Dodgy spent the week before Christmas recording in War Child’s newly opened Music Centre in Mostar.
“War Child wanted us to actually breathe life into the studio In Mostar, get music through the veins of the desk. So we recorded a couple of songs there,” drummer Mathew Priest told NME. “We were happy to go there and be part of that birth. The first couple of days we were just checking the acoustics then we began to relax a little and start recording.”
The album, scheduled for a September release, features a song currently called ‘Bridge Song’, which is inspired by the region. “Mostar means bridgetown. ‘Bridge Song’ was inspired by this bridge that had been there for 700-800 years and the Croatians bombed it to destroy the morale of the people there.
“We wrote it after hiring a car when we were in West Mostar where most of the hotels are. We tried to get through to East Mostar, and it was like, no way. It might seem like old news now the Bosnian thing. But the people who committed the crimes, the people who ordered the soldiers to do it, are still in power.”
Priest said the band had songs on tape which date from the sessions for ‘Free Peace Sweet’. However, he did not know whether they would fit with some of the other material the band had worked up for the forthcoming LP. He said they planned to return to the Mostar music centre at some point in the recording process.
“The whole point about the music centre is it’s concentrating on the kids that live there, but it’s fully functioning so bands like us can go and record there.”