Dave Pen Discusses Modern Anxiety and Self-Production in New Interview
Transmission 291: Interview with Dave Pen
Dave Pen is a British vocalist and guitarist whose work spans art-rock excess and solitary sonic confession. As co-frontman of Archive, he’s spent three decades building one of the UK’s most enduring European cult successes, a band that fills continental arenas while remaining something of an open secret at home. Alongside his commitments to BirdPen and collaborative project We Are Bodies, Pen has carved out space for solo work that strips away the collaborative machinery.
Artist: Dave Pen
Release Date: 2025-10-10
Genres: Alternative Rock, Art Rock, Indie Rock, Post-punk, Psychedelic Rock
Label: JAR Records
Description: Dave Pen talks 'Life Inside The Feeder Mind', his new solo album on JAR Records, self-production, Swans influence, and balancing Archive duties.
His second solo album, ‘Life Inside The Feeder Mind’, released last month on JAR Records, functions as what Pen calls “sonic therapy”, a response to the constant assault of advertising, news cycles, and prescribed ways of being. Recorded entirely alone in his home studio, the album pushes through post-punk atmospherics, electronic textures, and psychedelic undertow. Where his 2021 debut dealt with cults and escape through a science fiction lens, this record embraces a darker, more personal reckoning with modern anxiety. It’s music made in the margins between Archive’s patient compositional process and BirdPen’s rapid-fire sessions, offering a third mode entirely: solitary, uncompromising, and unapologetically dark.
Featured image: Alexis Berg
How did you decide to start making music seriously? And what were you listening to before making music?
Well, I think we started making music seriously sort of from the word go. As soon as we started a band years ago, it didn’t take long. We always had a manager or record company interest and stuff like that, which kind of made me think, “Well, we must be doing something right.”
We never got into music just to be in a covers band. We were always very serious. As soon as we started, we wanted to kind of make it, you know what I mean? It wasn’t long before we started to get interest, which kept us believing that we were good enough to try and make a living out of it. Obviously, it did take a long time to get there. So, yeah, we just always believed it was something that we could achieve. We were just so driven to make it happen.
Music-wise that we were listening to, I suppose before we started the band, we were all kind of in our very early 20s and late teens. At the time, the whole Britpop thing was happening in England. But then you also had bands like The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Underworld, and all this amazing dance music coming out as well. You had all these great guitar bands like The Verve, Radiohead, and Oasis at the time. We were just so spoilt for music, there was just so much.
There was just so much music happening in England. Before that, we were really into Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Then we sort of had the grunge thing; I still am a huge Mike Patton and Faith No More fan. So we just had this amazing amount of music at our fingertips to listen to and go and see live. It was just so inspiring.
Was the local community supportive at the beginning?
Yeah, for sure. When my band, which was Mainline, started back in ninety-eight, something like that, we had a really good scene here. There still are lots of venues and lots of local promoters that really get behind bands. In this city, if you’ve got a band, you can definitely get a gig, which is really cool.
What’s cool is that you’d get support slots with touring bands and bands that we were actually into, and they would say, “Oh yeah, we think you’d be suited for this.” I still know some of the promoters to this day and they’re still doing a great job in my hometown. So, yeah, it was cool. And it still is a good scene. There’s a lot happening here, which is great.
“We’re living a life inside the ‘feeder mind’—constantly feeding into your mind: ‘You should do this. You should be this way. Listen to us.'”
How did you get involved in Archive and how did you meet them?
Basically, we were doing a gig in London with my band and their manager at the time was in the crowd. He’d gone to see the main band that was playing, and we were the support band. He saw us and was just completely blown away. He gave us his business card and said, “Oh, I manage this band Archive.”
At the time, this was sort of pre-Internet. So I had to go into my local town, get the bus, go to a record shop and actually look up Archive to see if they were real. I looked on the back and saw his name on the record. I was like, “Oh, this guy’s not bullshitting. He is the manager.”
So I called him up and he said, “Look, we’d love to put you in the studio. I think your band’s amazing.” It was actually Archive who paid for our demos at the time. So we met Darius Keeler. He came to one of our rehearsals and to one of our gigs and was just blown away by the band. At the time it was between Archive‘s second album, Take My Head, and before You All Look The Same To Me. So they were kind of in a transitional period. Darius saw my band and was like, “This is what I want Archive to be like,” because we had a lot of us on stage—seven or eight of us, keyboards—and made a really big noise.
He was so blown away by us. We became really good friends because we were on the same management and we would hang out and listen to music. They actually did ask me way back then if I was interested in joining Archive. But I turned them down because I was focused on my own band and I thought we were going to go all the way with that. But I said, “Maybe one day we’ll work together.” We stayed really close friends. And then obviously, as they had massive success with You All Look The Same To Me and Noise… then the rest is history from sort of 2004 onwards.
“My next record definitely won’t be cheery love ballads and poppy records. No, it will definitely be weird and experimental. That’s me, you know, that’s what I like.”
What’s the main difference in your writing process for BirdPen versus Archive?
I think when Mike Bird and I write for BirdPen, it’s very spontaneous. It’s a really quick process. We work really quickly. An example of that is our new album which has just been finished. We hired a place for 10 days. We went in with absolutely nothing, no ideas at all, no demos. And within eight days, we had 15 songs from scratch.
