The Dare at Reading 2025 on indie sleaze, Charli XCX, LCD Soundsystem and new music

NME

The 'secret sauce' to the 'Guess' remix? The magic of Billie Eilish? Thoughts on Charli XCX's post-Brat future? Indie sleaze? LCD Soundsytem? A new album? We asked The Dare all of this and more backstage at Reading & Leeds 2025

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Andrew Trendle. You're watching NME. We're here on the final day, the final night,

00:10the final hours of Reading Festival 2025. I'm joined right now by The Dare.

00:15That's right.

00:16How's it going, man?

00:17Pretty good. How are you?

00:18Good. Is this bass getting to you? I think it's D-Block Europe in the back. I feel it in my soul.

00:24I mean, I've been on tour, so I've been in like bass heavy environments for like a month straight.

00:29So, I'm used to it a little bit.

00:31I thought you were going to say, I've been on tour, so I feel nothing.

00:34Yeah, I feel nothing at all.

00:35Just numb from the eyes down.

00:37Yeah.

00:38But Leeds Festival will do that to you. I mean, so was it Leeds last night?

00:41Two nights ago.

00:42Yeah, so you've had time to recover.

00:44Yeah, we had a little bit of time, but it was really fun, really intense.

00:47Yeah. I mean, this is your first Reading and Leeds, right?

00:50This is my first Reading and Leeds, yeah.

00:53Do you feel like the weight of the legacy of the festival, or is it just another party?

00:57No, yeah. This one definitely has a bit of lore and mythology behind it.

01:02I think that's like pretty exciting. I don't know.

01:05I mean, I definitely heard about it growing up in the US, but not all festivals make it there.

01:10Yeah. And did you feel like, because you're technically headlining,

01:13you're headlining that stage, right? The Festival Republic stage.

01:15Yeah, it's great.

01:17So is it a little bit extra going up against Travis Scott?

01:19Fortunately, I'm not at the same time, so that's nice for me.

01:24So you get to share the insanity.

01:26Yeah. Hopefully get people, you know, get a little bit of people amped up for him.

01:32And you could be the best dressed man at Reading.

01:35It's possible. It's possible.

01:37I mean, how do you do it? How do you keep it up in this heat, in this dust, in this filth?

01:42It's hard, honestly. You know, schlepping a suit around is a lot of careful folding.

01:48And, you know, usually there's a garment bag involved and stuff like that.

01:54Do you ever wear shorts or is that a personal question?

01:56Never wear shorts, ever. There's a famous quote, you know, a don does not wear shorts.

02:03That's a good album name. Or the title of your autobiography.

02:05Yeah.

02:07So fresh from releasing Frequencies.

02:11Yeah, that was two days ago.

02:13How does it feel to have it out in the world?

02:14Oh, it feels really good. I've just like had those songs for a second and,

02:19you know, been just perfecting them, touching them up. And I wanted to release like a club

02:24forward, dance music forward, kind of acid and big beat related thing. And that feels like really

02:32fun and fresh for me. So it's part of a series, right? There's more to come.

02:36Yeah, I think the idea is just like, I'll be able to release a lot of dance music under that sort of

02:40series. Yeah. So there's like Frequency World and then there's like The Dare Album World.

02:47Yeah. So I mean, just a lot of my favorite like techno or house labels, you know, will do like

02:52compilation series. And I kind of wanted to do something similar. So like maybe in the future,

02:56there'll be like features or other people can contribute to it. But yeah, that's for like the

03:01dance music, strictly more dance music. And then The Dare is for the more pop leaning stuff.

03:06Who would you invite into your dance music world then? Man, I don't know. There's a lot of people

03:11I really like, you know, like a lot of legends like Boyz Noise or Gustafelstein, I would love to have

03:19and a lot of like new people like Fuckers or I don't know, Horse Girl or just people who are doing

03:26fun and interesting things in dance music right now. And all these people in your contacts?

03:31Some of them, I know a couple of them. Yeah, I know Fuckers, they're from New York and

03:35Gustafelstein. And you've got Boyz Noise on speed dial. I did actually just DM him the other day.

03:41I'm trying to trying to finesse some tickets to the Nine Inch Nails tour off of him. That's sick

03:46because that remix album of Challenger soundtrack was unreal. Yeah, yeah, that's a great soundtrack.

03:52Are you trying to just creep into the Trent Reznor's world as well? That would be great. Yeah,

03:57I think he may or may not be aware of The Dare as a thing, but you never know.

04:02Hero of mine. Trent, are you listening? Call. Please.

