Jurassic Lark

Given the current vogue for dance-punk and no-frills indie, it’s safe to say that American alternative rock from the ‘90s isn’t exactly on the syllabus for many of the younger bands around. It’s interesting, then, to note the growing profile of Leeds trio Dinosaur Pile-Up, whose sound – an inspired take on the fuzzed-up guitars and pounding drums of Bleach-era Nirvana – is very much at odds with the contemporary musical climate.

“I totally know where you’re coming from with the indie thing,” nods the group’s guitarist and vocalist Matt Bigland. “It’s just like, ‘Jesus, another shit indie band that writes meaningless songs.’ It’s weird, to you a heavy sound comes across as fresh, but to us, heavy never went out of fashion. I don’t know what the fuck happened, but people just stopped listening to it.”
In a recent issue of Hot Press, the Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield made the point that there’s a generation of bands – and audiences – who appear to find aggression in music almost distasteful.
“The thing is, it’s all gone shit indie, or it’s gone the other way, and turned into this new, fashionable hardcore,” observes Matt. “In that genre, it seems like everyone is screaming throughout an entire song, to the point where you’re almost desensitised to any anger that’s being expressed. There are no melodies – it’s just a dude with a good haircut, yelling. At the moment, music seems to have fragmented in a pretty extreme way.
“Whereas with old bands like Rage Against The Machine, Foo Fighters, Nirvana and maybe Deftones, they were angry when they needed to be. We feel a real kinship with that. None of us are angry dudes, but if we need to kick ass for a bit, we’re gonna.”
Although Dinosaur Pile-Up have been attracting plenty of attention for the series of punked-up, attitudinal songs they’ve released so far, the band are in no hurry to release their debut album.
“Songs are continually being written, but we’re not going to rush it in any way,” Matt insists. “We’re not putting ourselves under any time constraints. Ideally, after the summer is when I would like us to be preparing for the album, but we don’t have a date. When we have the tracks, that’s when we should go in to record an album. A lot of bands rush their record and end up having to answer for it. We want to avoid that.”
With all of Dinosaur Pile-Up previously playing in bands that failed to make it, the trio are enjoying the buzz that currently surrounds them.
“It’s great,” enthuses Matt. “It’s unexpected for sure. The band really wanted to get going this year, to do some gigs and get some releases out. It seems people are digging it a little, and we’re getting bits of radio airplay and so on, so it’s really good. We’re psyched about being able to play festivals this year due to that stuff. We’ve all been in bands before and done the whole routine of touring and trying to build a fan base, so it’s nice that there’s a little bit of support backing this one.”

Dinosaur Pile-Up play the Hot Press New Bands Stage on Friday July 10