BruitMag. x The PHD full interview transcript

Magda Kanecka | October 2025

BruitMag. recently interviewed The PHD, an indie/ alternative band from Exeter, Devon, England. Read the full transcript below and check out our blog for a summary article!

MAGDA: I want to go back to the beginning of you guys and ask what made you want to start the band, what’s your story, and how you guys got together as a band.

HAZEL: I met Dylan during my first year of university, we both walked into a Freshers event to try and start something, and my go-to [question] is always, ‘Do you play any instruments?’ – He did, and a week later, we started playing music together.

We didn’t really go anywhere in our first year, but then we met Persephone at a house party and from there, it really just spiralled.

DYLAN: I think we bonded on the fact that there are so many ‘rock-y’ bands in our university music scene; there weren’t many alternative or indie bands, so I think that’s what brought us together. Our name is just our initials; we couldn’t decide on a name, so we went with that.

PERSEPHONE: We had already played like a gig and a half by then, and people were asking, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Who are you guys?’ so we felt a little pressured to come up with something quickly, and it’s stuck now, and we’re happy with it.

MAGDA: See, I thought it was something much more sophisticated than that, because when I hear ‘PHD’ I think, wow, that sounds so smart!

PERSEPHONE: Well, that was another half of it, since we’re all studying, and it sounds sort of academic, it makes us sound smarter than we are. Laughs

DYLAN: See, that’s another thing – I really like the band The Academic, so I think it follows that theme well.

MAGDA: Oh yes! Did you see they’re teasing something? I’m not exactly sure of the details, but we have one of our writers writing about it.

DYLAN: Yeah, yeah, ‘Bye Bye Baby’!

HAZEL: Now we definitely sound smarter than we are.

PERSEPHONE: I feel like a lot of band names change anyway, and ours is kind of what we make of ourselves; it’s who we are.

MAGDA: In fairness, I look at some band names and I think, ‘how did you even come up with that?’ – I’m glad I’ve never had to think of one myself, it seems very difficult. But hey, if it works, it works!

PERSEPHONE: It’s better not to overthink it.

DYLAN: I think as well, the initials and the three letters, it proves we are very proud of [the band] just being the three of us, so it shows through that.

MAGDA: Plus, I don’t think there’s any other word you can make up with the three letters of P H and D anyway, so you did very well there!

MAGDA: Have you always had an interest in music, or did it become something you picked up along the way?

DYLAN & PERSEPHONE: Yup

PERSEPHONE: We’ve all grown up around music.

HAZEL: My dad played a lot of matching bands, so I think that sparked my interest in music and instruments. I only switched to bass a couple of months before coming to uni.

MAGDA: Who would you guys say are some of your biggest influences, whether that’s current or long-term?

PERSEPHONE: See, we could just list some of the bands we like and that we listen to, but by that means, we do all listen to different things.

DYLAN: When we all write songs, it’s hard to explain as a group, but for me, for example, I take a lot of the way I write lyrics from The 1975.

MAGDA: I love that – I think with The 1975, they have such a distinct way of writing and performing that you can easily tell when someone is influenced by them.

MAGDA: Dylan, is it just you writing lyrics right now?

DYLAN: No, Hazel writes as well, and Persephone is doing her own stuff too.

HAZEL: I try to rip off the Manic Street Preachers a lot, I don’t always succeed, but I go for the ‘too early to be a metaphor, but also not direct’ structure.

DYLAN: For me as well, I quite like the emotional side of Radiohead as well, so we take that and then we try to make those parts as interesting as possible.

MAGDA: How do you get into the mood of writing a song? How do you sit down and set your mind to, ‘okay, I’m going to write a song now’?

DYLAN: For me, I’ll usually hear a song and think that it’s unbelievably beautiful, and then I’ll try to write something that captures a similar emotion. [Other times] it’ll be me sitting in bed or playing my guitar, and it’ll come from there.