04:07But speaking of Dance Fulfillers, I mean, your remix of Guess continues to have a life of its own. And

04:12it's like, I'm sure, well, as a dance music fan, you must like feel the honor. It's not every remix gets

04:17to be bigger than the original, man. So what's your secret? I don't know. I guess,

04:22uh, yeah, I don't know. Putting Billie Eilish on there. That's sort of the secret sauce. But

04:28yeah, no, uh, I just think it's a fun song, you know, it's almost like a dirty nursery rhyme or

04:33something. It's got sort of just like an instantly, you know, parodied, uh, kind of hook. And that's

04:40kind of what it takes to make a great hit, I think. And how would you describe that chemistry,

04:44the alchemy of the three of you together? Well, a lot of it was done remotely. So

04:50interesting. It's sort of non-existent in a way, but Charlie and I are, we share a lot of the

04:57similar tastes and interests. And we went back and forth a billion times about the song and how

05:03it's going to turn out and where it's going to be. And then she was just like, and Billie is really

05:08into it. Yeah. So it's great. Well, it's interesting. So I remember reading that Charlie

05:12wanted her next record post-Brat. I think she was like mentioning tones of like Lou Reed and going,

05:18kind of transformed, but like, I know you kind of straddle those worlds of like

05:22dance and rock and a bit of everything as well. I mean, what do you make of that? Would you get

05:25involved? I would love to be included. I guess we'll see what happens. I mean, I'm a huge Lou Reed

05:30fan, obviously, you know, like trying to carry the torch of New York music. And, uh, I don't know,

05:38it would be an honor. Yeah. Well, the world, you've been called the new king of indie sleaze. What does that,

05:43what does that mean to you? Cause you obviously you don't invent your own like persona. People

05:47give it to you. Like, yeah. Uh, I don't know. It's just, it's a little bit ridiculous. Uh,

05:53I don't even really know what indie sleaze means, uh, staying up late and liking guitar music,

05:58staying up late, having fun and making like, it's kind of just like a return to extroversion and music,

06:03you know, making music that's for other people to be heard in real life. You know, that's not just meant

06:10to end up on a playlist or end up in a coffee shop or something. It's music that has like a lot more of,

06:15uh, you know, an intense, sometimes hedonistic thing. So that's just stuff I'm all, I'm all about.

06:22So, yeah. So beyond that, I mean, do you ever like sense, are there any great misconceptions

06:27about the dare or do you just not pay mind to that? Hmm. I don't know if there's any great

06:32misconceptions. You know, if anyone's saying that I'm not the most talented, sexy man on the planet,

06:38they might, they might be confused in terms of like championing new, New York music. And there's

06:43like always like connotations of LCD. Are you an LCD fan or is that just not in your work? Cause

06:48sometimes these things aren't even in your world. Like, you know, I love LCD. I've listened to LCD

06:52since I was like 12 or something. Um, yeah, I feel like, uh, LCD. And then after that, like sort of the

07:00parquet courts, like Brooklyn post punk scene, like those two eras are kind of like

07:06super formative and like establishing my idea of like what New York music was. And even parquet

07:12courts went a little more dance punk later on as well. Uh, and then of course I like did a real deep

07:18dive and sort of learned just how, how many people were involved in creating that whole world beyond

07:25those artists, you know, I mean, obviously parquet courts is a whole different scene that happened

07:29a decade or two decades later almost. But, um, yeah, so huge influences on me big time.

07:35And do you feel a new era beginning? I mean, obviously Indies, we just discussed Indies

07:40isn't a thing, but you've talked about that kind of music with substance, but still makes you want to

07:45party. Do you feel that happening around you? Yeah, I think, I think what naturally happens is,

07:50you know, an idea takes hold, a bunch of people, you know, are working within that sort of style or

07:57attitude. They gain some level of success. They leave their local scene or their hometown.

08:02They start touring and playing festivals like this. And then I think the people who are in the

08:08cities still working on their music, they sort of formed something almost reactionary or, you know,

08:14in response to what has just happened. So that's just inevitably happening right now in New York,

08:19as well as I'm personally just excited about London. It's like a whole scene of music that couldn't

08:25have happened three years ago when Girls came out and when people like first started doing this sort

08:30of thing. So it's already happening to some degree. In light of things moving and things happening,

08:35where do you see, aside from the EPs, where do you see the next record going, the next album?

08:39For me? Yeah. I'm just trying to have more fun, like incorporate more diverse influences,

08:46like, you know, have more friends and collaborators involved. And I guess just take it even less

08:53seriously than the first one. Yeah. Relax, man. Chill out. Yeah. You've been taking things far too

08:57serious. I know. So new album 2026 or are you hibernating? I guess it'll be a surprise,

09:03but possibly, yeah. Sweet. What's the first thing you're going to do after this interview?

09:07I think I'm going to go have a drink. And after you're set, more drinks? I'll have another one,

09:12but just two. All right. I'll see you at the bar, man. The dev. Thank you so much. I'll see you there.

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