In the moment, Demob Happy argue, there’s something inherently hilarious about finding yourself in the middle of an armed siege, covered in money. “We were having the best time, just lying on the floor laughing,” says singer/bassist Matthew Marcantonio, recalling the time in the US when their tour bus swung into a motel parking lot, straight into a stand-off between shotgun-toting police in body armour and a live shooter in one of the rooms. “If he had come out and shot at the police, we were the biggest thing he could hit.” In their panic to hit the deck, thousands of dollars of tour profits went flying. “We were lying in a pool of money, wondering if we were gonna get shot,” he says, laughing.
For 15 years these three DIY Newcastle-viaBrighton scuzz-rock survivors have cackled in the face of catastrophe. Political corruption, occult control, capitalist oppression and good old-fashioned heartbreak have powered their two previous albums Dream Soda (2015) and Holy Doom (2018). Their latest, Divine Machines, looks set to be their breakthrough, with its songs about alien prophets (Earth Mover) and spiritual healing (Voodoo Science) being mentioned in the same breaths as both QOTSA and Sgt Pepper.
They don’t actually run a café.
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