Don Broco's Rob Damiani talks Bring Me The Horizon, State Champs, touring the US and their new album Technology ahead of Birmingham show

From their formation in 2008, they’ve gone on to grace the stages of major UK festivals, release three albums to critical acclaim, and even win round US crowds when supporting pop-punk heavyweights State Champs.

Now the Bedford quartet are touring the UK once more to showcase their third album Technology – released last week – with a show at Birmingham’s O2 Institute next Thursday.

“We’re very excited for these upcoming shows,” says vocalist Rob Damiani.

“We like to think that we’re a fine wine – we just improve with age! We have three albums to draw upon, so the set for the shows will be a collection of our greatest hits.

“We just want to put our all into every single show. Anyone who has seen us before knows that we tire ourselves out jumping around like idiots.

“When we go to gigs ourselves we always feel a bit short changed when the band just stands there and plays songs.

“There are some amazing musicians and live acts out there that I’m a fan of, but when I see them I’m always like ‘ah, I wish they had put on more of a show’ because that’s what you’re going for.”

Don Broco return to the Midlands on their UK tours, and Rob says this is because of the incomparable energy that the crowds create.

“The Midlands has always been one of our favourite places to play – whether its Birmingham or Wolverhampton – there is a huge energy like nowhere else,” Rob says.

“Birmingham is the first place that we ever sold-out as a band, so it’s really where we started in the UK.

“My grandma thinks it’s because she’s from Solihull. She likes to take all the credit and says ‘well it’s because I’m from here and I tell all my neighbours about you’. It’s one of the places we will never miss on the tour.”

As well as their show at the O2 Academy, the group played an intimate, stripped back set at HMV Birmingham Bullring on February 5 to 300 lucky fans.

“There’s not many places available to do shows like that and we love doing them,” Rob says.

Technology builds on the work the band showed on hit second album Priorities.

The album features such hits as Pretty, Stay Ignorant, T Shirt Song, Come out to LA and album-titled track Technology.

When the single Technology was first created it set in motion a chain of lyrical and musical decisions that formed the entire album.

“When we start writing songs and making a record we always just say we want it to sound different to our last album,” Rob told us.

“Sometimes that takes a while to figure out, but this time pretty much straight away we decided we wanted it to make it a lively, heavy, fun album.”

Despite only being released a week ago, Technology has already been making waves with live crowds at Don Broco shows.

“A lot of the songs we’re playing for the first time at festivals and one-off shows, and when the new songs that you’ve only had out a few weeks are going down better than your old songs, it’s the best feeling ever,” Rob says.

Don Broco had a monumental 2017 that saw the band play to a sold-out crowd at London’s Alexandra Palace – their biggest show to date.

Despite being the most stressful show they’d had ever embarked upon, this show gave Don Broco a taste for the theatrics.

“There was so much to sort out, we didn’t know what was going on, we just wanted to play a big show!

“We had this massive recreation of a UFO from one of our videos, lasers, a wedding section for the encore. We had a lot of fun putting on a live show with hints of theatricality.”

As well as the amazing sights and opportunities, it is the enthusiasm of the fans that keeps the passion of Don Broco alive.

“Within all of us there is this massive desire to put on the best show that we can, because you have no excuses! It’s your gig, you’re playing all the songs you wanna play, and you have these hardcore fans who have paid money.”