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Every Monday we will be bringing you interviews with unsigned UK or Ireland artists for Independent Music Monday. Recently we caught up with unsigned Plymouth band The Malthusian Trap to find out more…

Who is in the band, how did you meet, where are you from and how did you come up with the band name?
COXE (Guitar): James Cox, Doug Bishop, Damon Foster. Me and Doug met at uni and started a band years ago. Me and Damon met through my flatmate and Damon’s workmate, Matt. I’m from Plymouth, Doug from Birmingham and Damon from Manchester.

DOUG (Bass): Damon, Doug and Coxy. Originally Damon and I started messing around with sampled beats and laying guitar, bass and vocals over the top, we started creating more and eventually managed to put together our first release – an EP called The Underclass. We then found a guitarist for our second EP Palpitations but after recording the EP he left and we enlisted Coxy as our new guitarist who I’d known from Uni and a previous band we were in together (The Velvet Swans). The name of the band ‘The Malthusian Trap’ was found after Damon read an article called the Malthusian theory and as we were looking for a band name, he suggested it, I liked it and so we became The Malthusian Trap. The theory part is way more complicated and my brain has insufficient funds to recite it. 🙂

DAMON (Vocals): I guess the band started when me and Doug began writing tunes together about five years ago. Initially we were producing the tunes and releasing them for radio, we had a bit of a Mike Skinner vibe back then and as the tunes started to get a bit of attention we decided to take it live and that’s when we started working with our first guitarist.

We started playing all over the UK, did a bit in Europe, wrote our second EP Palpitations but it didn’t really work out with him though. He wanted to write more country and western style music so we had to find a new guitarist and that’s when we got Coxy in the band.

The band name came from me really. It came from an economic theory by Thomas Malthus that says there wouldn’t be enough resources to meet a growing population. It’s from the industrial revolution, we’re all from industrial cities and I thought it sounded cool. Plus it resonates with today’s global situation too, too many people and not enough resources (not enough being dished out anyway). We’re living in The Malthusian Trap.

Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
COXE: My dad got me into music. He got me hooked on The Beatles from the age of 9, after we saw The Bootleg Beatles on a family holiday in Blackpool. I got into Two Tone and ska in my early teens and then got hooked on New Wave and Post-Punk. My biggest influences are David Bowie, Joy Division / New Order, The Beatles, Iggy Pop, Stone Roses, Smashing Pumpkins, Jamie T, King Krule, stuff like that.

DOUG: I got into music through my mom and dad’s music collection (which inadvertently my mom gave away a few years ago without telling me, but that’s a story I’d rather not go into!) which had genres such as late 50s rock n roll, Jazz, classical as well as artists such as the Beatles, Stones, Neil Young, Janis Joplin etc etc. The Beatles were definitely one of my favourites everything though, loving albums from Please Please Me to the final release Let it Be (White album is the Boss for me though!). The first real scene and music that grabbed me as a youngster was the acid house scene, although I was too young to go to the illegal raves that were happening at that time, that set me on the path to the discovery of many genres from punk, post punk, new wave – loving all the classic bands from that time – Joy Division, New Order, Sex Pistols, The Clash to name but a few. As far as influences go I could say Bowie, New Order, Beatles and the other bands I’ve mentioned and musically they have influenced me but when it comes to really influencing me as in to get off my arse and try to do something it’s usually an Artist/Band that I can relate to on a personal/down to earth kind of level, to make me realise that it can be done, you can make something doing this music malarky because the guy over there who’s just a normal Joe like myself has, but still trying to reach for the sky of those massive artists like Bowie/Beatles sitting up there on their clouds.

DAMON: I don’t really like music to be honest, just do this to get out of the house. Nah, just kidding. Similar to these (Doug & Coxy) really. Music was always a big part of the household growing up. I grew up in the 80’s/90’s in Manchester and my dad was part of the Acid House culture back then. I’d be running around the house listening to Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, New Order and Acid House. It really sunk in. You’re like a sponge as a kid innit.

Later on I got into Hip Hop (courtesy of my dad) and that played a big part as a kid, my soundtrack was Biggie Smalls, Nas, Ice Cube, Krs One, mainly east coast Hip Hop. I knew I always wanted to be in music but wasn’t gutsy enough to front a band in my younger days and DJing was massive back then, so that seemed like a more natural route into music. I saved up for my first decks and became a relatively well known DJ on the scene in certain areas in the North. The frontman thing niggled at me though and when I got a bit older it was a “now or never moment” and here we are having this chat!!!

How would you describe your sound?
COXE: Indie/Electronic with nods to New Wave and Post-punk bands from the late 70’s and 80’s. We’ve had more of a Billy Corgan guitar sound as of late.

DOUG: Indie/Electronic with influences from punk, post punk, new wave, acid house, Manchester scene. As far as the bass is concerned I love Hooky’s sound and try to emulate it a little bit, except I love really heavy low end bass.

DAMON: Mega. No, seriously. We could jump in a time machine now and mix it with any big band that we’re into but don’t be confusing us with some sort of throwback band either. We’re relevant to modern music. We use Ableton to trigger of beats and sounds so it’s all electronic, also the Hip Hop and Grime can be an influence too, particularly with the lyrics.

What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
COXE: Musically it’s been an amalgamation of our collective influences. We’ve taken inspiration from Rave Culture, bands like New Fast Automatic Daffodils and Stone Roses but also we’ve got that more aggressive punk influence in tunes like E.W.F. which has more of a fast paced and trashy punk tune. There’s even elements of Hip-Hop and stuff like that in Things To Come.

DOUG: We’ve got our new EP coming out called Culture Test, that’s scheduled to come out late October/early November. Damon came up with the name and he has his own take on it but mine is based upon the idiocy of people, when I say idiocy I mean people who come into the category of racists, bigots, homophobes, sexists and the highest levels of criminality (including politicians, lol). So basically you have this test and if you fail the test and fall into one of these categories you get metaphorically culled until you can prove yourself to not be an absolute dick! Lol, I sound like some sort of dictator which might put me in the ‘culled’ category. Musically we’ve got elements of punk, house, electronica, post punk and hip-hop all beautifully amalgamated into shit-hot EP.

DAMON: Yeah, Culture Test. I made a film years ago in Uni, I won’t tell you what it’s called cos you could look it up and it’s shockingly bad. Anyway in the film you have to sit a test to see what kind of person you are in society and it’s meant to weed out imperfections (racism, sexism, murder, greed, all the bad stuff) in humans, like a minority report I guess but as you can imagine with such a plot line it goes wrong and the innocent people get caught up in it all.

This is where the Culture Test discussion came from but as it’s evolved it kind of become a statement for me. A statement on current times and how everything (music, politics, sport, education, economics, everything you can think of) has become a test for society. A Culture Test. I probably spend too much time in my head but the divisiveness of current times really gets to me and yeah, we’re all living in the Culture Test. I’m not normally this serious by the way and occasionally I am capable of cracking a smile.

What’s your local music scene like?
COXE: It’s pretty dead. All the music venues have closed down. That’s due to a lack of interest from punters but also a lack of community between the venues. There’s also a lack of support from the council which isn’t helpful. Essentially the scene is pretty dead, there are still people starting bands and that but Plymouth has never had a truly successful act, so maybe people just assume that homegrown music round here is shit? Which is a shame because there’s a lot of talent about town.

DOUG: Pretty dead, not many venues but you have to make of it what you got. There’s plenty of talent around doing their thing and it’s a shame we can’t get out and watch more live acts.

DAMON: This town, is coming like a ghost town. Couldn’t resist that one, sorry! I think it’s the same everywhere, there doesn’t seem to be much of a scene for the kids, for anyone really. Grime and Drill are big and that’s great but there isn’t any other underground movements (not that I know of anyway). Also a lot of the bands coming out are carbon copies of others, doesn’t seem to be much individuality any more. It’s not going to make me popular for saying that but it is what it is. I mean don’t get me wrong, there is still good talent out there, Idles seem to be doing great, as are Black Midi, Fat White Family and Sleaford Mods, so it just goes to show that if you’re not an “out of the box, identikit band” you can still do it. You know?

