This must be a tense week for you, leading up to the album release. How are you keeping yourself occupied?

Jack: We’re just about to start a band rehearsal. We’ve just been jamming through the set all week trying to get it ready for this tour that is coming up.

I noticed that on Facebook, the mum of one of your fans invited you guys to go along to his rollerblading birthday party in Rotherham. I just wondered if you went along to that earlier this week? I could just see Marmozets at a rollerdisco, somehow.

Jack: I do remember seeing that…I think she asked if we could play it. It was just a bit short notice, I think. Sadly.

Your recent Bruno Mars ‘Locked Out Of Heaven’ cover in the Radio 1 Live Lounge: why did you pick that song?

Jack: That started because we were having a tweet-off with the rapper Tempah T. We said that for our London show, we wanted Tempah T to benchpress Josh WHILST he was drumming, just…because, why not? For the Live Lounge, originally we were going to cover ‘Feel Good Inc.’ by Gorillaz, so we thought about getting Tempah T down to rap on it, but then we realised that probably wouldn’t happen. You have to be quite clever about the Live Lounge, because you want to do a song by a big name, because that means you are always going to get fans of that artist tuning in. Will, my brother, is a massive Bruno Mars fan, so we jammed that song out into about six different versions; we usually mess about with that song when we are practising anyway. We decided to do something different to the original, and we finished the version we ended up doing literally the night before. It was a bit ‘to the wire’. We were happy with it.

It’s had a fairly Marmite reaction, with some people not getting it at all because they are diehard Bruno Mars fans who maybe don’t understand what you guys do.

Jack: That is the benefit of doing something like that, when we get to be involved in a mainstream thing, we do want to divide opinions – not that we want people to hate us, at all, but it’s still good that people will express their opinion on it, rather than saying nothing, which is what you don’t want.

Speaking of mainstream, I remember chatting to you about Reading and Leeds earlier in the summer and how much of a big deal for you that was going to be, so in the end, what went through your mind before you walked out on the NME tent stage?

Jack: That was a big deal for us. We did Download, and that was pretty big, but then before Reading, we’d just done a run of European festivals, that were all quite big stages. It was good to be able to do those, because if we’d just gone into Reading cold, then we would have shit ourselves. So walking out on that stage, we still felt like we were in a different country or something. We were in France the day before, or somewhere daft like that, so we were a bit weirded out as to where we actually were. We walked out and were all just like: “This is nuuutttssss”. Absolutely loved it, it was really cool, and then to do the second set as well [on The Pit stage], that felt like a gig then, which was fun.

Not many bands get that kind of Reading and Leeds experience, and you had Warped as well this summer of course, and by all accounts you went down a storm – does it feel like mission accomplished for Marmozets in the US?

Jack: We’d only ever been to America once before this, to sort out the deal with Roadrunner. We played in New York for like, one show, so that was more like a mini-holiday. New York is just like a bigger, taller, hotter, sweatier London, so with Warped, to get to actually go around America, we realised just how big the country is. We were doing 22 hour drives, which is the equivalent of something like driving from the top of Scotland, down to London, and back, maybe twice, in one day? We haven’t even scratched the surface as far as America goes, but at least, say, 100 people in each of the places we played on Warped know about us now.

Did you feel like the new kids at school a bit on that tour?

Jack: It was a strange experience. Before we even went, we were stuck in Heathrow airport for a week waiting for our visas to arrive, and it’s pretty boring around there…

What did you do with yourselves that whole time?!

Jack: We went into London a few nights, went to a bowling alley there that was godawful, and watched some of the World Cup. Then when we got to America, our internal flight was cancelled, so when we finally got to Warped, it felt bizarre. Luckily, when we arrived, we’ve sort of met the Enter Shikari boys a few times before, which helped because we got really friendly with them straight away, and then met a bloke called Rob Lynch, an acoustic artist who is smashing it as well. We sort of had this British Embassy thing going on…! The next day it got really weird, because we were hanging out with Every Time I Die, who are one of my favourite bands ever, and seeing Keith Buckley just walking around and waking up in the morning, going for coffee with him, I was thinking “This is just bizarre now”. It was a long slog, the longest tour we’ve ever done, and so far from home.

Can you pinpoint the most surreal moment for you personally?

Jack: Yeah, there was one moment that made me feel like I was actually so far from home. We were driving to Salt Lake City from…I can’t even remember where, and it was a hell of a drive. That was a 21.5 hour drive or something daft. We woke up, and had six hours with no phone service, desert all around us, in the middle of absolute nowhere. We got out the van for a little breather, just for five minutes, and there was sand everywhere, and hills – it was like when you go off the edge of the map in GTA or something. Like that, but for real! We were all freaked out.

If you think back to where you were at that point last summer, that probably would have added to that feeling.

Jack: I was in Bingley!

Pretty similar places, Bingley and the US desert.

Jack: Haha. The other weird moment was in Florida. It was different to the other shows because this one was actually in a city, rather than a car park on the outskirts. I had this new ritual of getting an iced coffee every morning –

Oh wow. You pretty much became an American.

Jack: Yeah! I saw this coffee stand, and the guy who served me, I really recognised him but couldn’t think where from, but I realised it was the guitarist of Underoath, another of my favourite bands. Serving me an iced coffee. Tim McTague, it was. With an apron on. I was like, what the hell is going on?! Chris from Underoath came down to watch our set, and we swapped numbers – this is the band that got me into heavy music, it was the strangest feeling. But you do realise that they are completely normal people. That tour almost ruins your heroes, in fact, because they are no longer gods to you.

So the album comes out on 29 September; where was the photo of all of you huddled, on the artwork, taken?

Jack: We took that at The 100 Club, just before we played there. We ended our last headline run there, and even though it’s not that big a room, maybe 350, 400 people, it felt like a strange gig. That picture was taken in our dressing room. Tom Barnes the photographer had come down to hang out for the day. We always have some kind of huddle before we go on stage, to try and get in some sort of zone. We were a bit nervous before that gig. It was weird walking out on stage and seeing so many people there for our band. From Bingley. So that picture is a nice memory for us. Even if we hadn’t used it for the album cover, it would have been one of those photos that you always look back on. That was a good moment.

The album has already got brilliant reviews and everyone’s news feed has been full of Marmozets this past week; that must make you feel pretty good, before it’s even been released?

Jack: Yeah, we were a bit worried about streaming it, and we didn’t want to put people off before it is even out, but we’ve only seen good comments. We’re just dying, dying, dying, to get it out now.

Having listened to it through, there are so many softer, more emotional moments than people might be expecting. What prompted those? Am I right in thinking that?

Jack: We always get seen as this mental, really heavy band, but if you actually look a bit deeper at our music, there’s a lot more than what it initially seems like. Even on the ‘Vexed’ EP, like the song ‘Arrive Alive’, that is a really dark, slow song and we have always done songs like that. Before we went into the heavier, more technical stuff, we always used to just do songs like that anyway. And when one of us comes up with an idea, we try to see what we can do with it. For the song ‘Cry’ on the album, Sam came up with a piano part at home one day, and even though we thought it sounded brilliant that was actually the hardest song to nail and get right.

Becca’s vocals are pretty astounding, on this record. And also, seeing the frontwoman that she has become.

Jack: Yeah, it’s a big leap. In the old days, we’d all be so nervous, and she’d be all shy on stage, and now she’s like this…animal! It’s strange for us as well because a lot of people are judging this album on the ‘Vexed’ EP, whereas for us we have been this band, this band who have just released this album, for a year. These tracks were recorded over a year ago. So in our heads, we are this band, but people are judging us against the older stuff. I think Will was 14 when we recorded that EP, so we are obviously going to have changed in that time. We think that we are not even there yet, with the sound, we believe that we can do even better than this album. We’ve started to write stuff for a second album already.

Even though this record, to Marmozets, is a year old, what does it represent about you as a band, right now?

Jack: It’s a bridge, from the last EP to where we are going, I guess. We don’t want to be the kind of band that just pops up and is then forgotten about. We are in this for the long run. We want this as a career, not just a hobby, or like “Great, they were on a major label for one album and then we never heard from them again”. We want to do this properly. Hence why it’s probably taken so long for it to come out, we’ve been biding our time because we are still, realistically, a small band.

