Django Jones and the Mystery Men: ‘We wanted to do something like that to finish our EP, to have an epic Bondesque song!’

Sheffield post-punk band Django Jones and the Mystery Men will release their brilliantly riotous debut EP ‘Thank You For Having Us’ tomorrow (25 October), awash with overdriven guitars, unique vocals and enough energy to power a small town in a blackout.

They comprise Will Tomlinson (vocals), Ciara Hurding (drums, also for Sheffield band The Seamonsters), Joe O’Grady (guitar), Isaac Rodgers (bass) and Matt Jones (guitar): The band started in the second year at university when Tomlinson and O’Grady lived together. ‘I played with Matt in bands in Birmingham and met Ciara in a pub – we bumped into Isaac in a pub as well,’ Tomlinson told me last time we chatted. ‘Myself and Joe were looking for a drummer and we just thought ‘Django Jones’ would be a really good drummer’s name! One of our housemates said “Django Jones and the Mystery Men” and we liked it, so that became our name. Every time on the line up when our name takes up so much space, we feel embarrassed in a way!’

The EP consists of five tracks: three previously released singles ‘For Loving You’, ‘Animals’ and ‘Say My Name’ as well as a new track, ‘Bunny’, and a short intro track called ‘Django’, according to Hurding: ‘It’s a mix of everything that we’ve been doing over the last two and a half years – we see it as a ‘best of Django’ so far,’ she said. It’s an EP characterised by charging riffs, big vocals from Tomlinson and the kind of energy that is as infectious as it is empowering. As Tomlinson tells me afterwards: ‘I like to think that this EP follows the idea of this alter ego, a sort of sleazy motel dweller,’ he said. ‘A lot of my writing to this point revolves around this character. The ordering of the EP almost tells their story in reverse. ‘For Loving You’ shows the breakdown and almost gives the background to their characteristics, and listening to the EP in reverse shows this decline into madness, almost discovering who they really are.’

‘We wanted to do something like that to finish our EP, to have an epic Bondesque song!’

‘For Loving You’, which they released as a single in September, opens with a fantastically hooky, thuddy bass line and anguished vocals from Tomlinson, think Echo & The Bunnymen meets The Cure on a wild night out. It’s about a relationship that is on the skids and is a ballad by their standards, marking a shift from their usual unrestrained energy up until the four-minute mark where Hurding’s drums build and build and Tomlinson starts to shout, as if in a fever dream. ‘It’s a bit more dramatic,’ Hurding said laughing. ‘Will and Joe write the songs and I add on the drum parts; I know I’m going to hate myself live playing it! Honestly, I always come off stage and I’m dripping in sweat (laughs). This one actually started out live as an acoustic song because we were trying to fill out the sets. I decided to bring it to practice to try and work out how to include more to it. It was quite a few songs that we’d listened to for inspiration for the end. There was a Drenge song, I can’t remember what song it was, but we really liked it, it had a really long outro. We wanted to do something like that to finish our EP, to have an epic Bondesque song!’

As the track goes: “Lights out at the after show. A broken heart, a kiss to tell your friends. And then do it all again, again. Loose change from a week ago. Lip stains that you go show your friends. Is it worth it in the end, the end?”

Entertainingly, they took a while to name the track: ‘We called the song ‘Will’s song’ for the longest time because we didn’t have a name for it!,’ Hurding said. ‘The names generally come a bit easier, but for this one we couldn’t quite work out what to call it, we didn’t want anything that was too cringe!’

One of the standout elements on ‘For Loving You’ is the guitar line that comes straight out ofThe Wild West; it would be perfect during a standoff in a western. ‘We were talking about a lot of Wild West type themes when we were in the studio,’ she said. ‘Will and Joe were messing around with different pedals and the guy that we produced it with as well had quite a big impact on the sound for that one. I think it’s that kind of song where you pick up on little bits each time because there are a lot of layers in this song.’

