by Hollie Griss, creator

The Danphes are a new four-piece from Norwich, whose sound is a warm haven of nostalgic, jangly indie pop. following the release of their fourth single, ‘Everyone I Know Is Falling Out Of Love’, we chatted to Robin [vocals + guitar] and Dan [guitar] about the band’s beginnings and sound, and what makes the Norwich music scene different.

So where did your name come from? I did Google it and learnt that a danphe is a bird.

Robin: It is a bird, yeah! High five for that! That’s research. 

Dan: Robin sent me a message and at first I thought he was suggesting The Daphnes, which I was really pro because my cat is called Daphne. And then I reread it and realised it was The Danphes. 

Robin: I saw it written down somewhere and just thought it looked like a cool word. And also I do love birds. Being called Robin, I have an affinity. And then you get to join the pantheon of all the great bird bands.

Dan: Who are the other bird bands? The Byrds?

Robin: The Swans, The Smiths, The Eagles, Cranes. There’s loads! So yeah, be a bird band. 

And you’re quite new on the scene, aren’t you? How did the band come about?

Dan: Well, we’ve known each other for a very long time, and I think the night we met we agreed to form a band.

Robin: Did we?

Dan: Yeah, we rehearsed once about six months later, and then we didn’t play again for 20 years. But we have been friends the whole time. And then you messaged me, didn’t you? I don’t even think you said ‘would you like to be in a band?’ You said, ‘do you know anyone that would be interested?’

Robin: Because I was too shy haha. I was thinking Dan knows a lot of people, he’s a lot more sociable than I am, he’ll know people that would want to be in a band. But I was also secretly hoping that he would want to be in a band. 

Dan: And then we just started playing together a bit, didn’t we? I’ve played in a few bands and I was quite keen to play with people I hadn’t played with before. So then we picked Steve, who I’ve known a long time, because he plays bass and we like him. And Alfie had messaged me about five or six years ago about doing something. And then, finally, I replied to his message. I had spoken to him in the interim, but it was quite satisfying to reply to a message from five years ago and say, ‘are you free for this?’

Robin: And Alfie, it should be noted, is drummer in Other Half. It’s quite weird, because although Dan’s played in bands before and Alfie plays in Other Half, I would say I probably only really wrote my first song last year. And so it’s really quite recent. I’m learning a lot all the time. 

And in terms of your musical influences, are they all similar or quite different? 

Dan: I think there’s a lot we have in common and there’s a lot we don’t. We’re all into sort of upbeat shoegazey stuff. Steve’s into Bruce Springsteen. And Metallica. And The Stone Roses. And Alfie listens to a lot of nice stuff, a lot of quiet stuff. But I think your taste is the broadest out of everyone’s. You listen to everything. You listen to pop music!

Robin: Yeah, I love pop music. I love Charli XCX, and Lana Del Rey, and Taylor Swift. Like all that stuff. And I really like weird electronic stuff, and Kendrick Lamar… So that is all kind of influential in some way, but the band is always going to be that kind of 80s/90s indie pop. And that’s really conscious. And you know, that’s a fairly broad church, so there’s shoegaze in there, and there’s jangle pop, and C86 sounds. But we really want it to be relatively old-fashioned kind of guitar music.

Dan: I think, in the past, I’ve played in bands where I’ve always liked to try and have a reasonably varied sound. But I actually think it helps you focus the writing a lot better when you limit yourself, I think it’s much easier. 

Robin: Yeah like to just know this is the era, this is sort of the sound of it. Because I do like loads of different stuff, sometimes I have a hard time going ‘right okay, no it’s not a Radiohead song’, so it’s really helped me.

We were talking a bit about the Norwich scene before the interview. Would you mind saying a bit more about that and how that’s influenced you?

Robin: I always think Norwich is a little bit like an island in East Anglia. You get creative people kind of wash up on the shores, so it’s got a real creative hub, and it always has done. And what you find is, there’s lots of quite weird bands that come up in Norwich, because it’s sort of separate from other scenes. 

Dan: It’s a lot more organic, isn’t it? It’s a lot more about people making the music they want to make. 

Robin: You get people like PleasureInc. who are just doing their own thing that no-one else is really doing, which is cool. And with Alfie’s band, Other Half, there aren’t a lot of bands that sound like that. Within Norwich, you’re not worried about trying to impress a record label or trying to fit into a scene. The scene is supportive, and as long as you’re not a dick, other bands will come out and support you, and you’ll go and support other bands.

Dan: Yeah, and you don’t have these kind of sub-scenes in Norwich like you used to. Bands now want to play with other bands, regardless of how they sound, because they’re friends. So, in fact, PleasureInc. and Other Half are good examples – they’ve played together, and you would never get two bands that sound like that touring together. 

You recently played your first gig, at The Holloway – how was that?

Dan: It was really good. I felt really relaxed about it until about four or five hours beforehand, and then I was desperate to not do it. But that was because I hadn’t played a gig for about 10 years before then. But it was really nice. I think by the end, we were kind of all properly loosened up and could have been happy to play more songs. If we had more songs.

Robin: I loved it. And The Leaf Library were really nice, the band we were supporting, so that kind of relaxed me as well, and we’ve kept in touch since then. It was nice to play live. Can’t wait to do it again. 

Dan: Yeah, we are desperate to play again soon. And often as well, aren’t we?

Robin: Yeah, and to get better. And play bigger gigs.

Where would you most like to play? If you could choose one place in Norwich, and one place anywhere.

Dan: I do love Voodoo Daddy’s, but the Arts Centre historically is my favourite venue. I have played there before, but I would love for us to play there as a band. Oh, outside of Norwich, I don’t know. Does it have to be a venue that still exists? Because it’d have to be The Astoria, wouldn’t it. That’s probably my favourite venue of them all, that I’ve ever been to. We saw Hope of the States there together, didn’t we?

Robin: Yeah that was one of my first London gigs. I think that was my first London gig, but I can’t quite remember. I’d have to check the spreadsheet.

There’s a spreadsheet?

Robin: There’s a spreadsheet. There’s a spreadsheet for everything. I’d also agree with the Arts Centre, because the Arts Centre is my favourite venue in Norwich. It was one of the first places I went to for gigs. I saw some really weird bands early on that were quite formative, so it would be incredible to play there. And then outside of Norwich, Troxy is such a cool venue in London. It’s like art deco, it’s really cool.

You’ve released a few singles so far this year, but what are your plans for the coming months? Is there an album on the way?

Dan: We’re not sure about an album, are we? I sort of think that by releasing a new song every few weeks, people take more notice. And what we’ve found is every time we put a new song out, the old stuff gets rediscovered a little bit. It keeps it exciting for us as well.

Robin: We went to the studio to record three more songs a couple of weeks ago, which was really good fun. We love the studio, Sickroom, and every time we’ve gone there, I’ve really enjoyed it.

Dan: And Owen, who runs it, his band is not massively dissimilar, so he kind of gets where we’re coming from. And the songs have come out kind of exactly as I expected, but better. It really felt like he sort of understood and enjoyed the songs. That was really nice.

Robin: But I’d love to do an album when the time’s right. When I think people would want to hear an album, I would do an album. 

Which other local artists are you listening to at the moment? 

Dan: I think we’ve got the strongest set of bands in Norwich that we’ve ever had, and I’ve been going to gigs here for 30 years. I listen to Brown Horse and Suds and Other Half, and I don’t think I’m listening to local bands, I see them just as bands that I really like. There’s Pennines as well, they’ve got a really interesting story. They stopped playing together about 15 years ago, I think, but got back together and ended up going viral on loads of TikTok videos. Oh, and Ben Auld. I saw him at The Holloway and thought he was absolutely brilliant, I really loved the songs. What about you Robin?

Robin: I really like Arthur Black, I think they’re great. I really like The Mink as well and I’m surprised they’re not bigger than they are, I think they’re really cool. And there’s a new band called Are You Succeed? I really like their kind of wonky guitar stuff.

Dan: Yeah, they play a lot of short songs. I saw them a few weeks ago. I think they played maybe like a 20 minute set, and I reckon they had 25 songs. 

Robin: So yeah, other than the bands that Dan’s mentioned, those are all people that I really like locally. There are loads though. Flat Venus I really like, Floral Image are great. Phoebe Troup, she’s really good. Magnolia, and Chest. There’s just loads of really good bands,

Final question. If you could instantly master any instrument overnight, what would it be?

Dan: I would love to be able to play the piano. I’d love to have a piano in my house and just be able to sit down and play it. And if you can play the piano, you can play anything with keys, then, can’t you? 

Robin: I know I sing in the band, this isn’t a glib answer…but I would really like to be able to sing properly. I find it absolutely petrifying to sing. I watched the Last Dinner Party at Latitude and Abigail Morris’ voice is so incredible. She makes it look so easy. So to have a really strong voice would be lovely, and would probably get rid of a lot of my anxieties haha.

You can see The Danphes supporting The Tubs at Voodoo Daddy’s Showroom on 3 October.