By Yasmin Brown
Jan 27, 2021 17:13
Just minutes into our call with Jack Bennett and Mark Trotter of Lonely the Brave, the topic of conversation has changed at least four times - and as we delve into the last two years of the band's history, itâs looking like it's going to take some unexpected twists and turns.
Through no fault of his own, front man Bennett is a little late, and apologies are dotted here and there between a thorough introduction to a stray cat with a âcheesy pastaâ nose that heâs hoping will remain ownerless for long enough for him to rehome it. Bennett – well known for his intense love of animals – is unsure whether to refer to it as male or female and asks if anyone knows anything about gendering in cats. The answer is (unsurprisingly) a resounding no and we move on with a laugh, acknowledging for the first time what weâre all here to talk about. The music.
At the time we speak, Lonely the Brave are just months away from releasing their album âThe Hope Listâ, and while their media schedule is jam packed and they must surely be at least a little tired of repeating themselves, the excitement is still tangible in both Bennettâs and Trotterâs responses. At no point is it apparent that Bennett is a relatively new addition to the band, expressing his delight at being able to hold the album in his hands in vinyl format, and the potential to âassault someone with an album weâve been a part ofâ, a prospect thatâs mirrored by Trotter: âYou can throw it across your garden in case of a zombie emergencyâ.
And given the turmoil this band has had to face over the past few years, combined with the current state of the world, that zombie emergency doesnât seem beyond the realm of possibility.Â
âI think all the – such a typical Lonely the Brave thing – all of the adversity thatâs gone along with it, like everything – even the global pandemic is trying to stop us. Usually itâs our singer quitting, or like, things exploding or whatever, itâs the most Lonely the Brave thing that could possibly happen – a global pandemic in the middle of us trying to record a record. But look, we still managed to do it and thatâs something that weâre all really proud of.”
And they should be proud, too. Flash forward to today and the band – now well and truly completed by Bennett – stand tall following the release of their first album together, and with the release of âThe Hope Listâ comes a brand new benchmark for this Cambridge band.Â
While itâs been more than two years since he joined, itâs hard to talk about this album without mentioning the addition of Bennett to the band. Initially popping down south from his hometown in West Yorkshire to take part in a few practices, even though he had to call to make sure the rest of the band wanted him (âAm I in the band then?â), it seemed to be a no brainer. As already mentioned, however, itâs been anything but plain sailing since then, as Bennett explains – pausing only to apologise to the cat and to âput a hat on, I look like an absolute salad. Go on, carry onâ. It seems like two years is a long time to pull together an album, but itâs just not as simple as that.
âThe problem though when it comes down on paper, itâs obviously been like two or three years of it so I always think the people at home will be like, âOh youâve been sat in the studio for two to three years? This fucking better be goodâ, sort of thing. And Iâm like âNo, noâ. So yeah in reality weâve been recording… not a long time. Like in the actual studio, sitting down recording – not a long time.â
Trotter expands, noting that the first song written for the album was the latest single and title of their mini documentary, âKeeperâ, which has now been âknocking aroundâ for a couple of years and – as often is the case with the best songs – âcame from nowhereâ, yet it somehow set the foundations for the whole album.
âIt didnât come from a blueprint for us to work from or anything like that, it was still very different from a lot of the other stuff and I think it was quite a bit of time between that and the next kind of bunch of songs that we were happy with I guess.âÂ
The time between âKeeperâ and the rest of the album didnât happen by choice, but was instead forced on them by the global implications of the pandemic and the restrictions that followed. So while from Trotterâs perspective, guitars were done in a day and a half, it still took a long time to get to the point they were ready to record. With most of the band working full time jobs – Mo and Bush, for example, are on the front line for the NHS – they simply didnât have the luxury of taking a block of time out to get the record done, as Trotter explains.
âWe say it took two years and like Jack says it sounds like, âOh you had all this timeâ, but thatâs two years of having to work around everyoneâs insane, normal life schedules, so if you actually condense it down to actual time together, itâs nothing in comparison to perhaps what we would have done in years gone by. But yeah, two years to get to where we were yeah, but thatâs actually – in terms of actual work, what? A weekend a month? Maybe?â
He elaborates by explaining that, like many bands, they work better in a room together, and Bennett readily agrees, chipping in that on the rare occasions they were able to find a week together, everything âcame together fairly quicklyâ. But while the circumstances werenât ideal, they agreed that it âneeds to be right – we werenât going to rush anythingâ, and itâs a patience that anyone who has listened to âThe Hope Listâ can see has clearly paid off – not just in terms of perfecting the recordâs sound, but also in allowing the circumstances to seep into the lyrics. You could easily argue that the title âThe Hope Listâ itself is a product of what it is we all need right now, too.Â