'Um, we could do the interview from our van,' suggests Devil Sold His Soul's Paul Kitney, 'we've got a table and chairs in there and it'll be quieter,' he says excitedly.
As the band usher me out of the club and into their van in the car park, their pride and obvious excitement gives away how new such luxuries are to them; in reality, it's been a long journey to reach such heights. 'In the previous band, Mahumodo, we were doing quite well and getting on tours and stuff, but it basically fell apart; the singer moved away, but me, Paul and Jonny wanted to carry on playing music,' explains guitarist, Rick Chapple, 'so we carried on and held auditions for a singer and bassist, because we wanted someone permanent, with 'Modo we never had permanent bassist, so we wanted to kinda cement the line-up. So, we held auditions, found Ed first, and then Iain kinda through Ed because they both used to be in the same band [Cooler Than Wednesday Adams]… and that's basically it, that's where we are now! That was one and a half years ago, last January'.
With the current attention Devil Sold His Soul are beginning to attract, you could be forgiven for thinking that success has come relatively easy for the London sextet, yet Paul is keen to point out that the band have worked hard to earn their stripes on the live circuit, 'people kinda ask, you know, "how come you did so much so quickly?"' he explains, 'but we did put in about a year of work before hand, and there was seven years of the old band as well; with the videos that we have on TV now and the radio play and stuff like that people think we've just come out of nowhere, but it's been since school. We've been working on it for years and years and years, so, um, this is the first time we've had a van…'
While their previous success may have been reassuring and encouraging, the evolution from Mahumodo to Devil Sold His Soul hasn't necessarily been a smooth one, 'we had lots of kind of "anti-Ed" people,' Paul says with a sigh, 'they wanted Ed to be the old singer and the band to be the old band and people just couldn't take that it was a new band, new style (although there is some of the old band in there), new direction. Some of the press as well were kind of rooting for the old band and stuff like that; but now we're starting to come through in our own right', a sentiment echoed by guitarist Jonny Renshaw, 'we just wanted to get back to where we were, and we've gone passed that now, so that's pretty cool'.
So how would Devil Sold His Soul describe their sound now?
Iain: It's kinda sound-scape-y, but people say 'soundscape' like kind of background music, but it's kind of sound-scape in your face.
Ed: 'Atmospheric Metal.'
Paul: I think it's like a song of The Pixies' and its 'Wall of Sound', cause it's like, literally a wall of sound.
Ed: Brutal, but kind of beautiful at the same time.
Paul: It's just big heavy sounds, but dropping down to the melodic side as well, the complete dynamics. Basically, the old band was about the dynamics of one guitar to everything, back down to one guitar, back to everything, and we're still doing that but…
Iain: It's more advanced now, more sophisticated.
Paul: Yeah, we're trying to get more flavours in there. It's like going from a Margarita to a… something with loads of stuff on.
Richard: A mushroom pizza.
Paul: A bit more than a mushroom pizza…
In terms of sound, Devil Sold His Soul are definitely 'a bit more than a mushroom pizza'. Having defied the critics, and with the addition of new vocalist Ed Gibbs and permanent bass player Iain Trotter, Devil Sold His Soul have fused well as a band, allowing them to explode and expand many of the avenues that were restricted in their previous bands:
Paul: It's much more fun now, it's not like being told what to do and being treated like a session musician. Everyone's in it together and everyone's got their own voice.
Iain: There's definitely more ideas in there. It's not so… it used to be a really narrow band and now it's much broader, especially now it's got mine and Ed's influence and stuff.
Richard: Branching out more.
Paul: There's a sample in the set tonight that we're putting in, that we did for the first time last night and its like completely different to metal, it's not heavy or hardcore or anything like that it's more kind of, like, trip-hop stuff, 'post-rock' [laughs]. We're really trying to go in different directions, but kind of tie it all together.
Trying to define Devil Sold His Soul's sound is definitely a tricky subject, made even more complex by the various influences, age differences, and the simple fact that it is shaped by six different minds:
Paul: Everyone likes different stuff, like everyone's CD collections are completely different but there are similar areas, and everyone brings something in.
