Interview : The Futureheads
Dropped by their label. Second album failing to reach commercial success. For many bands it would have meant the end. But not for Sunderland's The Futureheads. With a free track offered on download in October (Broke Up The Time) and a couple of low key gigs in December, The Futureheads are back with their third album (This Is Not The World). And they are going to rule 2008, with or without a major label. Success they deserve, and success they will have.
The Little Stalkers : You are playing 3 gigs which are sold out I think ...
Barry Hyde (vocals, guitar) : Yeah we're doing tonight's show (London KCLSU, 29.11.07), and then 2 shows in Sunderland next week, and then in between we're playing in Mexico with Iggy And The Stooges.
TLS : And how do you feel about gigs solding out ? I mean, you must be very happy ... after such a long absence ...
Barry : Oh yeah, yeah ... It's great, it's a great compliment. But at the same time, some of our best shows have been done in front of 5 people you know ... so it doesn't always mean that the show is gonna be great when it's sold out but its nice to think that we've been away for a little while and we've organised shows on a very low key level, without advertising and the solding out is great, we've got some really nice fans.
TLS : What can we expect from tonight's show ? Are you just going to play new songs ?
Barry : We'll play 25% new and 75% older songs, cause we feel that any more than that will be a bit too much new information.
TLS : And are you still excited to play older songs ?
Barry : Yeah cause we haven't really played them in a while either, we never lose enthusiasm for the old material. Well, some of them, you know, but not all of them, some of them we'll play forever.
TLS : Let's talk about the third album (This Is Not The World), when is it out ? Is it finished ?
Barry : It's coming out in spring, we've finished it. We just need to decide ... we've recorded 20 songs and we just need to decide which are gonna be on the album. We made the album with the producer Youth, who used to be in Killing Joke. He's worked with a lot of different bands, and he has a house in the South of Spain in Andalusia. And we went there and recorded in the mountains ...
TLS : Mmmm, quite nice ...
Barry : Oh yeah it was lovely, beautiful scenery. It's all lemon and orange groves and almond trees, pomgranates etc etc ...
TLS : And did you write some of the songs there or was everything written already ?
Barry : No, we wrote probably about 9 songs while over there, and the rest of them were kind of written but we hadn't finished. When you work with a producer, you have to be open to their suggestions, otherwise, why work with a producer ?
TLS : I read somewhere that you wanted to self-produce the album. Why ?
Barry : I just thought why not ! Why pay someone money to do something that we could do ! But the rest of the band wouldn't allow it !
TLS : You gave a free track for people to download (Broke Up The Time), do you know how many people downloaded it ? Did it do well ?
Barry : It did very well and it got a lot of press. Not sure how many but a lot more than we hoped for. So it was a success. It even got reviewed in the NME, even though it's not an actual release. It's not on a record label or anything.
TLS : And why not doing like Radiohead, letting people decide how much the song would be worth ?
Barry : I don't fully understand the idea of that you know ... people couldn't buy it at all, our track was free so ... I don't quite understand what they've done ...
TLS : But it kind of makes people more responsible towards music, letting them decide how much they would be ready to pay for it ...
Barry : I think a value should be put on music. Even though we give one song away for free out of 20 songs, in the album there will be 12 songs that won't be free. It's just a way of opening people's ears so they can get excited over the other songs.
TLS : Do you think bands still need record companies ?
Barry : No, I don't think they do. Some do, some don't. I think new bands do, because they need to establish themselves. Cause nobody knows them and record companies can pay to promote them and then people can start talking about them, whereas for a band, like ourselves, who are already established, that part of the journey is already finished, so we don't need that anymore, we can just sell records to our fans.
TLS : And with the internet, don't you think that record companies are kind of useless in some cases ?
Barry : Yeah they are. Major labels, and some independent are useless. But I think the era of major label domination is kind of coming to an end. Because major labels have sucked all of the passion out of the music, I think the line between the art and business has been crossed. People don't know which is which, and it's sad because art has nothing to do with money. Art is all about passion, and if you're thinking about money then you're not actually an artist but a businessman.
TLS : But still, the job has to be done by someone, promoting bands and selling them ...
Barry : It's got to be yeah ...
TLS : And what Radiohead did, only them could do that ...
Barry : Yeah, such a huge band. And there are only a few bands in the world who are at that stature and none of the rest of them would. Coldplay wouldn't do that.
