BOSTON MANOR // Desperate Times, Daring Tunes

With all their best-laid plans thrown into disarray, Boston Manor pivoted and used the chaos surrounding them to fuel their surprise EP, DESPERATE TIMES DESPERATE PLEASURES.

MORE: BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE: Building A Metal Legacy // DREAM THEATER: The Perfect Playlist For a Dream Theater Beginner REVIEWS: EVERY TIME I DIE: Radicals // DON BROCO: Amazing Things // BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE: Bullet For My Valentine // MASTODON: Hushed and Grim // BLACK COAST: Outworld // CONVERGE & CHELSEA WOLF: Bloodmoon: I // JIM LINDBERG: Songs From The Elkhorn Trail

It is not just their strongest work to date but also their most definitive. And with its dark undertones and pandemic inspired lines, it has well and truly earned its spot in the scenes history books. Following its release, we caught up with frontman Henry Cox to discuss how it came together and more.

Hysteria: DESPERATE TIMES DESPERATE PLEASURES was a surprise release. What inspired that?

Henry: The internet has been a very loud place for the last two years. With it just being an EP, we kind of thought it’s great because there’s not really any massive expectations. We’re not rolling in with a big album campaign. It’s five tracks. So let’s just drop it. We never really get to be a cool band that does that. It just made a lot of sense to us, really.

Your last LP, Glue, shook people’s preconceptions of Boston Manor, and this EP did the same. Is this something we’ll continue to see with future releases?

Yeah, it’s funny because it’s not been a deliberate thing. It’s not like we’re setting out to be deliberately sort of edgy. And be the band that changes their sound on every record. I think, really, what we’re trying to do is find a bit more consistency. I think we have achieved it with this EP. We really liked the sound of the second record, and we tried a lot of stuff on the third one. We kind of wanted to marry the two – the bits that worked on the most recent album and the sort of vibe, I hate that word, but you know what I mean, the sonic aesthetic, if you will, of the second album. So that was what we were really trying to hone in on. Rather than trying more new stuff, just kind of boiling down what it is that we already have. And we’re starting to get there. We’re focusing more on minimal compositions, not throwing too much stuff in the pan, and establishing a very distinct guitar sound as well. That’s been quite important to us.

And our whole thing now is like, I want to be able to send one of the guys a demo of a song, and it could sound like a Bruno Mars song. But we all trust each other and know that it will sound like one of our songs once we’re done with it. We know what the toolkit is, and the formula is and we just kind of run it through the formula, so to speak.

If you had to distil Boston Manor’s sound into a few simple words, what would they be?

I think it’s just really groovy dark guitar music. We like to get heavy and sometimes like to play with that sexy pop sound. We play devil’s advocate between sexy and sinister. That sounds very cheesy now that I’ve said it aloud (laughs). That’s how I hear it in my head.

It’s not like we’re setting out to be deliberately sort of edgy. And be the band that changes their sound on every record. I think, really, what we’re trying to do is find a bit more consistency.
[ Henry Cox ]

We love that! So with all that said, we felt like the EP was the perfect sum of everything you’ve done so far. Like if we were to introduce a mate to your music, this is where we’d start.

I’m really glad you said that. I feel exactly the same way; I feel like it’s the perfect intro to our band. It’s short and sweet, but it really gets to the point. You’ve got the poppier side on there, you’ve got the heavier side on there, and it all kind of fits together in a nice little package. So that’s definitely what we were trying to do with this EP.

DTDP feels like such a fitting release for these times, so when it came to finding your inspiration, where’d you look?

Yeah, I mean, it’s totally a lockdown record. There’s no point pretending otherwise. It was me stuck in Manchester in a rainy little room all day, waiting for my girlfriend to come home, just sitting with a dog trying to draw inspiration.

But a lot of it came from, not so much being stuck in my house and everything’s rubbish. I was just appalled by the behaviour of people, particularly British people. The first sort of six months was very much like, we’re going to pull together after the crazy panic buying. You know, clap for the NHS, and people posting their phone numbers through the doors, you know, if anyone needs anything or needs me to go shopping for them. It was really nice to see. And that lasted all about three months, and then people just started to get really nasty. The bigoted people started to come out of the woodworks, and people would very much be do for self, and it really depressed me. So a lot of the record is disdain for that type of person, who showed themselves a lot over the last year.

Yeah, we feel that. With our experiences in Australia, we reckon it was a universal thing.

I’m quite good friends with Bonnie from Stand Atlantic. She lives near me. She’s just come back to Manchester from Australia. She got stuck there over lockdown. And she told me all sorts of stories about stuff that’s been happening over there. So I think it has been fairly universal.

What’s one thing you want listeners to take away from the EP?

Well, that’s a good question. Because it doesn’t exactly end on a very, like, everything’s gonna be alright, kind of note. Maybe don’t take too much from it (laughs). Maybe just sort of nod and go that’s happened. And then move on. I hope it changes. Things seem to be improving – touch wood.

So we are grabbing you from the road. How have your recent shows been? We’ve got a little bit of FOMO over here!

Yeah, no, they’ve been great. Not trying to rub it in! But they’ve not been without their fair share of problems. You know, we’ve been observing a pretty strict protocol in terms of COVID. And one of the bands on the tour actually got COVID and had to drop off. We’re testing pretty much every day. And everyone’s wearing masks all the time. We’re aware that it’s here. We’re not like yippee; it’s 2019 again. It’s still very much a measured version of that. But I feel for you guys. Australia’s got to be starting shows pretty soon, right? Do you guys have festivals and stuff next summer?

Oh yeah, it’s definitely not all doom and gloom! We’re lucky to have a lot of amazing Australian acts, and we’ve got a lot of them coming back out.

Yeah, you guys have a pretty amazing self-contained music scene. You’re really not too reliant on international bands. We actually had a tour planned in May in Australia, and then due to a few things, COVID being one of them. We decided to push it back. And we’re now looking at the latter half of 2022 instead.

We’ve got our fingers crossed!

I do too! It’s been four years since I was there. I miss it.

Purchase and stream here.