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Like many young people who grew up in East Kilbride – “the Milton Keynes of Scotland” – Declan Welsh aspired to be a footballer and never thought that music would be such a big part of his life despite coming from a family of performers.
As he began to find his own musical identity through the likes of Nico and The Velvet Underground (“a rite of passage for any 13-year-old who thinks they’re interesting”), Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand and The Strokes; Declan quickly learnt that not only would pursuing a career in music be a fun way to avoid having a real job, but it was a fulfilling means of expression that allowed him to turn his mundane observations on our socio-political climate into riotous indie songs that would elevate his voice and enact change.
When it came to forming The Decadent West, Ben Corlett – a bassist and fellow East Kilbridean – was Declan’s first port of call. First joining forces in high school, on the first ever song that Declan wrote, the pair struck up a brotherly bond which has seen them play together for almost ten years. Completing the line-up of the culturally engaged quartet is guitarist Duncan McBride and drummer Murray Noble.
Whilst their name may be a tongue-in-cheek caricature and alliterative play on the frontman’s own initials, and has them being described as a left-wing USSR propaganda band, Declan Welsh and The Decadent West’s message leaves no room for confusion or ambiguity. Bursting onto the scene in 2017 with a frenetic sound that fleeted between indie and post-punk, the four-piece quickly gained notoriety for their candid and indefatigable wit which is just as good at instigating mosh pits as it is at provoking intelligent conversations on the injustices of the world around us.
Self-expression and social commentary through music are truly an act of resistance which has allowed the band to perform at Labour for Socialism’s Concert for Corbyn in Glasgow, the Young Communists Stage at Vienna’s Danube Island Festival and Bethlehem Live in Palestine, where Declan sang their anthem of solidarity ‘No Pasaran’ with a Palestinian choir, as well as performances at London Fashion Week, Glastonbury, T in The Park, and The Great Escape Festival.
The frenzied nature of anti-facist anthems such as 2017’s standalone single ‘Nazi Boys’ and ‘No Pasaran’ taken from the band’s debut EP All My Dreams Are Dull are live favourites that were born out of the idea that you can use music as a force to achieve something worthwhile; that the importance of music is practical. “At the start, I believed that the most. A lot of what we were doing was very political and the music was almost secondary to the message,” Declan says, but as they mature with their sound, this process is beginning to change.
Whether speaking out on toxic masculinity, sexual liberation, political upheaval, xenophobia, or the boredom that comes from growing up in a small town; Declan Welsh and The Decadent West’s 2019 debut Cheaply Bought, Expensively Sold, played with the contrasts of the human condition and was shortlisted for Scottish Album of the Year at the prestigious SAY Awards. Using the depravity of real-life experiences juxtaposed with the feel-good nature of early noughties indie, the quartet were dynamic in their sound and direct with their intentions.
Unsurprisingly, with the melting pot of genres that each member listens to – Declan has recently discovered dancehall and reggae, Murray’s an avid country music fan, Duncan is a DJ who listens to a lot of electronic music and Ben is into the 6Music realms of guitar bands – Declan Welsh and the Decadent West are hinting that they might become a little more experimental with their sound in the future. “This started as a political thing and then became a bit more about exploring personal stories and growing up, and now, I think it’s probably going to be less straightforward, less earnest, less heart-on-sleeve and a bit more cryptic in how we present ourselves,” Declan reveals.
With every release, the band gain another sense of maturity; shedding their premature punk angst and channelling it into angular stadium anthems that prove them to be a band with their sights set on an endless horizon. Their forthcoming EP It’s Been A Year – which was recorded with Chris Marshall at 7 West Studios – points the finger inwards, and explores feelings of uncertainty, going stir crazy and being nostalgic for better days. It’s perfectly appropriate for the perpetual state of limbo we’ve been living in, but whilst the EP was recorded during lockdown, the only new song written for the EP is ‘Vladimir’ – which Declan insists is a love song to Lenin, not Putin. It’s a lush, reverb-soaked anthem that oozes sentimentalism and showcases his evocative talents as a songwriter.
‘Parisian Friends’ and ‘See You Around’ serve as high octane indie bangers with drums and guitars acting in collusion to build up anticipation before unleashing chaos akin to the Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not era of Arctic Monkeys. “I can’t say I’ve changed / but I wouldn’t go as far as saying I’m the same as I was before / ‘cause I’ve been on my own discovering how hard it gets when no one’s here to listen”, Declan croons on the latter song which sees him battling with himself and the ideologies that he once held.
“Intentions aren’t really that important if what your radicalism functions as, is a way to be marketed. That isn’t radicalism, it’s just you putting a Che Guevara t-shirt on, which I have done many times before I realised the irony,” Declan says, contemplating where he stands on being political with his music. “Until I’m certain of what role art should play in that, I’ll speak about things that I’m more comfortable with. On the album there was more political stuff, but this EP is a bit of a reflection of where I am, both with COVID being the most dominating aspect of the last year, and of me not being as certain as I was when I was younger – that standing up and shouting ‘no pasaran’ in front of a room of people is actually what I thought it was.”
It’s Been A Year shows immense growth within the quartet, both sonically, and personally, solidifying them as musicians who are reviving the spirit of early noughties and indie, whilst infusing it with the contemplative sentimentalism of a poet’s tongue and the proactive, anarchic spirit of punk. Declan Welsh and The Decadent West feel like a movement, as much as a band. They are a group of friends who see no boundaries, no binaries and no reason not to blur the lines when it comes to the preconceived notion of what a guitar band is supposed to be.