David Tattershall has jitters. Is it to do with the impending royal nuptials? “I can’t stand the royal family actually,” he says, “not that I wish them any ill of course”. Perhaps it’s the lengthy cross-country drive he and his band The Wave Pictures have just completed, en route to their first ever gig on the Emerald Isle at Galway’s Roisin Dubh, or the fact that as we talk Tattershall is overlooking a beer can infested canal opposite tonight’s venue. Whatever: within the nerves, the excitable, slightly quivering timbre of his voice suggests a man whose creative juices are flowing; a man who’s ready, with his two closest companions, for this two month jaunt around the UK
Their new album, Beer In The Breakers, came out on May 2nd on the Moshi Moshi label to almost universal praise. Recorded over the space of just 24 hours at the home of former Hefner frontman and indie national treasure Darren Hayman, it’s been described as “an album’s worth of salty romance… vivid, nostalgic, tasting of citrus” and “pure poetry”. It’s an accomplished work, flitting between hung-over people watching (recent single “Little Surprise”), the melancholy provoked by stumbling upon the remnants of a deserted beach party (“Beer In The Breakers”) and the beginnings of a love affair (forthcoming single “Blue Harbour
Though no strangers to critical acclaim, Tattershall admits that he, drummer Jonny Helm and bassist Franic Rozycki have made mistakes in the past. “We have regrets,” he says. “If You Leave It Alone should have had a limited release rather than Susan Rode The Cyclone. I would have preferred I Love You Like A Madman (from If You… ) to be a stand alone single… maybe left out a couple of the darker songs on Instant Coffee Baby… but these regrets always seem bigger at the time”. How does the new album compare? “All three of us are really pleased with it. We’re quite pleased with ourselves. Sorry to sound smug!” he says, bashfully.
The album originally started out as an experiment, a chance to work with good friend and regular collaborator Hayman. “We thought maybe we’d knock out a couple of b-sides, pay Darren for his time, but we recorded maybe 20 songs over the day,” says David. “We were really excited by (Hayman’s) sound. He got us sounding like how we imagine we sound live. He’s a great engineer.”
Recording one take per song with no overdubs suited them – The Wave Pictures aren’t into to the conventional practice of band rehearsal. “We don’t rehearse. We try and do a lot of playing instead. We’re much better live and the lack of overdubbing really freed us up. It was just four friends together”.
One reviewer expressed surprise at being “left with some surprisingly dark emotions for a Wave Pictures record”. The balance of light and shade is, David admits, completely intentional. “I’m frustrated by bands who are one thing or the other, hard-rock, folk… I don’t want to be pigeonholed. The people I grew up listening to, The Stones, Bob Dylan, weren’t like that. Darren was very keen to have that contrast. It was a conscious effort”.
As I bid David farewell, I can’t resist enquiring as to the Wave Pictures’ plans for the royal wedding the following day, even though I already know the answer. Will they be celebrating? “I won’t be waving little flags. I’m just glad I’m out of the country.”
Amen to that.
It may not figure much in the glut of seasonal indie tunes clogging up the internet at the moment, but The Wave Pictures‘ ‘I Love You Like a Madman’ is one of the best Christmas songs ever. A sweet and funny tale of staying at the girlfriend’s folks over Christmas, it’s packed full of the sort of Yuletide drama not often heard elsewhere. Like making it through Christmas without being caught smoking by the parents, buying the right present (“bras instead of pickled eggs, chocolate instead of chutney”), and dripping tinned peach juice on the carpet. This was in my mind when that I asked the band a few questions, so I had to pop in a couple of obligatory seasonal ones.
This year has been quieter than others for the band. There’s been no UK album, but there was the wonderful Sweetheart EP, a European LP release Susan Rode the Cyclone which combines the Sweetheart songs with a few others, and their current single ‘Jonny Helm Sings’ where drummer Jonny steps out from behind the kit – as he often does live – to take over the mic for a couple of versions of past Pictures classics. They’ve just been on a tour of Italy
What kind of year has it been for The Wave Pictures?
