Sad Night Dynamite are the next big thing, they just don’t know it yet
Welcome to CHEW THE FAT WITH…, our long-form profile series where we invite you to sit down with fashion’s next generation as they dig deep into their memories. To chew some fat - defined as an informal conversation brimming with small talk - we encourage you to pull up a chair and take a big old bite as we spill the tea on the life and work of the industry’s need-to-knows. Just remember to mop up after yourself.
On one of the first days it hasn’t pissed it down in London for what feels like months, SAD NIGHT DYNAMITE - a young, brotherly duo of Glastonbury-raised mates - are sitting outside a cafe in Dulwich Park, trees and grassland stretching off into the distance behind them as they squint at me each time the sun beams in their eyes. But even though the two guys were raised in the countryside, they couldn’t look more out of place.
Their big metal chains, black hoodies and jeans aren’t exactly the attire of a quintessential Somerset native. You might have thought Josh Greacen (22) and Archie Blagden (23) might rock up in a Range Rover, sporting tweed jackets, wellington boots, a copy of the Daily Mail and talking about how Jeremy Clarkson’s new TV programme is actually alright. But they promise that they don’t go pheasant shooting in their free time.
The pair look alien amongst the greenery to say the least. But in truth, it’s in nature that the two feel most at home and inspired. You may not have guessed it by looking at them, but they felt like they had to escape the claustrophobic, non-stop-building-works of their previous East London flat and move out South just to get away from it all. And who can blame them? Reconnecting with Mother Nature, the guys - who emulate the energy of two siblings in the back of a car on a long journey - can finally be amongst the breeze in the trees, the flowers and the lakes. They can spend their days ruminating upon life as they beat grassy paths, write music on a tree stump, and delve into the tranquillity that reminds them of home.
Ry Gavin: So, other than music, what do you do for fun?
Josh Greacen: Drugs.
There’s little else in this world that’s quite like hearing Sad Night Dynamite for the first time. It’s the kind of experience when you can remember exactly where you were, exactly what you smelt, what you were wearing and who you made eye contact with. A lot of people have been quick to compare the band to the likes of GORILLAZ and DAMON ALBARN and, at times, you can hear those influences filter through. But in reality, you’ve never really heard anything like it.
Like many bands, the pair met at school, both making music and trying to hit the big time outside of class. Josh would write Christmas songs and Archie, during his brief stint in a rock band, played guitar and did all of the legwork but was eclipsed by his better looking band mate.
Archie Blagden: I was at a school in the south west and Josh came and he was really loud and quite small and… actually you were really small… a tiny little kid.
JG: Almost couldn’t see me.
AB: But very loud, confident and funny. Then we just became mates. We did different things. Josh actually released his own music; love songs about girls he was in love with at school.
JG: No I didn’t! They were Christmas songs.
AB: There were Christmas songs as well.
RG: I read about the Christmas songs. That’s quite impressive.
JG: You haven’t heard them, mate. So I wouldn’t call them impressive yet.
After the release of their mixtape back in February this year, the band have since announced three UK headline shows - all selling out within hours; an impressive start for a group’s first ever live debut. Whilst Sad Night Dynamite are yet to release a Christmas record, what they have put out so far has declared them as genre-bending artists with a bold, experimental and unforgiving sound. Their eponymous nine track album blends hip hop with the feel of a small town country festival, humorous lyrics (Titty T-Titty T-Titty Titty, Titty Krunk, for example) with distorted garage sounds, as well as the more profound creative glimpses into the psyche, all wrapped up in a sexy clingfilm-ed dose of what the band have to offer.
RG: When you first step foot on stage, what will it mean for you?
AB: I’m sure it’s going to be a head fuck.
JG: Been thinking about this for so long. There’s been such a run up.
AB: I think there’ll be a lot going through my head. Just make sure you do it all right and do a good performance. I don’t want to think about it too much.
JG: There’s no point thinking about it too much because we’ll sink ourselves into nothing.
One of the most exciting parts - in fact, one of the only exciting parts - of the past year is the bubbling undercurrent of emerging musical talent that are chomping at the bit to break out into the world with full force. Sad Night Dynamite is the favourite in that race and they’re sell-out shows prove it. Not to mention their previous studio sessions with the likes of FKA TWIGS (record pending). But there’s so much more to the band than honeyed vocals mashed with mellifluously gritty rap, occasionally light-hearted lyrics and a beat that makes you understand why the two can’t wait to play live. Speaking with them, what’s most impressive about the band that has gone - in a matter of months - from a small time passion project with an unknown genre to the next big ones to watch is the unexpected dynamics and small, pleasant surprises the two have to offer. Where they find their inspiration is one of those surprises.
JG: Yeah, we get hugely inspired by nature. That’s kind of cringe but it’s true. Green fields, countryside… that for us, even though you don’t hear it in our music, it’s kind of what inspires us. The end of ‘Icy Violence’, for example, that very much kind of reminds us of home. But yeah, for some reason just nature, which is obviously the opposite of where we live now.
AB: I like how it’s picturesque and beautiful and how it’s also quite eerie, dark, creepy. It’s just where we’re from so…
How the band speak about nature weirdly echoes how you might describe their music. It’s dark, eerie, and can sometimes feel like an audio representation of how your eyes make shapes out of thin air whilst staring into a wood at night. But the music is also laced with serenity, optimism, and enjoyable solipsism with moments of clear headed-ness that accentuate the myriad layers packed within each of Sad Night Dynamite’s tracks.
Although, achieving this was no easy feat. The band have always made it their mission to push themselves and their music as far as they can go - deep into the realms of weird and flirting with the thin line that separates good and bad music. They want to re-think what we know as a conventional song structure and rewire the anatomy of songwriting, sounds and genres.