Hurding’s epic drumming on the track is something of a happy accident: ‘We hadn’t properly written the drums going into the studio for it but we knew we wanted like a big build up,’ she said. ‘I kept trying to write stuff but not really knowing where to take it. In the studio, it’s basically just me messing around doing loads of fills and stuff but it took so long because the producer wanted to get it in one take! So it’s all one take – I was just dying on the 10th take (laughs)- it’s really long, more than a minute, and every time I’d miss one little fill, I’d be like:” Oh no, I’ve got to start again!”‘

The artwork for ‘For Loving You’ depicts a retro image of a ballerina’s feet in pointe shoes and turns out to have been done by Harding’s band mate in a former band, Tassie Drobinski (her instagram is natassjadrobinski): ‘We made Pinterest boards to come up with themes and ideas for what the song’s about,’ Hurding said. ‘But we never said that it had to have X or X on it. She takes that away and brings stuff back, I think she gets the vibe and the feel of what we want as well.’ Hurding would love to hear the track in the next Bond film: ‘With Paul Mescal as Bond. I don’t know if I can quite picture him as Bond but I just love him as an actor and he’s Irish, so we could have an Irish Bond!’

When I chatted to her last time, Hurding mentioned that she finds it hard to visualise a song if she can’t hear it and says that is still the case: ‘Generally, when one of the guitarists comes to us with something, I find it hard to know what energy it should have if I don’t actually hear it,’ she said. ‘We pretty much write our own parts. It’s so exciting when you finish a song you’ve written together.’ I ask her when she first started drumming: ‘I was seven, in primary school. I was the kid who was shy and didn’t talk to anyone but my parents are very into music. My dad was into drums, I think he wanted me to be as well. I grew up with a lot of good music. They loved The Specials, The Stone Roses for the drumming and Nick Cave.’

Tomlinson cites other influences: ‘I say, for myself, The White Stripes. My mum loved The Clash and The Ramones. My dad listens to a lot of The White Stripes and The Jam. Joe loves Led Zeppelin and Rory Gallagher. I remember telling him I wanted to be in a punk band. We’re not a chord mashing punk band (laughs). I want to do a three chord song but they won’t let me!’

‘I think we’re quite keen that ours are all a bit different and that whilst a song is still recognisable as Django, it is touching on different genres’

Hurding is a drummer who does her homework and looks for inspiration in a lot of different places: ‘I think with drumming, there are so many different styles and ways that you can play even the same beat that you need to get the vibe of what you’re going for, that’s why we generally will have a conversation before we write and try and at least come up with what the vibe is going to be for that song and what artists it might be inspired by,’ she said. ‘Then we’ve got a feel for which kind of genre it’s going to be. Sometimes, you listen to certain bands and their songs are very similar. I think we’re quite keen that ours are all a bit different and that whilst a song is still recognisable as Django, it is touching on different genres and not being the exact same each time.’

Their debut single ‘Bad For You’ (2022) channels the chaotic post-punk energy of their live shows, drawing inspiration from these influences, most notably The White Stripes, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and The Ramones. It is definitely music written for the restless, with all the attitude you associate with an edgy, tightly written punk rock song – it comes in just over two minutes – albeit without the snarling defiance you would typically expect from a punk song. It erupts with a fuzzed up, almost maniacal, frenzied wall of guitars that builds, hooking you even before Tomlinson comes in on vocals with his jubilant “Ahh yeah, baby, woo who who!”

‘It’s very much a Joe-heavy guitar on this one, which is what he likes, the more rock ‘n’ roll kind of vibe!’

Interestingly, their new track ‘Bunny’ – much like ‘Bad For You’ – turns out to have been inspired by the Nick Cave book titled ‘The Death of Bunny Munro’. The protagonist in the song is based on a sleazy motel character, according to Tomlinson. As Hurding puts it: ‘It’s very much a Joe-heavy guitar on this one, which is what he likes, the more rock ‘n’ roll kind of vibe!,’ she said laughing. ‘It’s quite a big song in our live performance. We always, up until this point, have ended with it and we add in snippets of Black Betty to it live!’