It’s been an up and down, in between kind of year. Not the best and not the worst.
David, you released a solo album this year. How do you decide on which songs are Wave Pictures songs and which are solo ones?
I wrote the songs for the solo album specifically. There was one I had already done on a previous side project, Dan of Green Gables, called ‘I Saw Your Hair Between The Trees’, which we did again on my solo album because Clemence wanted to sing it. The others were written for it.
Jonny, you’re known to sing a few numbers live. Was that what led to the decision to put out a record with you on vocals? Or are you secretly plotting to be the lead singer?
Yes. I started to sing a few of Dave’s songs live so we decided to record them in the same way. I have no plans to be a singer, I like it behind the drums.
The Sweetheart EP was an excellent stopgap between albums. Is there a new LP coming next year? If so, what can we expect?
We have a new album to release next year. It is produced by Darren Hayman. It has no overdubs on it whatsoever. It’s the three of us recorded live. It’s perhaps a little darker, and also more true to the band than our other recent albums have been.
Is Susan Rode the Cyclone your first European release? Have you got ardent fan bases in Spain , Germany and Italy
Yes, we have fans in those places. My all time favourite shows with the band have been in Germany and Spain Italy UK
A big part of the appeal of The Wave Pictures is David’s lyrics. How do you overcome the language barrier in these other countries?
Well, I think a lot of people really listen closely to the lyrics and enjoy them. English is a pretty universal language. I get the feeling they go over OK. And there are plenty of other things going on. Guitar solos, drumming… I mean, it all has a beat. I think you could enjoy it if you didn’t speak any English too. I certainly like to listen to lots of music where they are singing in a language I don’t understand.
What does a Wave Pictures Christmas look like? (other than like in ‘I Love You Like a Madman’ of course)
You know, probably a bit like yours. I guess we’re all going to see our families and what have you.
Since we’re at the end of 2010, what are your favourite songs/records of the year?
Stanley Brinks made some great albums this year, Hoots and Horns In and Another One Just Like That, which has The Wave Pictures as his backing band! So, maybe I shouldn’t say that one, but it’s really great. I know Skitter On Take-Off, the last Vic Chestnut album before he died, came out last year, but I really got into that album this year. It’s very messy and sad but also quiet triumphant in some strange way. I like Essex Arms by Darren Hayman, too.
The Wave Pictures are David Tattersall, Franic Rozycki and Jonny ”Huddersfield ” Helm. This Loughborogh three-piece have gigged sporadically over the last decade, slowly crafting their witty pop songs that are shot through with Jonathan Richman’s gawky glee and Suede’s doomed provincial romanticism. Their sound is essentially a stripped-back rock ‘n’ roll that owes debts of various denominations to Chuck Berry, Dick Dale and Morrissey. On the cusp of the release of their next album Beer In The Breakers, the guys took some time out to chat to us about inspiration, gigging and future plans.
Where did the name The Wave Pictures come from?
DT: It came from an art book called Art Now, a reference book where every page is a different artist of the last 20 years. Zoe Leonard did a series of photographs of the sea called ‘The Wave Pictures’. She also did a piece called ‘Strange Fruit for David’. This was a knitted banana and two oranges arranged in the hilarious shape of male genitalia. She’s some kind of feminist artist who’s probably not very good. She gave us that title. When you’re looking for a band name you’ll suggest anything. It just so happened that I suggested something that the guys liked. You’re coming up with names all the time. The Wave Pictures stuck, it just sounded right.
Zoe Leonard, I don’t know anything else about her. I didn’t particular like her art that I saw in the art book, it was her titles that I liked. I think that a knitted banana and oranges in the shape of a cock and balls is exactly why I, and Daily Mail readers, don’t like modern art of that sort, I think it’s crap. But you know, fair play to her, she gave us those titles.
You’re known for your collaborations with other artists. For instance, Darren Hayman from Hefner helped record and produce your new album Beer In The Breakers. Are there any collaborations on your new album?
