The Bravery - London, UK - Spring 2007
By: Keri Kennedy
Keri Kennedy got to chat with The Bravery's frontman Sam Endicott and keyboardist John Conway at a swanky Park Lane hotel, in a meeting to discuss the upcoming release of their second LP 'The Sun And The Moon', vibrating beds, and getting back on the road. It went something - exactly - like this...
Rockfeedback: Rockfeedback put on your first UK gig in October 2004 at the Barfly in Camden. What are your memories from that night?
Sam: Like that first show... wow... that was a secret, unannounced show. I remember being nervous because I didn't know what to expect from a UK crowd.
RFB: What did you get?
John: I had a friend in the crowd and they heard people saying; "why are they putting on such fake American accents?"
S: They thought we were British pretending to be American!
RFB: You've come quite far since that first gig, the new album is out in July, are you happy with the result? Is it exactly as you envisioned?
S: Yeah, very happy, it's funny because I think when we started at the very beginning we would talk about what it should sound like, then it went on these crazy twists and turns and at the end winded up exactly like how we said it would.
RFB: You've been using all these weird old instruments, it's not like you can take a Mellotron or Pipe Organ (used for the opening track on The Sun And The Moon) on stage. Are there any songs on the new album that you just can't or won't play live?
S: We do the live show pretty different from the studio; we've always been that way. In the studio you can layer everything and be more meticulous, and live, that layering and meticulousness is just lost. We play all our songs live, just in a different way; they're more energetic. We have a couple of new acoustic tracks and we're trying to figure out a way to do them live.
RFB: There are some films of you playing acoustic versions of your songs online, would you like to do an acoustic show, like MTV Unplugged?
S: I'd love it.
J: We've even talked about doing an acoustic album, a lot of our songs start that way, writing and playing them on a guitar, then go to the studio and begin to add all the other stuff that makes it into The Bravery sound.
S: The cool thing now is that radio stations are letting you play on the shows, so we're getting to do it a lot more.
RFB: How has the reception been to the new material, is it good to be back and airing it to the UK crowds?
S: It's great to be back, really good, for us the new stuff is a lot more fun to play, it's more challenging.
RFB: No offence, but at the ULU gig in London this week you seemed to be concentrating more than usual.
S: You mean drinking less?
RFB: Well, we remember a gig at the Hoxton Bar and Grill in August 2005, where Mike brought out a tray of Jagermeister and Sam could barely stand...
S: (Sighs and cringes) That was the drunkest gig, not really a good example!
RFB: Is it because you're playing new stuff, it's less boring?
S: Yeah, it's harder to play so you don't have time to drink as much, but in that way it's more fun for us.
RFB: Do you feel with the second album you've had to come back and prove yourselves?
S: The main thing is to prove it to yourself, being in The Bravery, I've written a lot of Bravery songs. It gets to the point where there's a kind of formula, I could whip you out a Bravery song right now, it might not be the best one, but you know, you get a sense of how you're going to make that sound, so you could go and do another album like that or try and do something new. Something you'd really like to hear.
RFB: So do you wish that you'd done what you are doing now the first time round?
S: No, when I hear the first record I love it, in fact I think I like it even more now that I did back then. And I like hearing the two of them together.
RFB: The lyrics in the new single then, 'Time Won't Let Me Go' - "If I could go back again/I would change everything/Do everything better" - isn't referring to anything in particular, for example your early stuff?
S: Strictly not the last album!
RFB: Sam especially, your image has changed quite a bit. Was that a conscious decision or couldn't you be bothered to do your hair in the mornings?
S: (Laughs) It's been a while and the change has been gradual.
RFB: The press seemed to tag on to your image as this new stylised band from New York. Do you think people couldn't get beyond your image and see you for what you were musically?
S: For every band, when you are new, you are put into a category, that's just how it is and you can't really avoid it, you get compared to other bands and labelled. The thing that you ideally strive for is to be a band that doesn't get put into a genre and just thought of as a great band.
RFB: So you're not consciously trying to get away from the old image?
