You know a band is going to be great when its members are this excited. Like most bands, they might be glad of an excuse to break up the boredom of gig-waiting, but it’s clear that Victory Pill could talk about Victory Pill until the cows come home. Excited doesn’t come close. Front man, Jim Davis, is perhaps the most composed, yet he glows with a certain pride, a contented satisfaction and just a hint of nervousness that might be present in a man who’s just fathered a new baby. Victory Pill is that baby, and after playing guitar in The Prodigy and Pitchshifter, Jim has finally started creating the kind of music he had always envisioned. ‘I’ve obviously been part of a lot of bands,’ Jim tells me thoughtfully, ‘but I got to the point where I felt like I’d spent a lot of time doing stuff for other people, even though with [Pitch]Shifter I was a big part of it, and wrote a lot of it, I still felt that it wasn’t my band, it was always going to be John’s… a lot of friends, Kieran being one, as soon as I started writing some stuff on my own were there saying, “you should do something with this.”’
After getting together with friend and drummer/bass player Kieran Pepper, and playing him the initial instrumentals, the band (who at this time was under the working title, The One Condition) had only one problem: ‘putting the band together was easy except for the vocal side,’ Jim explains with a smile, ‘we put an advert in Kerrang! And got twenty or thirty replies. Everyone sounded like Slipknot! We wanted something rowdy, but a bit more English sounding.’ With none of the applicants really hitting the mark, Jim took it upon himself to provide the vocals, ‘it was a massive challenge for me, and I’ve never done it before, never got involved with vocals before. I’m over the shyness stage now, and I can’t imagine anyone else doing it.’
For Jim and Kieran, Victory Pill certainly has a much more mainstream, melody based sound than their previous works. ‘I hate that word, “melody”; I’ve just tried to write good songs… “pop” is such a taboo word’ recognises Jim, who is corrected by Kieran, ‘it’s electronic rock; whether it becomes “pop” or not depends on how much it sells!’
If you ask Jim and Kieran what they’re listening to now, or which bands they would recommend, they’d tell you that they have respect for Enter Shikari, that they’re listening to the new Nine Inch Nails album non-stop, and that they both love Depeche Mode. Jim also confesses, ‘I’ve had the same CDs in my car for three or four years!’ and reasserts his passion for British rock bands like The Cure, The Jam and The Sex Pistols. It’s little wonder then, that after the initial gigs the Jim and Kieran decided that the extra guitars they had drafted in were overpowering their rock melodies, and instead turned to producer Pete Crossman to provide their ‘dark electronic side’ that would prevent their rock melodies from being lost in the maelstrom.
However, the electronic side of the music hasn’t made for an easy life when it comes to live gigs, and neither (it seems) has the nervous excitement and heavy burden of responsibility that now sits on Jim and Kieran’s shoulders. ‘We’ve been working on this for bloody ages! Actually gigging was a big step as well; it took so long to get to that stage. I love playing live,’ Jim enthuses, ‘but it always stresses me out. I’ve got a lot more on my shoulders this time. At some of the Shifter gigs I’ve been wankered and still been able to play the parts because I’d been doing it for years; but now I have to be on it – if I have a couple of beers before we go on, I really feel it!’
Perhaps it’s time for the question we’re all dying to ask, can Victory Pill ever live up to the kind of success achieved by The Prodigy and Pitchshifter… Do Jim and Kieran think it can, and even, do they want it to? Surely they must get fed up with the comparisons?
‘It’s a real double-edged sword, because you can’t help what you’ve done,’ explains Jim, ‘so although I can’t help but cringe when promoters mention those other bands, I accept that they’re going to – and I would if I was a promoter and wanted to get people in! I don’t think… it’s not like this band has to get to the same level as the other bands, that’s not the idea of this. We’ve got that perfect scenario of being with your mates, which is great! It makes me laugh when people say, “oh, there’s a bit of Pitchshifter there, and almost a bit of Prodigy…” and it’s like, “well I’ll be blowed!”’ [laughs] I can’t help that, I write songs the same as I did with ‘Shifter. I think it’s moved on, definitely. The guitar style is similar to what I’ve always done though. I’ve never really changed that; I’ve got something that works.’
These are strong words from a band with big songs and a real chance of hitting mainstream success. If you had any doubts that Victory Pill are intending to be around for a while, you only need to see the excitement and animation in Jim’s assertion that ‘half of the second album is done…’ Bear in mind, at the time of the interview, it two weeks before their first one is due for release.
For more information on Victory Pill, checkout the website at: www.victorypill.com or their MySpace page, www.myspace.com/victorypill