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Cape Fear


The doubts, the hardships, the protracted album delivery – indie rockers Tellison have been through it all over the last few years. BRAD BARRETT discovers that despite a few setbacks this tenacious London four-piece has bounced back with a new record that matches their diligence…


F


our years between albums is a long time for a relatively young band. As London-based four-piece band Tellison recall, the momentum generated by their well-received 2007 debut, Contact! Contact! faltered wheh real life got in the way. “We finished up touring for the first album and everyone went


back to university. We all had stuff to go back to and it’s easy to put things off. Also, we suffered behind the scenes with management and that kind of thing. People came and went basically, and that kept knocking comeback dates further and further back,” Stephen Davidson, frontman and guitarist of the London trio explains. However, Stephen insists that it wasn’t just a case of unfortunate


circumstances that almost stopped their new record from being born and released into the wild. “We also just wanted to take our time. We didn’t want to put out a record for the sake of putting out a record. We needed to make sure we were comfortable with it and happy. Obviously we ended up touring our first record for around four years so we had to make music we’d really enjoy playing for the next four years!” The ends justify the prolonged means as The Wages of Fear sidesteps the immediacy of Contact! Contact! - a brave move considering how the first album grabbed people by the shoulders and shook hard – in favour of longer- lasting and more complex compositions, though still as melodic as ever. “It takes a pop punk template from the first album and adds something


that’s more introspective a bit more considered,” says Stephen about the split single they did with Tubelord between the two albums, though it’s just as relevant when talking about the sound of The Wages of Fear. “We definitely felt like we wanted to be a bit more intelligent than putting the distortion pedal on and making the song faster if it wasn’t sounding interesting enough. We felt like we’d done that trick. The records I come back to have more going on instrumentally and thematically than being loud or fast. There were a lot of growing pains. We almost wrote two whole albums of stuff in the middle and threw them away.”


The pace, the tightness of dynamics and the iron grip on subtle melodic


twists are there in abundance but it’s definitely a band of early to mid-twenties men, not a trio of lads entering their twenties. It’s encouraging that a band is


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able to so confidently deliver such a change, even if the way there was littered with obstacles.


“It was a bumpy road’” Stephen concurs, “The first song on the album (Get On) is kind of about me worrying that I can’t write songs anymore,” explains Stephen. “I had that anxiety in the back of my head when I was writing and thought ‘let’s make something out of that, this awful doubting voice in the back of your head every time you try and do anything’. It’s a very honest song. I love that we started the record with it. It’s all about anxiety and trying to be nothing more than we are. We’re just people and have been through things that anyone of our age are going through.” Tellison’s dogged determination in the face of some pretty taxing obstacles


proves that the band deserves to have a mileage beyond even the hope of their most optimistic critics.


“All those doubts about whether what you’re doing is right or useful or


if you’re fulfilling your potential...being in a band is an absolutely fraught experience because time slips away, as we’ve demonstrated, so quickly and there’s very few rays of hope and light!” admits Stephen, echoing the thoughts of thousands of would-be hopefuls who have had their dreams curtailed. “We’ve never suffered from being cool, though. We’re just been some guys


“We’ve never suffered from being cool! We’re just some guys from the UK. There’s no story there in the eyes of fashionable music press!”


from the UK. There’s no story there in the eyes of fashionable music press.” All in all, Tellison have been involved in a struggle, but the overwhelming message is that it was all worthwhile, even during the hardest times. “Everyone involved will agree that we had all manner of bizarre and awful experiences occurred. It’s a scar rather than a trophy, but one I’m proud to have. We’ve all grown up a lot,” says Stephen. “Also I’ve learned to worry a bit less now. Some people get what you do and other people won’t. You just have to make what makes you totally happy.” If you manage to make a great record in the process, then you’re probably doing alright! PM


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