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Hi guys, thank you for coming to chat with me. I know you’re very busy at the moment on the road with Jimmy Eat World, how has tour been treating you? Joe: “It’s good! We’ve had a little break because they’ve been off gallivanting to the rest of Europe, so we’ve just got a couple of dates left. But the week before was really good you know, they’ve been very welcoming.” Matt: “Very welcoming. Played some amazing, beautiful venues; the Olympia in Dublin springs to mind. It was really nice! You get to play in front of big old crowds when you’re a support band as well. It’s like usually during the support band I’m off having a beer, or not even there at all, so it’s nice to play in front of a busy room.” Joe: “I was surprised actually at how many people there have been. I thought you’d be able to see this back half of the room, but yeah it’s been full. We’re the only support we’re not like the first on. We are first on but..” Matt: “Yeah we are the main support so yeah, it’s exciting to play big venues. We’re visiting lots of places that we’ve not been to before, we’re also coming back to places that we have been before that we’ve played. Like Bristol for example we’ve played…” Joe: “A gazillion times.” Matt: “Loads of times; Louisiana, Start the Bus. We’ve done all of the small ones so it’s really nice to play one of the biggest venues in town for this kind of music; you can’t ask more than that! So yeah it’s fun!” Awesome! So, you’ve probably been asked a million times where your band name comes from. The book, ‘Swallows And Amazons’ is a favourite of mine, and to me it has an exciting, yet almost nostalgic feel. Is that what you were going for? What was it about the book that made you all think ‘this is for us’? Matt: “It’s not something where I think we should be defined in terms of the story, I mean it’s quite an inoffensive story. It’s not on the road or anything like that. It’s purely because coming up with a name was really hard. We can come up with songs willy nilly…” Joe: “Ha! Willy.” Matt: “Yeah willy nilly, easy peasy. Like we’re musicians that’s what we do, we do songs. But in terms of naming it, oh God. Naming songs is hard, and naming your album is even harder, but naming your band is just hell on Earth. So, it was a book I’d read before. I do like the nostalgia of it, it’s a tale of forgotten summers and all this kind of stuff like when you were a kid. Honestly like I saw it on my bookshelf I liked the book I think, The Amazons, there must be a band called The Amazons. There wasn’t a band called The Amazons – so we took it!” Joe: “And now it’s ours!” ‘In My Mind’ is The Amazons’ latest release, and I was just wondering how you went about it in terms of the creative process. Was anything about recording it different from recording your debut EP? Did you approach it any differently? Matt: “That’s a good question actually! I would say it’s quite Amazonian in its conception really. We were driving back from Glasgow after a big one. We played King Tut’s and had a big old cheesy night out at the ABC. It was all like Take That and all this kind of stuff. It was huge, it was a great night. So, we were all hungover driving back, nine hours back to Reading, all the boys were asleep…” Chris: “Trying to sleep through the endless humming.” Matt: “Ha! Yeah, so I was humming to myself and just recording it on voice notes and stuff and that was how it was born. I went back and started the riff and the verse, and then we just practiced and nothing happened and…” Joe: “We had that riff knocking around for while though!” Matt: “Yeah we did. And then we were doing pre-production for the album with Catherine Marks, and we kind of just jammed the song out; it worked out through trial and error. I came up with a chorus and it all pieced together quite nicely. It was different from the EP in that the EP songs were pretty much fully done by the time we recorded them. With In My Mind we slowly developed it, and then right at the end we had the producer come in and help us with the development of it in terms of the structure and arrangement and all that sort of stuff. I think that’s probably got a bit more depth…” Joe: “Pizazz.” Matt: “Yeah pizazz. A couple more dimensions I think. It was one of our favourite songs to do.” So, having spoken about Catherine Marks… she’s worked with the likes of Wolf Alice, and Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes. Is there anyone else that you’d really like to work with at the moment? Chris: “David Fridmann, who did the last Vaccines album. That’s somebody who I’ve had my eye on.” Joe: “I wouldn’t mind doing an album with James Ford.” Matt: “James Ford. If he’s on the market, we’ll have him.” Joe: “If we’ve got enough money!” Matt: “I like Markus Dravs who did some stuff with Arcade Fire and Florence + The Machine. Mark Ronson. Mark Ronson and Kevin Parker, we’ve been talking to them and they want to do our second record. Really preliminary talks, but that would be really good. Throw Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) in there as well, why not?” Chris: “All of them just in one room!” Matt: “Joe Auerback, the dude from Black Keys, he did the Cage The Elephant album, throw him in the mix.” Matt: “Let’s just have a production team of like five, six big characters in this.” Joe: “Or they could do a song each?” Matt: “Oh shit, that would be good! Then Catherine could mix it all! I was thinking like all those five big production heads, at end of every day it’d just be a huge brawl in the control room. That could be sick.” Joe: “But yeah there’s loads of people I guess.” Matt: “You