Iain: It's like two kind of generations, I mean it's not that different, but me and Ed are twenty and you guys [indicating the rest of the band] are, like, twenty-five, so I guess you guys kinda caught the end of the 'big metal' thing and me and Ed we're firmly kinda hardcore, and the end of the 'Nu-Metal' thing, so that's where we're kinda based… ish… [laughs]
Jonny: That's why it blends well together.
Paul: That's the thing, our influences aren't necessarily easy to pick out, cause some of them are old, like Metallica and Guns N' Roses and stuff like that, but then there's the more modern stuff like Will Haven.
Yet what seems most important to this band is finding their own individual sound:
Rick: We all know what we don't wanna sound like more than we know what we do wanna sound like; there's certain things we'll never do. There are probably modern bands that we sound like, but the music was written without having heard bands like that.
Paul: We get compared to bands we've never heard; people say, "oh you sound like Cult of Luna, and, Isis, and…" and it's like, we take it as a compliment, but we haven't heard that stuff and we try not to listen to that as well, 'cause if people say we sound like someone then we definitely don't listen to them.
Rick: It's quite strange when you're writing; stuff you listen to can influence you quite immediately if you don't actually think about it.
Jonny: Like 'Chico Time' [all laugh]
Richard: Yeah, and then you go back and think, 'oh shit, what was I listening to when I was writing that?!'
Iain: We just try to do what we do well
Paul: Yeah, do something well instead of doing loads of things badly, just try and concentrate and be specific on one thing and just really try to do that to a decent standard.
So having already begun to cause waves with their 2005 debut E.P, 'Darkness Prevails', plans for a full-length release are already underway. Yet the band are adamant that they won't settle for anything less than perfection:
Paul: We're gonna do it in Jonny's studio over the summer, July/August
Iain: We did want to do it somewhere bigger, but the label wouldn't give us more money. It's good though; because we can do it ourselves we get complete artistic control, we can spend as much time doing what ever we want and in the end if it doesn't sound great it's down to us and we can't blame anybody.
Paul: Yeah, we can spend two days getting the kick drum to sound good, as opposed to two hours. We did the sums for the record label, we wanted at least three weeks to record and one week to mix and the money they offered us gave us two weeks to do everything, and to do ten songs… that was just not enough time really. If we do it ourselves we can make the money go a lot further.
But like many bands, DSHS are well aware of the importance of playing live:
Paul: We want good CDs to be able to give to people, but we have to play as well as the CD. We always like it when people say, "we had your CD and were worried you wouldn't sound as good, but you sounded as good if not better", and that's what we want, and that's what we work so hard practising to do. To get a good sound we rehearse and rehearse. [Esquires] is really good.
Ed: Yeah, everyone's been really cool. It's bigger than we're used too.
Paul: Yeah, it's a good size, it's not too big and it's not too small. The stage is a good size and it sounds good as well, you can hear everything on stage. Nice and loud, loud but clear.
Talking to Devil Sold His Soul, it's clear that as well as aspirations to do some festivals, tour Europe and America, and support some bigger-name bands, the band's earlier comments about simply wanting to 'do what they do well' is reiterated when I ask them about their plans for the future:
Ed: Be at a comfortable level.
Paul: Just a band that the UK, or England is happy to say is theirs; kinda like LostProphets have done for Wales. Just doing what we do, we don't want to change our sound and the label's happy to back us, I mean that's why they don't give us too much money, cause we're quite underground and our sound's not mainstream. We don't want to be filthy rich we just want to be comfortable, and be able to record without having to go to work - that would be good.
Iain: Like this tour at the moment, the balance of having to do it at weekends and work in between, that's the bit that's not too good. And not having any money – none of us have any money, it's really rubbish…
'But,' says Rick cheekily as Iain trails off, 'we've got a VAN!'
Keep an eye out for more tour dates from Devil Sold His Soul later in the year, and an album hopefully planned for early 2007. To find out more about the band, check out their MySpace page, www.myspace.com/devilsoldhissoul or their website, www.devilsoldhissoul.com