Douglas In Fur: "Stop dragging people down"

Clara Bullock

Freelance journalist based in Bristol. Loves hardcore, her heated blanket, and pasta.

I sat down with Douglas In Fur frontman Bradley to speak about his inspiration, why music is his therapy, and what being constantly honest does to his music

London indie rock outfit Douglas In Fur have just released their fourth single ‘Call Me At Five‘. It’s a personal tune, on which frontman Bradley reckons with the darker sides of himself.

The band got started during lockdown, when Bradley felt he needed an outlet for his creative pursuits. He didn’t want to limit himself to music and uses the band as a “cauldron of creative endeavours” – visual art, literature, graphics.

During the day, he does manual labour with “tough guys”, as he describes them. During the night, he turns to art as a way to work through his emotions. From this, he creates extremely personal songs that are still very relatable. One could say he manages to put things into words that others have only felt.

How would you describe your music to someone who might not have heard of it before?

Before describing my music I’d like to explain Douglas-In-Fur. The reason I made it was not just to do music but to have an outlet for lots of creative interests. It was always going to be primarily music-based but I love artwork, I love graphics, video, literature, and I just wanted to put it all in this one place. It started in lockdown and I was so cooped up and there were so many things I wanted to do.

I was like: I’m gonna make a cauldron of creative endeavours. When I learned guitar it was from heavier music. Because I couldn’t really sing, it was more shouting. As I got older, I got really into pop music, so I wanted to make this pop music wrapped in a sleazy blanket. I always think of Pulp as the best example of a good influence, because some of the lyrics are really disturbing but the music is so pretty.

You say you get inspiration from many places like visual arts, is that what influences your music?

I’ve always loved films, and I get quite obsessed with films, but then I have times where I don’t watch anything at all. I’m really into analysis of characters and that goes into songs. Douglas In Fur was supposed to sound like an alias because I wanted the band to sound like a person rather than a band. I wanted it to be about someone because a lot of the songs are character-based. In terms of influences from films, of course, David Lynch – he is already in the title of the band name. Douglas Fur is a type of tree that appears in Twin Peaks. Musically, The Velvet Underground are a huge influence.

Is any of your own life going into it, do you process stuff with your music?

That’s primarily all I do. Poor man’s therapy is the perfect way to describe it. I like writing about people who are either expressing something I’m going through or it might be about something that has nothing to do with my life but there’s an aspect of it only I can see, something I’m venting. The song could be all over the place but it’s never by accident.

‘Call Me At Five,’ for example, means a hundred times more with less in-depth lyrics than songs we did with loads of lyrics. It’s very close to home, that song. Every single song is a piece of me. I don’t know what I’d write about otherwise, all that arty-farty shit is just the dressing. All the songs are basically all the things people get tired of me complaining about but wrapped up in a story.

You have new music coming out. Tell me about it, what is it about?

We’ve got a song called ‘Call Me At Five‘ coming out, which is our fourth single. I wrote it in one of the darkest times in my young life. I mean, I’m only 24.

I think that’s a lot of life.

(Laughs). In the scheme of my experiences it was a pretty dark time. When I wrote it, I was still in that time, but I could reflect a little bit. It’s very much embedded in it. Just because I was in a bad place, I wasn’t being the best version of myself to other people. I wasn’t being nasty, but I relied on people quite heavily. I’ve always worked in very physical labour, manly jobs. Everyone who knows me – I’m not “manly”. I write songs, I like art and things like that.

But I was surrounded by all these tough people. I could barely make it through the day without having to nip out and make a call to someone to try and get through the day. It’s nothing to do with work or the people or anything, it’s my own shit. But I always find it funny that I’m working with all these tough people and I’m still having to nip out.

The song is about relying too heavily on people and struggling to make it through the day at work and that was reality for me about a year and a half ago. Now, it’s a bit more of a celebration because now I think this is the best thing I ever made and I look back on it and think: I don’t really regret going through that.

Going back to what you said before about writing about your life and using music as your therapy, would you say the song is an example of that?

A hundred per cent. I think at the time you’re so buried in your own misery that you don’t have that third-person look on yourself. I grew from going through that time. Any hard time, I think you should try and grow from it at the end of it. The song was a mental check on myself being like: stop dragging people down. It was really good for me to go through it. I’ve written about it now, I’ve said everything I have to say.

I find it quite interesting that you’re saying you’re talking about yourself, but critically. And you mentioned pop music, where I feel like a lot of artists big themselves up more than viewing their actions critically. Is that something that’s important to you, being very honest and vulnerable?

I think so, it’s for my own good. I come from a no-nonsense background. Obviously normal lessons you learn as a kid like don’t lie, but it’s almost like I took it as a kid and was like: alright, I’ll never lie in my life. It’s not helped me in certain times. But I find it very hard to be dishonest. I can be quite critical of other people, not personally but in terms of work they do, if I think it’s a little disingenuous. If I can see that, then probably other people can. That scares the shit out of me. I don’t want someone like myself to go: I don’t think that happened to you. I’d much rather spend a little longer on it and go: let’s write the real shit.

So, you’re at the relative beginning of what you’re doing as a band. Is there a direction you want to take it in?

We’re going to do our first EP next year, which will be fun. We’ve been just doing a bunch of singles over the last couple of years. I spoke about lessons earlier in my personal life and it’s the same with music; each single is different because we’re trying new things. We might want to try a different producer or do something different visually. We’ve got to a point now where we’ve learned enough to move on and make a full release.

Watch/Listen to ‘Call Me At 5’ here: