Doves have insisted they have "never fitted in".
Despite having chart success, the British indie band – made up of twin brothers, guitarist-and-singer Jez Williams and drummer Andy Williams, and bassist-vocalist Jimi Goodwin – have had impostor syndrome during their 22-year career and gave up with trying to be fashionable.
In an interview with Britain’s The Independent newspaper, Jez admitted: "You try to have a self-conscious ‘where do we fit in all of this?’ [moment] and look at all the fashion, but it’s a waste of time doing that because we never fitted in."
The group decided to take some time off in 2010 after touring their fourth studio LP, ‘Kingdom of Rust’.
And Jimi has admitted that the break was much needed as they had fallen into bad habits on tour, drinking heavily to get through the day and to combat nerves.
He said: "Drinking’s been an issue from time to time.
"I did a lot of drinking on tour, let’s put it that way. There’ve been times where we’ve rolled the boat out, that’s for sure, just to get through it. Nervousness, little bit of imposter syndrome now and again."
Jez explained that they completely lost all "self-control".
He said: "We’ve been a band since we were 18 or 19.
"Every day on the tour bus for two years [at a time]. There was a bit where we didn’t stop touring. We worked out we spent three-quarters of a year once in America. So when you have that every day and you’ve got the rider every day and there’s nobody there to tell you … it just got out of hand. It’s not a healthy lifestyle, being on tour. I think it’ll be different now but certainly in our thirties, it was really unhealthy. Wouldn’t swap it for the world, but no self-control."
Doves have made a triumphant return today (11.09.20), with the release of their first album in more than a decade, ‘The Universal Want’.