INTERVIEW/REVIEW: Our Time Down Here (Southampton)

October last year saw Southampton's Our Time Down Here release their eagerly anticipated debut full length on Banquet Records. A while ago I asked them a few questions about the record and the band, and like the majority of material on this blog, I was aiming to save it for a real hard-copy version of this zine. However, you and I both know that will never happen so I'll post it up here. Giles Bidder of Cynics fame wrote the review.

So who’s gonna be answering these questions?

Hey dude! It's Will answering, just about to head out to see Johnfold acoustic down the road though, sweet times.

The albums been out for a little while now, how are things going, are you guys stoked with the response so far?

We're really, really so stoked. All the reviews were so nice and we still get emails all the time from kids all over the place telling us how much they like it. It's so much more than we could have hoped for, totally overwhelmed by the response.

You recorded your other release in June 2007 so this record is long overdue. Was it literally a case of waiting for the songs to be ready?

It took us a long time to work out what we wanted from a full length. I think it's fair to say we're an awful lot closer to the new songs than we ever have been to songs we've written in the past. A lot of shit went down in the years since we did the EP and I just didn’t feel like carrying on the same way lyrically would be honest. The whole process was quite cathartic and so I guess making that kind of record took a lot longer to work out. The music itself seemed to keep evolving and there was one point where we almost had a completely different batch of songs. We also played a crazy amount of shows in the years since the EP too, we we're evolving as a band I guess and just taking our time to work out what was honest and right for us.

Will, how would you say the songwriting process has developed between the releases?

I guess I’ve always been a fan of bands that evolve with each release. Coming out with something completely different on each release as apposed to essentially making the same record over and over makes so much sense to me. As much as I'm sure there were some kids who would have loved us to write a longer version of our EP it would have been rubbish. If we were to make another CD I'd hope it to be worlds apart from this one too.

When you went into the studio to record this, did you have any particular ambitions or aims to achieve with this record, and if so, did you meet them?

We had a lot of crazy ideas, some of them were too crazy and Peter Miles did a great job of trimming the fat. I guess we went with ambitions to create something more melodic that played with dynamics a bit more.

What were some of your main influences when writing the record?

I don’t think we've ever been a band who's shy about their influences; we pretty much wear them on our sleeve most of the time! The bands I can remember us listening to at the time were like shook ones, lifetime, saves the day, kid dynamite, jawbreaker, those sorts of bands. Also like casey jones, xlooking forwardx, champion, ruiner, the legacy. I think it made a cool contrast to have those two sides of punk between us. I also remember I'd got the Chillerton (RIP) record a couple of months before we started writing and was listening to that when I cycled to work most mornings. Jacks lyrics are fucking amazing.

I remember hearing Will explain one of the songs being about his choice to put off University. What do y’all do when you’re not in Our Time Down Here?

We all work real jobs at the moment. Chris works in sales, Greg works in road planning, Gary's a postman and I work in HMV. We're all total sellouts in the real world.

What has been your best show of 2009, and your favourite support slot?

There were a lot of great shows last year, I’d probably say the best show was the steals last show, but that wasn't for us playing that was just because that show was amazing. Our best support slot was probably the H2O dates, we had a sweet time on those shows.

And what's on the table for you in 2010?

There’s actually a lot of really, really exiting things happening right now but I don’t wanna go talking about them in case they don’t happen and I look like a douche, I'll just say that we hope to play all the places we've played over the last four years again, and more.

Tell us one thing we don’t know about Our Time Down Here

Although we always say we're from Southampton, only Greg and Gary were actually born here.

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Review: Our Time Down Here - Live. Love. Let Go (2009)

Our Time Down Here have got it bang on. They’re short, fast and loud, and don't appeal to the current-fad, lame side of hardcore.
Turning to more accessible (but not clichéd) side of the genre, Live, Love, Let Go is a refined step forward from the S/T EP the hooks are bigger, the sing-a-longs are fatter and Will’s lyrics are more personal than before.
Keeping in tact with the ridiculously awesome classic OTDH gut-punch drumming and ferociously spat vocals, this Southampton crew have found their Shook Ones goes Comeback Kid sound. And there's no other band in the UK doing it better.

www.myspace.com/ourtimedownhereuk If you like the sound of them, you'll be pleased to know we're putting them on with the incredible Hit The Switch on August 15th!