Maximo Park - London, UK - Spring 2007
By: Thomas Hannan
Funny how as children we strive away from being deemed a 'geek'. Perhaps many of us could have had happier childhoods if we were told that those sportspeople, musicians or film stars we aped in our youths were the very definitions of geeks themselves, that by dedicating their lives to their professions they eschewed all the things you're meant to do as a cool kid (like, I don't know, smash up cars and call your mum a bitch) and were probably just as miserable and unsure of their place in the grand scheme of things as a child as most of us were in those times when we worried so much about what other people thought. Perhaps if we inform our kids of this, they might grow up as more self assured people, and humanity as a race could progress, and conquer outer space together.
The other think about being a geek is that, if you keep the mindset in to your young adulthood, to the time when you become 'professional' at something, it can afford you in certain circles a massive degree of cool. Take Maximo Park. The best thing about them is their geekiness, as is evidenced in our subsequent chat and the unveiling of their obsessive love and tenderness towards their own music. They're beyond geeks, they're nerds. But they're also effortlessly suave and bracingly cool because of it. Doing what you want to do every morning - that, that's cool.
So is being so good at it that you can afford smart hats, designer glasses and trendy haircuts. The two we meet, singer Paul Smith and guitarist Duncan Lloyd, are very smart gentlemen indeed. But they can't help but fawn embarrassingly over our surroundings. Despite being about to release their second album via trendy / geeky yet rightly beloved the world over label Warp, they still sit wide eyed in amazement at the Chris Clark albums and !!! picture discs that adorn the walls of their label's offices. There's even a picture of Maximo Park drummer Tom English propped up against an Aphex Twin 'Drukqs' box set, staring ominously out at us throughout our interview.
I tell Paul that I think it's an amazing album, 'Drukqs' (I was probably trying to be cool - I like my shoes, but they aren't as nice as his). He thinks Tom would be happy to be propped against such a good record, but informs me that I have to get the vinyl box set rather than my own CD version. He stole one from the offices when they got signed ("I thought 'f**k it, I'm on Warp now, I'm 'aving that!", he recalls). And with that one utterance, he confirms that he's cooler than I am (not that it was ever in doubt) with behaviour that as a kid would have got him lamped.
Still, despite the unarguably brilliant nature of their 'job', whilst recording the forthcoming album 'Our Earthly Pleasures', we hear that having a nine to five day provided some comfort, some grounding, some routine...
Duncan Lloyd: "We did the record with Gil Norton (legendary producer famed for his work with The Pixies, Foo Fighters and after his work on their current record, soon hopefully Maximo Park). He came over to Newcastle about a week before to do a bit of pre production. We had about nineteen or twenty songs, and he helped us pick the best. When we started recording, it was much more concentrated having that nine to five thing. With the first album we did all kinds of strange hours."
RFB: But I guess routine like that must be quite nice in a way, given that you mustn't get it often in a line of work like yours?
DL: "Oh yeah, it was good, made it more focused. We knew where we were with it. It's Gil's way of working, but it suited us."
Paul Smith: "I think with the first record ('A Certain Trigger'), there was very little doubt what the final track listing would be, unless one of them turned out bad. We'd played them for a year and a half just around Newcastle and little things in London and Manchester, and so we felt like we'd honed it to a certain point. So when we went in to the studio it was quite an exciting time - we'd never really been in a studio before. There was an element of chaos to the sessions because as I say we weren't really sure of how to make an album even though the songs were pretty concrete. But this time, the regularity helped us pair things down. We'd never played these songs in front of anybody, and as such you need somebody else's opinion even more so on your second than on your first record. Obviously, sonically, Paul Epworth (producer of the band's debut) was always helping us to get this sound that we wanted, this crackly energy on a record, but this time I think we needed that bit more experience from our own point of view to make bigger decisions, to try out arrangements that we'd never had to consider before. When there are five people arguing each with their different interests, you need someone to come in and say 'actually this song's good', or 'this song doesn't need to change' or 'this song isn't quite right'. Of course we'd always be there as a group burrowing away, but sometimes we needed Gil there cracking the whip. It forces you to think lot more. When you make your first record, you're proud of it, but all you want to do is make one that's better. Or at least as good."
