“We need those violent outbursts to be creative!”

Brouhaha spoke to Richard Boardman, the synthman from dance-electro outfit Delphic about their upcoming show in Hong Kong as well as their stage sharing friends, Two Door Cinema Club and we even told him how boring Singapore is! Hooray! Over the phone, it sounded like Richard was sat comfortably in a leather chair at home in Manchester, face brushed gently with the aroma of a fresh cup of tea whilst a light fall of rain tap-taps at his window. I’m not sure if this was the case but for Richard, I hope it was.

Have any of you been to Hong Kong before?

No, we haven’t. We’ve spent the last year seeing pretty much the whole globe, but I guess we’ve not seen everywhere so we’re looking forward!

What are your preconceptions?

All I know is that it’s quite a place of culture but I’m not aware of much else. China’s a place I’ve always been interested in going to but bands don’t really get to go there. Hong Kong, however, is a place that bands can actually go to. I’ve always said to our manager, how can we play in China as it’s rare for European bands to go there but it’s great that we get to play with the chance of an audience from China.

Are you excited to be playing with Two Doors Cinema Club?

We are, yup! We’ve played with them quite a lot before. We really like them as a band and we get along really well. There’s quite a good revelry going on but we really admire each other and the banter is always good between us. We play a lot of festivals together as well. Being on the road all the time is such an odd lifestyle and when you tell people back home about it, they don’t really understand, but with a band you’re traveling with, you can share that and they understand.

Are you looking forward to the authentic Chinese food you can get here in HK?

Yeah, absolutely! I remember being young, you would have Chinese takeaways and you would think that that was authentic. I had a friend who was from Taiwan, and when I want to his house, I remember saying, “that’s not what you get at the restaurants”, and it sure was delicious!
We judge our tours gastronomically so if we do get the chance to eat there we’d be very happy.

Did you know that your next stop, Singapore, is actually a bore?

Really? Is it?

No, not really.  There is a bit of a rivalry between us folks in HK and them lot in Singapore as to which city is better but it’s just good-natured bitching.

We have a similar rivalry between the north and south of England. We always try to do our press in Manchester. We’d never consider going down to London!

Who are you listening to right now?

I’ve just downloaded an album by a band called Bath. It’s interesting. It’s somewhere in-between Dance Dance Dance and Hudson Mohawk. We’ve been through a funny old time actually. We’re in the process of writing a new album and we’ve been listening to a lot of old music like David Bowie and The Beatles. We’re really immersing ourselves in the songs and we’ve been learning from the best I guess.

What’s the best lie you can make up about Delphic for us here in HK?

Well… It’s kind of close to the truth, but we all fight a lot and sometimes we can take it to a physical level. One night, I went out with James and he ended up with a black eye. The thing is, we were so drunk we couldn’t remember what happened. We like to say the live version is I clocked him in the face. We are the best of friends and we do all live together but it’s all insular and can be intense at times. But we need those violent outbursts to be creative! With all this violent creative tension, we use it to be better!

To music fans, Manchester is a spiritual mecca. Is it actually shit or does it live up to its heritage?

What inspired us as a band was that we knew about it but we were too young to have experienced it. We grew up in Manchester when nothing much was going on; post-Oasis. It’s a great place and students dominate the city but with music, we were quite dissatisfied, which is kind of why we started the band – to make it inspiring again. Bands like Everything Everything and Egyptian Hip Hop are all doing the same kind of thing.

You seem to be touring forever! Have you invented games to pass the time?

To be honest, we’ve just decided to bring a football. We’ve been touring since 2009 so it’s been two and a half years and just now we’ve decided to bring a football, which is ludicrous. We’ve started Delphic versus crew games and Delphic is five up now. We do have a little studio on the bus so we actually try to write as often as possible.

Would you illegally download your music if you weren’t in Delphic?

Yes I would to be honest. I used to download music illegally quite a bit. You get kind of caught up with it. It’s how the world goes – you can moan about it but there’s no way round it. I do use iTunes and I’m about to buy Spotify for ten pounds as you do want to put money towards it and get the best quality. People do put too much thought into stopping illegal downloads instead of focusing on how to better other aspects. I think Apple completely control and Sony and Universal are trying to prevent downloading. I personally would download music but I do like to own best quality music myself. It is difficult for musicians cause it means no money but I have grown up with it – there was downloading when I was sixteen so there’s no other side to it. It’s all I really know.

What’s the best part of your job?

The best part of my job is… I don’t know, I don’t want to sound all mushy and sentimental. You kind of moan about it but if I sit back and think about it – I get to be creative every day of my life. I get to express myself through music. Going round all over the world seeing places like Japan and Australia and seeing all the places I would never get to see before is great. Also, not having to wake up early in the morning.

Hear hear. Many thanks, Rick.

Manchester’s alternative dance act Delphic on the 10th of this fine month. It’s all happening at Rotunda 3, HITEC and it starts at 20:00. Tickets cost $410 from hkticketing.com

Words: Alex Lendrum

Tags: Delphic
Posted in Features