The Drums At RockNess: Frontman Jonathan Pierce On Shunning Cool, Ahead Of The Band's Last Show For A Year

The Drums At RockNess: 'We're About To Take A Year Off'

"It's very cool to make very linear, experimental, layered music and we write two-and-a-half minute pop songs," says Jonathan Pierce, the frontman of New York band The Drums.

"I think it's almost a slap in the face to some of those bands who spend so much time being interesting…

"We just want to write pop songs, we don't really know how to play our instruments well but we do the best we can. We are what we are. A lot of people want us to want to be bigger and better than what we are but we're pretty content."

The indie pop band have done pretty well with this approach so far - having released their first EP Summertime! in 2009, and full album in 2010 to great reviews, they went on to release a second, Portamento, in 2011.

Influenced by the likes of The Smiths and Joy Division/New Order, Pierce says they've felt ostracised from the cool New York music scene: "We were never asked to play with the cool bands and we didn't make cool friends. We felt like outsiders."

As I caught up with him backstage at RockNess festival on the banks of Loch Ness in Scotland before the band's performance on the main stage in front of 30,000 people, Pierce notes: "I didn't even know we were playing the main stage until 20 minutes ago."

And there's some news for fans: "Tonight's our last show for a year, we're about to take a year break. I think it will be a nice way to go out," he reveals.

So what will he do now?

"I've got some ideas to do a split release, just me on my own without The Drums and another band I really love called Part Time, they just changed their name to something else - to be revealed. I'll probably work on some of my own material on my own too."

I ask the 29-year-old blonde haired singer from Brooklyn what's caused this break and he explains: "I can't stop making music even if I tried to, I tried to stop before but I feel panicky and weird and I feel like that's the only thing I'm good at.

"So when I stop doing that I almost instantly feel useless, but the guys in the band really need a break and I'm kind of like a shark, I die if I don't keep swimming forward.

"Not for the sake of money or fame or any of that, it's literally like for me it's all a survival technique. And I'm getting older I want to put out as much music as I can."

RockNess 2012

RockNess 2012

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