"Doom pop" from the Courtesans

London 'doom pop' group Courtesans play The Hope & Ruin in Brighton on November 26 as they head towards a new album release next year.
CourtesansCourtesans
Courtesans

Agnes, from the all-girl band, said it was the guitarist who came up with the doom-pop tag.

“We made it up! We had these long discussions. Lots of people were coming back and couldn’t classify what we were doing.

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“It is quite soft for metal but it is also too dark for pop, and so she came up with the idea of doom pop.

“We have quite catchy melodies that are quite poppy in some ways, but lyrically it can be really dark. And so it is doom pop.”

Polish by birth, Agnes came to London in 2005.

“I think I was running away from demons in my past, and that’s what brought me to England.

“I was going to go to Italy, but I realised the problem that I didn’t speak a word of Italian whereas I did at least knew the basics of English. Coming here was the best decision in my life really.

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“Let’s be honest. I have got a band that I am totally in love with. I have got my family here. My mother is in Poland but my band are my family as well and I love them. I have got the best time of my life right here at the moment.”

Brexit was “gruesome”, says Agnes, and yet she says she can understand why plenty of people voted for it. But it is the mix that makes Britain great, Agnes believes.

“This is why it is Great Britain.

“You have got so many cultures and so many nationalities, and everyone co-exists peacefully, and that’s what makes Britain special for me.

“But then you have got this rise of supernationalism around the world, and I just keep thinking ‘Why does history always, always repeat itself?’”

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Agnes cites the rise of the far right in Poland – a country which itself suffered so terribly at the hands of the Nazis.

“But I am a silent observer of all this – and a commentator on it in the lyrics. But if I am honest, I don’t see the future as being terribly bright…”

As for the band, they met via various different projects, with London being the hub which brought them together:.

We have been together now since 2012. It has been more than five years. The concept goes back to 2011. That’s when we dreamt it up, but it has been more than five years now as a band.

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“The original concept was something quite theatrical. We wanted a load of those kinds of elements in the performance itself, not just in the musical side of it all. We wanted something we could perform, but during the evolution of the band, that point has changed really and been adjusted.

“Initially we wanted to do something quite theatrical and showy, but that’s not really what it is all about now.”