S: We're just doing our own thing, you have to be in a band a long time and consistently be good. That's what we're working towards.
RFB: You're back to the US for a month then to Europe in June, you're at the start of a long tour once again, are you happy to be back on the road?
S: Yeah, I miss it. It's a lot of fun, but it can be gruelling, you know talk to me in two months and it might be a different story!
RFB: Are your plans to tour as much as last time?
J: Yeah we could do more, I think we did 30 or 32 countries last time, so if we could get to 40.
S: There's like 250 countries in total in the world and we did 32 of them so we got to hit the rest. My top places to go are Egypt, Peru, China and India; we're hitting all those next week (laughs). It'll be gruelling.
J: Think about the jetlag...
RFB: How much of the time off to record the second album was an actual break?
S: The break is when you're writing I guess.
RFB: You were homeless for a while as you were touring so much. Did you have time to move back into a proper home?
S: We didn't live anywhere for two years, in New York we stayed in hotels, but now I have had an apartment for about 6 months.
RFB: Michael wrote on your website that he gets the best nights sleep on the tour bus, which is lucky, is that the same for all of you?
S: I love it; sleeping on the tour bus is the best.
J: It's bizarre how comforting it was to come back on the bus, the buzzing and vibration.
S: You wake up at three in the afternoon, because you don't know where you are, it's like being in a sleep deprivation (sic) chamber, like a cave, a sensory deprivation chamber, not sleep deprivation, it's not at all like that.
J: It's weird getting into a normal bed after touring.
S: I want to get a bed that vibrates and if I can see any light getting in it drives me crazy.
RFB: Going back to the live show from Tuesday, one review said you had 'effortless superiority'. Are you more confident this time?
S: Definitely, the first time was such a whirlwind, we're playing together more as a band and this time we can just enjoy it.
RFB: Is the new sound anything to do with more band input, rather than just you two leading the way?
S: That's got a lot to do with it; it's a lot more like listening to a band playing in a room.
J: A few months into making this record we had a rough draft of the album, then toured South America. While out of the studio we played all the new songs and reshaped them on the road, then went back to the studio and made changes. So we'd write something in the studio and play it out, with so many musicians things just started to gel.
RFB: Was a lot of the new album was written on the road?
S: The last 3 months of the tour was with Depeche Mode so we had a lot of free time, we would set up in the back of the bus and the basis of a lot of the songs came from that. A fair amount of the record came from those times, in a basement or a hotel room, so actually kind of similar to the first record that was all done in a basement. It's the same process, all done on a laptop. The difference is this time we were able to take it to the studio in Atlanta and bring in these new instruments.
RFB: Do you have a new favourite song?
J: Live, at the moment I like to play 'Every Word is a Knife in My Ear', one of the differences is that everybody sings on that one.
S: It's more fun when we all sing together. Anthony is the main back up guy, who is technically much better than me, he's a pitch perfect singer.
J: And he has a very high range.
RFB: What is 'Every Word is a Knife in My Ear' about? Anyone in particular like 'Tyrant' was?
S: It was my meditation on the political state of the US right now, how people are manipulated and it's all kind of sinister at the moment.
RFB: You're in the UK in the summer. Have you got any festival plans? Will Mike be getting naked like he did at Glastonbury 2005?
S: We don't know yet, it's being sorted out at the moment. Now he's [Mike] on a movie about Glastonbury, so I think he regrets it.
RFB: what have you been listening to lately, other than yourselves while recording?
S: I don't really listen to that much modern stuff, I've gotten really into Deep Purple, and that shit has blown my mind! I can't believe how good Deep Purple is, I should have been listening to it al the time, it's unbelievable.
J: Before we recorded I was getting into the Beach Boys, just trying to find new sounds.
So, the Beach Boys and Deep Purple. You'll have to wait until July to see if those influences have emerged on 'The Sun and The Moon'. One thing for sure is that The Bravery have ditched their overtly stylised exterior and are going further with their music - a development which can only be a good thing.
Artists in this article: The Bravery