Interview: Shooting Daggers (Written)

London, UK based three-piece queercore punk band Shooting Daggers released their debut album ‘Love & Rage’ on 16th February via New Heavy Sounds.

Showcasing a sharp and serrated style of old-school punk blended by modern alternative ideas, and twisted by the ‘core’ soundscape, Shooting Daggers are an ‘in your face’ band. Spitting anthemic punk fury across nine classy tracks that proves this band are an exciting prospect within the alternative music world.

Read our full review here.

We spoke to vocalist/guitarist Sal and bassist Bea about the new album, the ups and downs of its creation, expressing themselves as best as possible, growing an audience, a love of London, and so much more.

Hello, Shooting Daggers! Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. So, first things first. How are you doing?

Bea – Good. Lots of things to do. Tired, but happy.
Sal – Nice. Yeah, I’m good too. I had a day off today. It was nice.

I’m glad to hear that. Have things settled down a little bit now that, of course, the album ‘Love & Rage is out, or are you still finding the period quite manic?

Bea – Yeah, it’s still quite manic because we still have the release show to do and we have a few things still to organise. Yeah, just a lot of interviews and a lot of stuff like that, but it’s good, we don’t want it to drop down.

Do you enjoy the side of music that is almost as important as making it now? I’m talking about promotion, the social media side of things, getting out there. Talking, doing interviews and just the general interaction that you have online?

Sal – Yeah, I think we like to complain about it a lot because we just like to complain! In my opinion, I actually like it. I like posting. I like having a good-looking Instagram, I like interviews. I actually like doing it. Just sometimes you’re like, oh, I can’t be arsed because it feels like you have to do it sometimes and you don’t necessarily want to. You would rather just chill, I guess. But yeah, I actually like doing it, but I think we all do.

Bea – Yeah, it’s good. As Sal said, just sometimes you wish you didn’t have to do it just to keep the content going, but it’s good. There’s a lot of things that we do apart from socials. We do a lot. We prepare designs for stuff, all the emails, we prepare all the shorts, the reels that we do. So it’s a lot. It’s fun because we learn skills. It’s just the pace that is a lot sometimes. Mainly when you release something.

Sal – Yeah, it’s true. We’ve basically learned how to use Photoshop and Premiere Pro because of the band, because sometimes you just have to do it. We don’t have the funds to pay someone, so we have to do it ourselves. Which is good, but at the same time, learning software from scratch is a pain. By the end of this, we’re going to be graphic designers.

The album has only been out a few days, but at this point, how have you found the overall reaction?

Bea – It has been great. We’re really happy.
Sal – Yeah. I don’t think I’ve heard or seen anything bad yet, so it’s great.
Bea – Yeah, I don’t think I heard any bad reviews yet either, so it’s really good.

Sal – What I’ve heard from my friends or people around me is that they’ve listened to it a couple of times, several times, and they told me, oh, I listened to it like on a loop, which is crazy because that means that they really like it. I wasn’t expecting that much, to be honest.

It is resonating with a lot of people. Can you put your finger on just why you think this album, and your music in general, is appealing to so many people that you are just getting this wave of positivity?

Sal – I think it’s because the album tells a story and there are some mood changes. Throughout the album, it fluctuates a lot. I think it’s like a journey. People want to listen to it again because it takes you through a journey. I think that’s why people listen to the album as a whole, several times. I also think the songs, maybe for people that like hardcore, they can get the references. Sometimes some lyrics are references from other songs or other bands, or some riffs sound similar to other things they’ve heard before. Consciously or unconsciously, people want to listen to it again because they recognise other stuff that they’ve heard before and other songs and other artists that they like. They can recognise it in our songs.

Bea – Yeah, I agree that it’s because probably this album does appeal to various people, but also I think it has a lot to do with our work behind it as well. As a band, we worked very hard to build our community and we really care about what type of audience we reach. We’ve always made that very clear. All the work that we’ve done in the past two years, since we released the EP, to build a following has been a lot. No to gain followers in a bad way, but more like, to work around our image, our ethos and what we say. I think a lot of people see us as a band that has a lot to say or who are particularly feminist. So maybe that’s also part of the reason why people follow us. Maybe they’re just curious to know what we’re going to say.

Sal – Yeah, it’s true. Like building a community.

Have noticed over the past two years that that community has grown and that the community has become more vocal about Shooting Daggers?

Bea – Yeah, for sure it’s grown. I don’t know if they’re more vocal though!

The proof is in the literal sense of what’s going on right now with you.

Bea – Yeah, because we are seeing a steady growing.

Sal – It’s weird because I don’t think we’re super big at all. We don’t have many, many streams. We don’t have a very big Instagram page or Facebook page. To me, we’re still quite local. So, it feels a bit weird when we meet people in real life that recognise us from the band or we see people that are wearing our merch. It’s so weird because it really feels like we’re a local band, but then we get sick interviews and sick features. So, I think we’re in between now, transitioning maybe from local to bigger. Like big local. I don’t know what you call that.

I’m not sure these days what big means anymore. It’s not so much sales, obviously, so your Instagram page has half a million likes. Does that qualify as a big band now? I don’t know.

Sal – Yeah. Also, I don’t think numbers means that what you’re doing is good either. I’m happy with where we are now, even though I would like more. I’m happy with where we are now.

I feel, correct me if I’m wrong, but a good reflection of your growing popularity, ideally would be bigger shows, playing live, bigger venues, having more people in the flesh coming to see you and talk to you?

Bea – We want to grow, because online is a thing, but who actually comes to your gigs is completely different. So, what we would like right now is to tour with bigger bands that reflect our sound, to be able to reach people that we think are going to like us. Of course, headlining and have your own shows is amazing, but we are still in the optic of, like, we want to grow and reach more people, live. Things like festivals, something that allows you to reach who hasn’t heard you yet.

Okay, let’s do a little focusing on Love & Rage then. I want you to take me back to the early days of the album’s inception, specifically your vision and what the mindset was. Did you have a clear idea of what you wanted to do when you first set out on this path?

Sal – I don’t think so. The way we wrote this album is that basically last year, we were super busy. We did a lot of gigs and stuff and then we had to take a break to write the songs. So, like, in three/four months, we had to write the entire album, which was mental. This is how we did it though. I don’t know if we’re going to do it like this in the future because it was very stressful, but we just wrote the songs and then we found the concept of the album after we wrote all the instrumentals and all the lyrics. I think during the recording sessions, we were like, oh, we should do this and that. We had ideas on how we wanted to sound and how we wanted it to look like, aesthetically, but that’s about it.

Did any events from a personal and impersonal perspective effect the goal of what you wanted to do here and did you consider more tracks overall/no concept?

Bea – So we were thinking of having more tracks towards the end of the album. We realised that we didn’t want any fillers, so we decided to keep it short, even though it would have been good to have a couple more tracks. Plus, we were recording it in a very short amount of time.

Sal – Yeah, we were on a budget as well.

Bea – Yeah, exactly. So many factors, but we like it the way it is. I think the only thing that was clear since the beginning that might have affected Sal writing was that Sal was in a more positive mindset from the beginning. I remember you saying that you wanted songs to be a bit more uplifting and with a bit more clean vocals. That was the only thing that we had from the beginning, this idea of doing a more uplifting album. But the songs themselves, they were written not thinking of a concept, and then we realised that it kind of came together. After we got the lyrics, we realised that it kind of came out as a concept, but it wasn’t like something we wanted from the beginning.

Sal – Yeah, we actually had more tracks that we were going to record, but then we were like, let’s not put any filler on this album. We weren’t sure about it, and I feel like if you’re not sure, that’s a sign. Then you think you’re going to have to play these songs for, who knows how long after. You need to be sure because you don’t want to have to play songs that you don’t like.

All killer, no filler. Makes a hell of a lot of sense to me, particularly as across the album, there is a lot of variety. Were you actively conscious of showing just how varied Shooting Daggers are? I want to kind of use two tracks as an example of the contrast. There is the likes of Wipeout, but then there is also A Guilty Conscience Needs An Accuser. Two tracks that are different, to say the least.

Bea – I mean, we were aware we could do it. I don’t know. Yeah, I think we always said we didn’t want to hold ourselves back. It just came out like this. We were aware we could do it and we did it.

Sal – I guess we’re all open minded in the band, so if anyone comes up with a riff, we just try it out, and if it sounds good, we keep it. It’s as simple as that.

No creative lines in the sand.

Sal – I bought an autotune pedal once and they were like, no.
Bea – There was a veto on it.

Some occasionally then, but you’re still very open minded into what Shooting Daggers can and can’t do, basically?

Sal – Yeah.
Bea – Actually, we even tried at some point during the process of writing the album to be like, okay, let’s write a hardcore song. Like a proper, I don’t know, almost beat down. We kind of wanted to do something a bit heavier. It just didn’t come out, so we just left it. We tried; it didn’t sound good.

I’m glad it’s turned out the way it has, because as you already said, there have been challenging aspects to creating the album. So individually, do you have a specific personal challenge that occurred during the entire album creation process and how you overcame it?

Sal – I think there were many little challenges, but, for example, some of the lyrics were written on the day of the recording. Like Smug. Like the words – that smug look. Literally those lyrics and that line, that melody, was done on the day. There was an empty space and I thought I need vocals here and we need to find something. So we did on the day and that was a challenge. In a way though, it turned out great for this song, and for other songs. I do hear them now and I do wish we had more time to change things and do something different though. So that was one of the challenges that was for the best and the worst at the same time.

