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ON THE COUCH WITH: Maximo Park

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: Hi Paul, how are you?
Paul: I’m good, you okay?

Access All Areas.net.au: I’m good thanks! Are you guys in Berlin at the moment?
Paul: No we’re in Germany but Berlin’s on Saturday night.

Access All Areas.net.au: How’s touring been so far?
Paul: It’s been good. It’s kind of been a whirlwind, a year kind of goes by after we released the record then you sort of stand at look at it from a far. It seems kind of mammoth at that point but while you’re in the middle of it, it feels each day goes by a bit too fast for my liking. There’s always so many things I wanna go and do and see. The show takes precedence over everything so, it’s a weird kind of thing ‘cause you’re excited. In my case, to be in a new place – to have a look around, you need to make the show good and we do. So you got a kind of responsibility and from my point of view, a kind of mental responsibility to do as much as possible.

Access All Areas.net.au: How would you describe the chemistry between you guys as a band?
Paul: Odd I would say (laugh). We’re all quite different people. Some bands are like an old gang and they all dress the same…our band is like a weird cross section of interest. We all overlap in certain places – it’s like one of those diagrams in where sort of five circles will cross each other and in the middle is one slit where all of them really are all connected. You can see that when we goin on stage – everybody has a different attitude to being on stage. Archis will probably stood still most of gig then he’ll come out of his shell and the crowd will go “wwwwwweeeeee”. I’ll be moving constantly, just communicating with the crowd. I’ll be dressed up to try get attention of the crowd. Duncan will be rocking away on his guitar and Tom is really upright at the back sort of…I think it reflects our personalities, projected onto a bigger stage. From a personal point of view as well, it goes that way behind the scenes as well, celebrating Luke’s birthday. We hang out together and stuff we also have our own interest. I spend most of the day just wandering around, filming stuff on a camera and go into art galleries when people are in bed. And people would probably be writing songs, so I think yeah that says a lot about us.

Access All Areas.net.au: Your album, Quicken the Heart has been out for a few months and you guys have been touring. Is the response from audiences what you hoped it would be?
Paul: I think it is. You know sometimes you think why don’t you like these songs as much as you like the old ones? (laugh) and I’d be a liar to not say that. Everytime I mourn about it to somebody I know, they go ‘well, it was like that with the first album. Nobody knew your first album would go out there. And people would be sort of the odd one who knows every word and have found it somehow on one of our 7’ inches or on the Internet. Again with our last album, Earthly Pleasures - while we’re touring that, people love the first album and now it’s like people have their own favorites from Quicken the Heart. In the crowd, whenever you strike up a song there’s always someone in the crowd that goes Waiii I love that one! And everybody knows the old stuff so it’s instantly you can see the heads nodding up and down. But on the whole, I would be a liar if I didn’t say people have been enjoying the new stuff, you know sometimes it’s as much as the old stuff – a song like “Questing, not Coasting’ off the new album, as soon as it hits the chorus, people understand that song emotionally, people can see it’s just fun playing these songs, and really enjoying the fact we have a new album. We think it’s as good as our other ones. At the end of each show, I’m glad to say that it felt really good each night and it’s true that you do have to win some people over with your new stuff but we have a real confidence in it, I think that shows when we’re on stage. And yes I’m looking more further most people really enjoy our new album.

Access All Areas.net.au: You guys have also released a remix EP – Twelve. Is dance music something that you guys been wanting to get into for a while?
Paul: You know, I think it’s something that has been on our radar. Some of us more than others. It’s not something that we’ll throw ourselves whole-heartedly behind cause everybody in the band – we wouldn’t find it a collective strength. You know, everything has to be strong collectively before you put it out. The thing about being on Warp record as well, it’s such a big label. For me personally, I am aware of its history and who’s on it and stuff and when we signed to Warp, it raised a few eyebrows, we didn’t want to be known as the kind of band who nudged their way into electronic avenues just ‘cause on the label, and we didn’t want to look like we’re trying to use the label to get remixes. It would’ve been very easy to do that. We wanted to just define ourselves and make 3 records. We didn’t know that at the time but we made 3 records and now it felt like a good time to kind of branch out and just say to a few people we like like Martin who is a brilliant dub-step producer and Tom Middleton who’s got a lot connection with what’s done in the past. Somebody like Chris Clark is somebody we know he likes our band and he know we like his stuff, so it was easy to get him on board and…we’ve got this guy from the North East who’s a friend of a friend and just said I fancy doing one as well and we were like, it’s good enough to go on…and probably a few people who feel more famous to get onto it. I think it shows a different side of the band and the new album is quite “groovy” – not enough Austin Powers wear (laugh).

