So you’ve got many different projects on the go, is that how you operate?

Yeah, I worked as a session musician in Huddersfield for two years so I was always under pressure all the time. I once had thirteen songs to learn in the space of two days; it was for a black metal album as well, I f*cking hate black metal. But I think after doing that for so long you get used to the mindset of “If you’re not doing too much, you get bored”. So while I was only doing Orca, on the side I was like “I could do this, this and this”. By the end of Orca I had five things on the go, and now I currently have nine projects all at the same time. I’m working with Olly Kenway, Joe Marsden, Harri Pain, Let’s Chat About That, Artistic Logistics, Incarnate, short films, photography, and the blog. It’s good because it keeps you occupied, and it keeps what you’re doing relevant all the time, because you’re not just posting the same thing [on social media]. It keeps it fresh without being too much and I think it’s the best way to be. Not that I get bored, but I like to have the ability to be free and do what I want, so with a band I’m constrained to just playing drums, and sometimes that’s just not enough. I’ve got all these ideas that I can’t get out there by just playing drums in the same band on the same song, unless I did it with interpretive dance or morse code. A different week is a different project, but not completely changing projects each time.

So do you think being in Manchester presents a lot of opportunities for you then?

Manchester is no joke, it’s a big city with a big music scene. You have to take every opportunity you get because if you sleep on it then it kinda sleeps on you; it won’t wait for you to be ready. You have to throw yourself in and get in the mindset of “I have to work hard”. That’s why I do work so hard on all my projects, because there are so many good bands; Crystal Wolves, The Rants, Animal Omens, Shebang, and all of them work so hard. That’s what fuels me to say “well I want to work harder”, so that people think ‘Oh, what’s going on over here?” and pay attention to me instead.

Is there an album that’s been released in the last decade that you would say in 30 - 50 years time would still be relevant?

It’s a shame ‘Kid A’ was released in 2000 (laughs). Instead probably ‘We Like It Here’ by Snarky Puppy. They’re a 15-strong band that play jazz that’s really interesting and intricate, not just noise or lounge music. Every time they play it’s different. They have a basic structure but improvise around 50% of their songs and just look at each other to play solos. There’s a YouTube video of them playing one song and it’s around ten minutes long, but five and a half minutes of that is just a keyboard solo. It’s insane. I’m not a big fan of [jazz], it has to have elements in it for me to think it’s cool. If you’ve just got a drummer, pianist, bassist, guitarist and vocalist it’s a bit “ehh”, but with [Snarky Puppy] you’ve got a synth, violin, trombone, double bass, bongos, piano, two drums, three vocalists, five guitarists; there’s so much going on at once and it’s so intricate, like a jazz orchestra.

Mobile phones at gigs is a really contested issue right now. Seeing people on their phones when you’re drumming on stage, does that demoralise or annoy you?

Can I just say that these are probably the best questions I’ve ever been asked. I usually get very general questions like “why do you like playing drums?” and “why do you like this band?” and stuff (not that relevant but bigs you up...your choice to keep or chop it). No it doesn’t really affect me. If everyone, like the entirety of the audience, was on their phones then it’s a little disheartening. It feels like everyone is more focused what they’re filming, and while they’re filming you the attention is on “does this look good?”. Just enjoy it! When you get a few people here and there it’s ok, but when we did the Orca headline show the majority of people were on their phones and I was like “just put it down, have a listen, and look at what we’re doing”. We put so much work into the actual physical aspect of it, so when we felt that people were too busy staring at their phones we felt it was unappreciated. I think it’s not a problem when it comes to big-time gigs. When I went to see The 1975 around 95% of the people in there were on their phones, I was one of them for certain songs, but being on it for the entire gig it’s like “why have you paid when you could just watch it on YouTube?”. I think it’s a bit of a grey area; it’s good but it’s also bad depending on the percentage of the audience that are using their phones.

Do you regularly use your phone at a gig?

I did, but then I came off social media for about two and a half weeks and during that went to go see ‘Harriet Curry’. I didn’t use my phone once during that and I enjoyed it a lot more. The thing that affected me was when I went back to see my friends and they were like “how was it? Have you got any videos?” and when I said no, they said “I wish I could have seen that”. You don’t have anything to show, but you do have the experience yourself. I went to a gig last week where I didn’t use my phone, and I feel you just enjoy it and get a lot more out of it. But if you want to show someone how good it is, you kind of need to be on your phone and that’s the problem with technology; it’s overtaken it a little bit. A lot of people won’t go to gigs because they know they can see videos of it, which is cool, but for artists it’s a bit of a ballache. You get less people paying because they’d rather sit at home watching it rather than going and watching it themselves.