DOSS on Glasgow and their new EP

Sat in the green room, Sorley, Brodie and Chilly from Glaswegian post-punk band DOSS are nestled deep in the heart of enemy territory. In three hours, they headline The Art School, coming back to the very heart of Glaswegian scenesterdom after touring internationally – America, France, Milton Keynes – over the past year.

The band have rejected the usual avenues to prominence in Glasgow, preferring to chart their own path. They’re famously not friendly with the promoter gang that decides who lives and dies in the city’s scene. With their sold-out Art School show, there’s a sense that DOSS are channelling a vital alternative, breaking free from the 'Glasgow band' label, and becoming something more than that.

“It’s been hard,” says Sorley. “Even the shite stuff is kinda fun though, but you realise you’re working for free all the time… rehearsals, travel time. Like it’s a struggle even just letting for like all our equipment, our vehicles are all shit. But there’s also something quite rewarding about it… We’re not like a massive, big band or anything, but in Glasgow at least we get a good crowd, I think because people connect with that, there’s a…”

“A sense of community, isn’t there?” says Chilly. Sorley nods. “Yeah, there’s a non-pretentiousness to it.” “Underdog,” agrees Brodie. Sorley takes a sip from his can, “Yeah, totally… people are kind of rooting for you in that sense.

“It’s funny because like we still don’t have an entourage, or a clique of bands that we play with all the time. It feels like – and I’m not saying this in an egotistical way at all – it’s its own wee ‘hing. It’s purely just because of the fans and people that like the band.

“I talked to my pal and he was like, ‘You’re really good at marketing yourself’. I’m no’ marketing myself, it just is what it’s like, the fuckin five stooges tryna like suss out social media. Daein’ reels and aw this. I’m like, 'how the fuck do I do this?'”

Chilly picks up: “It’s the same with art and everything, it’s all these wee scenesters, and it’s all these cool people...” “Aw, you didn’t come to my exhibition!” interjects Sorley in a Glasgow Uni accent. “Yeah,” finishes Chilly, “just stroking each other’s egos."

Sorley looks down for a moment. “I just cannot fake it. When Chilly joined the band, he kind of hammered that in; he was like ‘we cannot become Local Legends.'” “Just another Glasgow band,” Chilly mutters. “Just stuck there, it’s like, fuck that.”

DOSS. Image: Mark Anthony Gilles.

The new EP marks a shift in sound and place for the band, their riotous cacophony infused with a new, louche groove. It conjures a world after sunset, a mangled reflection of individualism, peopled by desperate men oozing out of snakeskin boots. “It’s like, you know in Blue Velvet, that opening scene where it goes under the grass… The white picket fence with this dark undercurrent,” says Sorley. It’s a dark-side-of-town cowboy Americana; a place devoid of romance, its paranoid, macho denizens hopelessly searching for illusions of control.

While their songwriting approach has expanded and evolved (“You cannae keep writing Posers,” declares Sorley), themes familiar to the DOSS obsessive remain: disaffection, power, malaise – and avenues for their alleviation. The EP’s estranged setting provides a cipher for problems much closer to home. DOSS’s relationship with Glasgow is complex, and part of their appeal lies in their ability to tap into and express the city’s latent fears and moods.

“The city is in mass decline… it feels like Glasgow City Council are just selling it out, and it feels like it’s definitely lost its edge. When you’ve got a bohemian city, that’s where good art gets made, that’s where good culture thrives. We used to be one of the best music cities in the world. But now, it’s just.. It’s kinda like watching a friend die a wee bit.” “A wee bit, aye," adds Chilly. “Heartbroken.”

Sorley continues: “You have no control, and you feel so attached to it… I mean, I’d love to move away, but I’ll have moments, walking through the city. I always think it’s like walking through veins… like you’re walking through this living, breathing, entity. It’s definitely on life support right now, but I love Glasgow. Chilly fucking hates it.”

The EP’s closer, Howdy Partner, captures the weariness permeating a society caught in a spiralling rat-race. But it also offers a glint of hope, a world on the other side of morbid consumption. “It was meant to be a kind of deeper song,” says Sorley. “George Carlin says ‘trying to be happy by accumulating things is like trying to feed hunger by taping sandwiches to yourself’... it’s meant to be a cathartic release, going: none of this really matters. All that really matters is your relationships, the intimate things within your life, as opposed to material goods.”

“It’s like, love is more important than all this shit,” asserts Brodie. “Aye, just strip it back to what the core of life is about. What the main things are.”

---

doss e.p. is released on 29 May via Alcopop! Records