Dead Nice Drop “Obscene” Debut EP

Leicester, UK’s melodic punk newcomers Dead Nice have released their debut EP, Obscene. Built on lifelong friendships forged in Leicester’s often underrated but thriving music community, Dead Nice bandmates John Conyers and Mike Manger first met playing in Leicester band Freefallfelix. Parting ways to explore separate projects, the pair kept floating the idea of coming back together to play music again. Rather than keep their embryonic idea as yet another pub chat pipe dream, the duo got together with old Freefallfelix acquaintances Ed Bramford and Edd Stockton, and producer Dave Tidmarsh, to initially attempt to write and record an entire song from scratch in just a day. One (very) long day later, Dead Nice was formed. This new project is more than just a band to the quintet, it’s a group of best friends coming together and making music to continually remind them of what brought them together in the first place.

“It’s the scene we all grew up in and we have so much love for Leicester. Sadly we’ve lost a lot of venues in our time here but places like The Shed, The Firebug, Duffys, The Soundhouse (where we’ve chosen to do our first show) and The Musician have stood the test of time. Matt Kirk at The Firebug/Duffys is the absolute man and books some incredible shows, we’re lucky to have people like him. We’ve all been in various bands but FreefallFelix is the one we always come back to. It was where we all met and cemented friendships that we know will last a lifetime—we’ve been there for each other through so many things, good and bad, and stick together like brothers, always, with no questions asked. It literally felt wrong if we didn’t play music together again. Myself and Mike had talked about doing a project together again for ages, it had been a few years and it was criminal that Mike wasn’t playing drums in a band still—he’s the best drummer I’ve ever played with and easily one of the best I’ve ever seen. I could listen to him play for hours which, coming from a singer, is quite a bold statement! I’d been chomping at the bit to front a band again after Without Fire finished so one thing led to another and here we are. After our first writing session I knew we’d made the right decision and it’s just got better and better.” (John Conyers)

Taking influence from modern punk rock icons like AFI, Rise Against, Millencolin, and Hot Water Music, there are also traces of touchstone post-hardcore pioneers Thrice and Thursday in their progressive, technical-yet-raw punk sound. Recorded at Zephyr Studios in Leicester with producer Dave Tidmarsh, all three songs on the band’s debut EP are loosely based around the concept of an island that gets cut off from the mainland every night. The quintet will be playing their debut live performance with a free entry show at Leicester’s The Soundhouse tomorrow, 14th October, with support from Enderby and Produkty.

“Dave is really big on the idea of songwriting through themes of film, books and storyline. It’s a super unique way of writing and recording and a way we hadn’t really worked before. I took it one further and actually came up with the loose concept of an island that gets cut off by the sea at night, and three different characters. ‘Observer’ is about someone looking on at what’s going on, ‘Outsider’ is about someone escaping, and ‘Occupier’ is about someone staying and tearing it up when the sun goes down. Dave and Ed are both part of another incredible band, Reckoner, and had been non-stop recording and playing, so were well in the flow of writing and recording when we came to them with dead nice. They’re absolutely incredible to write with and being such good friends with us they know how to stretch me vocally. I was hitting notes that I didn’t know existed in my range and Dave’s an incredible drummer so when it came to recording the drums the attention to detail was insane. We’re so lucky to have Dave’s studio on our doorstep in Leicester city centre. I’ve enjoyed the writing and recording process with dead nice more than I ever have before. It’s tested me vocally and I’m so excited to get back in—we’re in early talks about recording a full length which will be exciting, but we’ll be doing a good mix of live and studio time. I love being up on stage, I can’t wait to be back out with our live debut.” (John Conyers)