PERSEPHONE: Other times, you’ve got your lyrics, and you’ve got your music – and it can come either way. Often, you come up with a cool beat or melody, and you struggle to find the words to suit it, and sometimes it’s the other way around, you have a beautiful piece of poetry, and then you’re looking for music to suit what I’m trying to say

MAGDA: Which one normally comes first to you guys?

HAZEL: Personally, I tend to play around with the guitar, and then write a melody, and then go back and play it over and over to see what words suit it best. Whatever’s fixed in my head, gets added, but at times something will stick, and it doesn’t get to stay, because I just won’t remember it the next time I play.

DYLAN: [To me] it usually comes at the same time, really.

PERSEPHONE: Though we are a group, we also do our separate things on the side and then share them with each other

MAGDA: I actually have a question about that: do you guys always agree on how to do things, or is it more difficult for you?

EVERYONE: laughing No, no!

PERSEPHONE: Have you ever met a man who agrees right away!?

MAGDA: You’re so right, and I love the collective answer of just, ‘no way’! Okay – when you don’t agree, how do you bypass that?

DYLAN: In all honesty, we just get really pissed off at each other.

HAZEL: We do it by combat, actually. laughs

PERSEPHONE: We all get into a physical fight, and whoever wins gets their way! But okay, let’s take an example. Recently, we were polishing up a song that we had just finished, called “What are you?”, which we recently debuted at Cavern (local venue in Exeter). We often like to come up with weird stuff to put into our songs that makes us stand out uniquely, and it’s sometimes confusing about how we can make that work in terms of the stuff that’s nice to listen to, along with the stuff that we want to add. Like the bridge of the song, we got into an argument about that.

HAZEL: So, the way we resolved it was, we spent a couple of hours deciding how to progress from the chorus to the bridge, we did it like three or four thousand times probably – we didn’t like those that day, we came back the next day, and we were like, “let’s try it another way”, and that version made it.

PERSEPHONE: Often, you just need some fresh ears.

HAZEL: We get quite grumpy.

DYLAN: I think you have to work so much on something to a point where it becomes okay to disagree on it – you can have an idea, it may not sound great, and you move on to the next thing.

PERSEPHONE: Nothing ever sounds exactly like you want it to the first time. Or, for example, I’m trying to put some lyrics of mine to use, but I’m not that good at guitar, so I usually use Dylan laughs, and I’m trying something, and then he goes ‘no, let’s play it like this,’ so it’s always very direct and sometimes harsh, but it’s better that way.

MAGDA: I suppose when you’re starting a band together, you accept that you’re not always going to go in the same direction and not everyone will always agree with each other.

EVERYONE: Definitely.

PERSEPHONE: I feel like you must have a similar sense of direction in common, otherwise we wouldn’t do anything as we’re doing it

HAZEL: When you agree to that collaboration, you are fully accepting that you are going to compromise on some things, ultimately, and it’s the same for everyone.

PERSEPHONE: Sometimes you have to put the music first, really. Knowing when not to put yourself in the direct spotlight and work together.

MAGDA: I see that.

MAGDA: I’ve got some questions about performing! What helps you guys get in the zone of going on stage? Is there anything that helps you?

PERSEPHONE: How long before though?

MAGDA: Let’s say, day of, a couple of hours before, what are you doing? I would be so scared if you told me I was going on stage and had to perform something, that’s so scary!

DYLAN: It very much depends on how you view it mentally. We’re not the kind of band that’s really cool and all on stage; we just think to ourselves, ‘let’s have fun and enjoy it.’

HAZEL: I mean, also, all of our worst mistakes are already behind us; we can’t be worse than at our first show, so actually, it always goes fine.

PERSEPHONE: I personally feel like it’s gotten easier for us since we’ve been around for a while, and people know who we are now, not to sound full of ourselves. laughs

MAGDA: Oh no, I remember when I was still at university in Exeter, and when I would attend some of the campus bands events, I knew who you guys were, plus you won Battle of the Bands last year (inter-band competition within the university), so that must’ve helped too.

