Districts - United and passionate

We sent a few questions via email to Districts, who are currently touring around the US and Europe, and will be playing here on April 21st at Magnolia in Milan. Drummer Branden Lawrence's answers show just how united these four guys are as a band, and all the passion they put into making music.

Your popularity is growing fast with this second album, at least here in Europe. That probably means a lot of people, myself included, will only get around to the first record after this one. What should they expect?

I'd say it's a bit more chaotic stylistically, but either way I'm still really proud of it, and I think people would understand our music a bit more if they listened to it.

How does your songwriting process work?

Robby usually shows up with an egg, meaning a song, and we help him turn it into a scrambled egg, a hard-boiled one, or whatever we want it to be.

I think one of the record's biggest strengths is that the guitars are very dynamic, the textures are always different, even between the electric and acoustic parts. At what point in writing a song does this aspect come into play?

Rob and Pat are pretty attentive to the different tones, and they like to vary the guitar parts so the song always stays full and interesting.

Another thing I find interesting is the use of the rhythm section. You can feel all this energy in the guitars and vocals, but the rhythm stays controlled, and yet the energy still comes through just the same, even though the rhythm section isn't ferocious in the strict sense. To me this adds personality to your music. Tell me whatever you'd like on the subject.

Definitely, Connor and I try to lock into each other and not play over the song, but do whatever works best even if it's the simplest thing.

Since English isn't my first language, I'll admit my attention to lyrics only comes after my attention to the music. Are lyrics important in your songs? Could you give me a general description of them?

I get it, but yes, the lyrics are important — personally I love the way Rob writes them, it's like every time he's talking honestly to himself, they're very autobiographical but people see themselves in his words.

You're American, but you've also been touring quite a bit in Europe as well as in the US. Are you getting a better response on one side or the other, or are people responding to you the same way everywhere?

We still haven't been to the central part of the United States and we've never played there, but in Europe it's been going great so far, even though it's hard for us to really gauge how popular we are, because so far we still haven't been to continental Europe, nor, as I said, have we toured all of the US.

There are already plenty of positive live reports out there, but I'd like to hear you describe your shows yourselves, while we wait for your first Italian date in April.

Mostly it's just hair flying around and jazz scales.

I really like your album cover, can you tell me about it?

It ties back to the album title — the grape that's rotting represents both blossoming and decay.

I don't know what the word "Roebling" stands for, but the title of your single "4th And Roebling" makes me think of American football. Do you like that game? I like it a lot.

No, not particularly, we don't really watch much sport in general, but go Eagles! Roebling is a bridge and a street in New York, and he was a great man.

Thanks to Guia Cortassa and Lorenzo Righetto for their help with the translation

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