As Guillemots prepare to play on the Red Bull stage at London's Camden Crawl on Sunday (they’ll also be playing an afternoon acoustic gig), frontman Fyfe Dangerfield misses Will and Kate’s balcony kiss to chat to Bella Todd about writing music to wade into, embracing the cheese, and how the new songs came to be influenced by a pair of shades...
Are we tearing you away from the Royal Wedding coverage?
I wasn’t going to but my girlfriend just put it on! The choir sounded great. I presume there’s an orchestra there because you can’t exactly have that accompaniment on cassette at a royal wedding, can you? There’s something about just being in those classic old cathedrals, the acoustic presence, that just totally transforms the way music sounds. I’d love to play Westminster Abbey next!
'The choir sounded great... I'd love to play Westminster Abbey next!'
You’ve said your new album, Walk The River, is about finding your way home…
There was this feeling cropping up as we were recording of a lost soul finding a way home. There are maybe one or two things we’ve done that are unrelentingly bleak. But I don’t want to depress people, I want to take people away – I think most people are fantasists in a way. We wanted the sound to feel like it was coming to you through the air, to fill the room and swirl around you rather than coming at you in a block.
Why was that?
I think I’ve realised more and more that the way we make albums is quite out of fashion! I’m not a Luddite at all, but people’s attention spans are gradually being eroded – I’m trying to do some writing for a cellist at the moment and she’s playing it in a few weeks and I haven’t written it yet, because I’m constantly just having a look on Twitter or YouTube or checking my email on my iPhone! The way music is made now is very much about getting that instant sugar rush. So we wanted this album especially to be something that you wade in to and lose yourself in.
'The way music is made now is about that instant sugar rush'
You recorded in the mountains of Snowdonia. Has that setting crept into the sound at all?
Definitely. We couldn’t have been making these songs in a more fitting place. You’d step out of the studio into this magical forest, walk for a few minutes through meadows to the quarry and mountains. It was this combination of expanse and enchantment, and it felt so like the sound of the record. The rest we did in a grotty estate in London!
Your last album, 2008’s Red, got accused of being everything from too eclectic to ‘a big pop sell out’ – frustrating?
We’re funny like that. It’s been explained to me a lot – and I understand the theory – that what you’re supposed to do as a band is have a sound with the first record, and develop it with the second. But the last thing we wanted to do was another dreamy record with strings. With this new record some people have been asking, ‘where’s all the exuberant pop stuff?’ But the albums are all pebbles on a beach, not rungs on a ladder.
Are there any tendencies in your songwriting that you do guard against? Do you think you’ve ever been guilty of overwriting?
I’m aware I have certain chord changes that I’ll always do, and certain words like ‘sun’ and ‘sky’ that keep coming out. So I’m like, ‘oh come on, you can’t write another song about the stars!’ But once you try to guard against these things too much then you start blocking your channel. I think there’s a side of my writing that some people would say was cheesy, in that I’ve genuinely always liked some music that makes people squirm. Like doing the Billy Joel cover [of Always A Woman, for the John Lewis advert last year]. I loved that as a kid, and some people disown what they liked as kids, but I think that’s actually when you’re reacting to something in the purest way. Billy Joel may not have the same intensity to it as a Nick Cave, but it’s a brilliant melody. With every year I get older, I realise more and more that I’m never going to be a super cool guy!
'I've always liked some music that makes people squirm!'
Do you enjoy having the power to make grown men weep?
It’s such a weird thing, emotion and music. If you look at it one way it’s so manipulative – there are certain heartstrings you can pull just by playing a certain chord. But I do love pure noise and ugliness too – as long as it’s done with feeling
Not while you’re talking of pure noise and ugliness, but… are Gannets, your free jazz band, still going?
We should have an album coming out before the end of the year. I love playing in that band.
What’s been the biggest non-musical influence on this album?
I’ll have this thing where I’ll just see a view and get this feeling of, ‘that’s what the record should sound like!’ I was in Spain for a friend’s wedding for a few days, staying in this little village near Malaga. I remember waking up at three in the morning, going out for a smoke, and just looking at this dark valley with all the lights in the distance. I could imagine sound pealing out across the mountains. I had the same thing on holiday with my girlfriend on the coast. I had these shades on, those brown ones that just make everything look cinematic. I was just sitting there on this beach with this incredibly still ocean, and I was going ‘3D sound! The record’s got to be 3D sound!’ I’d like to pull off wearing shades all the time. There’ve been a few gigs recently where I’ve nearly gone on with shades. But then I was like, ‘no, can’t do it, I’ll look like a cock!’ I’m always a bit to concerned about what people think of me.
© Guillemots
Fyfe Dangerfield’s Life In Music
The first piece of music I remember hearing was… I Saw Her Standing There, the first Beatles track on their first album. Paul McCartney came to one of our gigs last year, which was really, really strange. And also Matchstick Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs, some bizarre record my parents had about the painter Lowry.
The first instrument I ever picked up was… the piano. But not literally picked up.
The band poster on my bedroom wall was… Manic Street Preachers. I had the spray painted T-shirts and everything.
My first gig was… Status Quo at the Birmingham NEC, I was over the moon with excitement. I don’t quite know why, but when I was about 11 I just absolutely adored them.
The worst gig I’ve ever played… was at a festival in Denmark around 2006. I don’t remember exactly why it was so bad, but there weren’t many people there and we all came off stage crying.
The album I couldn’t live without is… I don’t know! If it was going to come to that I’d have to make a compilation track. The Best Of The Beatles would be a cop out.
My karaoke track of choice is… nothing, I’m terrified by karaoke, I’ve been dragged along a few times and got very prickly and tried to hide in the corner. I have the same thing if I’m at a party and there’s a piano there. I literally can’t play a song if someone asks me. It’s not ‘I’m here as a social guest!’ It’s the embarrassment about standing up and going ‘look at me!’ Perhaps I’ve just never been drunk enough.
Want more?
- Check out Guillemots official site
- Head to redbull.co.uk's Camden Crawl event page
- Visit Red Bull Records
- Go to redbull.com's music pages
Comments
Add a comment