DT: No, none. The exception was that Darren [Hayman] offered his equipment and he was in the room while we recorded, which was no larger than this large dining room table. There was no multi-tracking, no over-dubs. I mean there is studio stuff, Darren has good equipment with microphones; it’s not as low-fi as I might be making it sound. In a way it is sort of a studio album, as he [Darren] has a big old sort of desk and stuff. But it is home recording as well as it’s in his house and there are no over-dubs; everything is live. It’s just the 3 of us playing and singing. It’s real. And I think it’s the album that we’ve recorded that sounds the most like what we sound like, it’s the most like us. It’s the most representative album, the least sort of different from us live, I think. I think that’s true.
When it comes to the studio, is it ‘let’s try and get it done in one take’?
DT: Yeah, most of our albums are first or second takes. I think there may have been one song where we got up to three, but there is this sort of rule of thumb with recording where you either get something quite quickly where it’s quite spontaneous, or you have to work on it forever until you have really created something different to what you came in with. We’ve never done that – I personally don’t have the patience for it. And also because it’s what we’re like; live recordings that are rough and ready. We enjoy hearing all the different musicians; we like those sorts of records and that’s the most fun for us to do.
Considering the length of time that you have been together and the prolific log of albums that you have, do you think that you are still developing your sound? Or is your latest release demonstrating a mature, fully realised style?
DT: Well the Beer In The Breakers is defiantely not the end of us developing, as I think that we develop really slowly. We make a lot of albums along the way whereas maybe a smarter band would develop, then do an album. We have an awful lot of albums as the development is direly slow [laughs] so we think that that will probably carry on because that’s the thing that we like to do. We don’t intend to make perfect albums; they’re just meant to be us playing what we’re like at that time. I like that better. I don’t like the idea of people trying to make masterpiece EPs, and I never like those albums. I prefer band’s debut albums, so it would be nice to only make debuts and not ever graduate from that.
The most recent songs have a lot of instrumental solos and are moodier, which seems different to your oevour. Is this stuff that we’re going to see in the future?
DT: Yeah, there are definitely some really long and slow things on the new album. We’ve always done dark things like that but we’ve not always put it on our albums. It was something else that we wanted to readdress because some of the songs that perhaps get slightly more noticed are not things that we intended to. I mean in particular ‘I Love You Like A Madman’ is a song that Franic didn’t even want to put on the album. I like it a lot, but it is very jolly and I think that that was a little bit misrepresentative. But that’s fine. So we’ve put some slower, sadder, darker things on the new album, as well as some jolly things as well. Franic likes those dark, slow songs in particular.
FR: The last show that we played in London
Why is it that you don’t play those sorts of songs?
FR: There are songs that people request quite a lot like ‘Love You Like A Madman’, and then you sort of forget the other songs. It’s nice that people like the ones that they request, but it’s also nice to make that conscious decision to play the darker stuff. It’s fun to do something different – it’s very boring as a band or to go see a band that play the same set.
That’s a very good point – I’ve been to a few of your gigs and feel that I know a lot of your songs, but at your gigs I’m always confronted with something new.
JH: Yeah, we tend to play brand new songs live. We don’t rehearse them, so it’s a good way of getting to know a new song. It’s nice to see the reaction that you get from the audience.
DT: Well it is good to see an audience’s reaction, but it varies so much from audience to audience that it’s not a useful measure of a song. That’s because an audience in a bar in Germany Lexington in London
It’s really fun to play in front of audiences but they’re very changeable. You get this terrible idea in your head that the audience all has one mind; it also acts as if it does. They all clap at the same time and you feel as if it’s one union. You know yourself sometimes when you’re in an audience – if you don’t like something, you don’t express it in anyway. It’s good to try and remember that because audiences will always respond to certain triggers, but that doesn’t mean that they are actually watching an interesting concert and that they’re all enjoying themselves.
You’ve toured a lot across Europe and America
JH: Yeah, there are real big differences. In Germany , people are very good at having a good time and having a party, whereas in England
FR: Whilst in Spain
DT: It’s wonderfully crazy. The whole country is like Camden
FR: So trying to play a nice romantic ballard doesn’t really work – if you do, you find they’ve all gone to the bar and started talking really loudly.