PERSEPHONE: It’s nice to have a bit of…

HAZEL: Recognition?

MAGDA: I think it’s definitely recognition, for sure.

PERSEPHONE: It’s cool that we got to play a gig in London too, and that was quite nerve-racking because it was like performing to a whole new audience that you don’t know.

MAGDA: I actually have a question about that, we’ll get to it soon.

PERSEPHONE: Whereas in Exeter, you often see some familiar faces in the crowds at gigs, London was completely new.

HAZEL: But it still went well!

MAGDA: What do you think goes wrong the most often in your performances? Sorry to be negative, I promise we’ll be back to the fun stuff in a second.

PERSEPHONE: You can’t hear anything! It’s so scary!

DYLAN: I think lots of things can go wrong, but that adds to the charm.

HAZEL: It’s usually equipment, because our own mistakes we can just ignore, and the audience won’t even be able to tell because we just keep going if we miss a note, for example, but if the drum kit keeps going down or the mic turns off, it’s not good.

PERSEPHONE: Especially when you’re playing on a set you’re not used to, and there are always little things that change…

MAGDA: It’s like the smallest tweaks that get on your nerves, but you just have to keep going.

PERSEPHONE: It’s like a stereotype that drummers are always fidgeting with their kit, but when you discover something new, you try to fix it or change it – that’s where the fiddling happens.

DYLAN: It’s just the sound usually.

PERSEPHONE: Usually, I can only hear one or two bits at once. I can barely hear myself.

MAGDA: So what do you hear?

PERSEPHONE: It depends; it’s different in different venues

HAZEL: For most of them, I just hear the drum kit, which is great because that’s what I want to hear that keeps me in time, so it’s perfect for me. I just hope that Dylan’s probably doing something very nice and very cool.

PERSEPHONE: Most of the time, you can’t hear any singing. You just have to know the music. I don’t know a lot of the lyrics Dylan sings.

MAGDA: Dylan, can you hear yourself?

DYLAN: It depends where, good venues like The Phoenix and Cavern (local venues), I can hear myself so well, and it’s so good, but other places aren’t so good. But yeah, it is very nice and it makes such a difference for me when I can hear myself well.

MAGDA: I get so conscious of my own voice when I’m listening to myself on the radio or even just on a recording and I feel so insecure, my voice annoys me, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like with singing.

DYLAN: I’m probably similar.

PERSEPHONE: You don’t care that much!

DYLAN: I mean, it sounds like shit to me, but… shrugs

HAZEL: Every few months, we have to reinflate his ego.

PERSEPHONE: What? Dylan’s ego can’t be dented… laughs

MAGDA: Let’s talk about your London gig and how you got there – how different was the audience, how was the set-up, were you guys invited, or did you inquire yourself?

DYLAN: I believe it’s called ‘Breaking Sound,’ they emailed us saying they want to put a gig on at The Star in Shoreditch, which they do now and again. They said if we can sell the tickets, we can play, and so we tried, and it worked out! In terms of the set-up, at first we didn’t think it was that great, but the sound tech was very good and he knew what he was doing. Once again, we could hear ourselves quite well. I think, honestly, it was one of the best gigs we’ve done so far.

MAGDA: Were you more nervous? Did you still have people come from Exeter?

HAZEL: Yup

DYLAN: We had lots of people come from Exeter, friends from London, and a couple of other bands that played before us were there too, so they brought people as well.

PERSEPHONE: It was a bit nerve-racking for me, because it was the first time my band had played in front of my old friends and my family as well – I’m from London, so it was like a home show for me. It’s like that saying, where people say it’s less scary to perform in front of a thousand people you don’t know, but performing in front of 20 people that you do know and whose opinion you care about.

MAGDA: Good point actually!

PERSEPHONE: Actually, it was more like 40 people – it was like, intimate but nice.

HAZEL: It was in a basement of a pub too, so it made sense.

