Festivalphoto spoke to Matt Jones (Vocals) and Dhani Mansworth (Drums) from The Treatment shortly before they went on stage at The Garage in London to play on a bill with fellow Spinefarm bands Jettblack, and Reckless Love as part of the HMV Next Big Thing event.
Festivalphoto: Your debut album (This might hurt) came out at the beginning of 2011 on Powerage records then was re-released a few months later on Spinefarm. What prompted the move to Spinefarm?
Dhani: The thing with Powerage, the whole idea behind the label was a kind of stepping stone, so we signed to them to get an album out and distributed, and stayed with them until another label was interested in us, which was Spinefarm who saw us on the Powerage tour we did, so we signed to Spinefarm and re-released the album with them.
Festivalphoto: Have you started work on a second album yet?
Matt: Not quite just yet. We’re always writing and recording stuff, so whenever we get an idea we’ve got a studio at home in which we can lay stuff down straight away, but I think the main plan for this year is to tour the album that’s just come out – we haven’t really had a chance to tour that one yet, so I think we’ll do that first then get to work on the second one after that.
Festivalphoto: Who writes the songs – is it a group effort or are there one or two main songwriters?
Dhani: It’s like a group contribution. One of us will have an idea, we’ll play it for the others and..
Matt: Jam with it
Dhani: we’ll just jam around, we’ll break it down to the basics, kind of get an arrangement and stuff, so it’s all a group effort really.
Festivalphoto: You’re touring later in the year at various times with Thin Lizzy, Steel Panther and Black Spiders. WHich of these are you most excited about?
Matt: I think Think Lizzy is going to be great because they’re obviously such a legendary band that we’ve all kind of grown up listening to, and it’s going to be some places in the UK which we haven’t been to before which is good, but obviously Steel Panther will be great fun as well because the whole show is brilliant and funny so I think that’ll be a good laugh as well.
Festivalphoto: Obviously tonight you’re playing alongside two other up and coming bands.
Matt: We’ve played with Jettblack before..
Dhani: We’ve played this exact bill before.
Matt: It was great last time so hopefully it should be the same tonight. We played last night in Guildford, and pretty much half that audience are coming again tonight, so yeah it should be really good.
Festivalphoto: Are there any festival appearances for this summer likely to be announced ?
Matt: None confimed yet but we want to.
Dhani: Hopefully we’ll be on at least one of them, we couldn’t say which one but..
Matt: We haven’t been told anything yet.
Festivalphoto: You’ve played lots of gigs and several festivals already. Which was the biggest one for you so far?
Matt: The biggest one was Sonisphere and that was great. We did High Voltage as well which was really good
Dhani: I think some of the dates in Europe on the Alice Cooper tour were great. It was really good to be in those theatre sized places and actually have room to move. It was good for us because we managed to get our stagecraft together. It was really good learning how to work a stage in such good places.
Festivalphoto: So do you prefer the larger venues then?
Dhani: There are aspects of the big venues that we like, you get a better sound on stage, there’s more people, and you get more room to move around, but the small clubs..
Matt: You get more into it – you can feel the connection with the crowd a bit more.
Dhani: Both have their upsides.
Festivalphoto: Places like the Borderline where you did your album launch, you have the crowd literally up against the edge of the stage.
Matt: Yeah and thats great, you can feel their breath against your face which is brilliant, but as Dhani said, in bigger venues you’ve got more room to move and the sound is better, so either is good.
Festivalphoto: You’re managed by Laurie Mansworth, who obviously has a lot of experience – have you learnt much from him so far?
Matt: He’s great, he knows exactly what he’s doing, so we couldnt ask for anyone better to be managing us. He’s got a whole wealth of experience, I mean he’s been doing it for thirty years so pretty much everything he says is right. Everything that he’s done for us so far has been great, we couldn’t really pinpoint anything – he’s just great.
Festivalphoto: It must be nice to have that confidence that your manager has the experience and knows what he’s talking about.
Matt: Yeah definitely. He’s Dhani’s dad as well which is great.
Festivalphoto: What bands do you think have influenced your music the most?
Dhani: I’d say it’s the bands we’ve grown up listening to. You’ve got ACDC, Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy..
Matt: Judas Priest..
Dhani: It’s all old school bands that we’ve grown up with. We try to take elements of those bands and put a more modern edge on it.
Festivalphoto: Which do you prefer and why – CD or legal mp3 downloads ?
Matt: MP3 is the easiest, but we prefer CD’s
Dhani: There’s still nothing better than opening a CD and looking at the booklet and stuff
Matt: Vinyl is really the best though, I think vinyl sounds best out of all of them, but vinyl’s not as available these days.
Festivalphoto: What was the last album you bought?
Matt: I can’t actually remember
Dhani: I think the last one I actually bought was ”Grey Britain” by Gallows, so that shows how long it’s been since I bought a CD.
Matt: Tag buys loads
Dhani: Tag buys CD’s that have been owned by 15 different people, so he buys stuff that was probably issued in 1993.
Matt: Tag buys two quid albums.
Festivalphoto: Thanks for your time and I look forwards to your show later.