DT: Of course, it’s not always like that in Spain Germany England I sometimes think, or in Spain
Is it true that you don’t actually make set lists for gigs?
DT: That’s true. We do that to try and keep things spontaneous, and also when we used to write set lists we ended up having an argument about what the set list should be, which is a terrible way to start your evening. But the main reason is just to try and keep it spontaneous; like you don’t know what’s going to happen. The Wave Pictures don’t improvise lots – it’s not jazz – but it’s important to improvise a bit. And not making a set list is in itself not determining what it is that you are going to do – you’re flying by the seat of your pants a little bit, which is part of what a live show should be.
It really is boring and shocking how many bands play the exact same set the exact same way night after night, as if they’re X Factor pop type of musicians. In your head they’re inde musicians, but you end up thinking you’re watching popular musicians, but you’re not. There’s far too much of that. If someone has paid to see a live show, that’s what they want to get. They want to get something that they have never seen before and never will again. And that’s why it’s also good if you fuck up or make a mistake. Anything that’s a bit different is good. Jonny sometimes sings a song and the best thing that can happen, even though he finds it mortifying, is that he forgets the words. But when he does the audience goes crazy for it. It’s like perfect stage craft; he’s not faking and they love it. It makes it more live, which makes it more exciting.
If you’re not using a set list, does the audience determine the show by requesting songs?
DT: We’ve done whole sets by requests, but it depends what mood we’re in really – sometimes I won’t do a request and sometimes I won’t play the song that the audience wants because someone’s annoyed me in the audience or I’m cross, or I’m the wrong amount drunk or just because I really want to sing something else. Other times we’re a complete sort of whore for audience affection and we’ll play everything that they want and be very happy. It’s nobody’s fault, it’s just a lot to do with mood, and how we’re feeling. So everything we sing, we’re really feeling it.
So when you take requests are there clear favourites? Do people shout out ‘we want Strange Fruit for David’ for example?
DT: Yeah, ‘Strange Fruit for David’, ‘I Love You Like a Madman’, ‘Just Like a Drummer’, ‘Now You’re Pregnant’, ‘Kiss Me’, I guess they’re the main ones. Maybe also ‘We Dress Up Like Snowmen’ as well. There are a few clear favourites. But then also you get odd ones, like ‘Avocado Baby’. We’ve also had requests for ‘Cinnamon Baby’ which really surprised me, that’s happened a few times. You get odds one too, sometimes someone will shout out something really, really old and it’ll be really surprising. It’s nice.
Your lyrics are really striking; this sort of marrying of the bizarre, the mundane and the sublime to make something really quiet intricate. David, where did your inspiration come from?
DT: Well Morrissey is a big influence, which is odd because I went off the Smiths when I was in my early 20s because I don’t like the way their records sounded. I was listening to Hat Full of Hollow by The Smiths and I was conscious of what effect the lyrics would, had on me. I think it mainly is lyricists, I mean I remember like when I first heard Television, and the type of lyrics that Tom Verlaine sings. It’s very impressionistic, slightly abstract lyrics. And Bob Dylan, obviously. I would massively love to be Bob Dylan like any singer / songwriter. Well not to be him obviously because he’s about to die, but to have even just a little bit of talent that he had. And Lou Reed and people like that. I guess mainly that, and sometimes a book or a poem. Poetry is inspiring.
I was going to ask actually if there were any influential authors or poets.
DT: Yeah there are, I really love reading. Literary influences would be Raymond Chandler; he’s a really big influence. I’ve made the occasional song where I am literally just singing sentences from Raymond Chandler books, chosen at random and chosen because they are nice sentences, but not chosen to make up any story. Nobody’s noticed [laughs]. But he writes really great sentences, Charles Bukowski I also like a lot. Along with DH Lawrence, John Steinbeck, Raymond Carver. I’ve been reading a lot of Raymond Carver’s poetry lately; his poetry really makes you want to write songs. Partly because he’s bad sometimes, he can be sloppy, but he’s just got to do it, it’s got to come out. Sometimes it’s amazing and sometimes it’s not. Bukowski is like that too. There are so many writers. I can’t think of any more. But that’s probably enough isn’t it.
