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ON THE COUCH WITH: Editors

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: Back to Australia for a lengthy tour, it’s getting quite warm here are you looking forward to it?
Russell: Definitely, we’re about to head off for a 6 week tour of Europe so it’s just going to get colder and colder! I’m heading to New Zealand for Xmas then to Australia for the New Year. Shorts and Tshirts bring it on.

Access All Areas.net.au: Number one release in the UK for the record, In this light and on this evening, must be fairly gratifying after the success of an end has a start?
Russell: I guess with the last record, it was so successful, and then we were out of action for a while so we had to work a bit harder to remind people of who we are. It’s a different record so we’re pretty happy that it’s done so well.

Access All Areas.net.au: The record is a very dark release, in the bio Tom states that it’s a record that sings of no God, a record of drunken violence….. Were you worried you might alienate fans?
Russell: If we were we would have gone mad, the last record was little overblown in places which is fine, but we didn’t want to do another guitar record. And if we had we wouldn’t have wanted to tour it so hard. If we alienate fans but gain new ones then its ok I guess. We have to try and stay creative. As for drunkenness, we love it Elbow love a drink too we love to party with those guys they drink harder than any band in history

Access All Areas.net.au: You worked with super producer Flood who’s worked with New Order and U2 amongst others….How did he affect the sound of the record….
Russell: Well he was integral in getting us to play the record live. Get it right record it live. Actually making us get the parts right live as a band and recording it as opposed to tracking the record. We live quite far apart now so we rehearsed the record for quite some time before recording and he really helped that process.

Access All Areas.net.au: How have the synthier dancier elements transferred live so far?
Russell: Well its quite exciting actually, so many synths and gear onstage its getting quite hectic, but I mean when I was a kid the bands that had all that stuff onstage, you’d be like wow, whats that for so its getting a bit like that for us really.

Access All Areas.net.au: Will we see a Theremin soon?
Russell: Well bring it on I say!!!!

Access All Areas.net.au: Well , new instruments and a lot instrumental parts of the record is there any chance that we may see a dance record from you??
Russell: Its actually something that we’ve always wanted to do, like with loops and grooves, but we haven’t made any plans, but I mean Pappillon was meant be a 12 minute homage to New Order, which got whittled down to a few minutes for the record, so who knows?

Access All Areas.net.au: Well Russell before we let you go its time for a fast five you have to pick one answer ok

Fast Five

Access All Areas.net.au: Beatles or Stones
Russell: Beatles

Access All Areas.net.au: Vinyl or CD
Russell: Vinyl

Access All Areas.net.au: Blondes or brunettes
Russell: Blondes

Access All Areas.net.au: Do bas players get all the girls…….
Russell: Yes of course they do, what a silly question…..

Access All Areas.net.au: What’s the craziest live show you’ve had as a band or a punter?
Russell: Glastonbury 2007, actually getting out onstage was quite amazing that place is huge!

Editors tour Australia throughout December and January for The Falls Fest, Southbound, Sunset Sounds and more. The record “In this light and on this evening is out now through Kitchenware Records/ Sony BMG.

Interview by David Holleran

INTERVIEW: JUNE 22 2007
Access All Areas.net.au: The new album, An End Has a Start, is coming out in a few days; you must be very excited about that.
Ed Lay (Editors): Of course, yeah. It’s a big moment for all of us. It’s our second album and it’s the one we’re most proud of so far. It’s going to be good that people finally get to hear it, I mean the songs for us have been recorded for a good few months now and it’s always a strange period when not everybody has heard it – a lot of journalists have heard it but not a lot of fans necessarily. It’s a very exciting time and a very exciting weekend for it to happen as well – its Glastonbury weekend.

Access All Areas.net.au: Will Glastonbury be the biggest festival you guys have played?
Ed Lay (Editors): It’s probably the most famous one and the one that everybody gets a little more excited about than the others. We’re doing a good number of festivals this year… it’s nice to be asked and the slots we’re getting are pretty good as well. [At Glastonbury] we’re playing on the Other stage just before Iggy Pop, just as the light is getting dim and it’s going to be quite a magical experience for all of us.

Access All Areas.net.au: Would you rate playing live as being the best part about being in Editors?
Ed Lay (Editors): Certainly getting into the studio and creating music is a joyful experience.; but for me personally it’s the reaction of a crowd that’s the biggest high I get and it’s almost like a reward for the work you’ve put in to create the record and play it live to people who just lose themselves in the music. That’s a wonderful feeling.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now I don’t believe you’ve visited our shores before?
Ed Lay (Editors): We’ve never been to Australia – we’re coming in July for a week or so. Yeah, just a quick run of shows – I mean, we were a bit annoyed that we weren’t able to come over on the first record so we feel we’ve done Australia a slight disservice… but yeah, we can’t wait to come over, it’s going to be a good time.