Of course, they think that's exactly what they've done. And here, they make a very good point - one which more bands in this 'that'll do' age of sophomore albums would do well to take notice of.
PS: "If I didn't think that, I wouldn't release it. I'd disappear. Or I'd go back and work harder. Once we'd completed 'Our Earthly Pleasures', we knew it was quite different, but the same strengths were there, the same things that people liked about Maximo Park before are all present and correct still."
Fancy that, a band wanting to make a better second album than their first! But just how different is it? It seems rather than being a genre shift or an abandonment of any previously held ethic or aesthetic, the change in Maximo Park has been more to do with a growth in terms of sonic size...
DL: "I think after playing live for a couple of years on a bigger scale than what we did when we started, our sound really developed. Essentially that's what we are, we're a live band, that's the root of it, and when we were doing bigger shows our sound was getting bigger too. A lot of people would come to see us an be surprised because it was just so much bigger, and we wanted to surprise them on record too. Some of the influences this time are heavier, things like Sonic Youth, certainly that sort of American sound."
And here the decision to plump for Gil Norton, given his sonic pedigree, makes perfect sense. Though, in a funny twist of fate, it wasn't Maximo Park chasing Gil Norton that brought the association about, but in fact the opposite...
DL: "He actually rang us up saying he was really interested in working with us. He was the first guy who was really passionate about what we do, which we though was pretty amazing because obviously as soon as you hear his name you start thinking about the Pixies... but he's done so much other stuff we're in to also. We've been listening to a lot of Echo and the Bunnymen on the tourbus, Paul's been listening to The Triffids, all stuff that Gil had done, so we knew he was capable of quite a wide range of things. It seemed to make sense because he'd worked in the pop field, but each band had an edginess to them."
PS: "I think once you've made one record you just want to do something entirely different on the second one. But we're not going to change much as people, I'm not going to start singing in a funny American accent or anything..."
RFB: Thank god for that!
PS: Exactly! You know, things are pretty set as far as our identity is concerned. We've always liked different kinds of music, that American sounding guitar that's going on in this record is something we've always been interested in, it's just that when you've made one record that sounds a certain way you think right, what else can we do, what else are we interested in? And at the minute, that's what we're interested in.
RFB: So you felt that there was definitely a need to make a break between the two records, to make something that was noticeably different with the second one?
PS: "Yeah, but that said I think there's always going to be a bridge between the two. We didn't write a whole new batch of songs, they just kept flowing throughout the course of the last couple of years. There wasn't a gap. I think if you want to write songs, that impulse is there whatever happens to you. It's certainly slower to get them down on tape when you're on tour, but the impulse is still there. Essentially, when you're performing, it's a different way of getting your energies and your thoughts out. It's quite restrained by the songs in some way. And, you know, we're still writing... I think the next album will probably have lots of other different influences. It'll just keep expanding and developing."
RFB: Well, as it should...
PS: "Oh, yeah. We'll try to keep it interesting and exciting, but I think when people deliberately try and break or deliberately have a concept behind an album they're forcing something already. There's nothing forced about our songs and I hope there never will be."
He's right. Despite their forward thinking attitude towards guitar music, Maximo Park have never once come across as conceited, false, or trying anything too hard either. But there certainly is something that sets them apart from your Kaiser Chiefs, Views and Arctic Monkeys of this world. It's the thing that makes their presence on Warp, a decidedly envelope pushing label, justifiable. But what is it, and are they any closer to pinning it down on their second record?
Paul: "Erm... I haven't got a clue! I think if you express yourself, and I've always thought this, if you're honest about what you do and what you do is something that just comes from you, and it's true, then it'll have your idiosyncrasies ingrained in it. I think all your influences bubble under and effect you in some way. I mean, I have no idea what effect me really loving the Wu Tang Clan has on our records..."
RFB: ...but it has to be there somewhere?!
PS: "But it's there somewhere, that's the thing! I think it's really hard to pin anything about us down, but we know we're doing something that's us, when we're on stage it's us, when we're in the studio it's what we wanted to do. I like that kind of magic. We're not extraordinary people, but there's something magical about our music, and it's well worth other people hearing."
And there's the sound of a band devoid of the worry that can plague an act about to unleash their second record. But what with the expectation generated by the success of now near-classic singles such as 'Apply Some Pressure', 'Grafitti' and 'I Want You To Stay', surely they must feel just slightly... nervous?
PS: "Only as nervous as usual! I think whenever you give something out to the world, it's an exciting time. But as I say, we're very proud of this record, and it's exhilarating sharing something. At the minute it feels like it's like show and tell at school. If I thought there were any flaws in it I'd be nervous, but we've done something that's pretty natural to us, and it means that even if people didn't like it as much as they liked the first one, or even if they liked it more, the response from us would still be the same. We'll go out and play these songs for the rest of our lives and be very happy to do so, and having that is always a protection against it all ending tomorrow. At least these songs are here, and at least we have them."
Why don't they just play their songs to themselves in rehearsal rooms, if it really doesn't matter? The thrill of performance perhaps. The fact that they probably do care what we all think. The fact that public perception does matter after all, even if it comes second to their own personal enjoyment of their work.
PS: "If you try to gauge that kind of thing, it'll backfire on you. There's nobody who writes a song who can second guess what a mass of people think, however many or few people that might be."
DL: "You can't really worry about it. You just write the songs, put them out and they take their course. You can't say whether people are going to like it or hate it, you just have to do it, be glad we've done it, and want to do another one."
RFB: But isn't it depressingly symptomatic of the current indie climate to be a music fan or critic and be disappointed by whatever comes out by a favourite band of yours that wasn't the first thing you were really taken with?
PS: "I've seen that on websites and forums..."
RFB: And isn't it a real f**king shame that people are so narrow minded?
PS: "It is. But I look at some of my favourite bands and you sadly realise that there's a common way of carrying yourself, you realise that a lot of bands do disappear up their own backsides. There are bands like REM who made so many great records before reaching this mass of people and probably their better records are their earlier ones, I think most people would agree with that."
RFB: Well, I agree with that... (honestly - for once I'm not trying to appear cool. Get 'Reckoning', it far, far surpasses 'Out Of Time'...)
PS: "But they'd have never made 'Automatic for the People' if they hadn't made those six or seven records that preceded it. It's great to watch a band get better and grow. Our first record will always be there for someone who wants a short sharp blast of energy and emotion, and this one will be there for somebody who likes something a bit heavier, and the next one might be there for someone who likes something a bit folkier (he says, perhaps hinting to a forthcoming Maximo Park record full of Pentangle covers...). I think the same with Radiohead - if Radiohead's first record was all they gave to the world and we hadn't got 'The Bends' subsequently, then you wouldn't get 'OK Computer', would you? I'm not saying that's the best record ever, but it's the one that comes up in all the polls..."
RF: Well, 'A Certain Trigger' is arguably a far finer debut than The 'Head's 'Pablo Honey'. It's the classic example of transcending a debut, isn't it, the Radiohead model? Anyhow, surely the best way to get round this whole problem is to just... drum roll... make a better second album!?
PS: "Well, exactly! And we do get better. There's stuff on this record that we mightn't have tried previously. We were just so much more relaxed, and we learned how good it was to try a few more things... "
RFB: Did you find it creatively liberating to be taken out of your comfort zone, trying heavier things? Is that why you worked with Gil?
DL: "I think we felt like we wanted to make a heavier record and be sonically bigger, certainly I remember particularly with Tom (English, drummer), who's just over there (he says laughing, pointing back at the aforementioned photograph) I remember he really pushed him especially. I don't think Tom had had anyone so strenuously analyse the drum patterns. He really put him through the mill, really made him work hard. Tom would be exhausted after a day of working."