JG: I think you always look back and you start to see [your songs] in a different light. As more time passes, I think at the time we were like this is what we want to write. As time goes on you go, well, maybe I could’ve done that better. I think they were the perfect thing for the time, but, I don’t know - not holding on to them too much, in the end. Where we’re going in the future is just hopefully getting better.
AB: I do love how ambitious those songs are. Like Smoke Hole and Icy Violence particularly. I don’t want to ever lose that.
JG: The creativity of them… I feel like it’s quite easy to start writing formulaic songs, just because in this world we’re surrounded with, that seems to be…
AB: Well, there’s certainly pressures isn’t there. There were no pressures before. It was just me and Josh and we just did what we wanted. And now there obviously are pressures.
JG: If we could come up with a formula that wasn’t just verse chorus verse chorus, that kind of thing and turn that into something really amazing, I would be so happy with that. I think writing songs that have quite normal forms… I feel like you can only get so far with that. It’s been pretty much executed perfectly by other people. Maybe there’s somewhere else to look.
Toying around with music in this way doesn’t feel like Sad Night Dynamite are still finding out who they are as a pair of artists, but it feels more like a display of raw ability. The two have been making music for so long - both individually and as a group - that they have reached a point where the music and vision is comfortably malleable. But it’s taken them some time to get to where they are. A string of different band names (2D Palm Trees being the only one they are happy to let me know about), some embarrassing moments and an undisclosed discography of “shit” music created during the band’s formative years has helped them reach this point.
RG: How has your music developed from your Christmas songs to now?
JG: Just loads of really bad music, wasn’t it.
AB: Just lots and lots. I feel like you’ve gotta do it. I was with my ex-girlfriend and I was playing a song that we’d finished, put it on in the car, got to the end and she just started laughing. I was singing on it and was like fuck, this is not good. She was trying not to laugh and it’s awkward anyway, but she was like that is rubbish.
JG: It’s that weird thing when you take yourself quite seriously, you know that the music’s not very good, but I think in order to do it you have to take yourself seriously at the beginning otherwise you just won’t do it. So it can be quite disheartening but it’s this weird thing when you know it’s not very good but you keep doing it and eventually it clicks. I think we were lucky. It’s not just luck, but there is something to do with luck and finding the right person because things just fall into place when otherwise they might not have done.
AB: It’s funny. We were writing all this music and it was terrible like Josh is saying. There were elements of it that were coming through in the music and those were the bits we liked and those were the bits we could probably do now. But there was a huge part of it that was missing, like taking the piss a bit. I remember when me and Josh started doing it on our own we were like lets actually just try and enjoy it and experiment with voices, put humour into it…
JG: It was that - it was probably that: not taking ourselves too seriously. We were listening to all kinds of artists who took themselves quite seriously because they could because they were like that good. But for us, we had to work out how we could do it because no one’s going to take us seriously because why would you?
RG: How seriously do you take yourselves now?
AB: Very seriously. Very seriously. Can’t you tell? Look what I’m wearing, c’mon.
JG: He’s wearing a suit for fuck sake.
AB: I’m in a suit jacket, mate.
JG: I think he’s answered that question. Any other answer would be taking ourselves too seriously.
Living together for a number of years now, Sad Night Dynamite’s familial chemistry is likely to be what facilitates the band’s experimental growth. The two can talk candidly about their music and their skill, but also about how far they feel each of them needs to progress. They crease up at their own jokes and give one another a subtle side eye when they know they’re thinking the same thing. Josh and Archie are twins conjoined by the music with an impenetrable relationship - both personal and professional - that makes the world around them seem like a third wheel.
JG: We don’t really have a circle that we fit in with naturally. We’ve met a lot of people in the industry and, you know, had nice conversations. But we don’t really fit in with artists. We’re not really the [SHYGIRL] scene, we’re not really the hip-hop scene because we don’t fit into that. We’re not the country scene. So, I don’t know, we can make our own scene.
RG: Surely that screams originality, right?
AB: Yeah, maybe.
JG: Or shit.
Sad Night Dynamite have the originality, the ambition to shake up the game, the hunger to prove themselves on stage, the lust for all of the bonuses that come with it, and the self-awareness to never be too comfortable with their success - a trait that, more often than not, conjures up the longevity that a band like Sad Night Dynamite deserves. Not once during our conversation did it feel like the band are anywhere near where they want to be. Their album, which has rightly shoe-horned them into a crammed music landscape, was - as they attest with their creative ambition - just the start of Sad Night Dynamite.
RG: What is your barometer for success as artists then? When will be the moment when you realise your success?
JG: It’s like the catch 22 isn’t it. The minute you accept that you’re happy, it’s really easy to get comfortable and actually even this conversation’s making me go ah fuck, maybe you’ve got a little bit comfortable.
AB: It’s like being satisfied with everything. Like the music, I always felt with the music there’s places we want to get to with it but that was in a really good spot. But visuals and all of the other side of it, those are parts of it that we’re really ambitious about.
JG: We definitely want to have more fun, I think. We haven’t had a lot of fun as Sad Night Dynamite, yet. That would be great.
AB: What do you mean? Like…?
JG: Just fun like live gigs and be amongst it.
AB: Yeah we’ve been so recluse.
JG: We wouldn’t take any of it back. I think you’ve just gotta keep wanting to be better. And then when I’m 50 I’ll fucking ride off on a horse into the sunset.
AB: Exactly.
Creative direction by JEFFREY THOMSON
Photography by GEORGE HUTTON
Featuring JOSH GREACEN and ARCHIE BLAGDEN of SAD NIGHT DYNAMITE
Special thanks to ROB CHUTE
Interview and words by RY GAVIN
Josh and Archie wear their own clothes.