Last time we spoke to The Wytches they were riding high on music press buzz, leaving behind their Megabus touring schedule to go on the road with Superfood and Metz. “We ain’t even started yet,” said Gianni, with a swagger that may well have been justified. This year saw the wave break with a blistering debut album ‘Annabel Dream Reader’ released in August and an insane amount of touring. We caught up with Kristian ahead of the band’s appearance at DRILL festival next weekend.

Your tour of the US and UK ends with an appearance at DRILL. Did you plan this as a sort of homecoming show?

It wasn’t planned as that no. But it’s fortunate that it ends there as it will be a great end of the year. Those final shows have sold really well and we can’t believe it. It’s going to be a good send off for a well-earned break!

It sounds like you’ve basically spent all of 2014 on tour. Do you still consider Brighton your home?

Yeah definitely, there’s something about it that draws me back. We started the band properly there too, you know.

Are you planning to stick around for any of the other DRILL shows? Who would you recommend?

Yeah we want to catch a few bands if we can: Broadbay, Black Honey, TRAAMS, Swans, Telegram. There are some amazing bands playing.

How have the shows gone down in the States? Are audiences much different over there?

They’ve gone well, we thought we’d be playing to around 0 people a night but we have been pleasantly surprised. The audiences in the US are great, they love live music and are pretty appreciative of bands coming over.

Last time you spoke to SOURCE it sounded like you were struggling to escape the whole angsty image thing. Where are you at now?

We are still struggling with it as the album is still pretty new in terms of release date, but we have been working on new material which will eradicate that image. We are excited to get recording again.

You’ve said that you made up the ‘surf doom’ genre as a kind of joke. Is that still how you’d describe your music? What would you call it these days?

It’s just like rock ‘n’ roll. As cliche as that sounds, that’s it. We are just a rock band.

What were you doing prior to this interview?

We are sat in a music store in St Louis, Missouri. We are doing a signing. Currently waiting for coffee!

If you were to start another band from scratch what would it be?

It would be a thrash punk band with a pickle theme running throughout the songs.

What next for The Wytches?

After this year we are taking a break and then writing the new album.

The Wytches play The Haunt on Thurs 4th December as part of DRILL

Photo by Steve Gullick