MAGDA: I want to talk more about Exeter – has Exeter influenced you in any way as musicians?

DYLAN: Exeter Phoenix (local venue) has come in quite handy because I work there, so that’s gotten us a couple of gigs, plus I’m friends with the sound guy. I think the whole Gandy Street area is such an inspirational part of Exeter.

HAZEL: A lot of the scene in Exeter is less focused on the sound that we’re going for, so a lot of what we do is a reaction to that. There is a lot of similar sound around, and it’s really, really good, it’s a great vibe, but we want to be different; we want to stand out.

DYLAN: Also, jam nights at the university, meeting a lot of people and playing music together is really fun.

PERSEPHONE: Despite what people say – because when I had just arrived in Exeter, I was told that there’s not much going on – I’ve found the complete opposite, and it might be because we’re so involved, but there’s always gigs happening, there’s so many cool bands around and lots of different venues you can play at, paid opportunities, non-paid, there’s lots of things.

MAGDA: In fairness, I graduated this past summer, and I’ve had a great time there, so many great experiences too. When people tell me about the stereotypes, I always tell them that while some are true, others aren’t at all. You can definitely find your people.

DYLAN: Exeter’s small.

PERSEPHONE: I like that though!

HAZEL: To me, it always felt like the rural village I grew up in, but scaled up, like it went on further.

PERSEPHONE: I really like Exeter, I think there are a lot of nice and interesting people, and it’s also very beautiful.

MAGDA: I know it’s only October, but since returning to Exeter, have you guys seen a change in the music scene there? It might be too early to tell, but with people graduating, I assume it can change quite a bit.

DYLAN: It’s hard to tell. It’ll be interesting to see what happens after graduation. Bands like HALFCUT, they’re quite big around here, and you know, what happens next? Will there be bands that take their place?

HAZEL: Last year, we lost a couple of the really good bands, and there’s definitely a difference in the live scene when people go away. Sid Plus One are gone, ATLAS are gone too…

PERSEPHONE: It’ll be interesting to see which bands push through and keep going after university and make the effort to carry on.

MAGDA: What are you guys’ plans for this year?

HAZEL: We want to release music!

PERSEPHONE: Yeah, we’re recording, we’re releasing… Well, we’re going to release soon, the art concept side we are exploring right now.

HAZEL: Yeah, photo shoots and video shoots are something we’re looking into at the moment. We’re getting in touch with more people so that we have the ability to actually put it out and say, ‘go listen to our music, here it is’. For the moment, what we want to do is we want to get a bunch of singles out and then an EP, maybe.

MAGDA: I was about to ask, would you rather do a few singles and then an EP with some extra tracks, or would you release them separately?

PERSEPHONE: It’s under discussion.

MAGDA: Understandable.

HAZEL: That makes it sound like we’ve thought about it a lot… We’re working on it.

MAGDA: I wouldn’t know! You can tell me whatever, and I won’t have a way of knowing! laughs

PERSEPHONE: laughs

DYLAN: Thinking about the actual songs, we have one that’s pretty much 99% there… I was actually hoping to finish it today. looks around at the others

MAGDA: Do you research yourself how to put together a song, how to record it, layer it and edit it to make the final product?

DYLAN: Yeah, I mainly do that. We use the recording studio in Kay House (university recording studio), and that has all the equipment you need there, but you just need to know how to use it. So obviously it’s either that, or use an expensive recording studio, which we realistically don’t have the money for right now. So we’ve just been doing it ourselves. I’m very interested in producing, mixing, mastering, and I’m not good at it yet, but I spend a lot of time on it.

HAZEL: What comes out at the end is always really good, it’s just whether it takes you longer than an experienced professional, I suppose.

MAGDA: Have you guys got many demos or unfinished tracks? How do you decide what gets put out or finished first?

