You get some support dates with Two Door Cinema Club, but I was wondering after playing massive festival headline slots this year, does it kind of take the pressure off playing support? Yeah, it does actually and it’s quite a nice, unpressured environment to play in, I guess, to practice these songs before a big headline tour in October.
What’s it like being the support band? Do you get a little more space? Yeah, pretty much. Tis one will be interesting because we’re at a similar sort of level as Two Door Cinema Club in the UK, so hopefully it’ll create some healthy competition on tour!
How will you settle this though? Clap-o-meter? Well obviously it’s their gig, so they’ll probably win that one!
I think you should still have one, in the interests of fairness. Battle of the Bands style!
Talking about those bigger gigs, you headlined the Word tent at Latitude this year and it was my festival moment of the summer. Norwich and Latitude have traditionally been good places for you, haven’t they? Yeah, I don’t know why, but I remember the first proper tour we did, Norwich seemed to have the most people there outside of London. I don’t know why it is; there seems to be a good Indie scene in Norwich, with people going to gigs and I guess that’s translated to Latitude as well. Both times we’ve played at Latitude have been two of my favourite gigs. It’s obviously just ‘cause we have awesome taste. Yep!
It was part of quite a triumphant summer for you, with a Glastonbury appearance as well. Tell us a little about this heady summer of yours Yeah, well it’s just been what it’s like for anyone else really; lots of festivals… It’s weird really because unlike in previous years, the album’s coming out at the end of
the summer, so no-one’s really heard it and sometimes festivals aren’t the best places to play new songs as well, but we’ve kinda gone ahead and done it anyway, and it’s gone well – it’s a success!
I couldn’t believe your frantic energy when I first saw you play live a few years ago now – are you almost a different band on stage, because I’ve read before that you consider yourself a shy band playing big songs on stage… In person we’re quite calm and we choose our words carefully and don’t say a lot, but I think we are one of those bands who are designed to make music and not really play the game in a way. We save it all up for when we go on stage; you’re only up there for 45 minutes, so you might as well go crazy and expend all energy while you’re up there.
think we’ll try and do ‘Rinse Me Down’, as well, from Flaws because there are so many people that love that album, but maybe they don’t necessarily like the heavier stuff. It’s about trying to find some sort of compromise, I suppose.
OBVIOUSLY THE PUPPET THEATRE IS THE STAND OUT GIG, FOR WHERE IT WAS AND BECAUSE WE WERE WEARING PUPPETS!
You could have done them in any order, but ‘Flaws’ is sandwiched by two albums that are very much ‘plugged-in’. What was it that made you plug back in again – did you get it out of your system? We always knew that we were gonna make another electric album, so it was more of a matter of when. We started working on it before we released ‘Flaws’
I wondered how that worked for your quieter gigs on the ‘Flaws’ tour – was the energy just interpreted in a different way? Well it was the polar opposite really, us playing acoustically because obviously you need the crowd to be quiet in a way. Tere’s also these awkward moments between songs, because people are in a church, they don’t know whether to clap or not. You can hear a pin drop. It took some getting used to, but it was fun as well.
Maybe Gospel churches are the way forward, because they’re quite exultant places. Do you think that tour has given you more versatility playing live, playing in those extremes? Yeah, it kinda feels like we can do anything now, in terms of touring. Probably now, the hardest thing is incorporating some of the tracks from ‘Flaws’ into the new set. We didn’t do it at the festivals, but we’ve started working in ‘Ivy & Gold’ now. I
as well; ‘Flaws’ was just something that came along very suddenly, was very spur of the moment and we did it in the six months at the beginning of 2010, whereas we’ve been working on this album since pretty much as soon as we finished ‘I Had the Blues…’ I’d say that ‘Flaws’ is the exception to the other albums, but to be honest I have no idea what the next one’s gonna be like!
Tat’s quite exciting – it’s good, I think – - It’s good because you do get those bands that sort of keep making the same album and inevitably if you’re going to try and do that, the quality’s only going to get worse, whereas if you try something different you’ve got nothing to hold it up against.
You mentioned doing three albums in a very quick succession, Jamie, which was a contrast to when you brought out your first two EPs. You did that on your own label so that you could take the pressure off, but now that you’ve given yourself that work rate, are you going to try to slow it down? Well I think Jack could do with some
outlineonline.co.uk / October 2011 / 13
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