Access All Areas.net.au: Can you say anything more about the Australian shows? Might it include shows across the country or will it just be an east coast thing?
Ed Lay (Editors): I’m not entirely sure, I don’t know exactly what it is yet; I haven’t had a good look at the schedule quite yet. It’s a difficult area for us to play in obviously; it’s very expensive to come over. But we really want to come over, as I said we really wanted to play on the first tour but we unfortunately couldn’t get over so we owe you guys a lot. If we can come back again after this tour it would be fantastic; it’s just that the world is a big place and there are a lot of places to play. I mean, we’re thankful we can come over for a few days at least

Access All Areas.net.au: What makes the new record different from the debut, The Back Room?
Ed Lay (Editors): It’s certainly got a lot more texture; the compositions are more intelligent. I think we’ve improved a great deal as musicians. The first album was quite stark and angular, I mean, there’s basically four of us just playing the songs live in the room. But on this one there’s a lot of atmospheric noises; there’s layering of instruments, there’s more guitar, there’s three or four drum kits in some songs; just a more grand effort. It relates more, I guess, to a classical composition than a pop band. We wanted to make something that’s really textured and fulfilling.

Access All Areas.net.au: On first listen, the album seems to have quite a darker feel than the first.
Ed Lay (Editors): In terms of lyrics I think the themes are darker and it’s more obvious what Tom’s talking about. But in terms of some of the music, I think it’s far more uplifting than anything we’ve done before; it’s got a lot of soul in it. There are some parts on the album that draw you into it and make you feel really quite alive actually. There’s a good level of extremes on the album; there’s some really bleak empty sounding periods and there’s massive uplifting period – it’s all about the dynamics.

Access All Areas.net.au: How did you come to the decision to stream the entire album on Myspace before its official release?
Ed Lay (Editors): To be honest, I found this out last night, I went on Myspace and it was there [laughs]. I don’t think it matters – we want as many people as possible to hear our music, it’s great that sites like that exist and you can hear it and actually choose if you want to buy it. If somebody loves a record they’re going to go and download it or going into the shop and get it so they can get into it. To really get into a piece of music you need to take it home and listen to it again and again. [Streaming the album] doesn’t do any harm, it’s a fantastic medium for getting it out to as many people as possible, I suppose just because it’s so instant.

Access All Areas.net.au: What has the response been like so far?
Ed Lay (Editors): Pretty good, the best responses have been when we play the new songs live - and that’s what we want. It’s important to us that people get to hear the new stuff and especially get to hear it in a live situation so that’s why our touring schedule is pretty mammoth in the foreseeable future. But yeah, some of the reviews have been great and some of them have really got it; some of them really understand what we’ve been trying to create, which is always a lovely, lovely feeling.

Access All Areas.net.au: What was it like working with producer Garrett Lee (Bloc Party, Snow Patrol, U2)?
Ed Lay (Editors): Fantastic. He’s one of the most interesting guys you could ever meet – he’s lovely to have around; he’s listens to a lot of music and it kind of rubs off on you – you want to listen to as much as he does and get into as much different types of music and soundscapes as possible to make yourselves better musicians. We learnt a lot from him.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now you guys have been mates since you were all back at Stafford University – has the whole band experience put any strains on the friendship?
Ed Lay (Editors): Well, no, it’s perfect. We weren’t forced into a close environment too soon, we all know each other and we all know when to support each other or leave each other alone; or when to take the piss out of each other [laughs]. It’s a great dynamic we’ve got and I think it’s really set us up well for sitting on a tour bus for months or flying around the world and making music. It’s brilliant and I don’t understand how bands… you can see how bands that are forced together for a really short intense period of time don’t necessarily work as well together in the long run because they’ve not got used to each other as friends. So yeah, our music has strung out our friendship really, so it’s very good for us.

Access All Areas.net.au: How has the band developed since those early days?
Ed Lay (Editors): Well we’ve turned into professional musicians now. We’ve all got a very professional outlook on things; we’re not here to just get pissed up every night [laughs]. We want to go and play music to as many people as possible and to do that you need to have a certain air of professionalism. For us, we’re always striving to get better, is what I’m trying to say. We always want to play better shows and perform better for people live and we want to make more intelligent rock music. We’ve moved an awful long way from just going down to the rehearsal studio every couple of nights just to knock out of few songs.

Access All Areas.net.au: How have you seen the UK music scene change over the years?
Ed Lay (Editors): To be honest, it hasn’t changed a great deal. We came out around about the same time as bands like Maximo Park and Bloc Party; and the Artic Monkeys came along a little bit later. I think it’s a very healthy music scene, it’s not so London-centric anymore – in the UK, bands are springing up from all over the place, from Glasgow down to Brighton, to Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham, wherever. It’s all very busy at the minute. It’s a good situation to be in and it’s nice to be one of the bands leading the charge

Access All Areas.net.au: How would you describe the Editors sound? I’ve seen tags from ‘dark disco’ to ‘post punk’…
Ed Lay (Editors): I think we try to cram as much melody into our music as possible. It’s not trivial either - it’s not a trivial sound. Tom’s lyrics aren’t about, you know, what girl he fancies or going out to buy a new pair of shoes. It’s not about everyday… well it is [about] everyday [themes], but its more about the bigger picture, the big things in the book of life and love and death – things that affect everybody, especially more as you grow up and you start to know people more intimately. So I think it’s quite thoughtful, melodic rock music - though it’s always difficult to describe.

