No offence intended

Dan Coop and his best friend James Rushent are two stalwart members to five piece British electro-rock outfit Does it Offend You, Yeah?  They found their beginnings uploading bedroom produced songs, from their Reading home, via Myspace. The group whose name was borne from scribbling on the table after being signed to their current label, never even contemplated the idea of being successful and playing as part of a band seemed, distant.

“We just thought we were a couple of guys messing around when we got signed we wrote that on the studio table saying we could go anywhere from this, we could become really famous or we could fade into obscurity or we could be doing what we’re doing now, we could hover somewhere in the top middle echelons – playing festivals. We’re not exactly headlining yet, but hopefully we’ll sort of step up,” says Coop from his base in London.

And step it up they have. They’ve been chosen not only to play as part of the Future Music Festival line-up but they’re well chuffed with their choice to support other main headliners – The Prodigy on their round of sideshows nationally.

“James did some production on their last album, he did Omen and Raiders must die and we’ve done about five gigs with them so far – they’re all really nice guys so we’re kind of looking forward to spending a lot more time with them, when we’re in Australia we’ve got about 12 gigs and we’re really looking forward to it cos we’re massive fans.”

Drawing inspiration from The Prodigy’s own style of music, edgy rock, with synthesisers and electronic drums Does it Offend You, Yeah? are as Dan speaks putting the finishing touches on their own second album, aptly titled: You don’t know what you’re getting yourself in for.

“We’re a very electronic band, if we didn’t have synthesisers we’d sound quite grungy I suppose, especially on this new album, I mean synths and electronic drums, make up a whole lot of our sound really.

“We just love dance music, then we gradually faded into doing band stuff as well without the synthesiser we wouldn’t have really existed really,” he ponders.

The band are friends Matt, Chloe, James Rob and of course Dan and according to Coop they’ve always been dance music fiends. In fact he places touring partners The Prodigy as top of mind for their influence in shaping their sound because of the act’s tendency towards cross-over tracks rave tracks. Heavy electronic rock and a full-blown band grew out of their ideas around what would work well live.

“When we got the chance we thought well we might as well make a sort of whole band, just having two guys in front of laptops on stage, can be a bit stale unless you’ve got like amazing visuals and million dollar light show, which we can’t afford we thought we’d just go down the band route, just ah have fun that way and people have latched on, so all the better really.”

Coop believes Australian fans will dance harder than they ever have with Does it Offend You Yeah before.

“A lot harder than they’re used to, cos we’ve just sort of stepped up everything especially as we’re playing a dance music festival, going to play more of the dance-y type stuff so get a really full on type of assault, quite a lot of loud music, especially cos the new album has a few heavier dance tracks on there so we’re going to be playing quite a few of those as well.

In fact the dynamic duo James and Dan even decided to split the preparation of both the live show and the album release.

“I was in the studio today, in London and James was in the studio in Reading. I was with a guy laying out the samples of what we’ll use in the live show and laying out all the live tracks and stuff and James was in the studio finishing off final bits of the album and doing mixes and stuff like that and making sure everything is ok before the record goes to mastering next week. “

Whilst Dan gives the impression this gig is everything he’s dreamed of and more, there is one thing he thinks could improve his rock-star image: crazed fans.

“Two or three crazy fans, we’ve kind of sort of had to avoid them, but we don’t live in places where people can really recognise us, no one is really that sort of insane to recognise us that much, everyone seems pretty friendly but I wouldn’t mind having a couple of stalkers to be honest. Laughing…”

Does It Offend You, Yeah?’s latest album: Don’t say we didn’t warn you is available through EMI Music.

Ruth Bailey