Since the release of their 4K-rated third album Technology last year, Don Broco have grown from strength to strength, embarking on their biggest UK tour yet – including a sold-out show at London’s SSE Arena, Wembley – and finally making an impact in America, a feat which had long been a target for the band.
Following the release of single HALF MAN HALF GOD earlier this year, the quartet have now returned with another new track, the self-described “hype tune” Action. It’s a song which features not one, not two, not three but four guest vocalists, with Issues’ Tyler Carter, Beartooth’s Caleb Shomo, Dance Gavin Dance’s Tilian Pearson and ONE OK ROCK’s Taka Moriuchi all lending their talents to the cause. And not only that, but it comes with a bizarre action-figure-loving video that sees all four singers as well as the Broco boys immortalised as ‘80s toys.
Speaking to Kerrang! following a festival performance in South Korea and a bank holiday weekend spent soaking in the positive vibes of Reading Festival, frontman Rob Damiani is in good spirits.
“I had the best time at Reading!” he says. “Going as a punter rather than playing it meant I could just watch bands and hang out with mates. It was probably the best Reading Festival I’ve had in seven years.”
But Rob has far more pressing matters to discuss than a weekend spent revelling in the sunshine. Don Broco are starting a new chapter, and it’s one in which they’re setting out to do things differently. As he reveals, their new song is the result of friendship, ambition and an “acceptance of mortality”. Inspired by a trawl through his camera roll and a life-changing experience on 2018’s Warped Tour, Action is a carpe diem anthem that’s all about living for the moment and a piece of songwriting that is, Rob says, “unlike anything we’ve done before…”
Hey, Rob! What was the vision you had in mind when putting Action together?
“We wanted a hype tune and to do something slightly out of our usual remit. We were looking for it to be a balls-out, fun song that doesn’t give a fuck. In terms of the structure of it, the idea was that the track would do what it wanted and not follow any rules. It was a very spontaneous song that came about by accident. Last summer we were jamming this beat in the studio and going through stuff on my phone trying to find a photo from our Greatness video. I found this behind the scenes video from the shoot where the director was orchestrating a scene with Matt [Donnelly, drums] and Simon [Delaney, guitar], and I happened across the moment where he shouts ‘Action!’ We applied that recording to the song and, weirdly, it seemed to punctuate the beat and sound musical. Vocal sampling is something we’ve never done before, but it worked, and we were instantly like, ‘Okay, we’ve got something here.’ It was really exciting to essentially stumble across the song out of nowhere.”