You are finishing up this year with some pretty big stuff; going out on tour with Issues in the US, playing Royal Blood’s homecoming show in Brighton, and the UK dates with Taking Back Sunday. Which are you most excited for?

Jack: They are all going to be different, because you’ve got a brilliant UK rock band, who are sort of changing the face of the UK music scene, with Royal Blood; Taking Back Sunday who are like, legends, they’ve been smashing it for years, then Issues, who are up and coming, doing really well for themselves, and that one is in America. It will be nice to do the Taking Back Sunday tour because it means club shows in Europe, which we’ve never done before, but the Royal Blood show, I know, will be a really crazy end to what’s been an amazing year.

GEORGINA LANGFORD

Considering the amount (a lot!) of EPs you have delivered over the last few years, does finally putting out your debut full length feel like a great relief, or a huge pressure?

Kind of both to be honest. It was our first effort with a label, but Fearless has been awesome. It was definitely a lot of pressure because we knew that it would be able to reach a wider audience, and we definitely wanted to make sure that we made the best album we possibly could at that point. Having stricter deadlines this time around added a little bit of stress, but looking back on the entire experience all of the headaches and lost sleep, it was totally worth it.

The album’s title is (IMHO) a classic emo statement. It could be taken from a character in some depressing cult indie film, Ghost World or something like that. Is it a collective thought that the whole band really shares, or did you imagine someone else saying that?

The title was taken from the two title tracks of the album, the introduction and the closing song. I would think it is an accurate description of how we are collectively feeling after spending a good portion of the last year touring and sparsely being at home. We would come back after six weeks of touring thinking that everything would be on pause until we get home. After being away so long and experiencing how all of these other people and cultures go about their everyday lives. It’s really eye-opening and I think we bring pieces of these places back with us, which can make us feel out of place being back at home. We’re essentially questioning whether it’s who you are or where you are/from that shapes your life and personality.

The title, the track names (‘Sixteen’ ‘Summer’ ‘To: My Old Self’) all seem to tap into the classic pop-punk theme of growing up. Did you intend it as coming-of-age record?

There are definitely coming of age elements to the songwriting, but there’s also a lot of reflecting on where you’ve been, figuring out where you’ll be, and this uncertainty about whether or not you’ll find the right place. Moving around as much as we do it’s hard to maintain a sense of permanence, and sometimes you just feel like you can’t find a place to dig your roots in the ground.

After a short stint last year, you are on Warped again this summer playing alongside Issues, Echosmith, Bayside and SECRETS. Who have you bonded with?

We’ve been hanging out with Neck Deep, Beartooth and State Champs a lot. Brian’s made some random friends that he runs off with a few hours and comes back to the buses piss drunk. One day I’ll figure out the secret society he’s joined.

You gained some great tour experience earlier this year supporting The Wonder Years. Considering how inspiring TWY have been over the past few years, did you learn or experience anything on that tour that will remain important to Real Friends in future?

That was definitely the best tour we have done to date, and we took in as much as we could. The Wonder Years, and everyone else supporting the tour with us, were some of the most hardworking and humble guys we’ve been able to tour with. TWY took great care of everyone else on the tour as well, and they even got us all hotel rooms on an off day in Pensacola and took everyone out for dinner. They made sure that everyone on that tour was having a great time, and I really admire them for that.

Have you listened to Soupy’s new solo record as Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties? If so, could you please give us your most professional review?

 I have heard the record and I saw him play yesterday for the first time. I’m not a journalist, but it’s a damn good album.

You also played one of your biggest UK shows to date at Slam Dunk in May – did anything surprise you about that festival?

Everything was fucking great. Everyone would tell us nothing but good things about Slam Dunk, and it met and exceeded our expectations. We didn’t get to play all-ages shows in some of those markets, so it was a great way to get the younger kids out so they can still come out to a show.

Kerrang! magazine gave your set a slightly weird, negative review from Slam Dunk South; implying that you sounded ‘a little bit like everyone else on the Atticus stage but not as good’ (that’s not the exact wording, sorry, but it’s as close as I can remember). How did/do you feel about that?

I actually didn’t hear about that until now, but it’s alright. To each his own, we can’t sway everyone and I don’t expect us to.

Are you still at the stage where you read everything that is written about your band?

Haha obviously not. I see a few things here and there, but I don’t go out of my way.

As Real Friends began to break through, you were frequently hyped as ‘the next The Story So Far’. Aside from them, whose musical career do you most admire?

I’m a very big fan of The Starting Line. I really admire how they were able to be so diverse and give each record its own sound and feel. I would really love to explore more influences and to be able to change things up from album to album.

While there have been many before and after them, Fall Out Boy are one of the most successful bands to, like you, come out of Chicago. Are you fans? How would you feel about achieving their global status?

I love Fall Out Boy, they’re a great band. I’m not necessarily sure how I would feel in their shoes though. I’d sure as hell tell you I’d be paranoid as fuck if I ended up in tabloid magazines.

GEORGINA LANGFORD

Read the Punktastic review of ‘Maybe This Place Is The Same And We’re Just Changing’ by Real Friends

Punktastic spoke to Jake as he makes the final preparations to play the Vans Warped Tour Acoustic Basement stage all summer.

Firstly, are you all packed for Warped? Three months is a lot of clean socks. 

I am mostly packed but still have a few more things to get (I leave in a week). I’m a nervous nancy, so packing to be out this long is very nerve racking. I’m really excited though.

As a solo, acoustic artist heading out on what is essentially ‘punk band camp’, do you anticipate your Warped Tour will be a different experience to those in bands? 

Well, not only am I acoustic, but also I have been straight edge for almost 8 years so I think my experience will be different from a lot of people’s. No hangovers! Haha. I have less labour than a full band but I also am my only member so I will be doing all of the work, with the help of my new friend/tour manager Doug. I plan on selling my own merch most of the day. I just want to meet and connect with people.

Was it always an ambition of yours? 

It was never an ambition because I never fathomed it. It’s beyond what I could have ever expected.

The lyrics on ‘Aware’ are, at times, seriously raw and full of pain. Are you drawing on real life heartbreak or have you just got a great imagination? 

Most of the time they draw from experience.  But ‘The Day You Took The Good Away’ is a first person short story I wrote in song form.

Conversely, ‘If I Tremble’ is a perfectly romantic song. How do you approach singing so openly about love without falling into cheesy clichés? 
I just write how I feel. Some people do think my lyrics are cheesy. Opinions are like assholes. Everyone’s got one. But to each their own.

When performing these very honest, revealing songs live, do you feel exposed or empowered?

When you watch me perform, imagine me either on a psychiatrist’s couch, or out in the rain in front of a girl’s house just venting everything out. That’s how I feel when I sing these songs.

“How dare you say you miss me/with his spit still on your tongue” is one of the most acute putdowns since ‘Seventy x 7’ – and you’ve previously covered Brand New live. Are they a big influence?

That’s a huge compliment. And yes. I actually did an entire piece on them for Property of Zack for their bands on bands feature. They are one of my all time favourite bands.

Your melancholy and storytelling approach to songwriting reminds me a little of Frank Turner – have you ever crossed paths? 

I love Frank but I don’t even think I’m on his radar. He’s an amazing songwriter and I look forward to the day our paths do cross.

Your record label Pure Noise currently has a stellar roster; how does it feel to be part of that family? 

I can’t say enough good things about Jake Round and this fantastic label. Hit the Lights and Four Year Strong now?! The shit is hitting the fan in the best way. I’m so happy for Round and his accomplishments and am honoured to be a part of the chaos.

Music aside, what inspires you creatively (movies, books, art?) 

I’m a huge movie watcher. Romantic movies are my favourite but I also enjoy comedies and crime dramas. Romantic movies are a huge influence on my more romantic lyrics.

Are you able to write songs anytime, anywhere – will you write while you are on Warped?  

YES AND YES. I’m crazy excited to be out with so much going on. It really gets my mind moving. I am extremely excited to write while I’m out.

The debut album ‘Aware’ by Front Porch Step is out now, he plays Vans Warped Tour this summer and will (hopefully) play in the UK later in 2014

GEORGINA LANGFORD

So, it’s RIP to ‘twinkly’ emo from Nai Harvest. We presume you are feeling happy with the response to your change in sound?

