Media appearances 2021

Hello everyone. We're still together in case you're wondering. LP4 is in front of us still and there's about 25 demos knocking around.

I (Dan) did a couple of media things this year for the band. The first was an episode of the podcast The Scene Was Dead Anyway. If you don't want to look at youtube and just want to hear it, it's on Spotify. But there's a visual version.

The other thing was a longform written interview that hasn't come out yet. I don't know if it ever will, so I am producing it here. If this treads on your toes, Manu, let me know and I will delete it. After the jump:

Where did total victory formed? It's said you come from northern England but whereabout in the north? Can you present the band?

Total Victory formed in Queen’s Park in Bolton in July 2007. It was a hot day and we were all at a local music festival. My (Dan, singer) band had broken up and I was looking for a new one so I asked Matt E (guitar/synth) and Matt L (bass) to make time from their busy lives. James (drums) joined very shortly after. Along the way Martin (guitar) and Andy (drums) joined.

We’re all from Greater Manchester – Wigan, Bolton, Atherton – but we practice in Bolton and came up through the local scene there.

Why did you form the band? Whas it a way to escape boredom?

Many great bands have formed because they live somewhere dull and there isn’t much to do. That is not our story.

Total Victory formed out of a sincere impulse to make music because making music is just inherently good and performing music is one of the few liberatory experiences a person can have.

Had the band not formed, or not progressed in a satisfying way, I feel very confident that we would all be involved in music and art anyway.

Why Total Victory? Is it a military metaphor or a way to say that capitalism made its a way into everyone's life in england and that the rulers can proclaim "total victory" on the people? Like in northern england when the less docile sections of the working class had been defeated in the miner's strike?

Until capitalism can get inside our heads and control thoughts (and not just in the ontological way that technology and work make us re-order our brains) there can be no ‘total victory’ of any worldview.

By that token the ‘total victory’ of the Conservative government in the 1980s was merely a pyrrhic victory, as it ensured large swathes of society detached from consensus politics and became ardent Never Tories.

But this isn’t an answer to your question. Total Victory seemed like a good name with darkly religious and militaristic connotations at a time when we needed one. It is a somewhat ironic name, ultimately. Maybe it isn’t the best name now but we’re kind of stuck with it.

It is quite difficult to explain the music of total victory to someone,how would you describe it? I mean when I listen to you I can hear Crass, for the lyrical content, fugazi, pavement, wedding present..i think you can't be classified which is a good point?

All of those comparisons are legitimate and flattering. When you really start to compare any band directly to us, I think the comparisons start to fall apart quite quickly. Not saying we’re the world’s most original group, but I think we have dug in a little niche.

One thing that must be stressed is that none of us agree on one single band except Thin Lizzy (who we obviously do not sound like).

What do you want to express in the lyrics? I think they're real good coz they are political but it's not slogans, it's more personal.

Lyric writing was dictated by the things I did not want to hear. No slogans, no hectoring, no assertions of us as morally superior – but also no overt self-deprecation and defeat, and no whimsy.

A lot of the lyrics – Omnivictory, North of Here, Secession Day, Public Weighbridge, Written Backwards – are short stories. Some of them – Gore Seer, Atherton Derby, Advice for Men, Mass Firings, Golden Calf, In The Home Counties, Playing Golf – are portraits of people I have met.

Some of the ones not mentioned are personal (but not confessional). Let me try to give one example.

Take ‘Flowers in my Hair’ from the recent tour EP.  I was living in rural England and trying to navigate a lot of myth and history of the region, a region which is typical of conservative Britain. The lyrics take direct inspiration from the nature poets of the region, such as John Masefield and AE Housman – references to runners dying young, particular geographical locations, thoughts of age and death. Really and truthfully, this was all about what I was experiencing at the time, but I tried to connect it to a wider picture.

But you are right. They are political. All of them. All writing is: all art is.

Should I address the issues of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, disablism (and so on) in my work in a more direct fashion? In 2020, by not addressing these issues, I could be argued to be upholding certain structures of power. Any serious writer writing today has to be conscious of this argument, even if they do not completely agree with it. And I largely agree with it, with some small reservations.

My view is that the lyrics are already critical – Reverse Formation is clearly ecological, Churchbulder about austerity (“the father killed the son”, I mean, this is obvious), The Public Weighbridge and Playing Golf play games with recent Conservative thought – and that that is enough.

What bands,films,books,movements inspire you?

Space does not permit us to talk about all of these things in full. So let me mention a few things that I think are really interesting and positive from each.

Music – right now I’m almost afraid to say that I like Ariel Pink and think he represents a songwriting triumph of the 21^st century from the perspective of pop music. I’m not too enamoured with a great deal of English-language rock music but I keep finding weird things like Igra Stakenlih Perli to spark my interest.

We could talk film all day. Right now I am watching a lot of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He gets so much dramatic power out of so little and he always sticks up and shows sympathy for the right people. World on a Wire (Welt am Draht) is a must-see!

We’re all avid readers – right now I’m re-reading Shaun McCrae’s Forgiveness Forgiveness. I also really enjoyed Ed Moloney’s The Secret History of the IRA for being so thorough on such a difficult subject.