It seems like some of your lyrics with can be quite banal. Is that a conscious choice, or is it just something that just comes out when you’re writing?
DT: I like those kinds of details in those songs, and I like everyday life sort of bits and pieces. But I, and the other guys too, also like mysterious sort of songs as well. I think those banal lyrics are the sorts of things that you notice. I was listening to an album, Tonight’s Tonight by Neil Young, and I remembered when he eats green eggs and country ham. You don’t remember when he falls in love with the beautiful girl because everyone is always falling in love with a beautiful girl. But it’s nice to put in a specific along the way; it makes a picture. The important thing with lyrics is that they make an image in the listeners mind. It’s important that they see something. A lot of my favourite lyrics are nonsensical, a lot of Pavement songs or Bob Dylan songs are nonsense really and a lot of my songs are pure nonsense, but as long as it’s throwing up images regardless if it’s about everyday life or just by being abstract, I like it. As long as it’s vivid, I like it.
What are each of your favourite The Wave Pictures song? Is there one?
JH: I like all of them [laughs]. The one that I’ve enjoyed playing recently is one that was written ages ago called ‘Lonely’. But that’s only coming into my head because that’s one that I get to sing and also play the drums. So that’s good fun. But I don’t think that that’s my favourite David Tattersall song.
FR: We’ve made a new song ‘The Inattentive Reader’, I’m looking forward to playing that one. But otherwise I don’t think that I have a particular favourite.
DT: I always like singing ‘I Thought of You Again’, I always enjoying singing that one.
Each of you have your solo projects too. For example, Jonny you have your EP Jonny Helm Sings. Are these projects completely separate from The Wave Pictures?
DT: The way that I would go about making a side project is roughly the same as I would go about making a Waves thing. Sometimes it’s intentional to make it a solo project, and then sometimes a song ends up being in two different places as The Wave Pictures end up doing it. Because we don’t tour the side projects, we end up doing some independent songs with the Waves just so that we don’t lost them. Then if you like them that way, then you record them that way as well. But my solo album [Happy For A While] was written to be a solo album. I don’t know if I was thinking of anything different, so there was less pressure for it to be a certain way – it could just be whatever it happened to be. So it was very nice to make that. I did that also to record with Stanley Brinks and Clemence Freschard who are the band on that album. They recorded and produced it and they’re close friends, so it was a way to go and stay with them for a week. That’s why I did a solo album. It was partly just a chance to do something just with him.
What’s coming up in the New Year?
DT: Well we’re rehearsing some new songs, newer than those on the album Beer In The Breakers. We’re trying to write some new songs as well, together as a band. We have seven half songs that we came up with recently, and we’re going to try and turn them into seven finished songs. I’ve also written three more songs lately for the guys to learn.
JH: After that we’re going to go to Switzerland in February: on 10th February we’ll be in Bern , on the 11th in Basel and on the 12th in Baden . The three B’s.
FR: Also, our album Beer In The Breakers is coming out in the Spring.
DT: I have another side project called The Lobster Boat which has Franic and Jonny on it. It’s with a French guy called Howard Hughes from Coming Soon. That’s coming out this year as well. So that’s two albums this year. And then I’m going to definitely try and watch the snooker finals; that’s part of my future plans.
Very well, thanks.
- How do you feel about playing in a lecture theatre for Sounds From The Other City? We’re assuming this will be a new experience for you… We understand The Smiths used to play there…
I have to admit, I don’t know anything about it. I don’t really know what I’m doing from one moment to the next. I guess I will find out when I get there what it is like.
- Have you got any other festival plans for the summer?
Yes, a few bits and pieces here and there.
- It’s quite a tour you’ve got starting at the end of April. Is it easy to keep things running smoothly across a whole month of dates? You’ve certainly got enough songs to choose from to keep things interesting!
