Despite forming in 1981, there is a youthful air surrounding post-punk/gothic rock band The March Violets. It’s a feeling that the band is reborn and ready to take on the world and with their latest album, Crocodile Promises, just released and creating ripples it seems there’s no holding them back. Peter Dennis sat down with original band members, guitarist Tom Ashton and vocalist Rosie Garland (and we were later joined by bassist Mat Thorpe) to find out why The March Violets are currently in full bloom.
It seems that in the early 1980s there was a certain sound that emanated from the north of England. How were you influenced by the social and economic conditions of that era?
Rosie: We don’t live in a vacuum now and we didn’t live in a vacuum then. It was dark times. There were riots and I remember bombs going off in my street. It was dirty and chaotic.
Tom: Leeds at that time hadn’t been cleaned up and gentrified, all the buildings were dirty and covered in soot. We had the Yorkshire Ripper stalking women, there was Thatcher with the miners. There was a lot of unrest, although it felt like fun at the time; when you are young it doesn’t worry you so much, but I guess you are still absorbing it…
Rosie: …and we weren’t living in ivory towers so I guess the music was bound to reflect that really.
So would you say it was nature or nurture?
Tom: I’d say it was nurture. We fell in with like minded people and we started helping each other out, joining each others bands and there was a lot of swapping personnel, it was a tight circle of people.
Rosie: And people were supportive. It came out of punk, so it had a similar type of edge to it.
Since you’ve reformed you’ve released three albums, while pre-reformation you mainly dealt in singles and EP’s. Why the switch?
Tom: It’s mainly because we wanted to make a statement that was bigger than just one song. It felt we needed more substance to compliment Rosie’s words and we wanted more for listeners to get their teeth into.
Rosie: When the first era of The March Violets came to a close in 1987, it was 2007 until mark II started but in between we were both very active creatively and that’s why things are coming to fruition now; it’s not like either of us went on to become accountants. I was writing and performing, Tom was writing film soundtracks so it felt like a natural progression when we came back together in 2007.
And since 2023 you have been very active. Do you feel like a band reborn?
Rosie: Yes, and especially now we’ve been joined by Mat Thorpe. I think it is a reflection that not many people make it this far, and when we write and get up on stage and play songs it is a vote for life.
While recording your new album Crocodile Promises how did you walk the line between pleasing yourselves as artists and pleasing your fans?
Rosie: I think that if we please ourselves then we do please our fans. We’ve never been goth-by-numbers.
Tom: I don’t think we ever try to second guess what the audience expects.
This is your first album for Metropolis Records. Did that come with a weight of expectation attached? They obviously have faith in you.
Tom: They came highly recommended through friends of ours, we know people who’ve been working with them for decades, we had a zoom chat with them and got on really well.
Rosie: They got the album already made, we just had to hand over the masters.
The new album was comprised of all fresh material. How did it feel starting from scratch?
Tom: Fantastic. Some of the material on that album goes back quite a way, a few ideas that were reworked from the Made Glorious sessions.
Rosie: But there was something about now being the right time. I flew over to Athens where Tom lives and we basically got together for a month and just wrote. It was like some kind of alchemy happened, and it did feel like alchemy, a magic occurred; we got rid of all external distractions and just worked on songs. Tom had sent me some riffs and I’d sent him some words but when we finally got together it was just like it was waiting to happen.
Tom: And it was so productive that we now have a whole albums worth of basic ideas just waiting to be developed.
Rosie is a prolific writer with several novels published, but writing songs requires a different skill set. How do you find it putting words to the band’s music?
Rosie: It is a completely different process. I guess with novel and poetry writing it is more personal, it feels like I’m writing it more for myself. But one thing I love doing, whether it’s writing novels, poetry or songwriting, is writing collaboratively. It’s more like the whole is greater than the parts; I love working in tandem with other people because there is a buzz that happens when you bounce ideas off other creative people, it’s fantastic. And I’m not precious; it’s the lovely thing of flex, the give and take.
And what is it like for the band to inhabit Rosie’s words?
Tom: The words Rosie writes speaks for the way that I look at a lot of things. And musically, it just feels like a natural state of being.
We were enamoured by the production on Crocodile Promises which sounds very warm and lustrous, which is different to your early sound which was thin and jagged. Why the change?
Tom: Well, we’re getting older and warm and cosy! [laughs] Although I hope it still has enough of an edge to cut through. It’s a very analogue sounding album.
How does it feel now the album has been released? Once it is out in the world it doesn’t really belong to you any more.
Rosie: You’re right, it doesn’t. But I love that form of collaboration as well; I like the way people are reading their own meaning into the lyrics. They are bringing their own story to it and I love that. We leave little doors and windows open so people can get inside and inhabit the songs, and we’ve really seen some spectacular reviews and it is lovely the way that different reviewers have got favourite songs. I mean, I want space for my own thoughts so I also offer the space for other people to have their own ideas as well.
Did you (Tom and Rosie) still have the same creative spark when you reformed the band after all those years apart?
Tom: Yes, it is just nice to be friends after all those years. We’ve only just started playing some of these songs for decades. Like ‘Fodder’; that was on the first EP, one of the first songs we ever wrote together and to be playing it now is just amazing.
Rosie: What’s really great is that we are noticing that we are getting the fans who were there at the start and that’s amazing, but the thing that gets me every single gig is the new group of people who are 20, if a day, and we are so happy to see them.
Gothic rock has kind of been airbrushed out of the 1980s, so it’s great that new people are picking up on it.
Rosie: We weren’t fashionable then and we’re not fashionable now, and who cares? We are still going to carry on doing it. They call it the scene that’ll never die, and I think there a lot of people who wish it would!
Tom: What is annoying is that the mainstream will take certain elements and not acknowledge the source.
You’ll be off to the States in a short while for a lengthy run of dates. How do you prepare for something like that?
Tom: There’s a lot of prep involved. The promoter has done a great job of routing both legs; there’s an East Coast jaunt up to Canada, then we head out West and then up the coast to Canada later in the year. They’ve made it very doable; you look at some itineraries and think that could kill somebody!
Mat, how do you feel you’ve slotted into the band?
Mat: I’ve played in a lot of bands over the years and this is the most positive and relaxed that I’ve ever felt in a band. I have no nerves with this band; I just go on stage and give it my best shot.
And when on stage are you able to impart your personality on these songs?
Mat: I think so, yeah.
Tom: And in a good way. When Mat joined us, we remarked how he had the same range that Simon [Denbigh, vocals] had in the early days, and the northern England accent…which wasn’t planned. For whatever reason he just slotted in and this feels like where it should be.
So, with Mat in the band and the warmer sound of the new record, when you play the older songs is it faithfully, or is it with a modern twist?
Tom: More faithfully, we don’t tend to mess around with them too much, that’d take the life out of them.
Rosie: And it is so much fun playing tracks like ‘Fodder’, it’s just two minutes of bat shit nonsense!
How far are you looking ahead with this band? You are soon touring the States, are you looking beyond that?
Tom: Hopefully we’ll be hitting South America in November and then start working on the new album.
Mat, are you looking forward to putting your stamp on the new record?
Mat: Yes.
Rosie: He better, or there will be trouble! [laughs]
Finally, if we had a magic wand and could make any wish come true for The March Violets, what would it be?
Tom: To keep going and keep writing good music.
Mat: I’ve only just joined, so I want it to last!
Interview and photos by Peter Dennis