RFB: How did he react to it?
DL: "Oh, he didn't like it at first! He was not keen! But when he heard what Gil was doing, it just totally made sense - he basically was building. Tom's... Tom's very confident. But at first he felt a bit..."
PS: "Undermined?"
DL: "That's the world. But after a few tracks he realised that Gil was trying to really build a solid basis for each song. "
PS: "He'd push him, but we all need it. Everyone needs a push to see how far they can do. It's like man management in football, everyone needs something different. I guess being the precious singer, Gil would sometimes have more of a metaphorical arm around me, telling me to just relax. I needed that, and the drums needed the power he gave them to drive the whole record. Tom was like an engine room, along with the bass, it's this solid rock which is the foundation of the record. Watching Tom go through that was inspirational - if you're the next person to step up, again more metaphors, but it's like a shuttles race, it's time for me to keep the ball rolling... you don't want to let your mates down. But you want to rock out without resorting to any clichés."
DL: "We were just so focused on being sonically bigger, not just through using loads of effects either. Guitar wise we used an acoustic through an amp, then an electric on top of it to just make a fuller sound. Rather than just whacking some distortion on it or necessarily double tracking it we used different sounds each time to build it up layer by layer. I guess that's the way he's worked with the Pixies and people like that, you can kind of hear it when we started, it was like..."
RFB: ...shit guys, we sound like the pixies?!
DL: "Yeah! It was Frank Black and Joey (Santiago) all in one go! He even had this one little amp he'd used for quite a while that we used on a song called 'Books for Boxes', I guess it was quite an uncool sound, very chorusy, quite echo and the Bunnymen... I remember using it and the lads hating it..."
RFB: Did it stay on in the end?
DL: "It stayed on, yeah!"
PS: "Now everybody says it sounds like the Smiths, but it's too late now..."
RFB: Do you think it's a good time to be coming back at the minute? What are your views on the current, climate, with everything becoming more download orientated?
PS: "I've no idea! That's probably the most honest answer, you just hope that people get it and the more that you can get it out there the more chance there is of that. We're working to make sure our website's changed for the better for example and if people are buying through the internet we want to reach them as much as the people who are buying things physically. Again, I think Warp will help us do that. We just make music. Any time you come out there are always going to be difficulties foreseen, but if the record's good enough it'll transcend those things. The first record came out at a time when there were a lot of bands wielding guitars with their angular riffs and we had a few songs that fitted in to that but most of our songs didn't. But still, we got perceived in a certain way. At the end of it all, the dust settled and people were very complimentary about 'A Certain Trigger' and I think the same thing will happen with this record. There are a lot of people anticipating it, and therefore there'll be a lot of talk about it when it comes out, but give it six months there'll be a different perception of it, give it twelve months there'll be another perception of it, but the more we go out and play it live...
RFB: They'll get the right perception of it?
PS: "Yeah, exactly. Well, with a little luck - there are always people looking to bury you. But the reaction is quite peripheral, it's quite easy in a band to shut off from those things in a way because we're on tour all the time. We didn't know people liked our music so much until the next concert in a town where more and more people came, I've no idea, you can't exactly phone people up and check..."
RFB: How's it going in Bristol!? (I say, making a phone shape with my hand)
PS: (Copying my phone gesture - here we are, chatting to each other face to face, pretending we're on the phone...) "Yeah, is Exeter any good, because nobody came last time! Anyway, I'm sure on the day that our record comes out there'll be another big band releasing their second or third album, and so what, you know? As I say, the music is there, and it'll..."
....and we're cut short just as I'm getting the feeling Paul's about to say something else about how much his music means to him, something containing an embarrassing amount of honesty, a disarming and yet charming lack of aloofness. Yet as we're sure you'll now agree (having examined the evidence above), it's the fact that Maximo Park are in conversation on always the brink of doing just that, and so successful with it, that makes them something far more of us should aspire to be like.
Artists in this article: Maximo Park