GIVE ’EM ENOUGH Dope
Prog’s unlikeliest supergroup The Utopia Strong are back with their trippy and more concise third album, Doperider. The electronic team tell Prog why they decided to streamline their sounds and share the secrets behind their “weirdo music”.
Words: Dom Lawson
The Utopia Strong: there are no maps for where they’re going!
Images: John O’Carroll
“Snooker isn’t a very musical world. I know that Neal Foulds likes a bit of Talk Talk, but otherwise they all think I’ve lost the plot!”
Steve Davis
“It ’s a simple choice,” says Michael J York, one third of The Utopia Strong. “You can make weirdo music on your own, or you can hang out with your mates and make weirdo music. It’s a no-brainer.”
When York joined forces with Gong frontman/Cardiacs alumnus Kavus Torabi and six-times world snooker champion Steve Davis to form a band in 2018, even its members had limited expectations. Seven years on, the trio have just released their third studio album, Doperider, and have wrapped up the latest of several UK-wide tours. All three men have plenty to be getting on with, but The Utopia Strong seems to have become its own, creatively flourishing entity.
“I didn’t have this down at all as what I’d be doing at this age,” says the breezily intense Torabi. “It’s not like anything I’ve done before, and more than anything else, it feeds into all the other things I do now. It’s changed the way I think about making music, and there’s so much further we can go.”