We realize really quickly if, after an hour or half an hour, an idea is not working. We just scrap it and literally start something else. We write really quickly because it’s just the two of us that write the songs. I write all the lyrics and the vocal melodies, and Mike and I write all the music together.
With Archive, there are a lot more moving parts. It’s very, very different. You have to be a lot more patient with Archive because Darius is the lead writer and composer. He’ll come up with an idea, I’ll go and see him, we’ll discuss the idea, and then we’ll start maybe with a vocal or a guitar. Then he’ll wait and work something else out. Maybe he’ll say, “Right, OK, I’ve got enough of that for now. Let’s move on to another idea.”
A few weeks or a few months later, he would have worked on those songs and then I’ll go back and he’ll say, “Right, this is where we’re at with the song. What do you think about this part?” Then I’ll come up with a melody for that part. So the process is a lot longer and a lot more thought out. Obviously, there are lots of other members to involve, lots of other vocalists. You might think, “Actually, I can hear Lisa Mottram singing this part now, or Maria Q, or Pollard Berrier.”
The two worlds are very different, but they’re both equally enjoyable and really cathartic. We get so much out of the writing. I learned a lot from Darius and I think Darius learns from me, and I learn a lot from Mike when I’m working with BirdPen because Mike produces a lot of it. It’s a really nice mix. I’m very lucky that I have these two amazing musicians that I work with.
“We hired a place for 10 days. We went in with absolutely nothing, no ideas at all, no demos. And within eight days, we had 15 songs from scratch.”
What inspired the title of the new album? Who or what represents the feeder mentioned in the title?
I think I’ve kind of had this running thread for a little while about the whole “drip feed.” With advertising, we’re constantly subjected to it. We’re constantly subjected to the news, politicians, law, make-up, how to look, “you’ve got to be this way.” It’s kind of like a drip feed, like the little hamsters when they drink the little bottle—it’s just constantly on us all the time.
Everything you do or everywhere you go, there are these constant drips of shit that we don’t really want in our minds, but we can’t escape it. So we’re living a life inside the “feeder mind.” It’s constantly feeding into your mind: “You should do this. You should be this way. Listen to us. This is going to happen if you don’t do this.” It’s a play on words of how society seems to be in the times we’re living in, really.
Did you play every instrument on the record yourself? And what are the main advantages and disadvantages of producing music by yourself?
I did. I played absolutely everything and programmed everything. I did experiment with a couple of other live things and it just didn’t sound right at the time. Also, I made the second album for nothing. I don’t actually have a record company for my solo material. I literally just do it direct-to-fans.
It’s kind of great because I do so many other things that involve lots of other people—management, engineers, co-writers, publishing. So with this, it literally is just me in my home studio. It’s a proper DIY project that I’m not really looking to be massive. I literally just made it for myself because if I write ideas, I sometimes just have to get them out. I really enjoy the fact that it’s a complete DIY project. I did it all, even the distribution, the vinyl print. I went through a really great company and did it all myself.
It’s fun. That’s how I started with BirdPen; we used to make our own CDs, sell them, and do all these niche things for fans. I came back to that with this record. I think it’s brilliant. Anybody can do so much now at home with music. If someone’s going to put your record out, they’re only going to want to make money from you. You’re only going to owe them the money it’s going to cost to get it printed. So I was like, “Well, I’ll just get the fans to pay for it because that’s who’s going to get it at the end of the day.” It was a direct-to-fan campaign and it was really successful. People really enjoyed the record.
What was the most important piece of equipment used on this record or the one in the signature sound?
Well, I used a lot of Arturia stuff, which are plugins that I use through Logic. Arturia is a really great company. They make keyboards and lots of really amazing soft synths, string sounds, and samples. We actually know the guy who runs the company; he’s a fan of Archive and BirdPen. Using a lot of their plugins was really good fun because the sounds that you can manipulate have some amazing functions—morphing and warping sounds—that I really enjoyed.
I also really enjoyed using my guitar on the album. I bought some new pedals for it: some EarthQuaker Devices stuff and Electro-Harmonix pedals. I’d say between the two, that’s it. It might sound a little bit [cliché], but I really enjoyed experimenting with my voice on this album as well. So my Røde NT1, which is the mic I use for everything. It’s always great, I always love the sound of it, and it always works really well for me. So, those three things, really.
You mentioned subtle psychedelia in the description. What, if anything, influenced that specific sound?
I’d say for this record, my biggest influence was Swans and Michael Gira. I’ve been a huge fan for quite a few years now. I just find even though the music isn’t “token psychedelia,” it’s very out there. It’s very kind of pagan-esque at times, and there’s a lot of otherworldly chanting with his voice. I’d probably say that was my biggest influence on this record, without a doubt.
Do you see your next projects continuing in this dark style or changing direction? And are you currently working on new material?
I haven’t started writing a new album yet, but I have got some ideas. I want my solo outlets to be as experimental as possible. This album was a lot darker than… even though the first album had a dark concept because it was all about cults and escaping a cult, it still had a sort of slightly more sci-fi feel to it. This album was a lot darker for sure.
My next record definitely won’t be cheery love ballads and poppy records. No, it will definitely be weird and experimental. I’m definitely going to stay on that. That’s me, you know, that’s what I like. I prefer darker stuff. If people aren’t into it, then that’s fine. I’m into it. So it’s definitely going to be weird and out there for sure.
Photos courtesy of Dave Pen
Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others
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