Fuelled by chaos and human connection, English rock band DON BROCO have earned a reputation for their high octane live performances and genre blurring sound. Packing ever-growing venues, the four piece Bedford-born band have cultivated a global following. Their upcoming album, Nightmare Tripping, stands as the band’s heaviest and most introspective work to date. With nu metal and electronic undercurrents, the record confronts a creeping sense of disillusionment and distrust that feels both deeply personal and acutely universal. Fresh off a North American tour and anticipating this next chapter, frontman Rob Damiani reflects on catharsis in the studio, sleep paralysis demons and finding solace in collective unrest.

With the four early singles released, each one highlights a different aspect of the album, what guided your decision in choosing those tracks as the first entry point into this new era?

Thinking back now, Cellophane was the first one. I think we knew right from the start that was the first one we wanted to be out the gates with because it had enough of a signature DON BROCO sound, but felt like it very much put out the direction of the album. It’s probably the most obvious starting point on the record where we’re bringing in some of the nu metal 90s/early 2000s influences which we’ve never really dipped our toe into before, but became a theme of the record. Putting that out as the first song was like a statement of intent. It’s got riffs, it’s got a C chorus, it’s got an uptempo verse, which is something we don’t traditionally do. We’re usually very heavy-soft-heavy-soft but we wanted this album to not fall into that trap and to keep things pumping as long as we could and Cellophane was one of those songs that did that on the record. That was an easy one we all agreed on right from the start. Hype Man was our second song and that continued that theme of high energy uptempo nu metal vibes. Disappear then sort of massaged its way into a more, I wouldn’t say traditional DON BROCO, but it falls more into our more electronic sound. We’ve got a song on our third record Stay Ignorant, and it felt in the same world as that, so for people who have known us for a few albums it’s like we know where we’re at now, but it still felt nicely in keeping with the two other tracks. Our last one, Euphoria, that was the first departure from that for us in a big way so it felt right to mix it up and give people a little taste of something else that’s on the record. That was one of the first songs we actually finished for the album where we were like this sounds nothing like the rest of the songs, but we were so stoked that we almost rewrote the rest of the album to sound like Euphoria. Which we didn’t, but we really like that song. It’s almost a bit of a throwback to our second record Automatic. It’s kind of a blend between that and the heaviness we’re bringing on this one.

You’ve just teased a new single in collaboration with Nickelback. How did that collaboration come about, and what was that experience like?

That was a really lovely email. Yeah it came about from a really lovely email we got from the guitarist Ryan who had come to one of our shows in Vancouver which is where they’re from and his brother was a fan and brought him along. We got an email from them a week later saying how they’d discovered the band and loved the show and had watched all of our videos, and it was just one of those really crazy moments like wow this is so sick. We were all buzzing. Got on a big group call like fuck is this real? We’ve loved Nickelback and it just feels like rock royalty. Their song Leader of Men is the first time I heard them, they were on this record label called Road Runner records and I got this sampler at a show and it was really cool because I felt like I’d found them before they’d blown up and before Rockstar came out and all those big tunes. I remember feeling like, as a kid, I’ve got ownership over this band. So fast forward a few months after the email, we had the song, we sent it to them and just thought why not see if they like it, it would be amazing to have them on the track and collaborate. With these sort of things most of the time they don’t work out, but we thought we’d give it a shot and instantly they replied and loved the track and recorded all their parts within a week and we had it all together. It was such an easy fun experience. Very chilled dudes to work with, whatever we needed they got us and a ton of ideas and ton of harmonies and layers. Ryan from Nickelback just ripped this guitar solo over the last chorus which is really fun because we don’t usually have two guitars, we’re a one guitar band. Our guitarist Simon is militant about never having any other guitars on a record. His whole thing is if he can’t play it, it doesn’t go on the record. The fact we had Ryan from Nickelback we were like great! We can have two! They were just awesome dudes. At the video shoot they were just super chill, very easygoing, just hella professional guys who have done a million videos before. They came in did their bits and yeah it’s wicked. Probably our favourite video we’ve ever made.

You’ve described the song Nightmare Tripping as existing in an unsettling space between dreaming and waking life. Why did that liminal state feel like the right conceptual framework for the song?

