Déjà Vega - Interview

Ahead of their UK tour that kicks off this Friday at the Brudenell in Leeds we caught up with Déjà Vega for a chat about their recent first international show, venues they're looking forward to playing at, touring with Inspiral Carpets and plans for album three.

You’re about to embark on your biggest UK tour yet. Are you excited to go out and play some legendary venues and are there any you are particularly looking forward to?

Yes, very! We can't wait and we’re looking forward to all of them. The Brudenell is a favourite for us to watch bands in, The Bodega has always been special, we’d never played Nottingham until we played there, and it’s always been packed. The Thekla will bring back memories, we opened for the Inspiral Carpets years ago, but can’t wait for Gorilla,  it’s the first time I’ve crowd surfed while playing guitar, I really want to do that again!

It’s taken a long time for you to reach this stage of playing them. When you were serving your time doing the circuit in the North West did it ever feel that you might not get to this point or was there an overarching belief that it would just be a matter of time?

It was always a matter of time in our eyes, because of what people told us after every show. You have to have self belief, but when people travel all over to see us, and even come from Europe and the States, you just want to keep going and watch it grow. When we started, we only ever dreamed of playing a tour like this, so for it happening is unbelievable.

You recently played your first overseas show at Supersonic in Paris. How was that experience and has it whet your appetite for more?

Probably one of the best experiences we’ve had as we didn't know what to expect. When you get to play in a new place, you hope people will turn up, so that was ten times the worry when playing in Paris. We turned up and there was a queue all the way down the street, and we were blown away by the reception we got so we want to go all over now.

You’re playing some shows with Inspiral Carpets who you’d toured with in a previous incarnation of the band. How does it feel to be going back out with them at such an important moment for them?

It's an honour to be a part of this tour and it will be very emotional due to the last time we went on tour with them. Craig mentioned us quite a bit in interviews at the time, and he was great fun to be around. They taught us a lot about playing live and about being a band. Martyn told us always have a twelve month plan. We're truly grateful and we can't wait to share the stage with them.

It’s over a year now since your second album Personal Hell came out. Is a third record in the making?

We always writing but after the tour we're gonna knuckle down and finish off lots of ideas. We’ve got a few punkier sounding songs than the last album so we’re talking about putting them out before the end of the year as a one off. 

Can we expect to hear any material on this tour?

No, still a work in process at the minute. There are songs we haven’t played live before though that are in the mix for the set. 

And could you tell us how you’re developing your sound in the new songs versus Personal Hell?

We're putting a lot more in to our song structures and trying to do different styles of instrumentation as well as trying to find new sounds. We’ll always want to sound like us, but Personal Hell was a change from the first record, and the next one will have changes too. 

What are your plans once this tour is over?

Concentrate on writing and recording the album is number one. But we’re playing at Kendal Calling and Bearded Theory, and have a run of dates at the end of the summer in towns we’ve not played before, lots of exciting stuff.

Déjà Vega are on Facebook and Twitter. Personal Hell is out now and available on their store. They play headline shows at Leeds Brudenell Social Club (March 10), London Oslo (11), Nottingham Bodega (17), Bristol Thekla (18) and Manchester Gorilla (April 1). They also support Inspiral Carpets at Northampton Roadmender (March 23), Oxford O2 Academy (25) and Brighton Concorde 2 (26).

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