Lew: Definitely. It’s not that we hate twiddly music, it’s just that we’d done that and it was time for the next thing.
Ben: Also we got pinned into that whole ‘UK twinkly emo’ thing, with every other band doing that kind of thing and I didn’t really like that. It’s not like we did it first, but when we started, there were only a couple of other UK bands doing that, like Well Wisher and some others and then it started to grow. After that we got lumped in with bands that we didn’t really like. That didn’t influence our change of sound though, that would have happened anyway, but that [pigeonholing] happening gave us the push to think ‘maybe we should be doing something different…’.

That’s fair enough – even though things are going well for Nai Harvest, you are still a relatively new band, so it makes sense that you are still experimenting and finding your own way. You’ve also talked about not wanting to be known as a ‘trendy’ band; is that something that you see a lot of and want to avoid?

Lew: It’s not so much trendy, it’s just we don’t want to be a fad band, around for one year before everyone forgets about you.
Ben: You see people raving about a band and then straight away they are on to the next new big thing; the last thing I want is for us to put this EP out this year and everyone to want a piece of us, and then next year everyone’s moved on. I don’t want to have to chase fads, I don’t want to set fads, I just want to be there in something that is a little bit more timeless.

Because what you’ve described is essentially the music industry in 2014, what do you think is the secret to avoid falling into that trendy trap?

Lew: It’s not just about music, it’s not just about the look of the band, what shows you play – it all factors in.
Ben: Since December, when the whole ‘new’ Nai Harvest thing came out, I’ve learned that it’s not just about the music anymore. Coming from such a punk background, for the last two years we would play any show that anyone gave us; in anyone’s basement, for any amount of money, with any bands – we didn’t really care, we just wanted to play shows. Now we have to be more selective because it makes a huge difference who you play with. We never even did many interviews before; recently we’ve been doing loads, but before we didn’t know what to say. It’s sad and annoying to have to learn that the music industry is only fifty percent about the music, but it’s also important to learn that.

How are you getting on with your next full length?

Ben: We are about two songs in to the ten we need for our album. We’ve set aside a week in April to just write.
Lew: I’m not worried about it being perceived as ‘good’ because it’s going to be so different to our first album. It’s important for us for it to sound different, to keep changing things.
Ben: Even these two new songs, which we’ve written since ‘Hold Open My Head’, they still have a fuzzy, emo thing on the backburner, but we’ve also pushed them a little bit further. We’ve got a little bit cleverer about doing this: ‘Hold Open My Head’ was the first four songs of our new sound, and we were so happy that everyone took it on board so well, but already, these new songs we are writing, I’m wishing we had them on that 7”, because they are better. We are getting more confident about doing ‘verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge’ without having to add any like, mad bits, in like we used to think we had to. You don’t NEED a big drum fill here, a weird guitar bit there, you just don’t. A catchy chorus, that’s all.

Save the crazy stuff for the live shows. If you have that solid song structure in place…

Ben:…then you can fuck with it!
Lew: The crazy bits are so hard to play [sighs]. We can’t play the old stuff anymore…
Ben: No, we can [laughs]. I can’t always remember how to, like I can’t play ‘You’re Not That Boring’; I have to sit down and listen to it to practise.

That’s ok. Taking Back Sunday recently told Punktastic that they still have to practise songs from ‘Tell All Your Friends’.

Ben: Oh my god. That is the best album.

On a different topic: you flagged up an article by Steven Ansell of Blood Red Shoes, arguing that music is a passive experience. Is that something that you have witnessed first hand?

Ben: I saw that because Gnarwolves posted it on Facebook, actually. I used to love Blood Red Shoes, so I read it and thought what he had to say was so true. On Tumblr, we get asked to play Scunthorpe, Grimbsy and places like that, and no offence to those places, but I just think, why don’t you just get on a train, have a day out, go to a city where we are playing, have some food out, get to see us at a show where there will be a couple of hundred people in the crowd, and a much better atmosphere, rather than waiting for us to play in your village with twelve people watching. The only thing I disagreed with Steven on was the download thing; we believe in free downloads – when people ask us for CDs at the merch stand, I just say download the songs and burn a CD, write Nai Harvest on it. What’s the point of CDs? It’s a waste of our money and the record label’s money. Anyway, I just liked the article and I was pleased to see Blood Red Shoes were back, making a good point. Basically I just like it when bands have a go. A bit like I am doing now.

Alright, calm down Noel Gallagher.

Ben: Haha – it’s weird though, how people listen to what WE have to say, just because we are in a band. Our opinions are no more valid than somebody else’s; we’re as thick as everybody else walking around the streets, but people listen to us because we are in a band. Which is what I think is so cool about music; as well as writing songs and playing gigs, you can get a point across too, whether it’s about sexism or homophobia or racism, and kids will actually take it on board.

If you’ve got a guitar in your hands, people will pay attention. Getting back to your own music, we know you’ve been recording these new songs and working on the album – due in the summer next year.

Ben: The new songs are the single ‘Buttercup’ and our Teenage Fanclub cover; just to bridge the gap so that it’s not like we are not putting anything out for ten months. We’d never done a cover before, so that was really nice; we got our friend Alana from Yuck to do some vocals and she did a really good job. We’d never collaborated with anyone either, so that was fun too!

You described the new songs as for people who enjoyed ‘indie, Britain and the 90s’. What do those three things mean to you?

Ben: Indie: Fender Stratocasters. Britain: fish and chips. The 90s: Friends!
Lew: Britain: rain. Indie: pointy shoes! The 90s: Home videos, VHS tapes.

We know you are massive Twin Peaks fans, but what else is inspiring you at the moment?

Ben: This is really weird for me to say, but I never used to write any Nai Harvest songs about love, or girls or whatever. I’ve never felt comfortable with saying the word ‘love’ in songs. In ‘Hold Open My Head’ I say “Everything I love is dead” and in the new song ‘Buttercup’ there is the lyric “Why won’t you take my love?”. I’ve always felt it was cheesy to say ‘love’, because everyone does it, but I am coming round to the idea. I don’t have a girlfriend and I’m not in love with someone, but I do like to fantasise. I’m not even writing about anything to do with me specifically, I just try to be emotional about either things that have happened to other people I know or just things that are my fantasy.

It’s the ‘romantic’ era of Nai Harvest, then.

Ben: Yeah, but it’s more about what ifs: what if I hadn’t gone to art school, or I hadn’t gone on that date with someone. ‘Hold Open My Head’ was mainly about how I pictured my life if I hadn’t dated a certain girl; what would I have done instead? I used to visit a girlfriend in Glasgow, so sitting on the train from Manchester to Scotland every other weekend, I will always wonder what I would have done if I hadn’t done that.

Finally, Hit The Deck is coming up. It must have been an amazing feeling to see your name on the same poster as Brand New and Saves The Day?

Ben: Oh my god, I was at uni that day and had to run out of a lecture to ring Lew – I pretended I needed the toilet and I just rang him and said “I’ve just got an email from Anna [Nai Harvest’s booking agent] and she’s only gone and bloody done it!” Saves The Day’s ‘Through Being Cool’ is my favourite album of all time, so this is a massive thing for me. Saves The Day is the music that got me into skateboarding and punk. I never would have found Black Flag if it wasn’t for starting with Saves The Day. My best friend Danny is the biggest Brand New fan, like, in awe of Jesse Lacey, so when I told him we were playing with them, he was like, “Bullshit. Pics or it didn’t happen.”

GEORGINA LANGFORD

Firstly, as some of you are Danes abroad, what are the good and bad things about being musicians in New York right now?

Søren: Right now, one of the good things is the success of the band. We’re actually not in New York that much, last year I think we played 300 dates abroad. But New York is a city that is filled with so many opportunities, although as an artist you feel the competition too. What’s great is that you can have no money or lots of money but still have a good time, and any type of person you can possibly imagine will walk past you if you stay in one place in New York for a period of time. As a musician, there is so much inspiration there. Hold on a second, Louis is smiling at me weirdly and it’s making me really uncomfortable.
Louis: The most exciting part for me is that Spring is coming. Spring and Fall are my favourite times of the year in New York. It’s an inspiring time. I’m really excited that we moved into a new apartment in a better neighbourhood – which is going to be great for us when we are at home, our ‘zen totality’.
Søren: Just to add, New York is very hard when you’re struggling. We went through a really, really tough period. It’s a fast-paced city and it can become quite heavy when you are struggling. Louis is still smirking at me, can I punch him?

