Page 19 - Black Velvet Magazine Issue 107

BV107 pg 18-21 Jordan Red Interview.qxp_BV107 pg 19 30/11/2022 00:06 Page 2

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I guess it’s just how we are. Personally, we’re both quite big on looking after
ourselves, health and fitness. No one’s a big drinker. I don’t drink at all. No
drink, no drugs. I guess that’s the old straight edge, right? You learn early
on, trying to perform well when you’re either hungover or whatever, or being
in a band with people that are doing things they shouldn’t, it’s not good.”
When Dan mentions that they are big on looking after themselves, he tells
us that Daniel Leigh (who some of you may know from fronting the rock
band New Device) is big on how he eats, bodybuilding and weightlifting.
Dan B., meanwhile, partakes in Jiu-Jitsu. “I first started back in 2016,” he
tells us. “I didn’t know what it was, but I kept seeing it everywhere. Joe
Rogan podcast, Jocko Willink, Brian Rose at London Real, I met him. He
was doing it. He said, ‘You’ve got to at least get your blue belt, you’ve gotta
start’. I was dabbling. I was training somewhere on and off for a while. Didn’t
really get on with it that well where I was, and then, obviously, Covid came
along and stopped it, but I restarted when we came out of lockdown last
year. I train at a really good gym in Bath, if you know it. Great team, really
high level, kick your ass,” he laughs. ‘It’s a great environment. It’s really
good for getting rid of that ego, build your humility. I feel like I had a fresh
start. It was May last year when I started again.”

he two members reached out to Conor O’Keefe and Dave Fee of
TAs Lions when working on their album. They’re not official members
of the band, but have played a show with the two Dans. Dan Baker explains,
“I’ve known Conor since 2004, I think. We actually met in the queue at The
Unholy Alliance Slayer and Slipknot tour at Hammersmith. We were talking
earlier, that’s how long we’ve known each other. Anyway, we did the first
two songs and had a different bassist and drummer just do those. That was
‘Beautiful Monsters’ and ‘Get Up’ on that session, and it just so happened
that we had a studio session booked and people couldn’t make it, so they
were coming back from tour. I think As Lions had been out with Alter Bridge,
and I said, ‘Are you up for doing it?’ and luckily, they were just back and
said, ‘We’ll do it’. They stuck around and did the rest of the album. So, it’s
been good. Touring-wise, if they’re not doing their thing and they’re avail-
able, we’ll cross that bridge as it comes up. They played with us back in
February, which was good. I mean, because they’re on the album, every-
thing sounds as it should with those guys playing it, so it’s quite nice. That
was our first show.”

efore They Burn Us All’ is a pro-free speech anthem and about
‘Bhaving the courage to stand up for your beliefs. Daniel Leigh sings,
‘Will you stand for something, or just stamp your feet?’ We ask what sort of
things they stand up for.
“I think, living authentically,” replies Dan. “Definitely pro-freedom of
speech, freedom to choose, say what you mean, mean what you say. I
guess the last few years have been really… a lot of people’s freedoms have
been infringed, I don’t agree with that. I think things have probably gone a
bit too far on that side. I think less interference with people’s lives would be
good.”
He tells us how the Covid lockdowns affected him.
“It's a weird one. There was some good…” he pauses to think. “We re-
leased the first song and then, a month later, got locked down, so that wasn’t
so good. 2020, because we had the bulk of material recorded, we didn’t get
to release it the way we were planning. I think, because everyone was so
concentrated online, everyone was inside, I think maybe we reached people
a little quicker or easier with it, because obviously everyone was like, ‘What
do we do?’ and you’re just pushing music out. And we just decided, rather
than… because we probably would have put a couple of singles out and
then the album, and gigged it to promote it, which would have been a lot
more normal, I think, but, instead, we switched to releasing a single every
few months, doing that all the way through. But, at the start, if anyone had
told you, ‘This is going to be..’ well, we’re three years on, we came out of
lockdown quite a while ago, but it’s still sort of lingering, the after effects
and everything. So, we thought, ‘Three weeks, six weeks, maybe three
months,’ at the start. ‘We’ll be fine and then we’ll be out gigging.’ And, ob-
viously, not fine. 2020 was one thing, but then they locked us down again
at the beginning of 2021 for four months, that was just… that was worse, I
think, because everyone expected, ‘Get to New Years, new start, and this’ll
be over, it’ll be fine,’ and it wasn’t. So, that was the thing. We had ten tracks
done before Covid. And then we were releasing singles and thought, ‘How
many singles from an album can you put out before you’ve just put out the
whole album?’ We got to ‘Freak Show’, the one that we put out at the start
of 2021. And we just thought, ‘That was the fifth single’. The idea was, ‘OK,
we’ll do some more songs, have a 12-track album,’ so we went back in July
2021. Did ‘Spilling My Blood’, did ‘Awake’. And that was all written. I’m pretty
sure we would have been in lockdown the first part of that year. I think we
came out in April. But it was definitely those two songs that got the brunt of
all of that frustration. We were writing in 2020, demoing stuff, but it was al-
most like, ‘What do you do with this? You can’t go to a studio to record.”
The guys tried to stay positive. Dan tells us he played a lot of guitar
every night, ”’Cause what are you going to do? Get on headphones, every-
JORDAN RED