“It’s alright to have a dance”: Grabbing a half-price slice with Adult DVD frontman Harry Hanson
Getting a Leeds crowd moving is no mean feat. Decades of post-punk gigs have resigned the gig-goers of West Yorkshire to a polite head nod, or perhaps a subtle toe-tap if you’re lucky. But there is one band who has managed to escape this fate, whose blend of dance influences and indie rock has charmed even the most dance-averse Virtuous drinkers. That band is Adult DVD, a synth-loving six-piece born out of lockdown boredom and Factory Records fascination.
Led by a formidable frontman in Harry Hanson, Adult DVD have already made a name for themselves in their home town and beyond, sprawling across stages all over the UK and Europe with their excessive number of synths, huge choruses and pounding drums. In Leeds, they’re known for their incomparable live presence, for those unusually lively crowds that flock to see them, forcing them to add matinee shows to keep up with demand. But the band also captured their live energy on record earlier this year with their new EP, Next Day Shipping, which acts as the perfect introduction to their playful lyricism and penchant for dance rock, clocking in at under 20 minutes long.
Somewhere in between a sold-out show at the Brudenell and a DJ support slot for indie sleaze it boy The Dare, I sat down with Hanson for a half-price slice at another of the city’s most beloved venues, Belgrave Music Hall, where Adult DVD are set to play two sold out shows next February. After gigging together for a couple of years, the band have shaken off most of their stage fright, apart from when it comes to performing in their home city.
“I think Leeds is probably the only place I ever get nervous,” Hanson admits, “And that’s only because, when you’re in London or wherever, no one knows who you are, so you can kind of say what you want in between tracks. Whereas if you say anything in front of your mates, they’re all looking at you like, ‘Can you shut up.’ But generally, I’m pretty comfortable playing because, without sounding lame, I believe in the music. I think we’re a good band.”
He’s not the only one. Audiences tend to display their belief in Adult DVD through flailed movements and shouted declarations of “Bill Murray,” but the band’s crowds weren’t always so carefree. “You know, we once played a gig,” Hanson recalls, “and I got quite annoyed that people weren’t moving. I wasn’t annoyed on stage or being a diva or anything. But then, afterwards, I was like, ‘That’d definitely be me as well. I would definitely be stood at the back with a drink just watching the band.’”
As Hanson shrugged off that indifference on stage, he noticed audiences doing the same thing. “I was moving around and showing people that it’s alright to have a dance,” he explains, “I think people find comfortability in that, in the crowd. And we never did that at first. So I think, gradually, we’ve just started moving more, and so people have started moving more. That’s my theory, anyway.”
The Adult DVD frontman has taken inspiration from a number of other frontmen for his leading live presence, citing LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy, the “pioneer of frontmen” Damon Albarn, and Grian Chatten’s “unhinged” attitude on-stage as some of his more formative influences. Synth player and backing vocalist Greg Londsdale’s live approach seems to date a little further back, with Hanson comparing his dance moves to a T-Rex. “It’s the best part of the live show,” he promises.
With six members, Adult DVD’s influences span countless genres and eras, from Belgian producers Soulwax to post-punk pioneers Joy Division. Hanson sums it up as “anything that’s dance music with an indie rock edge to it, big drum sounds, but techno-based synths”. But Hanson seems more intrigued by movements and marketing rather than straightforward sonic choices, citing the battle of Britpop, the rise of dance music and the story of Factory Records as some of his key influences.
“I was really mesmerised by the Factory Records and the Haçienda scene,” he shares, “I find the whole thing bizarre, how that label was run, how labels used to be run when there was loads more money. I also find Britpop fascinating, the marketing behind that. I don’t really feel like we have anything like that anymore. It’s pretty mad that they made a duel out of two bands and made them fight over chart positions, when actually it was all just marketing. I’d have believed it.”
Born a couple of decades earlier, Hanson admits that he would have been behind Blur in the battle of Britpop before picking out Leeds-based noise-rock outfit Fuzz Lightyear as Adult DVD’s opponent. “I feel like I’d have to say Fuzz Lightyear,” he shares, “Just because me and Varun [Govil, bassist] have so much craic at the minute that I think there is a friendship but a rivalry at the same time.”
Alongside the intrigue of Britpop duels and bankrupt labels, Hanson and his bandmates found themselves particularly inspired by the “big, big acoustic drums” present in many of their influences. So they decided to pull together their love for electronically-produced dance music with more live-sounding drums, which forms the basis of Adult DVD’s sound. “I think that’s the only thing that separates it from just a straight-up dance tune,” Hanson comments, “The fact that it’s not a 909 on it, it’s actual acoustic drums. The human playing of it, I think that’s what I like.”
Although live drums are essential to Adult DVD’s sound, they usually come last in the band’s songwriting process. Ideas usually begin between computers and group chats, with MIDI drums filling in for drummer Jonny Newell until a little further down the line. “I really like the Logic drummer that writes the drums for you,” admits Hanson, “But no one likes that other than me. I just find it funny because one of them is called Logan, and it’s just playing like metal beats.”
“So Logan’s in the band for a bit,” he continues, “Then we get Jonny to record drums over it, and that’s when the tune becomes a tune. It’s just demos up until then. Jonny’s drumming brings so much to our sound. There’s certain accents, he does some stuff on snares, and that’s what makes it human. That’s what makes it interesting. So, as much as I love Logan, he’s no Jonny.”
When it comes to lyrics, Hanson and Lonsdale tend to take up the task of creating those huge, humorous choruses that leave Leeds crowds desperate to sing along, while pro-producers Danny and Jake advise on word placement. There’s nothing serious or even sincere about their lyricism. Instead, they lean completely into silliness, pairing huge synth-lines with tales of doomsday preppers, hoarders, and desperate attempts to separate the filmographies of Bill Murray and Tom Hanks, the latter of which stemmed from a Reddit thread.
“I find little sayings that people have quite interesting,” Hanson notes, “My dad’s full of them, just weird Yorkshire sayings and puns. I find that if you can get them in a tune, that’s pretty clever…. The lyrics are not like, ‘Woe is me,’ and they’re never really written from me. It’s written as if I’m someone else. I’d like to live in someone else’s shoes. I think knowing that means you can just write anything you want.”
Usually, their process involves taking a one-off thought, saying, or idea and dragging it out to its most extreme and ridiculous form over the course of four minutes or so, placing Hanson in the life or mind of another. “I’ll read something and think, ‘Oh, that’s quite funny or interesting,’” Hanson explains, “It’ll just be that one point and then I’ll develop around it. There’s no real process to it. But they’re all stupid lyrics anyway. I actually don’t know half of the films we mention in ‘Bill Murray’.”
“Over time, I’ll probably get into some sort of rhythm with it,” Hanson posits, “I know that Nick Cave puts a suit on every morning and goes to the bottom of his garden. He’s got a shed. He treats it like a nine to five job writing lyrics and has a typewriter. I like writing tunes through the day, but we can’t really do that because of everyone’s work. After you’ve worked till like 6pm, everyone just wants a pint. You do what you can, innit. That’s the whole idea.”
If there’s one thing that does find its way into every Adult DVD songwriting session, it’s a huge chorus. “I am a massive chorus fan,” Hanson declares, “I absolutely hate tunes that don’t have an actual big, big chorus. It’s somet that I enjoy.” It’s clearly something that their audiences enjoy, too, as Adult DVD lead the quest to inject the Leeds music scene with a little more fun.
