Hannah North
Freelance Journalist for CLUNK and photographer. Based in London, but you can often find me in Bristol.
We catch up with Bristol synth punk duo Mass House ahead of the London stop of their Autumn tour
In a minivan adorned with twinkling fairy lights, just outside of a heaving bar in shoreditch, I sat down with Synth Punk duo Mass House, to discuss all things music, touring, and Homes Under the Hammer
I want to start off by asking you how your drive was
(Groaning from the pair)
Dylan: Should we put a positive spin on it? We got to listen to lots of music
Tom: It made all the other drives we’ve ever been on seem a lot better.
Dylan: We’re really thankful not to be driving anymore.
Did you come from Bristol, Birmingham, one of your last tour stops maybe?
Tom: Bristol. We had a few days off between our last shows, a bit of normality.
Dylan: We were in Manchester last weekend, which was class. But we had to work this week back in Bristol, and now we’re here.
Back in London! Are you excited? Are you nervous?
Dylan: Excited! Our shows have been so good recently, haven’t they?
Tom: And the thing that’s been most good, is that – at the gigs in Manchester and Sheffield it was all people coming back to see us again, which was something we never actually considered the possibility of happening. It was really nice to see the same faces and be like “oh my god, people do actually like us”.
I was actually going to ask you how other cities compare to the insanity of your Bristol gigs? People love you there.
Tom: Bristol’s always good because it’s almost like a party when we play – all our friends come and loads of other bands we play with. It’s a bit of a celebration, but people around the country have been so welcoming of us.
Dylan: We love Sheffield, it’s one of our favourites. Everyone there is so, so nice.
Tom: Yeah, any band who wants to gig in Sheffield – go to Alder Bar because they treat you like kings.
Dylan: And we always have a really good time in Manchester. Last weekend was the best Manchester one we’ve done. It was a room full of people and everyone was loving it.
Tom: It was a new venue called Rat and Pigeon.
Dylan: A really cool venue – we can’t wait to go back there. Cardiff’s also good – just all the cities have their own thing going on, and people just want to have a nice time.I feel like we bring the nice time.
What is your favourite aspect of gigging?
Tom: The drive. No, a little part of me likes the not knowing. You kind of come into it being like “what’s it going to be?” And for us as well, because we make electronic music, a lot of stuff can feel quite predictable in the way that you visualise what is going on at the same time it’s happening. Whereas when it’s live there’s a lot of room for it all to go wrong.
Dylan: Yeah, to make mistakes, which can actually be kind of funny. We always say we have to have a good presence on stage to make sure the crowds having a good time, but then as soon as you get up on stage, all that goes out of the window and you can’t anticipate what’s going to happen
Tom: Particularly when it’s a smaller venue because the people are just – there!
Dylan: I think we’ve given up with practising actually
Tom: We don’t practise at all now. We just let it happen.
Since you don’t practice, just between us girls, do you have any pre show rituals?
Dylan: Lots of driving.
Tom: Dylan does lots of arm movements, and he makes noises like elephants.
(Dylan proceeds to make elephant noises for the next 20 seconds)
Dylan: And touch my toes a few times.
I thought you were asking me to then. But let’s move on to the studio. ‘Martin‘ came out this week – I loved it. Can I ask, is ‘Martin‘ based on anyone?
Tom: It’s based on Martin Roberts, the presenter of Homes Under The Hammer. It was written when I had just moved into a new house and I had simultaneously lost my job, so I was feeling very skint. And my landlord was coming over again and again spewing all sorts of racist nonsense, and I just had to take it because I didn’t the money to pay his rent.
Because I was unemployed, I was watching a load of daytime TV, the only thing that was ever on was Homes Under the Hammer – which is what led to the song really. I was just like, fuck you Martin! You can go round throwing thousands and thousands of pounds, but we’re skint.
Dylan: And doesn’t that guy have a mental Instagram? Like he’s a mental guy.
Tom: He was on the front line in Ukraine when Russia started invading them. He’s actually insane.
Dylan: So we wrote a song about him.
Tom: Our attitude is always if something is frustrating, you just make a bit of a joke out of it. Our music is kind of dancey and joyous anyway so we might as well just laugh off our stresses.
I love that. Can we expect any more new music soon? An album perhaps?
Tom: An album I would love to do but it’s just getting around to doing it.
Dylan: We’ve got two more tunes we’re going to release, hopefully this year.
Tom: Potentially more really.
Dylan: We’ve got one that’s ready to go, so that’ll happen soon. And then one hopefully straight after that. So yeah, more music coming soon – but just tracks. For now.
Tom: Even though they’re just tracks, they do make sense as an EP or an album anyway. We’ll probably end up calling it an EP.
You describe yourselves as and your sound as Synth Punk. Talk me through it, what does Synth Punk mean to you?
Tom: We came from a background of punk bands, rock bands, or grunge. And really, in terms of our musical career, only a minute time of that has been us listening to electronic music. So I think that kind of ethos of the singing style and our lyrics has carried on from that rock and punk attitude. We’re doing the same thing just – electric.
Dylan: We had to teach ourselves everything to do with synths, so I think that’s also where the punkyness comes into it. And people always look at our set up and ask what’s going on there. We don’t really know what’s going on there
Tom: I know what’s going on.
Dylan: I ain’t got a clue.
Thinking about Punk and grunge, I would love to know if anything inspires your sound other than music.
Tom: Ooh.
Dylan: Daytime TV. Famous footballers.
Tom: It’s just things that we notice and think are funny, and it just accidentally falls into the creative process. I feel like something that I think is important when you’re making music is to just be impulsive and to let something out in that moment. Being too full on about your subjects can be a bit contrived and pretentious. But the downside is we end up singing about Diego Maradona and Martin from Homes Under the Hammer.
Dylan: Another element to it is that we’ve known each other since we were four years old so we know each other very well. I think that plays a part in one way or another. We can just fuck around and it’s fine.
Even though it may be slightly premature, we are coming to the end of the year. I’d love to know if the band or yourselves have any New Year’s resolutions
Tom: I’ve got a goal, not really a resolution. Because I think I’ve been acting pretty bloody brilliantly.The goal for us is to go and play in Europe. We’ve been chatting to some people in France, so getting across the Channel.
Dylan: And we’ve got friends who play in Europe and they’re always like “man you guys would have so much fun over there.”
Is that Getdown Services?
Dylan: They are definitely one of them. But yeah, that does sound like loads of fun so maybe that’s the goal for next year.
Tom: The resolution is to not stay here.
Dylan: Just spend even longer in the car.
Photography by Hannah North (@flosphotography_)
Listen to ‘Martin’ here: