26/03/11
It was with subtlety, delicacy and a sweet taste that the Maccabees entered our musical psyches two years ago, much like the image given from their Samsung advert featured track, Toothpaste Kisses. With a debut album full of sensitive observations, humour and punch, the band’s sound has matured, this month seeing the release of second album, Wall of Arms, a sure-fire contender for album of the year already and the reason for their upcoming tour. Felix, backing vocalist and guitarist for the band gave up some of his time for Outline ahead of their return to the Waterfront this month.
You’ve been rehearsing this afternoon, is that right?
Yeah, we have; we’re doing some acoustic in-stores and we decided that we’ve never really played acoustic before, so we’ve been doing that and it’s been quite fun – I’ve been playing the melodica and all sorts and getting really involved!
Nice! Has it inspired you to do it elsewhere?
Yeah, I think we’ll do it a lot now; y’know, anywhere that needs us to play acoustically we can. I mean, I’ve still got no idea how to play the melodica, but we’re giving it a go. You can’t really do punk-melodica can you?!
Well, I’d like to hear it…
You’d like to hear it? Well, come and see us play acoustically baby!
You were in Germany yesterday… what were you doing in the ol’ Deutschland?
Me and Lando went to Berlin just to do interviews ‘cause we’ve got a new label there, but we had to leave at like, four in the morning. We were seriously tired and we just sat in office and people were coming in and talking to us. They all spoke much better English even than we did ‘cause we were in such an awful state, but yeah, it was nice.
I’m gonna go for the Mother of all twee questions, but for those that don’t know, how did it all begin for the Maccabees?
Haha, well we were just a bunch of 16, 17 year old boys, just kicking around, as you do and it was that situation where you like, hang around with about 30 people at that age, trying to get in to pubs, or whatever, and basically we were the only people we knew that wanted to get into a band; we had no idea how to play or anything like that, we just thought it would be a good idea, y’know, something to do like that, then it kind of came together quite nicely really! We only played for a couple of years or so and we got a deal and it hasn’t been happy endings ever since, but we’re kinda getting there, y’know.
Did you ever think it would get you this far, or did you just think it would get you into the pubs?!
I don’t know what we thought; at the time we definitely didn’t think about getting any deals or anything. Actually, when you’re in that situation it is important not to take it for granted and we really try to embrace the position we’ve been given ‘cause there’s a lot of talented people that never get the opportunity that we have, y’know. I’ve got a lot of mates that are working, or not working and I get paid and I don’t have to go to work everyday and it’s a beautiful thing; you try and just do the best you possibly can with it, or you feel a bit guilty, d’you know what I mean?
You’ve all been in Brighton ages now, so has it really overtaken London as your home?
Everyone’s actually moving back now; Hugo, my brother, still lives in Brighton and I’m kinda there every now and again, but because I’m from South London, everyone kinda migrates back – you can’t help getting kinda drawn back, I suppose, to London. I love Brighton and it’s a nice place to know you can escape to, like a home from home. The only problem with living there is that if you want to have an awesome time and you need to get away, everyone just runs to Brighton, so if you live in Brighton, you can’t exactly run to Manchester, can you? It’s not the same thing.
Last year was quite a quiet year for you – the longer it went on, were you apprehensive about coming back again?Yeah, I mean publicly it was quiet, but it was probably the hardest we’ve ever worked really ‘cause we were aware of how good the album had to be, just for ourselves really, because we knew we could do much better and we knew that great bands don’t make dud records, they kinda step it up. So five days a week we were all writing together, like six hours a day, sort of thing, so it had its tense moments and it was quite a testing time, but we came through it and to be honest, it’s a relief to have the record in our hands and be able to release it really soon. I guess you’re always going to be nervous about what people are going to think, but your conscience can be free if you think it’s great and you think you’ve done all you can do.
And you put the graft in…
Exactly, y’know, a lot of bands will tell you that they just picked up a guitar and ‘it happened’, but I don’t think that’s the case, especially not with us, you know, we’ve worked hard for what we’ve got.
How did you stay focused and motivated throughout that heavy song writing time?
Erm, I think there were loads of moments when you’ve all got your heads down and you’re thinking ‘Christ, is this going to work out?’, but that’s kinda of the way it works I guess, y’know, you have to have those moments in order to come through it – I think everyone would feel like that a bit. I think it’s just strong collective will power and be as busy as you can be, I suppose.
I read an interesting interview with you guys that suggested by the time you’d reached the last gig to promote your first album, Colour It In, which was the Offset festival, you were tired of the record and it didn’t go that well for you…
Oh really? No, I think that gig went really well, but when you’ve been playing the songs from an album for definitely over two years, you do feel a little like you’re going through the motions a little bit and that was the kind of the moment where, like, at the end of the tour you’re really itchy to be creative again and not being a part of doing the same thing every night. No matter how hard you try, your body can’t reach the same level of adrenaline, or be that nervous or unsure of how things are gonna go if you’re doing the same thing, but I don’t think anything went particularly badly at that gig – we all had a great time, but there’s only so many times you can play the same songs over and over again in the same order!
How did you feel when you first debuted some of the new material?
