British electronic punks Does
It Offend You, Yeah? are heading our way for the Future Music Festival
in March. Renowned for their raucous live shows involving smashed equipment,
onstage dance parties and broken legs, they are a non-stop uber rocking
disco party who will show you a night of mayhem that you’ll never
forget. The aureview woke up bright and early to have a chat with Dan
Coop about the upcoming tour, that difficult second record and the alcoholic
perks of being a rock star. 

Hi Dan, thanks for chatting with us. How are you going?
 

I’m good thanks. I’ve just
been in the studio doing bits of tidying up and getting ready for Australia.
Getting the live set and bits and bobs going. We’re in the UK at the
moment. James is working in our studio in Reading. He’s been finishing
bits on the album. Today I’m in London. I’ve been working on the
live set and getting my sampler working.  

Are you looking forward
to your Australian tour for the Future Music Festival and supporting
Prodigy on their Invaders Must Die tour?
 

We love coming to Australia.
I know it’s a cliché and bands always say they love the country.
But honestly its true. We always have a really good time in Australia,
every time we’ve been its been a real party but the last two times
its been a bit of a struggle. On the last tour James and Chloe had a
bad flu and the time before that James had a broken leg. This time we’re
hoping everyone’s firing on all pistons. James could hardly sing on
our last trip over, he was taking steroid shots for his voice. I’m
not sure they worked that well, but the shows were all good fun. 

You’ve had a lot of success
since the release of You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself
Into back in 2008. What’s been the highlight of your career thus far?
 

Going all around the world
is really good fun. Going to places you’d never thought you’d get
to go to. I’ve always seen Australia on TV but I never thought I’d
get the whole way around the world to go there. The travelling mainly
and playing festivals to thousands of people has been the best.  

You’ve played festivals
all over the world. What’s your favourite festival and why?
 

There’s two that’s my favourite.
Coachella in LA. Its kind of crazy. When I went I got to see Portishead
play live. I’ve always wanted to see them and never had the chance
and I found out we were playing on the same day and it was incredible.
We got to hang out with Geoff for a little bit and say hi and he was
really cool. It was an amazing experience being there. Summer Sonic
and Fuji Rock in Japan are pretty special to. They look after you loads. 

Do you prefer playing festivals
or solo shows?
 

Festivals are always good because
you get to see a load of other bands that you may not have got to have
seen. With your own shows you’re either supporting another band and
get to see their show again and again or it’s the other way around
you’re seeing the support band again and again so its nice to change
that up occasionally. 

What are the best and worst
things about touring?
 

Worst things is its really
hard to keep up with friends and family. We’re all good friends in
the band, but sometimes its hard. James has a daughter he hardly gets
to see. We’ve all got close relatives and after you’ve been away
for a year and a half the only thing they want to talk about is the
tour. The last thing you want to talk about when you get home is touring
or anything to do with the music industry. You just want to go home
and chill out and talk about random crap. The best thing I suppose is
you get quite a lot of free alcohol. Sometimes you get to stay in nice
hotels, sometimes you get to stay in crap hotels, but no matter what
you always tend to end up with quite a lot of alcohol. You always end
up in some kind of party that can be a mess or a good night depending
on how much you drink. 

Which do you prefer - playing
live, DJing or remixing?
 

Definitely playing live. DJing
is good fun, but its just playing other peoples records. It all depends
on the crowd really I’ve played in clubs where people are acting cool
and not really dancing. And I’ve played in clubs where people are
going absolutely insane. They all have their merits but playing live
is better as you can create an energy when playing onstage with your
friends.  

What inspires you to write
music?
 

Frustration. It started off
as boredom really. Basically when it started it was just me and James.
We didn’t have anything to do on a bank holiday weekend and James
had been producing for ages and I’d been DJing so we thought lets
just give it a go and we ended up with a record contract. So we kind
of have to take it more seriously now. Whether its stuff that makes
us angry or sad or just anything really. It was a bit of a whirlwind
kind of a thing, I wouldn‘t say we‘re mega superstars yet, but its
all good fun.  

Who are your biggest musical
influences?
 

We have a stock answer to this
because everyone just says its on our Wikipedia. Bands like Daft Punk,
RATM, Nirvana and lots of 80’s music and John Hughes films. We grew
up in the 80’s and matured in the 90’s so that’s where all our
influences come from so to speak. Just pop culture really.

Your music gets tagged a
lot as nu-rave. How would you describe your sound?
 

I don’t know. Just hard electronic
music. On the last album there was a lot of poppy stuff, but the new
album has a harder edge. There are maybe two tracks that aren’t really
hard but the majority is very uncompromising. Its hard for me to explain
what it sounds like but I’m really looking forward to people hearing
it. 

You collaborated with Sebastien
Granger (of Death From Above 1979 infamy) on Let’s Make Out. What
was he like to work with?
 

He was a lot different to what
I thought he’d be. I met him at a Bloc Party gig in New York. We asked
him to work with us through our management and he flew in from Canada
for the day. We were at Jimi Hendrix’s studio Electric Lady land and
he came in and spent a few hours recording vocals.  He’s a really
nice guy, it‘d be quite good to hook up with him again sometime. That
track is very Death From Above. That was kind of our like ‘they’re
not around anymore but we’ll give it a go and see if we can do something
like that’. Both Jesse and Sebastien together were amazing. Death
From Above 1979 is one of my favourite bands from the early 2000’s.  

How’s the new album coming
along?
 

Its pretty much done. There’s
just a few little tweaks James wanted to do over the next week and its
going to mastering next Friday before we head to Australia. We’re
very, very close to finishing. I’ve been playing the album to a quite
a few people and have been getting some positive comments on it and
I’m really happy with the final product. With our last record we put
out the album before we released the singles but this time I think we’re
definitely going to put out a few singles first before the album comes
out and then people can hear the final release in all its glory.