Please don’t punch each other mid-interview. Apologies in advance, but we find you guys quite hard to pin down, musically. Judging from your previous singles, music videos, the two albums – we hear elements of hip hop, to rock, to pop, to pop punk – there’s a little bit of everything going on. Would you agree with that?

Louis: I think you nailed it pretty good, actually. We’re just fans of music and anything that resonates with us, we tend to go with. This album laid the foundation for something new that really works for us. We’re now in a place where we feel established in comparison to our debut album – it was a little scattered, we didn’t really know where we belonged. It was all over the place. Otherwise we’re fans of music, we love all types and that shows in our music. Writing ‘A Bad Girl In Harlem’ was definitely a challenge for us. It was the biggest challenge that we’ve had to date in our life in this aspect of music.

With all these different elements feeding in to your music, we were interested to find out what kind of cliques did you each belong to when you were teenagers? Were you all skaters or emos or did you all belong to totally different groups?

[whole band fall about laughing at each other]
Louis: I was definitely an emo skater boy. [Søren starts singing Avril’s ‘Sk8ter Boi’ at him]. Senses Fail, New Found Glory, that kind of pop punk stuff was my thing.
David: I’m actually a breakdancer, a B-boy. I’m definitely a city kid. So my upbringing was very urban; I was into lots of 90s and 2000s hip hop, grunge and punk. I was into skating, but mainly break-dancing, that was my main thing. I was also into BMXing and DJing was my thing too.
Søren: I was a complete hippie, with dreadlocks. I had lots of wooden necklaces and loose shirts. Hahaha.

It’s good to know you’ve got all the different bases covered in New Politics. Now from an outside perspective, the last few years for your band appear to have been pretty insane. It seems like you got thrown in the deep end, as a fairly new band, going off on tour with some massive artists. Did it feel like that for you?

Søren: We just went with it. And now we’re so lucky to have a chance to release in the UK, which we’re very proud of because of our European heritage. We try not to think too much because when we do things usually go wrong, or at least never work out the way we planned. We try to have fun with what we’re doing. We work our butts off to be the best we can and improve the show and to learn. Our energy is just focused on our live shows or writing sessions, and just trying to be as open as possible in what we do.

Your shows are crazy. What’s your failsafe way to get the people going? Apart from David’s dance moves, of course.

Søren: We’re very energetic and feed off the audience’s energy. Something we learnt from touring with all these amazing bands is to take care of your fans and to give them attention and love. We try to make the show about them and not about us. We’re definitely not shoegazers! We try to be ourselves, have a fun time and repay them for all the love they are giving us.

You are on currently out on the Save Rock and Roll UK Tour with Fall Out Boy, but there’s a lot of hype for MONUMENTOUR in the summer, where you’ll be heading out with FOB and Paramore. How are you preparing for that massive stint?

Louis: We’re trying to stay as grounded as we can as we’re all pretty big fans of the other bands. Just the fact that we’re going to be out on the road with Paramore and Fall Out Boy for three months playing in giant venues; you really can’t prepare for something like that. We’re just going to take it day by day. Sorry – everybody’s laughing at me because I have the biggest crush on Hayley from Paramore.

There is absolutely zero shame in that, she’s beautiful and amazing.

David: Can we tell the story of last time we met Paramore? We played a show in Seattle with them and after the show they came over to say hello. Which was nice, we were really pleased to meet them. But Louis, with his massive crush on Hayley, he just panics and walks away! Hahaha! How cute is that?

Louis, you are probably going to have to prepare yourself mentally because you are about to spend three months with the girl.

Louis: I know, I’m trying to get ready. I’ll go get a haircut, I’ll try to look pretty.

You might have a slight problem with Chad from New Found Glory if you try to woo Hayley.

Louis: Oh yeah! And he’s in one of my other favourite bands, I really am in trouble.

On a total side note; the video Pete Wentz posted of the Mexican Flip Off (back flip competition) between David and Brendon Urie was great. Obviously you are biased, but David who has the best moves, you or Brendon?

Louis: Brendan whooped you bro!
David: No no, I had more height and more tuck than him. He just landed it better than I did. I jumped so high and tucked so much that I couldn’t land it. I almost did a flip and a half.
Louis: You were just TOO professional.
David: Pete Wentz also beat me in the break battle. I don’t what to say – I can’t beat him.

You never know, you guys are the bright young things and those guys are not spring chickens, so maybe you’ll beat them one day.

David: They put it up and get tons of fans to like it. We’re like their little brothers. But we’ll never win against them.
Søren: As you can tell, David’s still a little sore about this. He’s a little bitter.
David: [shouting] I JUST WANT TO WIN!

There’s nothing wrong with healthy competition. Here’s an idea: you seem to love Internet ‘things’ like planking, we see you are into ‘Boyding’ at the moment [where David Boyd stands on his head in various places]. Why don’t you challenge them to a Boyd-off?

Louis: That’s a great idea. That’s what we’re doing.
David: I would love to see Pete do a Boyd.

So before you go to your Wembley soundcheck; for people who are just getting into New Politics, which three songs would you recommend a new fan checks out before coming to your show? Probably the single, ‘Tonight You’re Perfect’, and a couple of others?

Louis: I would go with ‘Harlem’ and ‘Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’. Or maybe ‘Dignity’.
Søren: I would go….yeah what he said.
David: ‘Tonight You’re Perfect’, ‘Harlem’ and ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah’.
Louis: Or ‘Dignity’, or ‘Just Like Me’. Just so you can see all the music we’re inspired by but also get the core of our background.

 New Politics are on tour from now until forever, including Monumentour with Paramore and Fall Out Boy this summer.

GEORGINA LANGFORD

Welcome back to the UK – it must be nice playing shows at relatively small venues again. We heard someone got proposed to on stage at your Coventry gig?

Shaun Cooper: That guy was awesome. He got up there and just owned the crowd! He was like “What’s up everybody, give it up for Taking Back Sunday! They’ve been at it hard for fifteen years!” We’ve had a couple of proposals here and there and everyone is always so nervous, but this guy knew exactly what he was doing, so it was great to see. We were like “Wow”. Sometimes Adam has to coach them through it a little bit but this guy was so confident. I think he and his girl had been together for eight years so I think she was more than ready for it. It was so sweet and I got married a couple of years ago so I get extra emotional at things like that, like “Awwww they’re starting their life together here”.

That’s a nice start to a mini tour. How have the smaller shows been?

Shaun: They were fun. Hot and sweaty. Not a lot of room onstage.
Eddie Reyes: Kingston was a really small stage but the energy was pretty intense.

You also did an in-store at Banquet Records. How was that?

Shaun: We did a meet and greet, not even playing. We just hung out and people came in and it was right around the block from the club [The Peel] so that was easy too.

We’re guessing that you saw a real mixture of different age groups of fans come to that, thanks to Tumblr. A whole bunch of 14-year-olds are getting into bands like yourself and Brand New, despite not having been born when you started making music.

Eddie: We do get old people and young people now.

So have you had any really interesting conversations with people at meet and greets?

Eddie: There was this one young girl, she was 16 I think, and it was in Germany and she told me her and all of her friends got into us this year because of her older sister or something like that. I just thought that was cool.

Passing on the legacy…

Shaun: There was this kid, probably in his early twenties or something, who said ‘Best Places To Be A Mom’ on our last record inspired him to start writing songs. That was really sweet to hear: we met him at Banquet, and we were like “Wow, that’s crazy”. That’s cool seeing a record that’s still fairly new to us inspire someone to do something else.

That’s really cool. There will no doubt be loads of young kids down the front at KOKO tomorrow, too [note: there were].

Shaun: It’s rewarding to see. The older crowd, like Eddie’s been saying, you see them hanging back by the bar drinking, and then the younger kids are in the pit going crazy so it’s nice. We’re the older guys back at the bar now when we go to shows.
Eddie: I have a funny story with that too though, thinking about the younger, newer crowd. Back at home, when I went to go and pick my son up at school, his teacher came out and told me that her and her husband are huge fans and actually met us at one of our shows during Warped Tour of 2004.

Wow!

Eddie: And now her son goes to school with my son.