Oh, we love touring and playing live. And the three of us get on really well. So, things run pretty smoothly. And, yes, we have a lot of songs and we change the set every night, always playing some different things. We don’t use setlists ever. We just go on and start and choose the songs as we go. It’s good to be a bit spontaneous. We keep things interesting that way.
- Can you tell us a bit about Beer in the Breakers? By our count this is ‘album’ number ‘three’ – is that right? Obviously it isn’t your third release…
Well, it depends on how you count it. It’s our third album for Moshi Moshi, but we also did an album called ”Susan Rode The Cyclone” for some European labels last year, so actually ”Beer In The Breakers” is the 4th album we have made since we signed with Moshi Moshi. It gets more complicated still if you count ”Sophie”, which Smoking Gun Records released, and all the albums we made that no one has released. If you count all of those then ‘Beer In The Breakers’ might be our tenth or eleventh album. I’m not sure.
I like the idea that they are all debut albums. They are all debut albums to me. I want to make hundreds and hundreds of debut albums. I never want to make that difficult second album.
We’re all really happy with this one. I think Jonny and Franic might say that it’s their all time favourite Wave Pictures album. You’d have to ask them, though. I’m not entirely sure. They seem very happy about the whole thing. I am too, I like it a lot.
- Did you round up any other guest players for the new record?
No. One of the ideas that we had was to record only the three of us. There are no overdubs on the record. It’s completely live. It’s the three of us playing together in a room.
- Why did you dump Simon for Darren? Ok, lets re-word that… Simon Trought seems to have produced a whole heap of our favourite records of the past few years, and indeed a pile of your recordings. Was it time for a slightly different approach? And was Mr Hayman a natural choice of someone to work with?
We’ve recorded a whole load of different ways with a whole load of different people. ”If You Leave It Alone” was recorded by Clemence Freschard in
We didn’t know that would happen. We don’t work in quite the way you might imagine. We didn’t at any point think ”let’s make our next album with Darren Hayman”. What we did was decide to try recording with him for a couple of days, and see what happens. Maybe we wouldn’t get anything at all and maybe we would get one b-side. So we gave it a go. We did a whole bunch of songs in a day and a half. Then we had a listen to what we had done and it became apparent to us that this was the next album. We had done recording sessions in a whole bunch of different places over the last two years. It had never been quite right when we had listened back. But the feeling was right on the recordings we did with Darren.
- Are there any songs about fruit? There often seems to be fruit in your lyrics, be they in preserve form or having names scrawled upon them.
I do like to sing about fruit but I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I feel like I should be eating more fruit, so it’s on my mind. I sing about cigarettes and beer quite a lot as well, to balance things out. I can’t remember off the top of my head if I sing about fruit on Beer In The Breakers. I mention sour jam in the third track, Little Surprise. I should definitely try to sing more often about a wider variety of food groups. I don’t sing about pasta very often. I try not to sing about sausages, which are on my mind a lot, because then a vegetarian would be unable to enjoy the song. I have a lot of vegetarian friends and I don’t want to isolate them. It’s a political mine-field, singing about food.
- Where are you up to with recording at the moment? With the new album about to come out, does that mean that you are already on with the next release?
I wrote about thirty songs in December, January and February and me, Jonny and Franic have been working through them trying to find what works and what doesn’t and which ones we like and so on. I’ve been trying something new, which is writing a song based on a bass line of Franic’s. Usually, I write the song and then he comes up with the bass line afterwards. But we’ve written a couple together for the very first time. So, we’ve been doing that, trying to decide what we like and don’t like. It’s been a lot of fun. We’re having so much fun playing at the moment and we’re all really pleased with ”Beer In The Breakers”. It’s been a good year so far for us. But we haven’t done any recording yet. We’re just starting to live with the new things and get used to stuff. I’m itching to do some more recording soon though.
- It seems as if you have a kind of constant creative process, with songs always itching to be recorded/released. Your EPs are often longer than some people’s albums, kind of like The Style Council – is this something you aim to do, or is it just that the songs force you to put together these lengthy collections?
