Interview: Warmduscher

Warmduscher are no strangers to Nottingham. When bassist Ben Romans-Hopcraft attended the University of Nottingham, he was used to the gigs he attended at Stealth and Rescue Rooms being very “chilled out”. It would come as a shock to him, to find that when they were a part of one of 2021’s defining gigs in the city, supporting hometown heroes Sleaford Mods as they finally headlined the Motorpoint Arena, of how much passion was put into the audience on that night. “People were properly, properly up for it”, he recalls, “there was a level of aggro in the air, but a good aggro”.

Now, on their return to the city, they are looking to recapture this ‘good aggro’. Off the back of their fourth studio album, At the Hotspot, they have secured their first headline show at Rock City. “We feel very lucky, considering the climate of the music industry at the moment, to get chances like this,” guitarist Adam J Harmer proclaims. Like many, the album’s creation took place within the COVID-19 pandemic, with the band unsure as to when they would get a chance to premier it on a live stage. Now, with their tour up and running, there is a steely determination among the group to give these songs the respect they deserve.

At The Hotspot is a concept album, albeit one which sprung up in unconventional circumstances. “Adam and I were in New York,” Romans-Hopcraft explains, “and we began to notice how WiFi hotspots had become the place for drug deals. Everything was so high tech and so bait.” This idea was then given to Clams Baker Jr., the band’s frontman and lyricist, who ran with it and started thinking up characters inhabiting the world of the hotspots. “They’re a combination of all kinds of people I’ve met,” he says of the storied personalities within his lyrics. “It’s the interesting and inspiring ones that stick with you, and make you want to think up a backstory for them.”

Baby Toe Joe is possibly the most unambiguous of these character-based songs. The titular Joe is used as an allegory for toxic masculinity. “He is the hero in everyone’s mind, but he can’t deliver,” Clams muses, “so he has to overcompensate by being nasty.” Of course, this is a topic that has been in the zeitgeist for some time, but Warmduscher are not in the business of using their songs to deliberately comment on overriding social issues. “Most of the songs just start as something that makes us laugh, then we look to build a story around it. The message usually reveals itself later on.”

Whilst the writing process may be a laugh a minute, Warmduscher should not be misconstrued as treating their work flippantly. They detail the creation of Twitchin’ in the Kitchen, a song that was perfected on an all-nighter from Harmer and Baker. “I really wanted to get it in'', Harmer recounts, “but we couldn’t quite find the right sound, so I said to Clams: “shall we just do it while everyone else’s out?”, and that’s how it got made.”

It is a track that has become one of the album’s most popular, earning it a place on the At The Hotspot Remixed EP. Released in September, it contains versions of songs on the album re-imagined by the likes of Red Axes and Yard Act, and for Clams in particular. “I’m from the dance world, and for me the remixes can sort of bridge the gaps between the two worlds. We make songs that aren’t dance songs per se, but they have that same energy. Most of all it’s just fun!”

Clams’ final proclamation speaks not only to the remixes, but to Warmduscher’s mentality as a whole. They are a band who are devoted to the pursuit of fun, and, perhaps oxymoronically, take creating fun very seriously. They try to make songwriting as democratic a process as possible, and in their new label, Bella Union, they have a space that actively encourages some of their rawer experiments - indeed, it was them who advocated for Wild Flowers, a catchy but extremely explicit cut, to be the lead single for the new album. With all these building blocks put in place, the sky is now the limit for Warmduscher, as they can continue to take their brand of greasy post-punk worldwide.

@warmduscherr