Haha. How have the new songs been going down with fans live? Any one song really standing out?

Shaun: We were shocked how well ‘Flicker, Fade’ has been going over.

It’s very catchy.

Shaun: Thanks. Yeah, we only put out the video a little while ago and we didn’t expect anyone to be singing along already. But it seems to be pretty instant.
Eddie: Even the other new one, ‘Beat Up Car’, I see some people singing it.

That ‘Flicker, Fade’ chorus just goes round and round in your head, it’s so good.

Shaun: I remember the first time we heard it, you know John and I were working on it and we were like, “Whoa that’s great! I like that”.

So let’s look back to the creation of ‘Happiness Is’. Writing without a label must be a seriously freeing experience, creatively?

Eddie: Yeah [long pause while he considers his next statement]. For me it was a lot more comfortable and easier to write this record, without having a big major label behind you pushing you and putting pressure on it, and barking at you.
Shaun: One of the things that was also nice was that we had a lot of time. With the last record, we got back together, we started writing songs immediately and then we only had a couple of months to refine them and we were working with Eric Valentine so he had his vision for the thing too. I was like, “Okay, there are all these moving parts, with the label, and him, and the five of us getting newly acquainted again”. So it was a crazy situation, a whole lot all at once. Now we’ve had two years to refine these songs so I felt like by the time we laid them down and we recorded with our friends Mike Sapone and Mark Hudson that it was just a very easy process and we kinda eased into it. We had the luxury of time this time around so I think that made for a much stronger record.

The British band You Me At Six just did the same thing, and their record debuted at Number One in the charts. They have talked about the fact that recording without a label was the best thing they ever did for their band because they could focus on being friends.

Shaun: Warner Records worked really well for us. It was hard for us but it was just time to move on. I just feel like there’s certain genres that shouldn’t be touched like that [by a major label], unless you’re some kind of boy band. For bands like us, it’s good that we’re on indies and are able to have full control of our own songwriting and recording and all that stuff. I thought You Me At Six were a pop band though?

Pretty sure they’re still classified as a rock band. Although their earlier stuff is heavier, the latest album is the most kind of poppy and accessible. Probably hence why it’s sold so well!

Shaun: I think there’s something that happened at major labels too where rock bands stopped selling like they used to. More people are downloading and whatever, so there became this big focus on “We need to have big radio hits and we need to use this model that we’ve used for pop music” but it’s not going to work, so there was just a whole lot of fear and you know, with Warner they’d spent a whole tonne of money on not very much. It’s just the way the system works and it’s kinda broken for rock & roll at least.
Eddie: Instead of sitting back and watching what people are into, they get overexcited and want to force it onto the people to make it more commercial to get songs on radio stations. Which kinda ruins it.

When you signed to Hopeless, Eddie put out a statement about how much respect he had for them. What is it about Hopeless as a label that attracted you?

Eddie: It’s just a label that got started, like everything in that scene, by a bunch of friends, and it blew up and got bigger and bigger. Just like us growing up in the music scene in New York; we started playing and booking shows in basements, and then the next thing you know… So seeing a label start off so small in like a garage end up being this giant is pretty cool.

But they still maintain their original principles.

Shaun: Oh yeah, they have a small office, just a handful of people working there who are all super excited about their work. I feel like everyone there is genuinely a fan of all the bands on the roster. So they have this enthusiasm to work hard and grow these bands and our buddies The Used are there and Bayside too. All have records coming out in like a three month period along with us.

They are putting out so much good stuff.

Shaun: We’re just really lucky to be here in this time and enjoy that resurgence or whatever.

You’ve mentioned ‘Happiness Is’ was a more collaborative process for you – what did you mean by that?

Shaun: Writing has always been a collaborative process, but we were also working with our friends, Mike Sapone and Marc Hudson, who’ve been with the band for so long. Sapone did our original ‘Tell All Your Friends’ demos that we recorded in his basement so we were back there in his basement all these years later! Marc Hudson has done our live sound for years. So I think that was like the big collaboration, having a good back-and-forth and being able to argue with them because we were so comfortable to be able to really get our point of view across. If we didn’t like something, they were very open to any criticisms or changes that the band were going to make. The five of us really united on that front too, so there was a lot of open communication between us and them so I think that made for a better record too.

This feels like a really positive era for you guys. Everyone seems very relaxed.

Shaun: We’ve grown together. We needed some time apart, but now we’ve really got this focus again for what this band is and the five of us share that vision now. That adds to the relaxed nature of it. Everyone’s older and less nuts – although we’re still not quite right.

As you said, you’ve grown up, you’ve evolved as personalities, you’ve learnt more about each other as a band and as friends, so what is topically or emotionally really important to you at this stage in your lives to be expressing through your music? Although this might be one for Adam or John to talk about…

Shaun: When you become an adult and you get married and have kids and stuff your world changes so much. ‘Tell All Your Friends’ was all about girls, all about relationships; a stupid break up with a girl you were with for a couple of months, like that stuff is so far behind you and it doesn’t matter now. You’re still gonna have relationship struggles as an adult but your world gets bigger [in the sense of getting a bigger perspective on things]. I’m kinda speaking out of turn because I didn’t write the lyrics, but on this record there are world events, then there’s things that we did. There’s a song called ‘We Were Younger Then’ and John was working on the lyrics when we were on a trip in the Middle East, visiting US troops over there, playing for them. You see cities like Bahrain, this island in the middle of nowhere that’s like manmade and it’s this crazy thing. And there’s war all around you in the neighbouring countries, it’s like “My god this is crazy” so I feel like your world view gets so much broader then being just like “OH THIS GIRL BROKE MY HEART I HATE HER”. It’s like now that we’re seeing events, we’re seeing world change, it’s a different place than it was in 2002.

So without sounding like a clichéd album title-based question, what makes you guys happy now, either individually or as a band?

Eddie: In life? My kids make me happy, definitely. The band still being around makes me happy. Just being able to still play shows and play with these guys and tour makes me happy.
Shaun: Our family and friends, the crew we have out, they’re all family too. They’ve been with us for so long and they work extra hard, we have this really good relationship with everyone that we’re surrounded by so it’s not only the five of us in the band that are really happy, it’s everyone that works with us. Our manager has been with us twelve years now. So it’s a pleasure waking up everyday and being surrounded by the group that we are.

So apart from celebrating the album coming out, we’re guessing tour preparations are taking priority in your brains.

Shaun: Yeah! We’ve got a week home then we’ve gotta go out to the tour and we gotta practise for a day or two and we have to get the set list straight and we gotta learn these new songs.

It seems funny to think of a band at your stature, having been around for so long, still having band practices, but everyone still has to…

Shaun: Yeah, we still sit in a room and play ‘You’re So Last Summer’, don’t you know.
Eddie: [rolls eyes slightly] That’s so much fun.

 Happiness Is by Taking Back Sunday is released on 17 March and is streaming now.

GEORGINA LANGFORD

Everyone has expectations of what their first tour is going to be like, so what ended up being your most unexpected experience over the past week?

Andy: The people waiting outside.
Benjamin: Definitely. People queuing for shows, that was the most unexpected thing. We’re playing London tonight and people have been waiting with blankets since 9am. We’ve turned up at every show and people have been waiting outside. None of us expected that.
Andy: Noooo [shakes head disbelievingly]. No, no. Why would we?

Aside from all the fun and japes and silliness of tour, what have been the biggest challenges so far?

Andy: Organising a group of drunk men to get to the same place is very tough.
Benjamin: Actually not even organising drunk men, getting [the straight edge] Patty Walters up on time has been the hardest.
Andy: Us drunk in the evenings, but then Patty grumpy in the mornings.
Benjamin: But yet he is still the one who gets up the latest. Last to bed and last up.

Your frontman is just operating on a different schedule to the rest of you. What’s been the ‘in the van on tour’ soundtrack?

Andy: Cher.

Actual Cher?

Benjamin: [Drummer] Foley has been screaming along to Cher.

Just to clarify, why the fuck have you been listening to Cher?

Benjamin: ‘Cause it’s fucking A. [Benjamin and Andy start screaming/singing “DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER LOVE…”] Ali just put her Greatest Hits on one day and then it just kinda stuck.
Andy: Foley lost his shit every time.
Benjamin: We’ve had a bit of Tina Turner as well.

