Plastic Barricades – Interview
Interview with Pete Devine of Pete’s Rock News and Views (http://petesrocknewsandviews.com)
Paul Love, drummer, producer and one half of London alt indie duo Plastic Barricades tackling the latest questions
PD: What type of artist are you?
PL: We make music and we try to do it every day. I don’t know about Dan but I try not to have rules outside of that. We’re a two piece. Dan plays guitar, I play drums but that’s not written in stone either.
PD: Tell us the brief history of yourself.
PL: I grew up in Liverpool and Dan grew up in Tallinn in Estonia attending an English school. My dad introduced me to the drums, he was a retired fireman with an antique shop. He had arthritis in his wrists so he couldn’t really play anymore. He taught me rudiments on a pillow with chopsticks and I learnt everything else from Beatles records. Dan learned piano at music school and graduated to guitar when he heard Nirvana. We love records and old guitars. Dan’s been Plastic Barricades for years but I joined him last year. I was sick of playing drums for pop artists. The big stages were fun but it wasn’t really me.
PD: Who are your musical and non-musical influences?
PL: Beatles, Queen, Nirvana, Black Keys, Death Cab for Cutie, Mars Volta, Jeff Beck, Muddy Waters. Our music probably doesn’t sound like any of it though. We love George Orwell and Ernest Hemmingway novels. Richard Feynman is my pick me up. Stop what you’re doing and go watch ‘Fun to Imagine’ on youtube if you have any interest in physics. Neil deGrasse Tyson is ok but he’s all show in comparison to Feynman. Feynman worked on the bomb and figured out why the Challenger blew up; Tyson reposts crap on twitter. Leonard Susskind. Theoretical physicists with working class accents, that’s my jam.
PD: What are your dreams and goals?
PL: Grammy, Platinum album, Farm in the south of France with a studio and a happy family. I wanna find the time to learn to drive too.
PD: Who writes your songs, what are they about?
PL: Dan writes 99% of it right now, but look forward to hearing some of my crap on the next album. They’re about focussing on what’s important in life. We live in the most plentiful era on the freest continent (Europe, not America. 7 days paid holiday a year and no medical isn’t freedom) in the world and people are still worried about making ends meet. It’s all in the head. Get off the telescreens and look each other in the eye. Life is beautiful.
PD: How do you promote your band and shows?
PL: Publicists, interviews with journalists and sending so many emails Google blocks our accounts. Rocking helps.
PD: What do you think about downloading music online?
PL: It’s incredibly convenient and it sounds better than any other medium. Fact. Come at me purists. People only prefer old formats for nostalgia. There’s nothing wrong with that. I like nostalgia too, but stop claiming it sounds better. It doesn’t. Streaming royalties are terrible and that really needs to be sorted out but I understand the larger game plan. They needed to get people away from Limewire and Torrents and they only way to do that was the model we have now. Buy a ticket and some merch if you
love a band. Support the things you love, simple rule no?
PD: What song do you wish you’d written and why?
PL: Pretty much anything by Bill Withers or Julia Michaels. Two incredibly honest songwriters with such a gift for melody. They can write about the simplest everyday things and make the whole room listen. That’s the most important thing in music. Sharing REAL experiences. I don’t care what your hair looks like and how many instagram followers you have. MAKE ME FEEL SOMETHING.
PD: What are some of your pet peeves?
PL: Littering, audiophiles, Parisians (I live in Paris, so I include myself), style over substance, milk and sugar in coffee. I want coffee… annnnnd purists, be they metal purists, rock purists, pop purists. There’s good stuff in every genre and they’re usually at the top.
PD: What is your proudest moment in music?
PL: This upcoming album (and playing the Liverpool Echo Arena with me mum watching). Seriously though, “Self-Theories” LP has taken us a year of hard work. We produced it all ourselves in Dan’s shed in London. I’ve had enough practice producing bands in real studios so we wanted to see what we could do with the smallest possible. It’s 2x3m wooden shed and it’s quite possibly the cosiest studio in the world. We wanted this album to be as clear an expression of ourselves as possible. Nobody knows what a 
GOOD sound is, but I do know what I like. I tried to make something I like at every step.
PD: So what are you working on at the moment?
PL: We’re finishing up this album. We have some overdubs and a song or two left to record. The first single is out already. It came out on the 1st of October 2019 and it’s called “One for the Road”. Go check it out on Youtube and Spotify RIGHT NOW.
PD: Tell us about your next shows and why we should be there.
PL: We don’t have any shows booked and we have no idea how we’re going to play these songs live as we are currently only two people. Sooo, come for the mystery? 😀
Plastic Barricades’ new single “One for the Road” out on the 1st of October.
“One for the Road” video:
Romantic and honest, gloomy and curious, melodic and melancholic, Plastic Barricades chronicle life in the troubled yet fascinating XXI century, asking questions and trying to find answers. Inspired and influenced by almighty Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Oasis, Coldplay, Muse, Death Cab for Cutie, Placebo, Nirvana and many others, the band loves to experiment with styles, sound and approach.
Based in North-West London, Plastic Barricades are Dan Kert on guitars, keyboards and vocals and Paul Love on drums. Debut album “Mechanics of Life” was released in September 2017 and is available on Spotify.
Plastic Barricades links:
Band/Artist location – London England
Website – Facebook – You Tube – Soundcloud – Reverbnation – Twitter –
Instagram – Itunes – Spotify – Amazon – Deezer – Google Play – Last Fm
Check out our page for Plastic Barricades