Bea – Yeah, I would say the same. Just the fact of having a lot of songs to finalise at the last minute. We were ready to play the song, in the studio, but then we didn’t have details, so the ability to come up with details in the studio and having the vocabulary as well, to explain to your producer what you actually want. We had to insist on a lot of stuff because we were coming out with things last minute. Can we have these songs one after the other with that feedback? Can we have a little reverse snare there? We had to do a lot of notes. Like, after every recording section, our Google Docs with notes were, like, exploding. Then every time he was sending us mixes back, we’re, like, exploding with even more notes. I think that’s the main stuff. It was really stressful because it was overwhelming with details of things we wanted and things to fix. I think, luckily, all of us three are really organised people, so we managed to get what we wanted, even though, as before, I wish we had more time.

Sal – I think the ‘last minute’ thing can be a bit of a curse and a blessing, because sometimes the first idea is the best idea for majority of the songs. Maybe if we had more time, we would have overthought stuff and probably done things differently, but not to our advantage. Still, at the same time it was super stressful.

There is no perfect formula, really, is there? You either feel rushed or you’ve got too much time to fiddle and play around to the detriment, potentially, of the song. Okay, same question, but flip it around from a more exciting and interesting aspect. Did you have any particular point during the album creation process that was exciting and interesting for you?

Sal – I mean, just hearing the songs being mixed and how they were sounding. Just the process of it was really cool. Experimenting in the studio was so exciting and so cool. I loved it. We were experimenting with a tambourine, a cowbell, all these vocal layers. Just hearing how it sounded, I was so hyped. It wasn’t even mixed yet.

Bea – Yeah, yeah. Being in the studio is so exciting. Like every day we were coming out of the studio thrilled. We couldn’t wait to hear the songs finished. I really like the ‘before’ process of recording as well. I really like just being in a studio, jamming and trying stuff out. Even before that part of process, being in Sal’s room and just trying to make a structure of a song. I don’t know. I like everything from the beginning to the end, I guess.

Sal – Me too. I can’t wait for the next album. I’m already thinking about. I already have a Google Doc for the next album and we already have some riffs. I’m already excited.

I’m not surprised at all. You are artists. You are creative people. It’s great to hear, but sticking to the journey of Love & Rage, was there anything you learned across the entire period to the point of release that you will take into the future?

Sal – Yeah. This whole stressful recording thing, I think we learned from it. I also think we learned that we need to assert ourselves. When we want something, we need to fight for it because it’s our music. Smug almost didn’t get to be released because some people did not like it. We fought for it, and I’m glad we did. So, I think in the future we need to stick to that. Maybe someday we’re going to fight for a song and it’s going to be shit, but until then…

Bea – Yeah, I think we learned a lot about also how to release an album in general. I think next time, in terms of all the steps to do before, in terms of promotion, making video clips, just everything. I think next time we’re going to be more prepared. As Sal said, we’re just in this spot right now that we are still a small band, but also, we’re getting a lot of attention, but we still don’t have the money and the help. We are doing everything ourselves. We have a label, yes, but everything else we’re doing ourselves; we don’t have the funds and the time of someone that doesn’t work a day job. So, I think releasing this album made us understand how much we can achieve. So hopefully next time we’re going to do even better, because we’ve learned so many skills during this whole process.

Sal – Hopefully we’ll get some help and money.

You’ve done a phenomenal job considering all the stress and the overwhelming situation. It has turned out incredibly well, and I’m not alone in saying that. I had one complaint about the album, but it is a good complaint. It left me wanting more. So, as we look forward into 2024, what’s the mindset? Is it simply get out, play live as much as possible, get these songs aired and, in the background, work on what comes next?

Sal – Pretty much, yeah. We’ll see what we get in terms of tours and stuff this year, and if we don’t get many, then we’re going to have more time to write an album. So, I guess we’ll just try and see what this year holds.

For those who’ve never experienced a Shooting Daggers show before, what can people expect from you live?

Sal – Definitely energy. We’re expect to be exhausted by the end.
Bea – Fun and energetic, for sure.

I love the fact that I get to talk to folks who are actually from London as well, because I am from London. I’ve lived in this city pretty much my entire life. I think we all know this city damn well. What’s a venue in London that you would really love to play years down the line?

Bea – For me, I think it would be the Electric Ballroom, but as headliner. That is the dream, because we played there before and it was amazing. So, I can only imagine headlining there. I think that is one of my top goals.

Sal – Yeah, I was going to say the same also, because when we played, the sound was incredible. I think that was the best we ever had. So I can’t imagine what it is like, if you’re headlining. I really want that, too. I do love a good local show, too. The Bird’s Nest forever.

What’s one thing that you love about London?

Bea – It’s just got so much going. I couldn’t live anywhere else because I’m spoiled with choice. Yeah, it’s big and it’s expensive, but the amount of music and art that comes through this city, I never see it anywhere else. Getting to experience all this without leaving the city. I think it’s big privilege coming from a small town in Italy.

Sal – Yeah, I 100% agree. I love London. I will get London tattooed on me. I love London so much. Obviously it’s not perfect, it’s so expensive, but it has everything. The skate parks, the skateboarding scene or, like, South Bank. So many really iconic places in London. I love the iconic people as well.

Bea – Love the DLR.
Sal – The DLR? Yeah, love the DLR.

Love & Rage is out now via New Heavy Sounds.

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