Access All Areas.net.au: Do you get frustrated at the constant comparisons to bands like Joy Division and Interpol?
Ed Lay (Editors): Sure it happens, but people just go on about it. People compare bands to bands all the time - when Muse came out they were perceived as just a Radiohead rip off, and how wrong were people about that… I mean they sold out two fucking nights at Wembley Stadium! They’re a fantastic band and they’ve done things they’re own way and to be honest that’s what we’re doing. We don’t rip off bands; obviously we get influenced by bands but who isn’t? You’d be the worst band in the world if you weren’t. Things move, you’ve got to react to things and you’ve got to make songs that are better; and the only way you can do that is by research and trying harder – you don’t pass an exam at school, for example, if you don’t do your research. You’ve got to take things step by step and build yourself up to being better at music and the only way you can do that is by listening to quality music. I don’t mind getting compared to other bands, it doesn’t really bother me. It will be nice to think that one day we’ll be completely on our own – the Editors: they are who they are.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now I’ve read an interview from a couple years ago where Tom has said that what he wanted to achieve in the future was a second album that was ten times as good as the first. Do you think you’ve done it with An End Has a Start?
Ed Lay (Editors): I think it might be close [laughs]. I love it. I mean I wouldn’t go back and record our first album again, I think at the time it was exactly what we needed to record and what we wanted to record. And the same again now; I think with this album, now it’s been finished, we are as proud as we can possibly be about it. We all listen to it, we all enjoy it. It sounds like I’m blowing our own trumpet but for me it’s a great piece of music and from start to end it just works as an album. I think the experiences we’ve had from touring and just generally getting better as musicians has made this album great. I honestly think people will be listening to it ten years down the line. I don’t think it’s just a flash in the pan, it’s not like the most trendy of albums – it’s very honest, it’s what we want it to be. So yeah, maybe. But in two years, three years time we want to create an album that’s ten times as good as this one.

Interview by Jarrad Seng

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Dear Listener,

We’ve never really been a band than plans things; we’re not really the type of people who plan things full stop. Maybe we’re just drifting through life oblivious to stuff, I dunno, I don't really care, the fact is we cringe at the idea of sitting around talking about how our records are going to sound before we’ve started them. It’s a waste of time, get writing, get rehearsing, get recording and see what happens, the best laid plans will change forty times in the studio anyway. Making a more electronic record wasn't really the point, the point was to do things we hadn’t done before. It was the most natural thing in the world for us to look at moving our sound somewhere new, to write songs on different instruments, to record in different ways, so that in the end hopefully we’d have a record that feels different from what we’ve done before. Don't get me wrong, I see a great leap forward in both sound and song writing between The Back Room and An End Has A Start and I’m very proud of both records but In This Light And On This Evening is very much a new chapter for Editors. In my opinion the great bands evolve over the course of their careers and take risks…this album will alienate some Editors fans, it will split opinion…good.

I started writing towards the end of touring An End Has A Start in the summer of 2008 and as the songs started to come they were sent out one by one via email to the rest of the band. Russ and Chris now live in New York, Ed is in Birmingham and I live in London. But despite the great distances between us this is the way we’ve always worked, even when living in the same house together in Birmingham, everyone attacking the songs individually before getting together in the rehearsal room. Once the time had come to rehearse these songs into shape for recording we had nearly 20, and joining us in the rehearsal room was Flood. Flood was vital to this record; he helped us take that feeling of playing the songs live into the studio. We set up with a full P.A. and recorded the songs as live as we could onto tape. Many of the mistakes and flaws which in previous records we’d have ironed out were left in - if the take had that special something, it was about the groove and the feeling, and it was about us getting that energy we naturally have when playing live on to the tape, even when stood behind synthesizers. It was a liberating approach for us, personally it gave me the confidence to stretch my vocals in ways I haven’t up until now, and I think all four of us felt unafraid to try whatever was in our heads, however foreign or silly the ideas may have first felt. It was fun. We laughed and smiled a lot……we are capable of this do you know!?

But this is still a dark record, a record that sings of no God, a record of broken love songs, a record where the filthy city is so close you can smell it, taste it, a record of drunken violence, a record which has lost all trust in those in charge of our world. We must be four miserable people to make a record like this though right? I must be troubled to write words like these?....No, absolutely not, dark is interesting, dark is exciting, dark can be funny, there’s real life in the dark, real life IS dark, when an album feels like this the fragments of hope and love that do occasionally shine through shine through ten times brighter than they would normally do so. I am so fucking bored of people asking us why we’re so “dark”, or worse questioning our integrity for being this way, this is how we do it, it excites us to express ourselves like this, to be honest we don't even understand what the alternative is and the alternatives we can imagine are too boring for us to even consider.

I hope you enjoy the record. We recorded nearly twenty songs and whittled them down to these 9 for the album, the other songs will come out in various ways over the coming months but these 9 songs we felt to be the best album, a record that flows from start to finish and a record that needs to be listened to as a whole, so I do hope you have the time to do so, maybe even more than once?

Thanks for reading and listening,
Be good,
Tom Smith xx

www.editorsofficial.com

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