So what change has moving to hipster London made to the Wild Beasts sound? Well, on third album Smother they're as eccentric as ever, if a little more sombre. If they feel free to be different it's because of the faith Domino placed in them as 21-year-olds, they tell LAUREN MURPHY
SOME MIGHT call it “peculiar”. Others “different”. And those with a less diplomatic manner might say it’s plain weird. Whatever way you put it, the music that Wild Beasts make is far from ordinary. Yet unlike many bands who spend their careers practising a studied eccentricity, the Cumbrian band’s distinctive indie marks them out as one of the most unique British bands in operation.
Such lofty claims are cemented by their third album, Smother. A more sombre affair than the rambunctious playfulness of their 2008 debut Limbo, Panto, and its Mercury Prize-nominated follow-up Two Dancers, the album showcases a new style for Wild Beasts as they tentatively poke at the possibilities a four-piece band can realise.
Co-vocalists Tom Fleming and Hayden Thorpe – the creative partnership that has driven the band since they formed as teenagers in their Lake District hometown – are on a flying visit to Dublin.
“This album is very much a gathering-in of different stuff – trying to shed that on-tour craziness, being away from home and trying to keep it personal,” says Fleming, the wide-grinning, open foil to Thorpe’s slightly guarded, pensive persona. “The writing period took about six weeks, and by the fifth week we were just twiddling our thumbs and trying not to touch it. We were just desperate to be in the studio at that point.”
“We were away touring for two years, and we weren’t creative together for 18 months because of that,” nods Thorpe. “We’re very protective and insular about songs, and didn’t really want to expose them to the brutality and the transitory nature of being on tour, really. We have to be in a more level-headed and energised state to give songs the attention they need. So there were fragments of ideas put together, and that ultimately meant that we worked more quickly, because we just had to go with gut instinct and faith.”
This time around that faith was bolstered by the knowledge that they'd unearthed a new audience with the offbeat sounds on Two Dancers. Recorded in the wilds of Snowdonia with former Spacemen 3 collaborator Richard Formby, Smother's sonic shift wasn't down to any strategic design, but a subtle change of mindset and a cautious sense of self-confidence.
“I think it’s fair to say we felt empowered by the fact that people are listening, whereas beforehand we had to take a battering ram to the door to make people listen – so in that sense you can look forward to making things a bit deeper,” agrees Thorpe. “You don’t have to spend so much time on the superficial things. You know people are going to give it time to understand the deeper layers. And that was a really empowering, creative tool – to know that you have an audience who know your methods, who know your dialogue.”
“We don’t have to justify why we exist any more,” agrees Fleming. “There’s an element of ‘okay, you’re on your third album, maybe you weren’t chancing it’. And I think this record is a very positive record – they’re pretty much love songs. The sonic change is just our interests changing. With the first record, we thought it was controversial to even use a piano, but the second one was a bit more relaxed about things like that. And now we’re just desperate to extend that palette and just throw these kind of abstract things in. A lot of the sounds on this album are recognisable, others not so much. It’s worth saying that everything is very much at our fingertips, though; there’s very little programming, as such – every instrument and sound is played.”
Ardent fans used to the band's endearing eccentricities needn't be troubled by the fact that Smother is focused on matters of the heart. Songs such as the seductive Plaything("New squeeze, take off your chemise and I'll do as I please"), Reach a Bit Further("You were devastatingly beautiful, I was crude, I was lewd, I was rude") and Bed of Nails("I want my lips to blister when we kiss") pay testament to Wild Beasts' shunning of conventional cheesy love paeans. Yet the result of airing such personal sentiments via such uncharacteristically candid lyrics is that the two writers have exposed their personalities like never before with this album. Thorpe, in particular, has written possibly his most honest track ever: skeletal opener Lion's Share.
“I think too often love songs are these slick, all-encompassing beacons of ‘love is wonderful, love is great’, which I don’t think engages people truthfully. Personally, when I hear those sort of songs I just think, ‘Why are you lying to me?’,” he says with a shy smile. “You can be in love with someone but still hate them. We have this responsibility to be honest, I think – and it pays to be honest. At the end of the day, we have to explain ourselves and justify what we’re doing, and we had the option to make a big kaleidoscopic record about going around the world and seeing all these amazing things, but that would be an empty gesture, and a hard thing for people to relate to.”
"Yeah, I think something like Razorlight's Americais the absolute nadir of what not to do," laughs Fleming. "I suppose it's a credit to Domino that they trust us at this stage, but they have done since the beginning, really. It seems like Laurence [Bell, Domino Records founder]'s approach to us is: 'Here's your money, here's your timescale, off you go!'"
“It is a credit to Domino, but I think it’s also paying off for them now, because we know how to make a record, basically,” says Thorpe. “Even going back to the first record, I think we were in a really unique position – in that what now, to us, even, sounds like a very avant-garde, dah-dah record, was done by 21-year-olds who had a huge amount of investment and time put into them. And about six months later came the recession, and the music business just crashed. So we feel really blessed, in a way, to have got our feet in the door before it slammed shut – because I can’t think of another scenario where four 21-year-olds are given that backing to go and make a record, left completely to their own devices and without being told what to do.”
It wasn't just skewed tales of love and hate and gentle "nudges" from Bell that influenced Smother. The dense, understated feel of these songs, particularly the aforementioned Playthingand Bed of Nails, have seen comparisons with Talk Talkand its reclusive frontman Mark Hollis bandied about. As much as Smother differs from their previous albums, however, the band's fixation on rhythm and groove has been the one consistent feature of their three records.
"We're very much obsessed with rhythm, and sticking things together," says Fleming. "Limbo, Pantowas where we did that more melodically, and Two Dancersis very tight, almost like dance structures – very much to the beat, and within the beat. This album is a bit more off-grid, if that makes sense, but it's still more knitted together by its rhythm. There is still this kind of pulse to the record. It's not as upbeat, and it's not as fast, but it still moves in similar ways. It's slower, but it's still rhythmic."
Moving to the Big Smoke also played a role. Many of these songs were written in trendy east London, where it would be easy even for a band as individual as Wild Beasts to become immersed in some sort of self- congratulatory scene.
“I think we’re old enough to know better now – if we’d moved to London [from Leeds, their former base] five years ago, we might have been in trouble,” says Thorpe. “But it’s about not being comfortable, and there was a risk of getting comfortable in Leeds. In London we’re constantly intimidated by other bands, other creative people – there’s always a sense of one-upmanship. That can be destructive, but at the time we took it on, and we wrote the album in Dalston, which is kind of the epicentre of that whole hipster scene. It was slightly revolting, but also energising, in a way.”
As happy as Wild Beasts are with their third album, there’s no sign of them becoming cocky or complacent. “A lot of modern music is a product of the lack of investment that goes into it – people can’t take risks, so they have to do something that looks good as a business template. And we certainly don’t look good as a business template,” smiles Thorpe. “We don’t make sense on paper, but there’s something really exciting about defying expectations. What we really thrive on is doing something beyond our limitations. This record has a lot less guitars in it, because we sort of wanted to be more crude, use things a bit more unknowingly, rather than pick up a guitar and knowing how it’s going to sound.
“Plus, I don’t think we’ve had any sweeping success anywhere. We’ve had pockets of success, and pockets of devoted people who believe in what we do, but there’s still a sense of having to prove something. We exist quite comfortably as the underdogs, so there’s always a sense of having more to prove. I think there’s always room to make a better record, even now, after this one. I think the major thing is that we just keep going into the dark.”
Smotheris released on May 6. Wild Beasts play Forbidden Fruit at Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin, on June 4