TLS : Well, they could ...
Barry : Yeah they could, but Radiohead have the forward-thinking bravery to do that. It's their thing, you know, like making electronic music straight after a very successful guitar album. It's kind of like saying "This is what we wanna do, you can't define us and we'll continue to define ourselves". And that's what they do.
TLS : You only released 2 singles off the second album ... why ?
Barry : It was Warner's choice. The singles didn't do very well commercially. So the record company thought "That's enough, no point in releasing another one, forget it".
TLS : On wich label are you right now ?
Barry : Our label.
TLS : How is it called ?
Barry : It's called Nul.
TLS : Aye ! Do you know what it means in French ? It means "It sucks" !
Barry : Really ? Cause it means "zero" in German !
TLS : I saw that you played Italy, Germany ... and I saw you twice when you played in France, why not the rest of Europe ?
Barry : There was a problem with Warner. We signed a record deal about 5 years ago, for the whole world. In the UK it went quite well, but everywhere else the record company people were not very good. In France for example, we always wanted to go and play there, we thought "Come on let's play there, let's tour France !", and the record company was like "No point. No point in doing so, cause you're not selling any record there, so we're not gonna pay for you to come and tour" and we thought "If we can't come and play, then how can we sell records ? Cause that's what we do. If we can't play then no one can hear us !" And it was like that in Scandinavia and various places ... So when we got rid of our record deal with Warner, it was a very good day.
TLS : Ok, we're not gonna mention Warner anymore ! So, what can we expect on your new album ?
Barry : The album is fast, fast played. We made it in Spain, so it's very hot, the music sounds hot. It's very positive, but also quite angry at the same time. We wrote the songs very quickly, we recorded 20 songs in 16 days, so more than one song a day, so it was very intense.
TLS : I thought, the more albums you record, the more time you take to put the finishing touches for example ...
Barry : No, I think the more albums you make, the better you get at it so the less time needs to be taken.
TLS : But maybe you think more about the songs, whereas when you're young, recording for the first time, you're more spontaneaous, music comes up straight away whithout thinking ...
Barry : Well, the thing is our first album took us 1 year, and our third took us 2 weeks ! And we think it's our best album. We're a punk band, it's important not to spend too much time poking away at it. So we just wanted to cut to the very essence, the purity and record that, and that only takes 3 minutes !
TLS : And do you have any plans to promote the new album, singles and such ?
Barry : Yeah we've picked the first 2 singles, the first one we're definite of, it's called The Beginning Of The Twist, which is out in early March. And then 1 or 2 months later we're gonna release another single, and then the album will be out in May. We're gonna concentrate a lot more on central Europe this time, because we're gonna be able to go there ! So we're gonna do a proper tour in France, like 10 or 15 shows, proper tour in Germany, Italy, Spain ... do all these things that we could never really do !
TLS : So basically, you are doing what you want ?
Barry : Yeah, everything is on our terms, we own our music. Warner Bros own our first 2 albums, and every band don't own their album. Even Radiohead ... EMI owns OK Computer. But we are gonna own our new album, our copyright, which feels amazing. It's liberating.
TLS : So you don't make money from your previous albums ?
Barry : From touring and publishing, but not from record company, because they just spent too much money. Like, they spent £100.000 on a video that you don't make money from ! All they can do is just go "Money money money money" and then the pile goes up and up and up and then suddenly they just go "Bye !" when there's no money left !
TLS : Finally, can I ask you which bands you find the most exciting lately ?
Barry : I like a band called Les Savy Fav, an American band, they've got a new album. I love them, I think they're fantastic. I love Shellac, Steve Albini's band. I really like School Of Language from Sunderland. Do you know Field Music ? It's one of the brother, David's solo project.
TLS : Promoting local bands ?
Barry : Local bands, yeah. Also my fiancee's band Dananananaykroyd, who are playing before us tonight. They're very good, they're great.
The interview stops here on the record, but off the record, Barry is talking about how he loves French food (bouillabaisse !) and British people being very bad at foreign languages ... well, nothing music-related, basically ! So I'm afraid it will remain off the record :-p
The Futureheads are starting a UK tour in April. Go and check their tourdates on
www.myspace.com/thefutureheads. More importantly, go and see them, and please buy their cds if you like the sound of it. Cause they need us.
JT.