We’ll be honest, that’s not what we were expecting.

Andy: Well it’s not what we would have expected at the beginning of tour either.
Benjamin: When we left we were listening to ‘Dookie’ by Green Day and as more people piled in the van the playlist got significantly more varied.

More Cher-ish, clearly. So you’ve been on touring with two bands that you didn’t know before, Miss Vincent and N I G H T L I F E. Although N I G H T L I F E have been supporting you, they’re an older band and have been doing this a bit longer: have they given you any good advice?

Benjamin: The main thing is they’ve been turning to us and saying “For this to be your first tour and you’ve got this many people at your shows, this is good”.

So they’ve been encouraging you?

Benjamin: Yeah, very encouraging and they’ve told us about previous bands that have had downfalls or things have gone wrong with labels, given us some warnings.
Andy: Which is really nice to know, maybe what things to expect.
Benjamin: What’s inspiring about N I G H T L I F E is obviously they’ve been around and each been in a few bands but they still do it because they love doing it.
Andy: Hang on, they’re not that old.
Benjamin: No, that’s not what I meant…

Getting back to As It Is, this tour is in support of the new EP and this is the first time you’ve been playing the new songs: how have they been received? How have you enjoyed playing them?

Andy: Better than the old ones.
Benjamin: The ‘Can’t Save Myself’ video came out two weeks ago and people know all the words – I think that’s the one that people know the most.
Andy: The scary one was people knew the words to ‘Relive The Story’, which had only been played once on Kerrang! Radio, the night before we performed it for the first time. We were in Glasgow on the Monday with it having been played the Sunday night before and people were singing it.
Benjamin: They must have been rinsing the playback.

Anytime you take new songs out of the studio and into a live experience they evolve, so how have the ‘This Mind of Mine’ tracks translated? Any changes?

Benjamin: I don’t think so, because we write them in a live setting. We write them all together so they’re kinda already written in a way that we know how to play them in a live setting.

What’s been your favourite track to perform?

Benjamin: Definitely ‘Can’t Save Myself’. It’s the most fun, it gets the biggest crowd interaction. People really seem to dig it and I think I, for lack of a better term, get off on people having a good time.
Andy: I probably enjoy playing ‘Bitter, Broken Me’ the most, just because I like my guitar parts.
Benjamin: I like your guitar parts too.
Andy: Cheers.

This feels like a significant point for you as a band with the new songs about to be unleashed on the world in a few weeks’ time. How would you say that this EP reflects where you are at right now? How do these four songs mark this point in your lives?

Benjamin: Lyrically – not to speak on behalf of Patty too much – they reflect the previous few months to writing the EP, what we were feeling, what we were going through. Which is funny because the songs are really sad and depressing but at the moment things are going really well for us. They’re kinda conflicting in that way but at the time that we were writing them they were definitely very honest.

The lyrics on the EP definitely seem to reflect a very unhappy band! But from the outset, yes things are looking good for you. What are you most proud of at the moment?

Andy: The fact that we’ve managed to do a successful first UK tour off the back of having one EP out and a music video up is ridiculous. Our first EP, ‘Blenheim Place’, came out less than a year ago, then we’ve posted a few new songs but this is just like what?!
Benjamin: To have that many people turning up to shows when you haven’t actually got that much material out in the world is just bizarre.
Andy: It feels to me like the band hasn’t changed that much, music-wise, but there’s just been this sudden shift of people actually taking notice of us.
Benjamin: Four months ago when we played Brighton and London there was barely anyone there, now the Brighton one seemed packed out and London’s looking to be pretty damn similar.

So aside from things going swimmingly, what is the silliest, most disastrous moment you’ll remember from your first ever tour when you look back in 10 years time?

Benjamin: After two shows we realised we needed to order more merch because we’d really underestimated how much we’d sell, so we had to get merch printed in a day and delivered to Manchester. Then it got delivered to us in a hearse.
Andy: A white hearse.
Benjamin: We actually went to pick it up from the address that was on the invoice and when we turned up it was this old, really drunk guy.
Andy: I don’t know whether he was drunk, he wasn’t making sense though. He told us to sit down a couple of times but we stayed on our feet, not feeling too comfortable – then he told us to “sit down and shut up!”
Benjamin: At which point we got the fuck out of there!

 Anything else?

Andy: There was also an incident on the first night of tour. Our bassist Mr Alistair Testo may have got a bit carried away with the drinking, but we managed to get him back to the hotel all safe and sound, just about. Everything was alright until Patty woke up in the middle of the night and sees said Mr Testo, boxers round his ankles, going to the toilet – on Ben, whilst Ben’s asleep.
Benjamin: All I remember is Patty woke me up after this had happened saying “Ben, Ali pissed on your bed” and I was like “Ahhh fuck”. My jeans were soaked. That was one day in and I was already down a pair of jeans and a pair of shoes, so I’ve been wearing shoes a size too small the whole tour because I only took one pair. That’s one thing I’ve learnt, take more than one pair of shoes with you.
Andy: You’re an idiot for not taking more than one pair.

The ‘This Mind of Mine’ EP by As It Is will be released on March 17th.

GEORGINA LANGFORD

Is the single ‘Top Notch’ an illustration of a heavier, rockier sound on ‘Cope’?

Yes. ‘Top Notch’ and the song ‘Cope’ bookend the album and are instrumentally and somewhat lyrically related. I think they both give a good example of what’s inside.

Both the title and the artwork for ‘Cope’ are fairly stark and minimal, especially compared to your
earlier works. Was this an intentional move?

We felt that the artwork should represent the attitude of this album: immediate, in your face, and up for interpretation.

Does the word ‘Cope’ refer to any particular experience?

It’s a word that started as a small lyric and ended up becoming a certain theme. When I would ask my friends and family what the word meant to them, they would all come back with something completely different. We all cope every single day in incredibly different ways. It’s a word that can hold positivity and a word that equally meant reliance.

How did having new member Andy Price on bass affect the writing/recording process?

There is something special about our drummer, Tim, and our new bass player, Andy. It was going to be impossible to replace Jeremiah with the same type of drummer, and a lot of times bands can suffer from that. Tim really started changing the rhythmic dynamics and capabilities of the band.When Andy joined, he was able to lock in at such a significant rate with Tim that it really made the other three of us step up our game. We feel really, really lucky and blessed that these guys are in this band.

You’ve talked about the fact that you now have a ‘Manchester Orchestra HQ’ where you
can write, record, do merch… does having that secure base free you up to focus on the
creative side of things? It must take some of the stress out of recording, for a start.

It definitely makes being a creative as a job easier. The location is so close to all of our houses and it’s a wonderful environment. The issue with having your own place and making an album on your own without outside pressure (label, management etc), is that you are truly your own thermometer and your own boss. We really made a point to hold ourselves to a really high standard of songwriting and work ethic. Possibly too much. At a certain point, a record can make or break you, and we pushed like hell and it’s one of the more rewarding moments of my career so far.

Can we discuss ‘After The Scripture’, the original song you contributed to the ‘Dallas
Buyers Club’ soundtrack? Presumably you got to watch the movie before you wrote this
track, so how did the film affect you, creatively and emotionally?

I didn’t actually get to see the movie beforehand. I did see it afterwards and thought it was great. The song is extremely personal to me. I had written that song about a young woman that I met on tour a few weeks before she passed away from cancer. We made an immediate connection with her. Her family were kind enough to ask us to come to her memorial service and for me to play a solo set of some of Anna’s favourite Manchester Orchestra songs for them and their family at their home afterwards. It was the most powerful and life-changing experience of my entire life. Since then, we have all become a family and see them quite regularly. We play a festival in Dallas every year in her honour. This song is a tribute to her and the lives that she changed forever. If you want to know more about Anna’s story, here is a link.

We recently spoke to Kevin Devine – having previously written together, which of his two
new records do you prefer? (We’re guessing you’re biased towards ‘Bubblegum’)

Oh, I couldn’t say. Some of my favourite songs he’s ever written are on both! I loved hearing him turn up because he has incredible power to rock, but I also love hearing him be subtle and clean. I love being in a band with him and we both have really high hopes for Bad Books III.

Three of the Manchester Orchestra crew contributed to the excellent Fadeaway Records
charity compilation. Was that an important project for you? Did you all write original tracks
for it?

