“One foot in the club, one foot in the charts,” that’s how Diagram of the Heart have chosen to describe their unique pop euphoria.
Anthony Gorry and Kye Sones are a synth-pop duo who came together to form Diagram of the Heart thanks to MySpace. Sones explains that Gorry got in touch out of the blue, “We were both doing our own thing and writing and producing and stuff and Ant sent me a message by MySpace which just said ‘would I like to come over and do some writing?’. I checked out his stuff and I thought it was brilliant so I got on the train and went over to Ant’s and we just started writing together.
“The first couple of tracks were really good and we had a really good chemistry, which is quite hard to find when you’re writing with somebody you have never met before, ideas clash and stuff, but we got on really well and it just grew from there,” Sones says. The duo then worked for about 18 months on their debut album “Vital Signs”.
As the name suggests Diagram of the Heart are very much about the feeling rather than an abstract thought. Sones describes the band and sound as “very heart on sleeve stuff” while Gorry says: “It’s not complicated… It’s meant to be about everyday things and stories about what everybody is feeling.”
This down to Earth attitude is evident in the entire album with songs drawing on personal experiences such as loss and relationship break ups.
Their debut single from “Vital Signs” is “Dead Famous”, a fantastic track with a strong beat. Sones explains how the track came to be. “When I started working with Ant he already had the bare bones of the song and I loved the title. I thought it was really strong and really current now, with how everyone wants to be famous with going on X Factor and going on Big Brother, and I don’t think people know the darker side of it that comes with it you know [like] Britney Spears shaving all her hair off and people losing their minds.”
Gorry adds: “People forget maybe you can get fame and all these things but if you remove them all you’re still the same person underneath and I think that’s where people get lost a lot of the time… It’s kind of upsetting that people let it consume them rather than enjoying it”. A line from the song also reflects this attitude on stardom: “And I know some day when this madness ends, that you’ll be like everybody else”.
The album, “Vital Signs”, is by no means a studio album. Both Gorry and Sones want the music to be enjoyed at live events, and have played iTunes Festival, V Festival and Bestival, to name a few.
Sones says: “We are very much a live act, that’s one thing that when we were making the record was really important to us; to be able to take it out live because [for] a lot of duos or bands it’s a studio album and they don’t really translate when you see them live, and people get disappointed. For us it was really important that we come across live really well and we smash it basically… We love going out and going to gigs so for us it’s very important to just really have the best live show possible. So that’s what we really aspire to. It’s all about seeing us and getting involved.”
Diagram of the Heart hope to be able to continue the success of this last year. Sones says: “I see Ant shaving his hair off [laughs], but no, I see us just carrying on, making great music, and hopefully touring the world and enjoying it and that’s the main thing and everyone enjoying our music.”
Gorry agrees: “Basically if it’s anything to go by, this last year has been an amazing year for Kye and I and for Diagram of the Heart… I would hope that next year we’ll be back at all those places [iTunes, V, Bestival] but we’ll be slightly up that bill and people will know our stuff so yeah, it’s very, very exciting times for us, very exciting.”
You can listen to Diagram of the Heart and see tour dates on their MySpace page.