Metronomy - Interview - Summer 2008
By: Sam Crawford
I'm standing outside Metronomy's studio space, having a chat with their PR guy when the three of them arrive, carrying many large bags full of clothing; a gift given to them from one of the shops associated with a gig they'd just played. As the studio is small on space, we walk the short distance to a Hoxton Square bar, where we sit outside, and enjoy a coffee, a smoke and a chat.
It's been a busy time for Joseph Mount and Metronomy of late, doing their first headline tour in 2008, writing their second album Nights Out, and extensively playing festival dates, continuing right the way up to the release of the new album, which they will be touring for again. Today's interview catches them just before they fly off to Spain to perform at Benicassim festival.
RFB: What is it that gets you excited about making music, and why do you manifest it in the distinctive way that you do?
Joe: "The three of us just like music that's a bit adventurous, if you're lucky enough to know how to make music, and have a real passion for it; it's very fulfilling to be able to have an idea, to imagine doing something and then going ahead."
RFB: There's something endearingly simple about your music. Do you ever find yourself layering lots more over the top, only to realise you don't need it?
Joe: "Yeah, I think when I started making music I was a lot more inclined to just whack a load of stuff on it, I just had a bit of a tendency to clog it up. You just have to ask yourself, is it adding something? Quite often it isn't!"
RFB: Your profile seems to be getting raised more and more, if the hype gets huge would this be something that you'd feel apprehensive about?
Joe: "I think that time's way gone. I would reckon if it was gonna get huge we'd have known about it. Seriously, I think if the press was ever going to hit it would have been at the start of the year, but I think we're lucky enough to have managed to avoid that trap. It's always the way it works; there's a surge of action before the album comes out."
RFB: I was raving about your Radio Ladio song to my mate the other day, when I played it to him he said it sounded like it was made on a Casio Keyboard and that he could have made it. Do you get annoyed when people say things like this?
Joe: "(Laughter) Not enough to get worried about it, because nobodies doing it... what does your mate do?"
RFB: He's a data analyst.
Joe: "Well there you go. I could do that! I think it's a problem that we get far more in England and specifically London, that people enjoy really getting into something and then suddenly hating it."
RFB: What do you think about the health of the British music scene at the moment?
Joe: "I've not heard any good new bands for a while. There's not a great deal of bands about that are doing much, and at least we write stuff that The Kooks don't cover."
RFB: How much better have Oscar and Gabriel made it for you?
Gabriel: "You'd be very lonely wouldn't you! He'd be going to sleep on his own."
Joe: "I wouldn't, I'd be getting laaaid! No, it works in a nice way really."
RFB: Okay, Oscar and Gabriel, how much better has Joe made it for you?
Gabriel: "Well before I was working in a shop."
Oscar: "And I was working in a kitchen, so it's much nicer now!"
RFB: You've remixed quite a few tunes, which song would you like to remix most, and which is in most desperate need of a remix?
Joe: "I'd like to do some music for big American rappers. I wanna get in with Kayne! That new Xenomania track 'Sweet About Me (Gabriella Cilmi),' I think that song desperately needs something doing to it. It's from the guys who produced all the Girls Aloud stuff. They're normally fucking brilliant, but this just sounds like Anastacia."
RFB: You've worked with the Sony Walkman project that helps new and aspiring musicians. What wise words of advice would you give new people starting out?
Gabriel: "Stay in school!"
Joe: "Have something to fall back on? (Laughter) Don't rest on your laurels. Don't think you can get away with being lazy. You've got to work very hard."
RFB: Your video Radio Ladio, it seems very 'of the time.' Did you have a lot of input on what you wanted it to be like?
Gabriel: "It's so November 2007!"
Oscar: "If it hadn't have been so ridiculous and strange that it wouldn't have had the same effect."
Joe: "Yeah, that video's weird. The director would get nothing out of you telling him exactly what you wanted and then doing it your way, and so with that video, I had an idea of what I wanted, and didn't say I want to be an Oompa Loompa. The way it happens is elements get taken out of your control, but I don't think it's a bad thing. I can't watch it though. It looks like it's of its time, but it's f**king disturbing! I don't think there's anything nice about the video. To me it just looks rank, and that was kinda the idea. It's pretty horrible!"
RFB: I've heard various different release dates for your new album Nights Out. When is it going to be released?
Joe: "September 8th. Initially it was supposed to be March, and then it was June, and now it's September. I think there are so many festivals, and people don't really wanna put stuff out at that time."
RFB: What have been some of the influences for your material on Nights Out?
Joe: "Because it's been the three of us with instruments, it's more live based on Nights Out but it wasn't really that much on the other one. It's supposed to a bit of a concept album."
RFB: I heard a concept album on having a shit night out?
Joe: "Yeah, there's supposed to be a bit more to it than that, the main concept was just that you could drive to it, put it on in the car."
RFB: So there wasn't a really shit night you had where you thought 'oh fuck this needs an album writing for it?'
Joe: "Thousands! T In the Park. It was Gabriel's birthday, and Oscar tried to find out what was going on, and it was like the whole thing was so Radio One endorsed. At all the after parties they were just playing Scouting For Girls. We found this busker, Giovanni, and Oscar for Gabriel's birthday was trying to request the theme tune from Friends; The Rembrandts... but he didn't play it."
RFB: What do you think will be the best case scenario it terms of where this new album can take you?
Joe: "I think a lot of people in England are pretty unsure about us, and I think if people are just into it... Two albums down the line and not showing signs of getting worse. I think that's pretty good!"
RFB: Would you like it if Jo Whiley started bumming it?
Joe: "Someone was telling me about a Simon Amstell joke, saying "Jo Whiley, keep finding new music but you're still gonna die like the rest of us!" (Much laughter)."
RFB: Metronomy are so fucking good because...
Joe: "(Tongue in cheek) Because there's not much else about. By default... Because IT IS!"
Artists in this article: Metronomy