The theme of the song is really this blending between awake and asleep and when the problems and trials and tribulations you’re facing in your actual real life creep into your dreams and become nightmares. You have these crazy experiences where you’re like was that real? Did that argument happen in my nightmare or did it happen for real? So I thought that was an interesting way of framing the feeling I was going through. Also the very visceral and physical feeling of having a paralysis demon like sat on you, if you’ve ever been through that it’s just crazy. How is that something that happens to humans without doing any drugs? It’s bizarre and scary. I thought it was an interesting way of framing those confrontations you can have and the song touched on the creative strokes of the whole rest of the record. Nightmare Tripping the song itself is five and a half minutes, one of the longest songs we’ve written. There are a lot of ideas in there so we were stoked to managed to make that work and flow and feel like a journey. Usually we have too many ideas and we have to be quite brutal and cut them, and what’s best for a song is to actually be three different songs. But for this song it felt right turning it into the journey it was. As a concept, even though nightmare tripping relates specifically to the feeling of tripping in this dream state, it kind of feels like what we’re going through every day in the world right now. There’s a lot of songs on the record dealing with personal things and broader worldly worries, and it kind of feels to me that we’re living in this nightmare reality right now.

Yeah I wanted to ask you about that. A significant thread running through the album is a distrust in reality, in what we’re experiencing around us and even within our own minds. Where did that idea originate? Was it more a reaction to the outside world, or something internal that surfaced?

I think it’s definitely both. There are songs on the record that are dealing with it from a more personal perspective, like Cellophane is a song that’s all about waking up to the realisation that you’re maybe not as strong as you thought you were, and realising you built up this idea of yourself that you can handle all these pressures and things that life throws at you when actually maybe you’re not cut out for it. Having that awareness to save yourself rather than falling into the traps of being taken down by it all. That waking up to the reality of the world is something that, again, from a broader perspective is touched upon on a few different songs as well on the album, whether it’s like Pacify Me or True Believers. The idea that you’re waking up to a new world order and you maybe had your head in the sand for a while and trying not to let those things completely overtake your ability to function, but also still needing to accept it and witness it, look in and tackle it head on are the things that the lyrics in those songs deal with.

Reuniting with producer Dan Lancaster. What is it about that creative relationship that works so well, and how did it inform the direction of the album?

It’s so nice working with a friend, there’s no pretence with anything. Obviously you’ve got be respectful and polite (laughs) like you’ve got to be with the rest of us. That’s a constant balancing act for us as a band of people who all write and all have opinions and want to contribute, and Dan’s an equal part in that when we’re in that studio environment. He’s got incredible ideas and he’s done so much in the last few years. We’ve known him since before our first record, but at the same time it’s also knowing if a song is maybe going down a path you’re not sure about, knowing to be like nah its not working, we put a lot of work into this and it’s good but its not right, and I think that’s something that is hard to do with new people because you don’t want to piss them off. Everyone’s trying their best and everyone’s working hard trying to use their intuition to take you down the right path, but we go down hundreds of paths sometimes before we find the right one. It’s knowing when it feels right and when the collective whole feels good. Being able to be so open with Dan, he’s one of our best friends, and that enables those sort of conversations. Also I think it allows freedom for him to chase any ideas or more out-there routes that he might not always feel as comfortable doing with other bands. With us, we’re very much anything goes mentality. The best idea always wins.

The craziest idea is usually the one that feels the best. It’s an open table, everyone shouts and sees what works kind of thing. Some of my favourite moments ever in the studio have been on this album where we’ve just been going with the feel and Dan’s been taking us to a certain place and someone else will jump in and take it further and it will turn into something completely different. I think we’re really great at bouncing off each other like that. We did it mostly round his flat which was really chill. We were in studios when we needed to be, and other times round his flat, and he doesn’t live too far from me, having a nice time with his dog, it felt sort of like being at home.

When you’re creating in the studio, how much do you envision and consider the live performance element when making creative decisions?

Yeah, we’ve kind of always had that on our minds since our third record. It was something we didn’t worry about at all and then being a touring band and getting a bit more successful and actually getting more shows, being on the road a lot more made us aware of writing songs that would translate live that we didn’t have to change too much. Definitely our first two records we ended up tweaking the songs a little bit live and changing them. They naturally sounded a lot heavier. People would always say we sounded a lot heavier live than we did on record. I think that’s the way we play, we play a lot harder and upping the distortion, down-tuning songs because it’s easier to sing and sounds heavier. So rather than making that a thing for live, we kind of think with every song, where would this drop, how would this feel, where would be that crowd moment? And you don’t want to make a song worse for that because you can always do a live version, but I think it is really important when you listen to it to imagine ok I could see this being performed live.

Is there a track on Nightmare Tripping that you’re especially excited to perform live for the first time?