‘Animals’ has the same kind of ferocious energy to ‘Bad For You’: ‘We aren’t really sure what this song is about yet,’ Tomlinson said. ‘It started out with an idea myself and Joe came up with around a jokey, catchy loop of the lyrics “like an animal” and it’s kind of taken off from there. Currently, a lot of the lyrics are focused on the idea of toxic masculinity and I just let it run from there.’ Rightly, it has become a fan favourite: ‘That’s the reason that we released this one first from the EP,’ Hurding explained. ‘It’s the one song where everyone’s been: “When’s ‘Animals’ coming out?” We’ve played it since we started, it’s one that we did in the practice room all together. The music came first before the vocals, I’m pretty sure we wrote it in a day. I remember playing it through for the first time and thinking: “How did we just do that?!” (laughs) We wanted a really energetic one that people would love, it was written with a live performance in mind. I think we’ve managed to get the energy across in the recording. In the studio, Will will do multiple takes. He’ll do him singing and then he’ll go back and just do his random little ad-lib screamey bits (laughs) because that’s how he does it live – he moves around a lot! So you need to get that in there as well.’

As the track kicks off: “I’m caught with the fame, now I kiss like an animal (like an animal, like an animal). I’m hit with the shame but it don’t make it real at all (like an animal, like an animal). So I’ll keep on running. Oh, just to stay in shape. I’m caught with the fame, now I kiss like an animal (like an animal, like an animal).”

Fittingly, given the title, ‘Animals’ ends with a dog barking enthusiastically and I ask whose dog it is: ‘It’s Will’s dog. Sadly, she passed away while we were recording but he wanted to include her in it,’ Hurding said. ‘She was called Aida, she was a Weimaraner, I think. It’s the dog he’d had since he was a kid, so it was hard, but it was nice to be able to include her in some way. We were trying to work out whether to have her on the artwork or what would be best.’

In the end, they have gone for something equally emblematic, a candied-looking love heart, also designed by Drobinski. The EP title ‘Thank You For Having Us’ has a lovely provenance, as Hurding recounts: ‘It’s partially because it’s meant to be like a best of us so far and a thank you but it’s also based on a funny moment,’ she said. ‘It was when we were playing live at Leeds. One of the other bands that we were chatting to – Drella, they’re really lovely – Isaac went up to them, thinking that they were the promoter and said: “Thank you for having us”. They were just so confused (laughs) and since that moment, we always say to each other: “Thank you for having us”. It was really funny! We supported them a few months ago and we told them that we named our EP after that day and they thought it was so random!’

‘I think that’s why it’s so intense, it’s completely doubled up, which we don’t normally do’

Next up, they are carving out some time to write new songs: ‘It’s going to be really nice to actually have some time to write again,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Will and Joe have got loads of ideas just because they’ve had so long without actually writing. So hopefully next year we’ll get some new songs out and see where it goes!’

‘Say My Name’ on the EP is pulled along by a hypnotically sexy bass line that once it’s lodged in your head, stays there, and when I tell Hurding this, she laughs: ‘Oh, my God, that’s the one I always get in my head!,’ she said. ‘It started with a guitar part that Matt wrote. With the bass line, Isaac’s just following, I’m pretty sure, exactly what Matt’s doing. I think that’s why it’s so intense, it’s completely doubled up, which we don’t normally do. That one’s very heavily based off The White Stripes! It’s very much our ‘Seven Nation Army’ (2003) vibe.’

As the track goes: “I’m feeling trapped can’t look back now won’t be the same. I guess like that, turned to black didn’t mean no pain . And now it seems all their dreams lost it to the flames, they’ve lost it to the flames. Hit and run, what’s become of their twisted games.”

If she could go for a pint with anyone, Hurding picks Johnny Marr. ‘Did I say that last time?,’ she said grinning. I tell her that she did. ‘That probably hasn’t changed, to be fair. I’d ask him about songwriting and where he gets inspiration from and how he writes songs. Obviously, every band and musician does it completely differently and I find it really interesting to hear about different people’s processes because I know a lot of bands will start songs with drums and stuff but I’ve never done that.’

If she could shadow any drummer for the day, Hurding picks Arctic Monkeys’ Matt Helders: ‘People always ask me which drummers I like and I don’t know anyone’s name (laughs). It would have to be him, being from Sheffield. He’s always been a really big inspiration and I’ve just grown up with him getting bigger and bigger. I think it’d be really cool to do that!’