The War On Drugs

You must have been pleased with the pretty much unanimous praise for Lost In The Dream?

“Obviously, you know, making the record I wanted to make the best thing I thought I could make, and the thing that represented the band and my friends the best way, and also that I could be like this is a step up for me. I don’t know, I feel really humbled by the whole thing because it has taken off. I feel like it’s given us so many opportunities in terms of making the band better. At the end of the day all anyone wants to do is be in an awesome band. That’s all we ever really wanted to do: play music together.”

Have you started working on the next record yet?

“I have a few songs that I’ve kinda been working on. I don’t really write with like an acoustic guitar and a pen and paper. I’ll have some ideas and I’ll put them in my phone, play them into my phone, and then I’ll listen to them and work on some lyrics. I’ll sometimes play them in soundcheck and get some sounds going and sometimes play them in rehearsal.”

How was playing Glastonbury?

“I grew up with a lot of my favourite bands playing Glastonbury. All the music mags I would read… Reading and Glastonbury… so to play it, on the Pyramid Stage, the main stage, was amazing. We played early in the afternoon, and it was pouring. It stopped raining before we played, and then right when we were about two songs in the sun came out. It was awesome. It was one of those magical things.”

Did you run into anyone you’re a fan of at Glastonbury?

“Well, on YouTube I watch this thing called Rig Rundown, by Premier Guitar. Most of the time they’ll talk to the techs. They’ll do like Dan Auerbach’s guitar rig, explained by his guitar tech. I’ve watched all of them. Eric Johnson’s is the best one. Everyone should watch the Eric Johnson one. His pedal board is like… all these guys now have these big crazy pedal boards which are MIDI controlled. Eric just has a couple of pedals on a slab of wood that he made and two tape echoes. It’s great. On the Dan Auerbach one, his guitar tech is backstage changing the pedals with his hands. There’s one with Josh Klinghoffer from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and his guitar tech is this old British guy who’s probably guitar teched for like 50 million guys, and he goes through his whole rig. They just find the whole thing hilarious. He plays through all these old Marshalls and Hiwatts, and the guy’s saying that these things are ready to explode at any moment. I like watching them. Billy Corgan actually does his own, and it’s amazing. There’s so many great moments, in so many different ways of it being great.”

– Filmed at NOS Alive 2014 for NME.