Darlia – Napalm
Introducing…Darlia
By Sinead Garvan
Newsbeat music reporter
“The most exciting new guitar band in the UK.” It’s quite the claim about this trio from Blackpool from voices in the music industry.
So are the band feeling the weight of expectation?
“Wierdly not so much,” frontman Nathan Day calmly says. “Because when something happens so quick you don’t have time to think about it.”
It’s still early days for Darlia, whose first EP Knock Knock was released this week.
They are taking the high praise in their stride, almost oblivious to it but at the same time appreciating it.
“It’s a change from playing by ourselves you know,” says Day.
“We were the only ones who had heard of ourselves so the fact that someone is listening is decent enough.”
Their story goes right back to school. Nathan and drummer Jack Bentham used to play guitar and drums together as kids.
When they got older, Nathan decided he wanted to take things more seriously and form a band because “no-one takes you seriously when you are a kid”.
He went to great lengths.
“I was frantically running around, going up to people on the street, ‘Someone start a band with me’.”
He was cleaning at a high school when he met the third wheel of Darlia, Dave Williams.
“We started playing in the music rooms,” says Nathan.
Darlia
“I had this whole music block to myself with hundreds of guitars.
“The cleaning aspect goes a lot deeper and we could probably make a film out of it one day with the amount of material from cleaning alone.”
That hints towards the storyline of 1997’s double Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting, so he may have a point.
“I know it sounds really pretentious but it’s not trying to be, I’m honestly fascinated with flowers,” says Nathan.
He is talking about the band’s name, an idea floating around because he didn’t want a made-up word.
And then fate intervened after their first show.
“As I walked off stage, this girl had loads of plastic flowers and she handed me one of them and I kept it in this jacket pocket,” pointing at the one he is wearing.
“After we settled on Darlia, I still had that flower and it turned out to be a dahlia flower and we were like, ‘OK that’s cool’.”
And it’s not the only thing that is cool for this band. If the interest in them is anything to go by, they have a long future ahead of them.
Their debut EP, Knock Knock, is out now and they go on tour with The Family Rain later this year.
Darlia – Napalm (Official Video)
Directed and produced by BlindEye Films
Darlia – Napalm Lyrics
You’re not supposed to wander this far
God speed got me on the run
The hoax was a ghost with a costume on
And yet it fooled the world
He says she says we should talk
Some may say they said too much
Some may even try to pull the pleasure card
As soon as they’ve gone, Napalm
I haven’t seen a smile in a while for sure
Pleasing is easier said than done
Sincerity should never be for everyone
I know, I don’t know, I know I don’t know
As soon as they’ve gone, Napalm
La La La La
