For those people out there who can’t use the internet very well, how would you describe your sound?
N: Atmospheric and kind of epic and stuff
P: Who can’t use the internet very well?
N: Our 70 and older market. But yeah, I’d say our sound is cinematic.
How would you describe your approach to music?
N: We just never try to copy ourselves. We always try to do something a little different.
P: We’re not political. We’ve never been political but people get confused due to the name that we just dipped out of a book. We don’t have any kind of political approach to anything really. Nathan writes the lyrics but we don’t write from a political standpoint.
N: No, they’re not political at all. They can have themes towards stuff like that but not overtly.
For the past four years, would you say that being so entirely independent has become an intrinsic part of the band’s identity or would you say your approach to music would change if you were signed to a major label or a renowned independent label?
P: No, it wouldn’t change now. Before it was very much a learning curve like it is for most bands. I think we’ve become better in all sorts of ways through being forced into being more independent. Musically we’ve written for ourselves but with a personal eye of it being accessible to people rather than somebody telling us that it has to be accessible or it has to be this or that. It’s a pretty lengthily process we’ve gone through, but in terms of the quality of our time together, both personally and musically, I think any band, without having to make it a four year cycle, would love to go through the experience we have and become independent. So many bands rely on other people to make it work because that’s the label psyche: you’re signed to someone and everyone does all of your jobs for you. We had that approach to an extent before but we definitely don’t have it now.
N: Don’t take anything for granted, because it is quite easy to. The people you meet at gigs or through bands, you shouldn’t blow them off, you appreciate the fact that they’re taking the time for you. It helps when you rely on those relationships because you’re doing it independently. It’s worked out for us really quite well; it’s weird, it feels like we’re in unchartered waters. For a band of our size to be independent and be doing so well it’s weird. Obviously you’ve got Radiohead and things like that but they are who they are already. They’ve got their whole past to help them out.
P: You’ll see it more and more I think. The industry won’t help but force bands into doing things a lot more independently.
N: Labels are dropping a lot of people, record stores are closing, studios are closing, so it’s all coming to a head.
P: …and labels are taking cuts of everything, whereas ten years ago they just took money from record sales. Now there’s these 360 deals where they take tour money, merch money, whatever because they have to do it to survive. You can’t really blame them, because there’s always going to be acts out there that want to be on a label but I think you’ll see more and more bands turning their back on it and searching out different ways to do it. We’re doing that, but in this respect again we’re on a bit of a learning curve. We’re not feeling our way through the dark, but we’re definitely trying out new things.
N: I think being on a label used to be more of a vindication that you’d made it or done really well but I don’t think it is anymore; half of me thinks that if you’re signed to a major label then you’re extremely mainstream, that is often completely false but that what majors want. They want something that brings in a lot of money very quickly. They don’t really invest in new music, they may take bands that have been around for a while that have an established record of doing very well; they don’t want to take chances. It’s like trying to get a loan at a bank. You’re trying to get money out of them and they’ll go for what is financially more secure for them. It’s a business; it’s all it is.
Would you say a spirit of independence is now engrained in the band?
N: First and foremost we want to work with some good people that aren’t going to require us to turn into a boy band. We’ve been at it for a very long time. We were signed for little over a year so we’ve spent most of our careers as independent.
P: we’re a lot more careful about who we’re going to be prepared to work with in all areas. We’re touring with the same people we toured with before, and that will be ongoing as much as possible. I’m not interested with working with anybody at any companies that I don’t know. We want to be able to hang out with the people that we’re going to work with, not just for them to be a name on your phone.
N: So many people just blow smoke up your asses; we’re just not interested in working with those people.
Prior to the release of ‘Union’, did it seem inevitable that it was always going to be released?
N: We made it and we were going to release it one way or the other, even if iTunes hadn’t have come along. A few weeks before we were thinking of just putting it out and having it as a download for free or something from our website. We didn’t know how it was going to happen just knew it would. iTunes have been amazing for us; they provided a different approach of how to do things and that’s all we were trying to find.
Before the success of ‘Union’, the band had their fair share of drama and whatnot. You could have been described as ‘nearlymen’. How would you react to that label?
P: Absolutely. I think we might be the most unlucky band I can think of, and we know some pretty unlucky bands. There were so many times when actually if things had worked out, individually, obviously with Nathan’s illness, and if we’d have worked with a few more of the right people then it would have been different. We were always about two steps away from achieving really great things. Before it was more carefree, but know we’re not in a position where we can throw it away and be here having this conversation in six years time, we don’t have that choice. I would absolutely buy into us being labelled as ‘nearlymen’ and I’m not bothered by that either. The summer that we got dropped was a tough summer, just seeing some of our peers do it. I mean, really do it. That was really hard for about six months. Not in a jealous way because I’m always far more excited to see my friends on telly and the radio than us. It was just that we should have been cracking it as well, so we probably fit perfectly into the ‘nearlymen’ mould.
Have you found that mainstream attention directed towards the band has dramatically changed since the release of ‘Union’?
N: It’s just helped us reach a wider audience. Even in the states, we’re only playing a few gigs but it looks like they’ll sell out.
P: I don’t think so from a basic industry perspective. We haven’t quite fell off the radar enough for people to completely forget about us, but on the other hand we’ve never been part of any scene so we’re not jumping off the back of anyone’s bike here. We have been pretty much doing our own thing. We haven’t been inundated with loads of record labels over here, but I wasn’t expecting to either, to be honest.
Having achieved such critical acclaim and digital success, how have the band’s ambitions been altered?
N: It hasn’t altered loads. We still want to be a well known successful band who can make albums year upon year. Once we’d finished our first album, it came out then we got dropped that week. Since then it’s always been about making another album for me and now we just want to make a third one and keep touring and actually make a living out of it.
P: We’re a lot more aware of our age, which isn’t spectacularly old, but when you’re 21 or 22, you think a lot less about actually establishing yourself. That has altered since the first time around; now we want to be able to support other people as well as ourselves. That obviously changes your financial outlook on things. It doesn’t mean we’re running about grabbing cash in the air all of the time, but it makes us a lot more secure in our decision making as well. We’re still as ambitious musically as we were before and I don’t believe that the first album didn’t propel us to what it should have because it wasn’t good enough; I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now.
Maybe if you’d all worn vests, played clean guitars and sung songs about eating chicken in a disco it would have all been different?
P: We’d never thought of that actually
N: We do like chicken.
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