Better Heaven: “It sounds really cringe, but we are all best friends”
The band chat unhinged festival moments, songwriting without rules, and the much-anticipated track that’s still waiting to be recorded.
Photo: Alan Wells
Wiltshire-based four-piece Better Heaven – Dakota Simpson (vocals), Declan Casey (guitar), Eddie Witcomb (bass) and Jon Snape (drums) – have been steadily gathering steam since forming in late 2023. After a year spent honing their craft and releasing two singles, Texas and 24, the loosely branded indie rockers are carving out their own space with a sound that shifts from tender melodies to full-throttle rock.
Following their celebratory set at Truck Festival last month, the band sat down with us to chat go-to songs, a crowd full of cowboys, and why live favourite, Big Boy, still hasn’t hit the studio.
Since we’re here at Truck Festival, I’ve got to ask, what’s the most unhinged thing you’ve witnessed at a festival?
Declan Casey: There’s the classic, it’s pissing it down with rain, and people just roll around in the mud. But I feel like that’s quite low down, I feel like I’ve locked away some horrific stuff.
Jon Snape: Yeah, there’s unhinged mud-utopia versus substance-fuelled free climber on any of the tents or lighting poles.
Declan: Oh, yesterday, there was a guy at the front row for our set that had a six-and-a-half-foot goose head on his hat. That was quite unhinged. I’ve never seen a six-and-a-half-inch goose before.
Do you usually get people dressing up for your set?
Declan: Depends on the day.
Dakota Simpson: I think we should encourage the behaviour.
Declan: Yeah, wear what you like to our gigs. We don’t care.
What would the go-to outfit be if you were to make a request?
Dakota: I asked yesterday if we had any cowboys in the audience ‘cause we have a song called Texas. There was a lot of cowboys last night, it was great. The more the merrier with the dressing up.
Essentially, everyone needs to be cowboys from now on.
Declan: I mean, no one’s going to be able to see anything with the hats and all that kind of stuff: ‘Excuse me mate, can you just take your hat off for a sec?’.
Jon: It’s disrespectful.
Declan: But yeah, why not? There are worse things for a crowd to be dressed as right.
Oh, 100%. But to talk about the origins of Better Heaven – do you guys remember the moment you decided it was time to start a band?
Declan: I mean, I do. I got involved in the band because Jon messaged me. Me and John went to university together, and then we kind of reconnected after COVID. He was looking for a guitarist for a project that Dakota was working on, and I got involved in that. And then Eddie, who is unfortunately not here today, our bassist—
Dakota: He’s still alive!
Declan: Sorry, yeah, the gig was so good yesterday that he passed away live on stage. Any bassists out there that want to join a band…
Dakota: Oh, my god.
Declan: So anyway… it fell together really naturally. I think we just started writing for fun after COVID, after we were allowed to start being in the same room as other people again, and then it sort of naturally formed into a band.
Dakota: Yeah, it sounds really cringe, but we are all best friends. Every time that we’ve had even a tiny setback, it sort of proves that we are meant to be doing this because something in us still wants to keep [going]. It’s so much fun.
How would you describe your band to someone who’s never heard your music before?
Dakota: I feel like because our set fluctuates so much in terms of the vibe of the songs – we have a lot of soft stuff, and we have a song in the set that is definitely a lot heavier than the rest – I think it’s hard to give a genre. We class ourselves as indie rock.
Declan: Yeah, I guess so. I think when it comes to the writing process, we don’t like to put restrictions on ourselves, which I think shows in the set. Everything’s really eclectic – there are ups and there are downs, as opposed to just keeping everything quite level and basing it around one sound. I think it stops us from restricting ourselves. We’re doing some writing at the moment and it’s just whatever feels right. I think the easiest thing is to say we’re a rock band, but so much falls under that. Maybe we’ll just make our own genre.
Do you find genre constricting in that sense?
Dakota: The writing process, 100%. But then it’s really nice to see bands that are bigger than us coming out and having such eclectic sets to watch. And I think because the four of us have such different styles that we like, we’re not limited. We each bring different energies to the writing process.
Jon: But the car DJ is a nightmare. No one person is happy.
Declan: We’re just patiently waiting our turn for a song we like.
Does anyone get banned from using the aux?
Declan: Every time I ask to put the aux on, Dakota says, ‘As long as you play something good’. And I do, I play good stuff.
What’s your go-to song on the aux?
Declan: See, I really like Big Iron by Marty Robbins – an old school cowboy tune. We’ve got shared playlists, and it changes every week, but we’re big fans of CMAT at the moment. That kind of acoustic folk that you can dance to.
Dakota: We’re all big Sam Fender fans as well. I think he’s a massive influence on us.
Declan: 100%, and fans of bands like The War on Drugs. Jon loves Foals.
Jon: Yeah, big stan. From Holy Fire days – that’s like 2013 to now…
Declan: You just realising how old you are, Jon?
Jon: Yeah… retract that.
What about hype songs for a gig?
Jon: I put forward No More Tears by Ozzy Osbourne. You may or may not know that, but it’s an absolute rocker: undenied. I won’t hear anything else about it. Be in a bad mood listening to that song, I dare you.
And in terms of your own music, is there a tiny part of a song – a lyric or a guitar part – that you really love and think is maybe overlooked by people?
Declan: Playing lead guitar in the band, a lot of what I do is quite textual as opposed to a really prominent guitar part. We tend to bounce off each other quite a lot. I’m gonna get really nerdy and technical now, but I use a volume pedal to bring swells in and out, which is really nice. There’s also a song that we finish the set on called Big Boy, which is super heavy and just fun to play. The entirety of that song is what I look forward to, to just rock out at the end.
Dakota: Everyone loves that song, and I think we’ve been holding off getting it recorded because we want to make it the best it can be.
So, what is next for you guys? Are there any releases on the horizon?
Declan: We’re doing another festival in September. We’re playing at the Trinity Centre in Bristol with Fickle Friends and there are a few other pretty great artists on that bill. We’re doing loads of writing over the next three or four weeks. That’s our priority at the moment – to just make sure that we’ve got a solid block of new tunes – and we’re hoping to do a headline show at some point before the year’s out as well.
Dakota: Yeah, we normally try to. It’s always fun to end the year on a show of ours. But yeah, we’re back in the studio in a few weeks time, so this new song will be out before the end of the year.