DYLAN: We’ve only got one song nearly finished so far, and we chose it because it was the easiest to get right in terms of recording and perfecting, to make it sound the best. All the songs we’re currently playing [live], we want to record soon. That’s the nice thing about having the recording studio nearby, because we can spend as much time as we want there just getting things right.

HAZEL: Just like there are bands that book out recording studios to get an album done – we kind of have that, it’s pretty handy for us. We’re picking songs right now based on the live reaction to them. We’ve played them a lot live, so it’s just how the audience reacts that impacts what we record first. We have a couple.

DYLAN: We also have, or I definitely have, songs that we would like to record in the studio that wouldn’t do as well live, because I think being a three-piece, there is only so much you can do. We have a layering mindset; we have a lot of ideas that would require a lot of different settings, so once again, it’s nice to have the studio nearby to help us do that.

MAGDA: I’ve got a very fun question, but it might sound silly at first, so I apologise for that. If you were to describe your band altogether, all things considered, using any object that isn’t a microphone or a guitar or anything music-related, what would it be?

PERSEPHONE: An object??

DYLAN: Interesting…

PERSEPHONE: I think like, tinted glass?

HAZEL: I was thinking the other way, I was thinking maybe a destroyed notebook?

DYLAN: Actually, yeah, that is us. We’re torn paper. That’s going to be our thing now.

HAZEL: At least in the posters I’m making and stuff, I use that sort of graphics.

PERSEPHONE: But tinted glass as well!

MAGDA: It’ll be in there, don’t worry!

DYLAN: I think that’s a nice analogy, like tinted glasses and torn paper…

HAZEL: Sounds like lyrics!

MAGDA: That’s much more poetic than I thought actually, I love it. I thought you would be sillier with the answer.

MAGDA: Last couple of things from me, what’s been the most fun part of being in a band for you guys, all things considered?

DYLAN: Being cool… laughs

HAZEL: I really like writing songs, it’s fun, it’s really fulfilling for me, I like getting to the band room, we’ve got a song, we write it, we play all the parts, it sounds good – that’s what I really like.

PERSEPHONE: Yeah, the feeling of playing something that actually makes you feel nice, and with people you actually like. laughs

DYLAN: It’s also nice to have goals and something to set your mind to.

MAGDA: Likewise, what’s been the most difficult for you guys?

HAZEL: It’s when we get lost in stuff that isn’t music that stuff goes wrong.

PERSEPHONE: Exactly, like how to talk to people, how to contact them, that’s what’s taken over a lot of our time. Just things that aren’t our speciality, that we have to do ourselves.

HAZEL: It’s good that we’re in agreement, but it means that we probably argue about it a fair bit. We’re learning.

PERSEPHONE: We are, we’re getting into it.

HAZEL: It’s difficult because we will disagree on what we think is best, but we all have a role in the music, and it’s something that we care a lot about, in terms of how we present ourselves. Making sure we’re on the same page instead of getting grumpy.

MAGDA: One more thing: what are your long-term plans? Near or far in the future?

DYLAN: We really just want to release as much music as possible while we still have access to the recording studio, and then we want to play live in different locations as well, and also, actually, another thing, we’d love to do festivals!

PERSEPHONE: In another country!

DYLAN: That would be so cool!

PERSEPHONE: That can definitely be organised. Think Germany, we’re going to Germany.

DYLAN: We’re going to Germany!

MAGDA: You’re going to Germany! I will see you there! Where in Germany?

HAZEL: In your [Persephone’s] grandparents’ back garden.

PERSEPHONE: Munich! We have some friends there, and some family, so it could definitely be achievable.

MAGDA: Some of BRUIT.’s writers are from the Netherlands, so close enough!

PERSEPHONE: Oh, cool! Where?

MAGDA: Some from Rotterdam, I know that, but I think we have people from a few different cities. I recently visited Amsterdam too, so that was amazing. Then I went to Belgium for a festival, but it was in a much smaller town. Anyway, thank you so much guys!

PHD: Thank you Magda!

Follow The PHD on Instagram for further updates on their upcoming releases!