The Dawn Chorus - General Press Cuttings

October 2008 - The Dawn Chorus' adventure by John Earls

"It's not a surprise the album is so concerned with death. The idea of mortality petrifies me."

Ever since a demo arrived 18 months ago, Portsmouth country-rockers have been one of the most under-rated bands in Britain. Their album The Big Adventure was self-released, and they fit in tours around their day jobs.

"We're lucky," says singer Kyle Evans. "We don't actually mind our jobs."

Kyle is a maths teacher at a secondary school, and tried to keep his musical sideline a secret from his pupils.

"I'm impressed I managed it for a year," he laughs. "But when we played more and more local gigs, word was bound to get out.

"I enjoy teaching. It'd have to be a very good label offer to get us to go full-time - I'd rather teach than be sat around doing nothing all day long."

Such a down-to-earth attitude tallies with The Dawn Chorus' influences.

"I love The Decemberists, the Saddle Creek acts, who've had a steady rise," says Kyle. "For British bands, look at The Broken Family Band, who've released four albums with barely any publicity.

"Don't get me wrong, I'd love us to be like Radiohead or Arcade Fire, to have millions of people like us and keep the quality up. But we're realists."

The Big Adventure was a way for Kyle to tackle his fear of death, but setting it to uplifting, brassy country-rock.

"With the music we write, you don't want the lyrics to be too chirpy," says Kyle, 24. "At the same time, you don't want to be too depressing.

"I write songs in batches, and hope a theme will emerge. I don't deliberately write concept albums, but it feels more of a body of work with a narrative."

The band began two years ago, and at first were a regular indie band.

"Our keyboardist Paul joining was a massive change," recalls Kyle. "He plays trumpet too, and it added a new dimension to our sound. You think of how to incorporate them into the songs, not just having them as garnishes.

"My mum's tone deaf, but my parents had loads of cheesy '60s pop and I think that's where I get my love of melody."

The band go on tour next week (yes, during half-term), and are already playing new songs done after the album.

"Doing this part-time, we appreciate gigs more when we do get to play them," muses Kyle. "We're at the stage now where we know what we're doing at gigs.

"We've got a mandolin player now too, and it looks like we'll strip our sound right down or get even more full-on next time. I just need a theme now..."

July 2008 - The Dawn Chorus - The Mag Awards Show Preview

As The Mag Awards gets ever closer, we thought we ought to catch up with some of the bands playing at the show. We got hold of Matt Simpson, drummer and singer from The Dawn Chorus in order to get answers to a few questions.

You've have a couple of busy months with the release of your new album, what has the reaction been like from all your fans?

Generally the response has been very good, we seem to be accumulating new fans at gigs because of the music we play, which is what we have always wanted to do. The addition of Ben (on mandolin) has really beefed up our live sound and allowed us to get closer to how we want to sound. And he's another mate from way back too.

You've been a big hit with The Mag readers, getting into the MP3 charts and Top of the Crop, do you still get surprised by your success?

I don't think 'surprised' is the right word; we have put a lot of work into the band over the last few years and we have belief in what we do so I guess we think the songs deserve it. I think a more fitting word would be 'grateful'. The Mag charts show that music fans have been listening to our stuff, and that makes us happy. We know how much choice music fans have and it's fantastic to think that a bunch of them have chosen to listen to our music.

Original 106fm's Xan Phillips is a fan of your music, how does it feel when you hear your songs being played on the radio?

Weird! Mostly it's a testament to the work Neil and Rich (Jelly Maid Music and Blacksmiths Studios) put in to mixing and producing the music; the songs never seem to sound out of place on the radio due to how well they have been polished by those guys.

This is your first time performing at The Mag Awards, what does it mean to you to perform at the show?

The Mag have always been very good to us so it's a great feeling to be performing amongst friends. It was a great night last year and all I wanted to do then was get up and play; this year we get to do just that!

What should we expect from your performance on the night, have you got any special tricks up your sleeves?

We'll be rolling out a bunch of tunes from the new album with the full live set up (6 of us), and maybe visiting a few of the oldies too. As for tricks up sleeves; I wouldn't want to ruin any potential surprises!

Well the big night is looming and we are all getting very excited, do you have any final comments you would like to tell The Mag's readers?

Come along and celebrate music; obviously it's an awards show but the spirit of the Mag has always been to share enjoyment of music and just have a good time. Also, buy me a drink. Cheers!

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