Interview – Two Door Cinema Club

Daft Punk and Phoenix admire their talent and critics can’t get enough of them as Two Door Cinema Club’s music is rightfully intoxicating. While wrapped in one of their biggest tours yet, guitarist Sam Halliday talked to us about house parties, raves and playing sold out shows in North America.

Hailing from Northern Ireland, how has your current North American tour been so far?

Great. We’re just on our way to Boston right now and it’s just been unbelievable. There have been a couple sold out shows and we’ve got to play with Phoenix a couple times so that was pretty cool.
 
What do you think of the music scenes littered here in the U.S. and Canada?

There are a lot more venues and bands. Unfortunately we haven’t had the chance to see many while we’re here but we know they’re out there. Every bar seems to have some sort of live music playing which is awesome. Back in Bangor, you may get some smaller acts playing at pubs and usually it’s mostly friends that come out to watch. There seems to be more of a following with bands here.
 
Coming from the towns of Bangor and Donaghdee, did you ever expect to become this popular within such a short period of time?

We’ve definitely surpassed what we thought we were going to do. We’d always known we would go somewhere, but we figured we would just move to London and tour across Europe. We didn’t expect such a sudden jump. It’s almost a little overwhelming.

Was it overwhelming to discover you’ve sold out Wrongbar here in Toronto and that artists like Daft Punk and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers were present at one of your gigs?

Yeah, a little. It was really neat to know that Daft Punk was there, but unfortunately nobody brought them back to meet us or anything. We didn’t find out until later.
 
Some would be surprised by your influences which are a mixture of Death Cab For Cutie, Kylie Minogue and At The Drive-In. Is your widespread taste due to the fact the three of you adore music to a large extent?

We’re just open to all sorts of types of music. We like what we like. I mean, we’re not totally serious about the music we listen to as we like to keep things open. Keeping an open mind is important. We’ve just been exposed to so much backstage and on the bus as people will put different types of music on.
 
Dating back to your formation, you guys met Kevin when he was trying to get with girls you knew. Did you instantly think at that point “this is the bassist we’ve been looking for!”?

(Laughs) Well, we had all known each other from school really, so we knew who he was. When he first started coming round we thought he was trying to get with our friends, but as it turns out he really just wanted to play and was looking for somebody to play with.

Your music’s tight, but how close are you three as friends?

Well, we’re all old friends and we get along quite well. There’s always normal tension when you’re with somebody all the time, but it’s just a matter of respect and giving people their space.
 
One aspect separating your debut from other indie electropop LPs is your songwriting ability. Do you spend days writing lyrics or are they penned quickly and spontaneously?

Well the music comes first, we’ll all just work on different parts. A chorus will usually come out of all that and then we work on the parts around it.
 
So Is Tourist History a house party record or an album that should be tossed on during a rave?

I would say house party (laughs). I don’t know how well the music would go over at raves but it’s a good house party record.
 

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