Artist Profile: Adult DVD

Photo Credit: Sandra Ebert

Almost none of Adult DVD’s members come from a distinctly synth or electronic-rooted background, but you wouldn’t be able to guess that in the slightest when you listen to their debut full-length record, Adult DVD. The energy and carefully bided absurdity are too intentionally wielded, too directly harnessed, to suspect otherwise.

But the tale of Adult DVD is a tale of transition—a swirling mixture of the band’s various influences and work within the Leeds rock and DIY scenes that results in a strikingly unique sound. As dance-punk motifs cross streams with indie rock sensibilities and a bitingly ironic worldview, it’s hard not to be immersed in its ever-expanding tide.

Before Adult DVD was formed, it was the involvement of its founding members, including lead vocalist Harry Hanson, in their local scene that paved the way for their collaborations and relationships. Harry spent most of his adolescence and early adulthood playing in various indie rock bands around the city, and Greg Lonsdale, who does much of the synth work and also does vocals for the project, was playing in heavier, more punk-inspired acts during that same period. The two met when Hanson was working behind the bar at a local venue called Brudenell Social Club, and they quickly hit it off as a result of their shared connections in the scene.

By the time the Pandemic rolled around, though, both Hanson’s and Lonsdale’s sonic interests had started to spread outwards from their heavily rock-rooted backgrounds. They had both purchased synthesizers and were getting more seriously into dance music in their spare time, and when they set out to start writing together, it only felt natural to try to work their new instruments into their collaborations somehow.

As a baseline, Hanson knew that he could always remain close to his indie rock background if he felt that he was getting out of his depth. This, in a way, eased the stark transition that was to come for both artists.

“I think it was more [about] safety, having that sort of four to the floor, drum kit beat and a solid bass guitar line— I know that I can put synths over that safely. Rather than just going straight in deep and trying to make a f*cking German techno record [laughs]. I'd have been out of my depth completely.”

But as soon as Hanson and Lonsdale began to carve out some demos of the energetic new sound they were searching for, they knew they couldn’t simply confine it to an electronic context. They needed live instruments, and they needed to elevate what they were working on in Adult DVD into the energy that a full band provided.

“As much as I love dance music and going and watching DJs or people doing live electronics, I don't think there's anything better in the world than going and watching a drummer smacking the sh*t out of a kit and screaming at you. So we wanted to sustain that as well and bring that into it, so having a pounding drum kit over heavy, arpeggiated synths was always the ethos behind it.”

They recruited a host of friends and collaborators to fill out the band, enlisting Danny Blackburn on guitars and synths, Jake Williams on synths, Jonathan Newell on drums, and George Manson on bass. 

Once the lineup was established, they set about codifying their songwriting process. While ideas have always spawned from almost every member of the band, tracks are largely made by sharing Ableton files around individually. Hanson or Lonsdale will work on the lyrics based on their own, semi-absurdist observations during the ample time they spend people-watching at local pubs, then Williams, Blackburn, Manson, and Newell will add their contributions to the arrangements in turn. They’ll head to the studio to record the song piece by piece, and hear the finished product from there.

That was the process for their first single, “Broken English” (released in 2021), and when they first heard the pounding rhythms and searing synth lines blaring across their speakers, they knew they had struck upon something special. The reception of the track only served to prove that externally, and as they continued to put out tracks and EPs, the support for their sound only continued to grow. They eventually were added to the cutting edge rock roster at Fat Possum Records, and for Hanson, that’s the moment where everything became real.

Adult DVD was no longer just a sonic whim being taken to its logical extreme by a group of long-time collaborators—it had a solidified sound and an energy that was attracting a real following.

“As soon as the first thing was actually fully recorded, and then we put it out— we're a small, tiny band from Leeds, and it got a nice reception, so we were pretty happy with it ending up on the radio…  But in the last two years is when we got management and an agent. That's, for me, when it felt like it really kicked up a notch and became something very serious.  I think we're all very passionate about it, but I think as soon as there's people on the outside that want to work with you, and work for you— which still sounds really weird that people work for us— [is when it got serious.]”

By the time they signed with Fat Possum, they knew it was the right opportunity to start working on a full-length record. Although the band had explored as many avenues as possible across their three EPs, the variety of themes and directions they were trying to work into their sound simply needed a larger frame in which they could be displayed.

12 tracks later, Adult DVD came to life.

“It's the first time any of us have ever done an album… and I think having a big body of work means you can really lean into the [different sounds]. In an EP, you can only do so much over five tracks without getting pigeonholed if we went straight into some sort of f*cking techno thing. Whereas an album, there's 12 tracks on it, and some of it's f*cking straight-up dance music, some of it's just straight-up rock tunes. I think that's what excites us— having the freedom to do that.”

From the pounding rhythms of “Coffin Dodger” and “Ghillie Suit” to the garage-rock undertones of tracks like “Jesus Christ Supercar”, Adult DVD holds a sort of energy in its outstretched palms that’s difficult to truly pin down, resting somewhere between a manic Prodigy set and a rumbling Jack White tune. 

But while their first full-length project represents their opportunity to fully explore each of those avenues, it’s still the commitment to exploration—to pumping energy and a jilted absurdity through every crevice of their sound—that defines all of Adult DVD’s sonic endeavours. Adult DVD is simply their first of many unbridled steps in that direction.