What do you have planned for the next 12 months? Any albums or festivals?
COXE: We’re releasing the single ‘Things To Come’ on 17/10/19, along with a lyric video. We’re also releasing our 2nd EP entitled ‘Culture Test’ coming soon. There’s going to be a couple of music videos along with that. We’re always writing tunes, so much more music. We’re also booking dates. Haven’t played Ireland yet so venues, promoters – get in touch, let’s make it happen!

DOUG: The next 12 months are hopefully going to consist of us creating more tunes, getting our name out there and getting more people to our shows as we know when we’ve got a crowd it goes off (and that’s without people we know in the crowd)!

DAMON: I love Ireland me, been many a time. Would love to get over there and get on some gigs!!! The next 12 months are going to be about putting the music out, doing more shows and getting some wind in the sails. We’re after management too, probably will hit Europe again for some dates in 2020.

We’ve also started a new weekly podcast called Through The Trap Door, it’s on our YouTube channel, Spotify, iTunes and all that. It’s genuinely really good (honest) and is the three of us chatting about random subjects in our recording studio (The Heavy Bag). It’s been really well received so far and it’s something we’re going to continue for sure.

Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
COXE: We’re looking into it at the minute actually. At the minute we’ll work with anyone that’s got something to their sound. I would love to work with someone like Jamie T or King Krule though, love both of their sounds.

DOUG: I would love to work with an orchestra and a DJ on a live show as I’ve got some ideas that I think would work amazingly with some of our tunes.

DAMON: That’s a great question. We have some links with DJ’s/Producers and we’re trying to get some remixes of the tunes at some point. I would love to work with Andrew Wetherall, Mike Skinner would be an interesting one, as would Kano, I rate Kano. I tell you what, working with Death In Vegas or Unkle would be mega too, or a filmmaker like Shane Meadows.

Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
COXE: Sometimes Doug likes to argue with sound engineers… CALM DOWN.

DOUG: The calm down story was basically me having a to and fro with a sound engineer at a gig, he thought he was billy big bollocks and I said something to him and told me to calm down which these two thought was hilarious, you had to be there I suppose. The best one though was doing a gig to about 5 people and a couple of people at the front were talking to each other and Damon took it upon himself to tell them off for talking while we were playing, I was in bits!

DAMON: Listen, all frontmen (or ladies for that matter) need to have the right balance of confidence and volatility. When you play a gig and no one is there it’s up to the other bands to rally round and show some respect. The two people talking (they were actually playing tag in the venue, how pathetic is that?) were from the band before us. It’s funny because it kicked off this big deal on the local music scene and we had them messaging us from fake accounts saying how they’d messaged every promoter and venue in the South West to “ruin our future in music”. How pathetic does all this sound? The mad thing is I bumped into our local BBC Music Presenter at the time and he was laughing cos he was getting all these emails from the said band about how he shouldn’t associate with us cos of all this nonsense. There was also the time I got pushed down an escalator after a gig in London taking a row of tourists with me as I went, oh and we also got stuck on Dartmoor when the Beast from the East struck. Turns out doing a photoshoot in the middle of nowhere in the snow isn’t such a good idea. We can’t tell you any more about that though, what goes on in Princetown stays in Princetown.

What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
COXE: We’ve got energy and we aren’t manufactured. Everything about us is DIY, from the music to the music video. We’re genuine and don’t care about fitting into or ticking boxes.

DOUG: We are proper normal people with an artistic flare not just with our music, we are all really creative people and we love to share that with other people. Plus we are really approachable, I say that as we definitely come across as moody fuckers on stage, that’s what my Mrs says anyway.

DAMON: That we’re mega and listening to us will make you mega by proxy. That’s it.

You can find out more about The Malthusian Trap via Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify, Twitter or YouTube.