Ummm ooh good question. I think that Nightmare Tripping the single I’m really excited for. Again it’s very different for us, it’s entering new ground for us as a band and yet it still feels very us. The journey it takes you on when you’re listening to it, I’m excited to see how that is revealed in a live scenario and if you can take people on that journey with you live. It’s a long song but it’s got all these peaks and troughs and the middle eight kind of riff section is just this kind of bonkers weird party environment. I remember we wrote that straight after me coming back from Glastonbury and I remember being there, having just had a weekend of craziness, envisioning how that would feel on a big stage or in a tent and I could just see it. That moment especially the middle section before the last chorus, just it being a crazy euphoric moment, so I’m really excited to see how that goes with people just getting lost in the song.

You’ve just come off a North American tour and, over the years, have played a huge range of locations and venues. Is there a particular venue or crowd that still stands out as especially memorable or intense?

I mean the very last show we played because it’s the last one we did (laughs). In Seattle that was insane. One of those really rabid crowds where the energy is just, like the room is about to burst from it. I remember thinking how sick is it that the last show of the tour can be this high energy. It’s fair to say not all shows are equal. You can’t help it if you get given a Monday night and the crowd are just not going to be in the same zone as people just finishing work on a Friday night, but there was something about Seattle. We’ve been there quite a lot now over the last few years and it’s been one of those places we luckily get to play every time we tour America. It’s such a big music city and they love rock music there, it’s got such a rich history of rock bands from Seattle. I don’t know if that’s what makes it so crazy or if that’s just the vibes there. That was really sick. Another place that we love is Phoenix or Mesa in Arizona, there’s something about the crowd there that it just feels really special when we go there. One of the places that really understood us as a band very early on in our times travelling the States. The show we did there on the last tour we had was probably one of the best of the tour. They’re the two that stick out from recent times.

I imagine when you get a good crowd like that you just feed off it.

Totally, it makes it so much easier for you as a performer as well because you’re then almost not performing you’re just part of the energy and you’re seeing people in the front few rows as far as you can see going crazy, you just then react of that and it makes them go crazier. It’s great.

Looking across your discography, where does Nightmare Tripping sit for you emotionally and creatively amongst your previous work, and what does it add to the DON BROCO story?

I think it’s very much a progression from our last two albums. I feel like it’s overall, well I mentioned Euphoria has a bit of our second album Automatic vibes in there, bit more of an 80s reference, that’s kind of a breath of fresh air. I would say it’s our darkest moment yet, definitely our heaviest. I would say it’s a little more despondent and maybe a little less positive. I’m a huge believer in music as catharsis and a way of getting negative emotions and experiences out into the world and on record. Turning something bad into something good because then it makes a great song people can relate to or identify with, or gives people hope. While there’s less hope I would say on this record than previous albums, it’s more a message of things can be shitty but at least we’re all feeling the same thing and we can find some sort of peace in that. That there’s enough of us going through this same thing. It’s a very powerful use of music in general, how it can completely turn someone’s day around, turn someone’s life around. I think previously with other albums it’s been way more focused on the fun and the energy and the escape, while I think this is more insular.

While it’s still got the fun and energy from the music I think tonally it kind of sits slightly apart from the previous albums.

When you say it’s the heaviest yet, is that thematically or sonically?

I would say both really. For me the music and the emotion that the music can bring, whether it’s from a heavy riffing perspective or just the heaviness and the weight of how the chords make you feel, that kind of then opened me up to being a bit more accepting of the shitty things that happen in life and investigating them, the feelings that come with them. Rather than being “this thing happened but here’s the silver lining it’ll be ok” because sometimes it won’t be ok, but if it’s all not ok but we’re in it together and we can still at least get through it that way.

There’s often this tension for artists between honouring the past and pushing toward the future, especially within genres that carry such a strong history. How do you navigate that balance of taking inspiration from what came before while deliberately trying to disrupt and move things into a new place?

I think that’s something we’ve ended up not worrying about too much because for years we’ve always tried very hard as a band to carve our own identity and stand out from other rock bands that we used to tour with and that we’ve been compared to. I think this is maybe the first album where we’ve actually taken the bands that inspired us to start a band all those years ago and wear those influences a little more proudly on our sleeve. Because we know by the time we’ve actually finished with a song and all four of us have had our way with it and brought in things that make it feel appropriate and original to us, it never then sounds like any other band anyway. I think having four albums under the belt and knowing you have that safety net and you can honour the past and these bands and take reference and inspiration from them and not be too scared of that, because by the time the song is finished it’s not going to sound anything like them. Even if a certain part of a bridge or a riff will, as a whole piece it’s going to sound like DON BROCO. We’re now comfortable in our own skin to have confidence that we’re our own band and it’s ok to be rediscovering who you are with every record.