Well the people that come to our gigs, bless ‘em, have been really good to us, y’know, because you kind of worry that people are gonna show up and just shout over new songs and ask for old songs and not be that bothered about listening. I think as much as us, they wanted to hear what we’d done and it seems that there’s this really nice spirit at Maccabees shows; people have a real affinity with it and it always seems like a really positive, everyone in it together, sort of thing, which is something that we really cherish in our gigs, that people bring that to it. We were a bit worried about playing the new stuff, but if anything, the gigs have been better!
The sound on the new album has definitely developed, so how are you going to keep up the progression going forward again?
The plan is to definitely move it on again, I mean, at the end of touring this we’ll probably be tiring of it and have new ideas and I think that will always been the case. I mean, I don’t know specifically because we haven’t even started writing anything…
Haha, sorry about that Felix, I sound like I’m really on your back about getting another album out…!
Haha, yeah, we’ve only just finished this one… I’m sure, however, that it’s kind of an unsaid rule that we’re never gonna make the same record twice.
So who takes on song writing duties, or do you all play a part in that?
Yeah, we all do that really. They come from weird places, our songs, like on the first record we wrote all together and with this record it was kinda the same, like, there are times where Orlando has a verse or a chorus that he’s got something over, or some kind of lyric, and then everyone’s at home constantly writing riffs and stuff, y’know. We just kinda batter the songs into shape, y’know, like, it’s a really slow process but one of the big things for us is to try and be as ego-less as we can and not to be a band that’s like a front-man with a backing band, or a lead guitar player, or that kind of thing. The bands that we love are the ones that work for each other and there’s a happy coincidence that makes the members of the band. Like, the cool bands are the ones where you can hear the different members’ personalities each way, so as much as we can, everyone has their say and you can’t really go on tour for years and years and not really have contributed anything to it and still really feel part of it, do you know what I mean, so that’s why we do it the way we do… and it’s a really fuckin’ hard way to do it, like that, but yeah, that is the way we do it.
From reading your blogs, there seems to be a lot of Public Enemy love going on from your part… do you manage to get those influences over?!
Haha, no! That’d be a disaster! No, I just listened to nothing else but Hip Hop music for about a year because I just got really bored – I suddenly realised that I was listening to a lot of guitar music because I thought I’d learn something, or not necessarily for the right reasons and you end up being like, ‘oh, that’s an interesting sound’, or whatever. When you’re first into music, you don’t know what it is, it’s just exciting, d’you know what I mean, like, you have no knowledge of how it was made, or care what instruments they used, or what amp it went through, or that kinda nonsense, so listening to Public Enemy and other Hip Hop, for me, was kinda a fresh love of listening to music again for me.
The song that’s really interested me most off the new album is No Kind Words and after seeing the video, I had a different understanding of it, so I was wondering, what should our understanding be?
We don’t even really discuss the lyrics with each other, because it’s more like just make what you can out of it, I suppose – it’s like most music I guess. I mean, a lot of people have said it means this, or that, but I think it’s based on quite a personal situation, so I don’t know. It’s just that there’s these bands that we love, like The National and Interpol, who on the surface seem like quite gloomy, stark bands but on listening to them further, I find it quite a joyous thing and I feel happier and have more of a spring in my step listening to those bands than a lot of other sunshine pop groups! It’s that kind of bittersweet, d’you know what I mean? So hopefully ‘No Kind Words’ has that kind of quality.
The National have curated an album with an impressive roster of artists – if you were going to compile a CD, who would you have on there?
Like a mixtape?! Well, we’ve recently done one for Rob da Bank actually, like, me, Hugo and Lando all put five songs on each and it’s an amazing mix of music; it doesn’t actually make any sense, but there’s stuff from Animal Collective, then Lando’s into this band called Department of Evils, then Hugo’s into like, Orange Juice and Adam Green’s new record, and I’m listening to Roots Manuva’s new record and Public Enemy and stuff and I really like XTC at the moment, so there’s music from all over the place, which makes it quite exciting! We just kinda love music I guess, we’re just music enthusiasts and there’s nothing better than finding out a record that you’re really in love with that like, soundtracks your two weeks ‘cause you just can’t stop listening to it again and again and again, and I think even if we weren’t in a band, we’d feel that way about it.
Are you playing many festivals this summer?
Yeah, we’re doing Reading / Leeds and Glastonbury and I’m sure loads more, I just don’t know what they are at the moment…
And I keep asking everyone that I interview, what are your festival essentials?
Hmmm, well, the more I go to festivals, the more it confuses me why people spend so much of their saving up for sand and mud! It baffles me, like, when I was younger I got it, but not now…
Felix, let us live the dream…!
Haha, yeah I know, it’s kind of escapism isn’t it, but I think because we have to leave straight away, we’re always like ‘Oh my God, these people actually want to stay here’! But I should be better at what my essentials are… You know, something we have everywhere we go, that’s very important to have, is pistachio nuts. I don’t know how much they’d help you at festivals, but no matter how tired or wet you were, if you had a few pistachio nuts, you’d be happy.
And I guess no matter how much it rains, the jewel of the nut inside is almost completely covered by the shell!
Yeah, they’re great.
You’ve played in Norwich a couple of times before… does anything spring to mind when you think of those gigs?
Yeah, we always have a really great time in Norwich actually; the crowd’s always really young and like, really enthusiastic. The last place we played was the Waterfront and it was really good; Norwich is a place we’ll always come back to… we’ve played there five or six times, I think.
Emma Roberts
The Maccabees bring their headline tour to Norwich on Thursday 7th May. For tickets, go to www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk or call 01603 50 80 50.