Mike Dubin has been a friend of ours for a long time and when he told me about the project and how it’s raising all this money for cancer research, I obviously wanted to be a part of it. It’s a crazy list of musicians that I never thought I would release something with and I find that awesome. We all had those songs beforehand.

You’ll be touring the UK just after you release ‘Cope’. How does playing over here compare to shows in the US?

We have always considered the UK equal to the US. Our crowds have grown together and we have tremendous respect for our fans over there. We received more success commercially in the US but that has never stopped our crowds from growing and being equal in size. I love that we are playing the small sweaty clubs on this run. It’s going to be so much fun. We will be back in the fall for a more proper hang.

GEORGINA LANGFORD

Kevin spoke to us about his deep love for Smith and working with his producer, Rob Schnapf, the Kickstarter experience and being in the studio with Jesse Lacey, whilst the now clean-living Mr Devine ate a pre-show apple and drank a black coffee. We recommend you too grab a hot beverage and get comfortable, because Kevin has a lot of interesting things to say. Especially about Morrissey.

Slightly off topic before we start: you keep posting on Instagram about the Morrissey book. Do you actually like it? We’ve tried a couple of times and just can’t get along with it.

You hate it? Here’s the thing: I think I have a very high tolerance for Morrissey’s antics. I don’t know how far you’ve got, but there’s a section in that book where he talks about how, when The Smiths are ‘happening’, Mick Jagger comes to see them in New York. It’s a big deal for Johnny Marr, but not so much for Morrissey, and he’s writing in the tone of someone who now knows that they were wrong about something. I’m a sucker for anyone who can publicly admit changes of heart, that’s why I – and sorry, this is really off-subject – I always found something appealing about people like Malcolm X. He never shied away from saying “My thought process on this was wrong”. If more people were like that, the world would be very different. Because we’re very afraid of being wrong, it’s like, embarrassing. So Morrissey talks about [Jagger] and says that at the time, he doesn’t care, but later he’s realised the brilliance of the Rolling Stones. But at that gig Mick Jagger watches three songs and then leaves, and says something like “He was a bit much for me”. Morrissey says he has never held that [opinion of himself] against people, because he knows it’s true, and knows that the only thing he ever felt he had to offer to the band was his commitment. His commitment to just be this ‘open wound’, even if that was embarrassing and when people said “He’s a bit too much” Morrissey said he thought “If only you knew”.

He writes with great humour, wry humour. There’s parts of the book that my wife has zero tolerance for. She bought me the book, but she has no time for him. I read her a passage of it and she was like “There’s no fucking way I could do that”. But this is a book written by a guy who gives off the impression of being really arrogant, but so much of that arrogance comes from being insecure and aloof and not knowing how to deal with being a person. Also, he was and is an encyclopaedic, passionate fan of popular music and film, and you see from that obsessiveness that he was basically unemployable. If he hadn’t become ‘Morrissey from The Smiths’ he probably would have just died when he was 25 years old.

All he could ever be was Morrissey.

Yeah. He is a lot to deal with, but for what it’s worth, I totally believe him. I think he really is that guy. For better, and for often, way way way way worse.

Did you know he made them publish it as a Penguin ‘Classic’? There it is: you don’t even need to read the book. Everything you need to know about Morrissey is right there on the cover.

Everything you need to know is in that gesture. Anyway, yes I am really enjoying it – but that might be because I’m a huge Smiths fan too. But you should persevere.

Bringing this conversation back to you –

I don’t mind. I could talk about Morrissey all day.

Let’s rewind to almost exactly a year ago, when you were doing your Kickstarter to fund the two albums, ‘Bubblegum’ and ‘Bulldozer’. Can we talk about that first day that you set the Kickstarter live and it all basically blew up? How did that feel when you looked at your computer and saw what had just happened?

When I realised that we had already hit the goal?

That you had hit it and that the pledged amount was continuing to go up and up.

That day was really crazy. The honest truth was that I really thought we had an outside chance at reaching the $50,000 over the 45 days. I had no idea how to compare what we were doing to other people’s Kickstarters. In a weird way, I was thinking about it in the way that ‘Brother’s Blood’ and ‘Between the Concrete and Clouds’ were both made, all in, for between $25-30,000. That was inclusive of marketing, everything. So I thought that $50,000 was basically two ‘Between the Concrete and Clouds’. What was shocking and illuminating for me was realising that this wasn’t going to work like a record label; this is your fans, so whichever way this ends up, it’s doubly damning.

We had tried to get the Kickstarter launched two weeks earlier, but we had some administrative problems. But by the time we had sorted all that and it actually went live, I’d already gone through the inner turmoil and had more or less made peace with the whole idea. I kept telling myself “I’m not in the results business, I’m in the effort business”. You have no hand in results ever, and you have to let them go. Sometimes you do everything right and you get the wrong result, sometimes you fuck up every step of the way and the best thing happens.

So that day, when it finally went live, I pressed the button, I shut my computer down. I left the house, saw friends for about two hours. When I finally turned my phone back on, it was like…

Exploding with notifications?

Not just from the Kickstarter, so many emails too. I opened the computer again and say we put the project up at noon, it was now 2:30pm and we were at $18,000. But the way I’m wired – and this isn’t faux-humility – I don’t know if it’s a protective, defence mechanism or something, but I thought, “Ok, that’s it. They’re the last people who are going to donate to this”.

Then I was on the phone with Andy from Manchester (Manchester Orchestra and Bad Books, not Manchester: Morrissey’s domain) and while were were talking for about an hour, he was freaking out. Every twenty minutes he’d be like “$21,000’…’$22,500” and I was like “Let’s just talk about ANYTHING else”.

Like that scene in Breaking Bad, where Walter Junior keeps watching the total of the donations for Walter’s surgery going up.

Yeah! It was exactly like that. I had my wife, my mom, my manager calling me. People were freaking out. We got to $40,000 by about 7pm. I thought “Woah, we are within shouting distance of doing this”. Then we hit $50,000 in nine hours. In the first day we did $61,000. I swear to god, no bullshit: I was the last person who thought that was what was going to happen. There were a lot of people around me who were like “Oh, dude, you are gonna do that” but that was not what I thought. So that day was – an overused word is – surreal. But it was. And the outpouring of goodwill too; seeing how many people who were not just literally invested financially, but also just so happy for me to see this moment. I was kind of trapped in that moment; at that point there was no concept of “Oh wow, this is going to be a lot of work”.

“All these people have pledged money, what the hell do we do now…”

I asked Kickstarter after the first day if we could unplug it! We’d hit our goal, but you’re actually not allowed to do that. Seeing how it all shook out, and what that extra money enabled us to do…we probably ended up spending $30-40,000 on each record, which is not something we would have done. When that money was there, we prioritised the experience of actually making the records over everything else.

What was your reasoning for doing two albums at once?

I wanted to justify doing the Kickstarter to myself. There’s an interview I read with Jack White, who’s great, but also someone, like Morrissey, who people can think is a dick, but he talked about how he’ll come offstage, and his friends will be like “Did you have fun?” He said something like “I don’t know how to tell them this without sounding like a self-involved, art-damaged prick, but I don’t have ‘fun’ doing that on stage. I intentionally set myself challenges, that’s why I play shitty old guitars or I try to do two things at once, because I want to push myself. And that, in a way, is my version of fun.” That’s something I relate to; obviously he’s an enormously successful, popular musician but a bit like him, I have never taken the easier road because I think it’s kind of cool to see “Can I do this?” and sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. The two records came from that idea.

I was also uniquely positioned to do something like that since half of my brain plays acoustic, pop, folk, whatever, gentler, more thoughtful music, then the other half of my brain wants to be in the loudest parts of the Pixies or Nirvana. Instead of all of my records up to this point being kind of musically schizo, I decided to split it into two albums. I didn’t think ‘Bulldozer’ would end up being the bright, shimmery, pop record it is. I thought that was going to be more like ‘Nebraska’ by Bruce Springsteen and Schnapf didn’t hear it that way, which I’m grateful for because I think we made a really pretty record. And that also means that my original idea for that record is still waiting to be made.

Exactly, if you still have that creative idea in you, it’s got to come out at some point. Obviously the records have completely different sounds, but considering you were writing and recording them at exactly the same time, was there any moment where there was any kind of crossover, in so much as you didn’t know which album each new song would end up on?

