Interview : THE SUNSHINE UNDERGROUND
The Little Stalkers : Last time I saw you live, you were supporting the Happy Mondays – what took you so long to come back ?
The Sunshine Underground : (laughs) That’s a good question.
Craig (vocals, guitar) : We wanted to take our time for the next album – a lot of bands rush into their second album ; sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.
TLS : Do you have any examples ?
Matthew (drums) : Nah, that would be mean !
Craig : It’s just that when you get signed, usually, you’ve been playing for three or four years, and you have lots of songs for this first album. But then you’ve got to record your second album and you only got a year, which is a quarter of the time you spent on the first.
Stuart (guitar) : We only took two years. To be fair, it’s quite a long time, but compared to the first album, it’s not very long.
Matt : We were in a position where we could take our time - a lot of bands haven’t got that kind of liberty.
Craig : We recorded a lot of songs for the new album like a year ago, but it wasn’t quite right. We ended up writing the best songs at the end of the process. It worked out for the best.
Stu : We’re definitely glad we took the time.
TLS : Are you worried that your fans might have forgotten you ?
Craig : Yeah, a little bit. When we organised this tour, we were wondering if people were going to buy tickets ! But it’s gone really well.
Matt : Tonight is sold out !
Craig : So we hope we’ll make a good impression. You have got to come and play little shows like this one, and then work your way back up – you can’t stay on the same level after you disappeared for a year or so. It’s nice to be touring again.
TLS : How does it feel to be an established band now, amongst all the new ones ?
Craig : It’s ... cool.
TLS : You don’t feel any competition ... ?
Craig : No, not really. We always did our own thing, so you know ...
Stu : (throwing rocks in the water) It’s not a question of new or old band. You can get inspired by any band.
TLS : Which new bands are you listening to ?
Stu : They’re not new at all, but I’ve been listening to the New TV On The Radio album – I really like them. Friendly Fires as well.
TLS : They’re playing next door tonight !
Stu : Yes they are ! I wish I could go see them.
Craig : I like Florence & the Machine.
TLS : When you started touring with your debut album, you were linked to bands tagged as “nu-rave” – how would you describe yourself now ?
Matt : We never tagged ourselves as nu-rave. But we were associated to it.
Craig : We just write songs, you know. We’re definitely a guitar band, but we like dance beats. And that’s always been the case. So I don’t think we can really say what we are, really.
TLS : How does the new record sound ? Is it very different from your debut album ?
Craig : It’s much more heavier than the first record. It’s much more like driven. And we kind of retained the dance elements.
Stu : (laughing) Sorry, we couldn’t be more vague if we tried !
TLS : Since the release of your debut album, you got successful and toured the world ... What is the challenge now ?
Craig : I think the challenge is to be bigger than ever ! Also, with the first record, it was like an initiation to this world. Now we want people to like what we create, how we evolve.
Stu : Because after the second album, you see a lot of new bands disappearing ... The challenge is to be here to stay. Keep going and keep doing good songs. Everyone likes new things, but then ... You have to be strong enough to stay on the scene.
Matt : At the same time we’re very proud of this album. It took a long time top get to this point, and the challenge is to make people like it.
Craig : I think we always thought our first record was not to flag it up because we thought it was really good, but that we sounded better live than we sounded on the record, so we were trying to make an album that sounded as good live as it sounded good on record. And hopefully we’ve done it.
TLS : Can you tell me more about the writing process, your inspirations ... ?
Craig : I just write about emotions.
TLS : Waoh, that’s deep.
Craig : (laughs) You know, I don’t really have themes. It’s quite vague but I think I kinda make sense. But you just get better at it if you carry on writing. I’m also definitely better at playing the guitar on this record. But the writing process – we wrote about 50 songs. Sometimes it was really difficult, and sometimes it was very easy, and sometimes some things just came out of nowhere. Sometimes we’d been kicking the same song for like two months without really getting anywhere. It’s been difficult to make this record, in a way.
TLS : How many songs are on the record ?
Stu : There are only 10 songs.
TLS : What happened to the others ?
Stu : (laughing) B-sides !!!
Craig : It was hard to decide and hard to control. Sometimes we decided to take some bits of the others and include them in the song we kept in the end. Beats ideas, lyrics ...
Stu : We really kept the best ones.
TLS : Some musicians have been known for taking a break to go back to university, that kind of things. Did you do anything else but write music during this 2-year break ?
Craig : No, just writing. Well, we’ve been doing a bit of DJ-ing.
Stu : And sometimes we needed a break from writing because we were like "God, when is this record going to be finished ?!" It was necessary.
TLS : What are the upcoming plans then ?
Craig : The album is only being released at the end of the year, so we wanted to play a series of small warm-up shows, before the real tour that will start this winter. We’ll first tour the U.K in the autumn and we will be going to Europe, hopefully, before the end of the year. By the way are you going to see us tonight, or Friendly Fires ?
I obviously attended TSU’s gig, and it was worth this 2 years wait. Check their new songs as well as their gig dates on www.myspace.com/thesunshineunderground and we’ll see you at the front row during the tour.
PS : leave your glowstick at home !
CB.