Access All Areas.net.au: The BBC reviewed Quicken the Heart, and says that most of yours follow the tradition of previous albums. And it’s songs like Disco Roller Dreams that is little different. Do you agree with that?
Paul: You know we write love songs in essence. It’s kind of we’re a pop band in that respect. What we do is especially on the three albums we’ve made, kind of look at different aspects of pop music and with this album, we kind of exhausted a lot of possibilities but when we first came to make it and go out to Los Angeles to make it, we said what kind of record do we wanna make? We’ve made two albums that are kinda punky pop and rocky pop and you know – do we have anything else to do in this genre? The pop songs kept coming and we thought, these songs stand along our other ones and punched their way. You know, they’ve got a real quality to them and enhanced that hopefully with a more groove-oriented feel on the album, bit more of a live feel to the playing and also added extra sounds that we didn’t probably expel from our other albums. ‘Cause our first two albums were kind of quite sparse in terms of the production. You know, it was like this is the guitar, this is the keyboard, this does this and this does that and we want you to know about it – and with this one, those lines are blurred and the guitars are quite dreamy in places and the keyboards themselves are pretty unusual for us. And I think we try to push ourselves. We have a kind of internal logic that we’re working on and if you put all of our three records aside each other, they’ll have different facets to each particular album. Yet there’s a thread that goes through it. You know, love songs will always have a resonance, especially with myself. I see no reason to deviate from a topic if I feel there’s possibilities and there’s so many possibilities to talk about how magical life is. For me, everyday is amazing and different. Sometimes those days are sad and depressing and frustrating, so other days you just feel joy and you know, mystery. I think if people can’t appreciate that, then they’re listening to the wrong band.

Access All Areas.net.au: Is there a particular song, just one song that you love to play on stage?
Paul: You mentioned ‘Disco Roller Dreams’ – that’s one of my favourites to play. It’s just got a real lift to it in the middle. It’s kind of dark but then it’s got this big euphoric lift and I think that contrast in mood, the guitar line and the keyboard – sort of pulses through it. It’s one of those songs that we don’t play every single night, because you know, it’s not our single and we’ve got lots of different songs and when we do play it, I always think “right! It’s roller disco time now!” I don’t know what that means (laugh)…

Access All Areas.net.au: (Laugh) Just gets excited. Sorry we’re running out of time. Just lastly, how do you hope to see yourselves in the next five years or so?
Paul: I just wanna remain creative. You know, I’ve done lots of different jobs before I was in this band and I feel very lucky to be making music. I also feel a responsibility of giving people something new instead of being in just some ‘indie’ band. You know our band, as I said it’s a pop band that concerns with what we can do with pop music and trying to infiltrate the mainstream in some way. I think we’ve done that for three records. I think the future will be a bit more fragmented. You know, we release all different things that have less of a thread with the other things that we’ve done. And we’re going to try and reach away from our comfort zone. As I said, we never fell in the comfort zone probably until now. You know, it’s like where do we go now with our next record? I have no idea and that’s a scary but exciting thought.

Access All Areas.net.au: Cool, we look forward to hearing more music from you then. Thanks so much for chatting with us.
Paul: Thanks, Cheers!

Interview by Sandy Tan

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

On 16th May 2009, U.K indie-rock superstars Maximo Park will return with their highly anticipated third album, ‘Quicken the Heart’. And rarely has a record been so aptly named. A skyscraping monument of dreamy synths, galvanising rock and roll and buoyant pop, the album will follow in the footsteps of their Mercury Prize nominated 2005 debut (and Triple J Album Of The Week) ‘A Certain Trigger’ and their chart-busting 2007 follow-up ‘Our Earthly Pleasures’ (#2 in the UK Charts).

For a band that has achieved so much, Maximo Park are constantly pushing ever onwards and upwards, darting off in new directions and exploring new dimensions of their sound, with this record being the latest proof. Recorded and produced in LA by Nick Launay (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Nick Cave, Talking Heads), ‘Quicken the Heart’ is yet another astonishing step forward for the band, and a testament to just how far they have come since the early days.

The first track to be released from ‘Quicken The Heart’, “Wraithlike” – available now for free download at www.maximopark.com – gets the album off to a jolting start, with Paul Smith’s soaring vocals underpinned by a bedrock of grittier instrumentation (courtesy of guitarist Duncan Lloyd, bassist Archis Tiku, keyboardist Lukas Wooller and drummer Tom English, all in looser, more spontaneous form than before). From then on it is a fast and furious ride, the band locked into a sound that is at once more urgent, vigorous and yet more lush and accomplished than ever before. This is best embodied by the rousing forthcoming single, “The Kids Are Sick Again”. An immortal anthem, the track is a full-blooded, heart-swelling rallying cry against the stifling conformity and normalcy of modern society that will have grown men pumping fists into the air and kids rushing en masse to the dancefloor/ streets/ etc when its opening strains are heard the world over.

Having sold out shows across the country (including Sydney’s Metro, Brisbane’s Zoo, and Melbourne’s The Prince) when last touring Australia in 2007, Maximo Park’s ‘Quicken The Heart’ is yet another milestone in the band’s already astonishing career. An astounding step in their evoltion, the album is at once a consolidation of their brilliance and the perfect synthesis of innovation and dynamism.

‘Quicken The Heart’ is out 16th May 2009 on Warp through Inertia.

www.maximopark.com

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MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

Every Time I Die
Your most memorable Festival moment or experience?
Download in 2005. it was such a great vibe the entire day and people seemed to really get into our set

Favourite Artist you’ve seen at a Music Festival?
when I was younger all I did was listen to bad religion so when I finally got to see them on a warped tour it was life changing.

What’s your ideal Festival line-up?
4 bands, 20 minute sets, free nachos and beer

What are your tips for attending Music Festivals?
Pace yourself. When we played ozzfest in 2004 there were dudes getting kicked out for being too drunk at 11am. You bought the ticket, at least take the ride