It’s weird because I always knew. A song like ‘Now Navigate’, once it started taking shape with the guys from Everest playing bass and drums, that song I knew exactly how I wanted it to sound; full. But I also knew that that doesn’t sound like the ‘Bubblegum’ songs. Even if there were distorted guitars sometimes, or the drums are loud, this was still a folk song that you are dressing up. Whereas a song like ‘Fiscal Cliff’, or one of the slower songs like ‘I Can’t Believe You’ on ‘Bubblegum’, I knew that was not a ‘Bulldozer’ song somehow. Its mood and its tone, its chord progressions, it just fit more on that record. The mellower moments on ‘Bubblegum’, like ‘I Don’t Care About Your Band’; that’s quieter, and pretty, and maybe would have made sense dynamically on ‘Bulldozer’, but it felt like a punk rock song, to me. It’s simplicity and what it’s saying felt more in line with the tone of ‘Bubblegum’. It was more about the tone of each record, and the lyrical approaches. ‘Bulldozer’ feels a little more ‘in’, whereas ‘Bubblegum’ is a little more ‘out’.

That’s a fair way to sum them up! It’s interesting the way you work with some idea of the finished product already in your mind.

That actually develops song by song. Also, while with some of the songs, even when I was just writing them on my acoustic guitar, I knew how they were going to sound, there were others, like ‘Safe’, my favourite song from either record, Rob heard something entirely different to me. He helped me try opening things up. He was like “Think like, Neil Young…on the beach…kind of like…stoned”.

We need to talk about your two different producers; first, the excellently named Rob Schnapf.

Yes, sadly the ‘p’ is silent. Rob ‘Schnaff’.

We’ll trust you on that pronunciation. He’s previously worked with Elliott Smith, who’s something of a hero of yours?

Musically, he’s one of my biggest influences. In terms of how he demonstrated how to be a really dynamic and powerful performer just by yourself. And never doing the easy thing. He is one of the most deeply understood artists of our time (which sounds like a very dramatic thing to say) but people hear him and they just think “Oh it’s sad” or “Oh it’s pretty” or “soft”, and when people try to sound like him, they sing [starts whispering] in a whisper, while finger-picking on the guitar. He was, hands down, the best musician of his generation. He could do anything he wanted on any instrument, but he reined that in to fit the song. His lyrics are deeper, more thoughtful, mysterious, layered than anyone else’s…I’m not a huge fan of how he played out the last two years of his life, it sounds like he hurt a lot of people. I think he was a very beautiful soul who was probably very sick. He’s just another tragic, awful example, like Philip Seymour Hoffman, of how no-one is made exempt by their intellect or talent from the ramifications of untreated addiction. I don’t mean that as a judgement, I mean that as someone who understands that we all have dark and fucked up – not even fucked up, that’s a judgement too – we all have parts of ourselves that are sick. He was a really sick guy who could never let anyone in to help him.

The anniversary of his death last year gave a lot of people the impetus to start delving into his back catalogue, which is nothing but a good thing. Moving on to Mr Jesse Lacey, who as well as being a good friend of yours, also did his first official producing outside of Brand New for ‘Bubblegum’. It’s a brave thing to work with a close friend, let alone one who’s had considerable success in their own right.

[Raised-eyebrow smile from Kevin] Yeah, a fair amount of success.

That must have been a learning experience for both of you.

We’re very close. I think that made us even closer, if that’s possible. When he is creatively turned on, he is so enthusiastic and imaginative, he’s really smart, he’s an excellent songwriter and he has keen instincts. Case in point: when he sang with me on ‘Cotton Crush’ from ‘Split The Country, Split The Street’ [in 2005] he said “You’ve got to do this vocal part like this [starts singing] “that’s when you’re do-ne / that’s when your do-ne”. It was this chanting thing, and I was like “Dude, that’s cheesy”. But he insisted: “I know you think it’s cheesy, I know why you think it’s cheesy, but I promise you that will be the part that every kid sings back to you at every one of your shows.” I said, :I don’t know if I want that” and he was like “Just do it”. Of course, ten years later, that is still the part that every kid sings at the show.

My friend Matthew, the singer of Nada Surf, he tilts his head to one side and a perfectly formed pop song falls out of his ear. I’m like “You motherfucker, how do you do that?” Jesse has that too. Also with ‘Bubblegum’, I knew I wanted to make a noisy, punk rock record, and Jesse is a great guy to have around when you want to make a lot of noise and yell. He knows what to do there. So for me it was just trusting him, letting him get in there. And for him it was learning about how another band works. Our band works a lot faster than [Brand New], and because he was working on something that wasn’t his, he had to sometimes just make a decision [snaps his fingers] instead of waiting six months to decide a guitar tone.

Ultimately, both records benefitted from the involvement of each different producer. And the number one beneficiary of that is me, because I get to learn from them. While Rob is like “Try this chord version, try this tempo”, working with Jesse was a little more intuitive and so I got to become a better musician but in two totally opposite directions which was pretty cool.

GEORGINA LANGFORD

Hi Allison, what’s the first song you wrote that really changed things for you?

A very old song of mine called ‘The End’. It was the first song I wrote that felt real to me, I think because all the others I had written so far were very personal and specific but this was the first one that felt really universal.

The Wonder Years’ Soupy recommended your music to us. Who originally got you into music when you were growing up?

Definitely my parents. My dad is a musician so there were always instruments around the house. My musical upbringing included a lot of The Police, The Outfield, The Beatles… but in 6th grade I discovered the radio and fell in love with Top 40 and country music. Crazy, I know, but I just love pop songs. I think country music is made up of the poppiest songs around. Later on in middle school I got into Green Day, MxPx, everything on the old Punk-o-rama comps. High school was when I discovered emo and it was all downhill from there.

You’ve got a new found love for Tom Odell – any other UK artists on your current playlists?

I finally listened to The 1975 the other day and I’m a big fan now.

How does it feel to be going on tour with Matt Pryor – were you a Get Up Kids fan?

Matt Pryor is an excellent human being. We just toured the West Coast together so I’m excited to be back out with him. As for Get Up Kids, I knew who they were but I never took the time to listen. It’s a deep regret. It seems that they made such an impact on so many songwriters I love. I definitely missed out and it’s my own dang fault.

What’s your favourite song (or songs) to play live at the moment and why?

Probably ‘Wait For Me’. I like how it has the power to quiet down a room full of rowdy dudes. It gets me every time!

You just played the Troubadour – is that the most special venue you’ve had a show at, or somewhere else?

For me it was Bowery Ballroom in NYC. I lived in Brooklyn for 3 years, and the Bowery show was my last show before moving to California. I had always dreamed of playing there and it was such an honour to get to stand on that stage before I left.

It’s cool that you have a tape recorder on your merch stand for fans to leave you messages. Got any good ones so far?

I’ve gotten so many beautiful heartfelt messages, but the best was a very sincere young man who said, “My name is ****, I love suckin’ dick and Allison Weiss”.

Your recent video, for ‘Wait For Me’, is kind of heartbreaking [it features a woman listening to Allison’s song in real life just after leaving her family to study]. Firstly, is Josee a friend of yours?

No! She’s a friend of the director, Trevor Bowman. I haven’t met her yet. I think she’s busy in school.

Secondly, is making people cry (in a good way) something that you aim to do with your songs?

I aim to make people feel something. I aim to say the things that we’re all thinking when we’re stuck in those rough spots. When you’re right in the middle of it, it’s easy to feel like nobody on earth could ever understand. In reality, everyone does. I aim to put that feeling to music.

You recently got into a ‘discussion’ with Property of Zack over an article about sexuality and equality – are those both things that are important for you to discuss via your music?

I don’t like to get political in my songwriting (probably because I’m not good at it), but I will absolutely use my place as a public figure on The Internets to stand up for what I believe in, and stand up for my fans. It’s very important to spread a message of hope and love. Equality is not an opinion, it’s a basic human right.

What is your tagline, 100% Forever, all about?

It’s just how I live my life, really.

Allison Weiss goes on tour with Matt Pryor from February 14th. The album ‘Say What You Mean’ by Allison Weiss is out now.

GEORGINA LANGFORD