You’re not going to believe that I didn’t read that question when I wrote ”I’m itching to do some more recording soon though”. That’s genuinely quite spooky. I wrote ”I’m itching… etc….” and then I looked at the next question and you had written ”with songs always itching to be recorded…”’ That’s pretty cool! Yes, you’ve hit the nail on the head. We don’t aim for anything or plan anything. We just want to do it. Or it wants to do us! Then we just keep doing it and afterwards you take decisions about what to release. I really feel incredibly lucky to get to make music all the time. I really like it. It’s not more complicated than that. I know that what it means is that we make more music than most people want to listen to, but that’s OK. I don’t expect everyone to listen to all of it. I would like it if they did, but I don’t worry about it. One thing we do try to do, one thing we aim for, is that everything we do is equally good (or bad, depending on your opinion). We don’t do throwaway songs. We don’t think ”oh, it’s a b-side”, let’s do something silly. Mine and Franic’s favourite recording from around the time of Instant Coffee Baby was the song ”Puncture My Pride”, which we put out as a b-side. Possibly our most popular song ”Now You Are Pregnant”, was a b-side. So, that’s one ambition that we have. But generally, the ambitions are to do with playing and writing, not to do with releasing and not to do with the response people have to the releases. We don’t tend to talk about that stuff much. We tend to talk about what we’re doing all the time.
- Your songs always seem to have this wonderful simplicity to them, allowing the lyrics to wander over the top. Do you start with these melodies before the lyrics come to you? Or does it tend to work the other way round?
It’s a mixture, they come in all different ways. I usually find it easiest to have the lyrics first, though. If you write words to fit a melody, you always end up with forced rhymes and a forced metre to the words. I’m not sure that is the correct term. I like it songs more when the lyrics are leading the whole thing along. Simple chord changes and interesting lyrics. I like that kind of music more.
- As far as the lyrics go, there are similarities for Jeff Lewis, Jonathan Richman, Herman Dune and the afore mentioned Hayman running through the tales you weave. I guess the similarity is that all those guys write quite narrative based songs, which you also seem to settle nicely into. Do you find yourselves drawn towards
Well, I’m not sure I agree entirely. I agree with you broadly speaking. I love all those people you mentioned. And they all sometimes have narrative songs which I like. For me, though, there are very big differences between the styles of those people. Jonathan Richman, for instance, is someone I really like. I love his style and the way he plays and sings. I love his melodies. But my lyrics are very different than his. His songs are really simple, and have very few words and usually a clear message. My songs have lots of words and go all over the place a bit. I don’t think my lyrics are at all like his! I think that since people know I like him, they have over-exagerrated the similarities. We are not so similar. I wouldn’t assume that a Jonathan Richman fan would like us at all. I can’t write the way he can. I don’t want to either. There is that similarity that you mentioned but the differences are equally big. I don’t know, I’m certainly a fan of all those writers.
I suppose I think that the relationship between a musician and his influences is a little more complicated than your question suggests. I hope that doesn’t sound pretentious. It just seems worth saying because I don’t think anyone should lump those people together, like ”because you like this, you must also like this”. They aren’t so similar.
- You’ve been working with Moshi Moshi for what seems like forever. How is that relationship? How has it been for you to see your record label grow up around you?
It’s a good relationship. I have to admit, I’m not fully aware of what goes on in the label. I haven’t noticed them grow up around me. I don’t really know what goes on in the label too well. I like them, though, because they allow us a great deal of freedom. We do what we want.
- You’re not all that far from clocking up the 15th anniversary of the band, did you ever expect to still be knocking around as a band this long? Do you think the ’slow’ start, well slow in terms of mainstream press giving you the credit you deserved, is partly a reason? You’ve been free to carry on doing what you want to do, rather than having some perceived notion of what The Wave Pictures are supposed to ‘do’ thrust upon you.
Yes, I do. I’m very happy with the whole thing. I just want to keep going. I really like it.
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