Photo by Klaus Thymann
Where was the album produced?
For the most part we rented a summer studio out in rural england, the west country. And recorded the rest of it back in London.
Who did it?
A guy called Lexx who mixed the last couple of records but produced this one and a guy called Leo Abrahams who is a record producer and also a session guitar player. Both are excellent musicians and offer different things.
I want to know about your worst live experience. My first contact to your band was is London. I was walking by a venue, just went inside for no real reason and stumbled into this JACK PENATE show.
And we were there as well?
You were opening.
So you were at the Astoria show? Where all the posh kids were hacklin’ us.
They were throwing cans of beer on stage.
Yeah. I remember that very well.
It made me think: ‘Fuck JACK PENATE; that’s the band’. You were causing this roar at this idiotic crowd. I thought when they are hating this band, I’m gonna like them.
That was kind of our attitude as well: we don’t wanna please you. But that’s not near our worst live experience.
What was it then?
Well, it’s better to be hated than not to be noticed. Basically when you turn up and there is nobody is there. We’d be in Baltimore and there is like 15 people. There’s also things like the equipment breaking. We played in Mexico and the P.A was still playing music for half of our set. Although people can deny it, things going wrong live is deeply effecting. It’s humiliating in front of a lot of people. You have to kind of grow a backbone. But I think I’d rather provoke an angry emotion than no emotion when people see us play.
But you’re not an angry band. I wouldn’t say, from listening to your record, that your band would cause angry emotions in any kind of way.
But I hope it’s confrontational. I think people can find it very confrontational.
Especially your style of singing.
True. Of course to us it feels bizarre. Because it’s just how we do it. Though I can kind of understand it. But it’s surprising how conservative some people can be. On the other hand it’s surprising how open some other people are. So it balances.
Your approach to records, or even how songs are written, has changed quite a bit within four albums, right?
Well, it has to change, for a start, I think. On Limbo, Pantho I was a person angry with everything and now i’m just angry with more specific things. And I think it’s more open this record. I think the only idealism of making a record at 21 is you have to prove everything wrong. You have to dispel everything, and reinventing the wheel. And once you realize that’s not gonna happen, you’re a lot freer.
So you grew more calm?
I think so. You get older and you think about things differently. Also we wanted to make better work. Before, the cause was more important than the consequence. It was like: We are gonna make this very rebellious sound and fuck what happens with it. So when you realize, that you can’t work that way around, you wanna make good work, regardless how you’re feeling.