and to get to where we are now and passed it. We’re really trying to work through all these things and work through them with our fans and inspire them to push past what they think is possible of themselves. Because I think there’s always these points along the way when we’re like “can we do this? Can we do this?”. It’s all been about pushing on and pushing on and going beyond what you ever thought you could do. That’s what we want to help push our fans to do themselves as well in whatever field they’re in and it doesn’t have to be music.
That’s such a lovely inspirational answer! If you could choose a favourite lyric which is one of your own which would it be and why?
C: Erm. Okay. I really like we have this song Demons which is like the last track on our record In Our Bones. It’s really raw and emotional and the first line goes “I read your veins like lines on a map but I got no destination”. I really like the imagery of that. I don’t know there’s something so poetic about comparing bodies to like other things like a map. I don’t know I love something like that, I’ve always loved reading poetry. I read things like that in books when I was younger so when we were writing that song it just felt like that’s really nice to put those kind of feelings into those words.
D: Some of the Wastelands ones are cool.
C: I feel like I’m going to have a million answers to this by the time the interview is over.
D: It’s not a song we play a lot but it was a big focus on the record but I like the idea and a lot of the lyrics in the song Young & Relentless we have. It’s like the most autobiographical song that we have. I like some of those lyrics.
You’ve just announced you’re touring around the UK with Good Charlotte later this year, how did that come about?
D: We met them on the All Time Low tour we did last year and one day we got told Good Charlotte want to go out on tour with you.
C: They were super cool to us on that All Time Low tour they came over to us at catering. They’re legends they’re like rock stars so I was like I wanna say hi but not bother them. They had their wives out and stuff but they just came and sat down to introduce themselves to us at catering and gave us some real “this is what it is in the music industry” from an artist perspective. Because we have quite a lot of voices in our ears of people that work in the industry but not a lot of other musicians like seasoned musicians so they were like “here let me give it to you straight, this is what it is”. It was really cool to hear that!
What would be your festival anthem?
D: There’s a lot.
C: I think I saw mine. I saw both of mine.
D: Either With or Without You or Easy Lover by Phil Collins.
C: We got to see Liam Gallagher perform Wonderwall the other day. This is like an iconic moment. Seeing THE song played. It’s just one of those things you can’t deny it whether you actively listen to Oasis or Liam Gallagher or not. Also for me, I love Muse so much so there’s like 8 songs in Muse’s set which were ideal for me to see at a festival. Last year I saw The Killers play Mr Brightside and that was like I don’t think I realised how much I needed to see that until I saw it. I was like dead in the pit I was not there as an artist I was there solely as a fan. I was buried in the crowd. I was screaming. Everyone was soaking wet because it had just poured for hours it was great. It was like spiritual.
Finally what’s next up for you guys?
C: We’re on tour!
D: We leave for South America, South East Asia, Australia tour in two weeks. Then we’re off again til Good Charlotte.
C: Well we’re not off it’s writing the record time. Anytime we have time ‘off’ it’s writing time and recording time and besides from that just touring all year, every year, all the time.
Interview By: Nicola Craig