I think total victory is on the edge between the "punk scene" which can be a hundred different scenes together,and a sort of new "independent" rock scene with bands like sleaford mods,idles and others? I like these bands but in France their audience is hipsterized I would say,and it's weird seeing parisian hipsters gesticulating on sleaford mods when the man is talking about working class nottingham, what would you say?

An interesting nexus of questions here. Essentially the modern independent guitar band person is quite atomised – few ‘scenes’ exist because of the realities of rent and space, the changes in taste, and the fact that guitar music by-and-large became an emeritus and bourgeois pursuit.

You’re right in that we do probably slot in between those two approximate poles, but perhaps this is a matter of perception. We are British and we have guitars and some vague politics, which puts us nearer Sleaford Mods/Idles, but in reality we play with your excellent French groups like Torticoli, Taulard, Moller/Plesset, etc. But we’re not French, so how can we with those bands? We must exist somewhere?

Really I think we’re out there as a stubborn piece of detritus that can’t be easily killed. Some of it is nostalgia and romance.

Actual Parisian hipsters don’t like us – Born Bad won’t stock our records!

Now the football question, I saw a lot of live footage where you (dan) wear football shirts,what team(s) do you support? In france there's not that big bond between punk,alternative music and football, it's usually seen as contradictory even if the idea that football is the sport of the working class idea is making its way.

I can understand why a lot of people who have sought refuge in art are strangers to the joys of competitive sport (I shall note: I really love nearly all sports). Art is not a competition and within art you can build your own conceptions of community and inclusion. The fact is that sport reminds a lot of people of times in their youth when they felt inadequate. And I do not blame them for not wanting to relive that.

In Britain it is largely the same – the deeper you get into alternative culture the less likely you are to find sport as a binding force. There are fan-owned teams and punk sections of small clubs, but I think they’re notable because of their novelty.

What do you think about fan owned clubs like fc united of manchester or teams like Glasgow united that work with refugees? In france there's a history of an alternative federation of sports linked to communists,socialists and anarchists since the 1920's, the FSGT,is there an history of "political" sport or people owned sports clubs in Great britain?

Enfranchising people – be they refugees, the disabled, etc. - through sport feels like a positive way to do this. Right now most teams could do with enfranchising 50% of their community: women.

It is essential that sports retain more than a notional link with the community that sustains them. As for forming clubs around political ideals – I have to claim I feel a little embarrassed about clubs that form exclusively around a political ideal. My view is that you put your “good” politics into your local community, rather than leave your community behind to find other “good” people.

We had a discussion about patriotism in emails, what does it mean to you and the band? I know in England or great britain, it's not as badly seen as in france in our music scenes or in the people, it can also be seen as a form "progressive patriotism" as billy bragg would say. I mean I link patriotism to colonial history, to capitalism, xenophobia but some other french people would link it to french revolution,the people,progressive ideals,but still I can't be a patriot..

English history viewed through the prism of government and army is obviously sickening and rotten. We must, of course, teach it and diagnose the root of its illnesses and work constantly to stamp it out in future generations.

But that isn’t all of English history – as EP Thompson says, we must save the workers from “the enormous condescension of posterity". Progress is won from below.

That said, this is the spirit of internationalism – English workers have more in common with Czech workers, with French workers – they’re just blinded to it by powerful forces. If this is true, how easy is it to think of oneself as ‘English’? 

How was your last tour in france and brittany? You seem to like it here and you played a lot here? What did yu think of your gig in brest? 

The band are very positive about our history of visiting Brittany. It reminds us of the best aspects of home with much of the negative removed. Lots of people trying to make something good happen in imperfect circumstances.

I loved Brest. Beautiful place and the people we stayed with were wonderful.

What's the story behind beeing published by french labels tandoori and kerviniou? Is it a will to be on diy labels on not majors?

They were the first to ask.

I’m not sure we could sign with a major label but a larger independent might help things progress. We’ve been on the same level of record sales and audience for 10 years now...it risks stagnation at present.

With this covid bloody age, do you miss touring,playing gigs?

If I had my way, Manu, we would tour 4 to 5 months of the year all over the world.

What your views on british politics? From here the future of great britain seems fuckin' grim,with brexit,tories,farrage in the corner waiting for his hour...

Mercifully Farage will never hold official power. His job, much like le Pen, is to reappear sporadically and pull the right (Conservatives / Les Républicains) even further to the right. Farage is a tool of several monied interests above him, nothing more. It is those specific interests (hedge funds, lobbyists) that need to be chased through the streets with pitchforks with more urgency.

Britain right now is where France was a few years ago when you elected Macron. The “left” had failed and the right were corrupt so a centrist saviour figure emerged to be “sensible”, though it turns out that the sensible centrist is merely tool of corporate interests and another dull racist.

France, at the very least, has a tradition of striking and leftist / anarchist collective action that suggests if things get bad then something will happen on the streets. Britain is much more reactionary and apathetic in the face of socio-cultural change. It is difficult to imagine the future getting better for those who need it most, which is why it is important to be positive within our communities and spheres of influence.

What about your projects with the band you made like 3 albums? Do you have other stuff coming? dreams of other tours,place you wanna go? Do you all have bands aside from total victory?

The fourth album is the next thing. It has to be I. Good and ii. Different.

We would like to tour eastern, southern, and central Europe. However, after Brexit, the reality might keep us closer to home.