Written Interview

Here's the interview that I will be featuring on my double page spread. To improve, I still need to add a stand-first and a conclusion at the end which I will be blogging about soon.

Which artist/band has been the main inspiration for your music?

Andre: Everyone has a different answer to that question, Simon likes The Damned and I prefer The Cure! The Cure are my favorite, they are actually the inspiration that has made me actually want to create my own music and write my own lyrics.

At which age were you certain that you wanted to do music?

Andre: I was literally born with it; my mother and father both played. My father made a living out of it. So there were always musical instruments around the house and I just picked them up and experimented with them. So I’ve had a lot of practice you can say with different instruments!

Is image important for rock stars?

James: Urmm yes, because the best thing about being in a band is playing on stage but it’s more important for some rather than others though. For us it is important, as we all believe by the clothing we wear when we play on stage, it expresses the music we play.

How did you guys form as a band?

James: We all have history in other bands as well. Nico, Andre and I all used to be in a band and Andre and Simon were in another band. We all knew that we could take ourselves forward by forming together as one band, which we decided to call The Drej.

Simon: I like the thing you said the other day James, about picking the best people with all the bands you’ve been in (laughs)…

Andre: The best musicians have it all!

Have you considered doing anything else?

James: We’re all concentrating on this, I mean I have a little studio in my house and I enjoy making electronic music at home but that’s just for fun really; this is more serious and that’s why we put all our focus on our music.

When was the first time you ever performed in front of a live crowd?

Andre: In mid January, last year at The Unicorn in Camden. We had a great time because we learnt and experienced new things by performing for the first time in front of a live crowd. It was a big deal to us and it still is to get people to actually come to a gig and to listen to our music.

Would you trade your current genre for a major record deal?

Andre: No we wouldn’t change what we do. This is the reason why we haven’t got a deal yet! (Laughs) We’re adamant that we’re making noise but we enjoy it. Writing our own songs and being able to express our thoughts and feelings is just great, especially towards people that actually agree with you.

Nico: You also have to enjoy what you do with what you got.

James: Record deals; you have to pay back the money that they give you; you’re not rich; you’re just going to be in more debt. We chose this style because we like it.

So what does the future hold for you?

James: The immediate future is getting our album out within the next few weeks, I guess. Then promoting that and see how it goes.  We’re going to try to get a few more gigs and push the record really and then after that it’s album number two!

Andre: We’re working on album number two already; we’ve just started to write songs for it.

How will you realise that you have reached success?

James: When we get to hand our notices in at our jobs (Laughs)

Simon: And we actually get paid for making our music.

Andre: It would also be nice to hear somebody else that I have never met before whistling one of our tunes. 

What has been the biggest challenge for you guys so far?

Andre: Getting to rehearsal (Laughs)

James: Well obviously we are based in London, so there are a lot of opportunities to play around but the only thing is that there is a huge amount of competition so you’re fighting against all the other bands to be noticed. The biggest challenge is probably getting our album together, sorted and done. We started to record it last March and it’s just about ready now! But it will be worth it once we see the end result, I’m sure we will all be pleased with our work.

Andre: For me, it was a challenge finding other musicians who wanted to play with me!

Just to finish off, tell us something you've never told an interviewer before?

James: The hardest question out of all of them! (Laughs)

Simon: I once came home drunk and went into the wrong house and watched somebody else’s television! (Laughs)

Nico: I’ve had man panties thrown at me whilst I was on stage!

It was a pleasure interviewing you all; thank you for your time!

James: No problem, thank you for having us all.