An Interview with Adult DVD

Henry Swales chatted with Harry Hansen of Adult DVD after their set at SHIP festival in September 2025 about the festival, Adult DVD’s last EP, and the Leeds music scene.   

I met Harry in one of the most surreal places I have been to in my life. I grab us two (almost) pints of local lager from the complimentary bar, which overlooks the coast of the town of Šibenik, Croatia. I’ve just watched the band's explosive set at SHIP festival – a musical showcase festival set in the seaside town on the Adriatic Sea.

My first question relates directly to that - I ask if this experience is as surreal for him as it has been for me. He describes it as a crazy setting, detailing his accommodation inside a bunker near St. John’s fortress. We touch on how grateful we are to be conducting this interview in person rather than online or via email and agree that the human element of meeting someone and discussing music is paramount to expressing feelings about creative work. Throughout our interview, Harry’s aura and general vibe is mostly laid back and upbeat - he seems to be a man in his element, travelling around Europe and playing music to crowd after crowd. He seems to be able to freely discuss his thoughts and feelings about his work (and everything else) in such a positive and genuinely excited way. The fact that he’s just played a standout set to a room full of jumping people might be something to do with this, though…

Moving on to the E.P., he tells me about the ironic reason for the name ‘Next Day Shipping’. It was essentially a dig at press and radio presenters who, rather cheaply, quipped that Adult DVD is a ‘hard name to Google’.  On the band's part, the joke is that ‘Adult DVD - Next Day Shipping’ would be even worse to Google and it can be seen as a kind of ‘fuck you’ to those choosing to make a cheap joke about their name. 

I note that this might be due to my own lack of musical understanding, but I ask if there is a theme to the E.P. that I might have missed because I could not figure one out myself, and I ask Harry if the band had one in mind at the time of recording. “That’s because there isn’t one”, he quickly replies to let me off the hook. “All our songs are written from the perspective of made-up people… nothing from my own experiences goes into writing the lyrics”. The E.P. is simply a collection of some of these songs about fictional characters. It seems a good way to never run out of ideas and dispels the need to wonder which one of the frontperson's relationships a particular song might be about. ‘Next Day Shipping’ lets your imagination run wild as you think of the fiction book behind the vignette, which is included in the song.

Next, we touch on the incredible Leeds music scene. Amongst a shared admiration for Brudenell Social Club (his favourite local venue) Harry touches on some of his favourite local artists. He describes the music scene as eclectic, but in the best possible way: “They know what they’re doing, and you get it instantly”. There are words of appreciation for Neve Cariad, Vehicle, and Turnspit, as well as others, who are some of his favourite local artists. From club tunes to heartfelt songs, Leeds has everything to offer - is the final takeaway from our chat.

You can catch Adult DVD live on their U.K. and Ireland tour in February 2026…

Words by Henry Swales.  

Picture by Valerio Baranović (@thevaleriob)