know what, Catherine Marks is great!” Chris: “We’d be more than happy to have her do the second album.” Interesting stuff! Okay, so I have a lyrical question for you now. A personal favourite of mine, throwing it back slightly, is ‘Ultraviolet’. The rest of the lyrics follow a theme, but in the chorus you use ‘my ultraviolet’, and it sounds very abstract in comparison. I was just wondering why you picked that specific word as a lyric? Matt: “Originally, I was going on about ultraviolence, and then you [Chris] were like ‘That ultraviolet song is good’, and Joe was like ‘oh that ultraviolet sounds good’. I was like ‘yeah ultraviolet’. And that’s kind of how it came together; it sort of worked after that.” Chris: “It made sense.” Matt: “It made sense; the lyrics made sense. It’s like when Noel was singing the first incarnation of Don’t Look Back in Anger, and Liam’s like ‘you’re singing ‘so Sally can wait’’. Sometimes that’s how it works out.” Joe: “Yeah, sometimes someone else just hears it differently.” Matt: “And that makes sense. The whole lyric makes sense in terms of like, ultraviolet, you can’t really see that kind of stuff it’s more telepathic. There’s something to tell, being reserved, and not being good at communicating your fear in front of someone.” Okay, cool. I’m a literary student, and I’m hardwired into reading things really deeply, so it’s interesting to know that’s where it came from! If somebody had never heard of The Amazons, and you could only play them one song, which one would it be, and why? Matt: “Very good question!” Joe: “In My Mind.” Chris: “From what’s been released? Oh, we’ll get told off. ‘In My Mind.” Matt: “Junk Food Forever’. It’s got a nice riff in there, but it’s also got some anthemic stuff. Alright, so two versus one, so ‘In My Mind.” So what is it that you like about the music you make, exactly? Matt and Joe: “It’s fun to play!” Matt: “I look forward to rocking out, I couldn’t be in a folk band.” Joe: “I’ve been in those bands, and for someone who has always like rock music it just wasn’t very fun. Whereas smashing out In My Mind, for instance, with the riffs and stuff it’s fun.” Chris: “Yeah it’s fun for everyone in the band to play. I think if you’re in a folk band the people who play the instruments just service the songwriter or singer.” Matt: “Yeah, it works, but we like having instrumental parts. It’s funny, the songs that I bring to the table where it’s just like vocals all the way through we all find really boring. For ‘Ultraviolet’ it’s quite a vocally led song but we still have that nice rock out in the middle; I look forward to that stuff. It’s the best part of The Amazons, just doing the instrumental stuff. We’re never going to be an instrumental band, but I like being a band. A lot of bands are tied down by their backing tracks so they just play what is on the record. So we’ve got a new single out next week that we’ve been playing in set and ,just because we can, we extend it and have fun with it and keep the door open. We never know how it’s going to sound. Like we never know where we’re going to end up, which is what rock and roll is about, it’s unpredictable. Instead of just reciting your own song like it is on the record I feel like when people see us live we give them something a bit different.” Joe: “I always like it when bands play a version of the song and they put different bits in it, do you know what I mean? Like when Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys) did ‘Mardy Bum’ at Glastonbury with just the acoustic guitar. Where they change it up, or you know there’s a different solo that’s not the one that’s on the record. I like that because it’s live music.” Matt: “That’s the best part of being in a band. Being in a band.” Joe: “Ha! ‘Being in a band is the best part of being in a band” So, with all this talk of live music, which is your favourite song to play live at the moment? Matt: “The next single, which is called ‘Little Something’. It’s our favourite. I mean, it’s mine?” Chris: “Yeah!” Joe: “Yeah! I like it when I get it right.” Matt: “When you get it right. Oh, Joe’s been fucking up loads, but in a good way. That’s how on our toes we are! It’s cool though because we might fuck up because you’re not on a click.” I was having a little scroll through my twitter feed last night, and I saw that you’ve posted a teaser video, presumably for the single next week. Why are you excited about that specifically, and what has the fan reaction been to it? Matt: “It’s been good!” Joe: “Yeah, it’s like our version of the Coca-Cola advert you know? Christmas is around the corner! ‘Santa Claus is coming, there is a song coming’.” Matt: “We’re excited to put it out! It’s the heaviest thing we’ve done, it’s the darkest thing we’ve done. Every release from now on we want people to be like ‘wow’. I think we’re going to attempt to get this song on radio and when you first hear it, are you coming to the show tonight?” Yeah! Matt: “When you hear it you’ll go…” Joe: “It’ll be the one you don’t recognize.” Matt: “Yeah it’ll be the one you don’t recognize, and hopefully it’s the one where you’ll go ‘fucking hell I don’t know how they’re going to get this on the radio’. It doesn’t have a chorus, it’s dark, it’s brooding. It’s different to what’s around at the moment I think. Bold; very bold. We’re excited because it’s very different. If you like Nightdriving you’re going to fucking hate this which is exciting.” Joe: “That’s a good sales pitch!” Chris: “You’ll love it for different reasons.” Matt: “They tick different boxes, they scratch different itches.” Joe: “Is it heavier than ‘In My Mind’?” Matt: “Yeah it’s horrible, it’s bleak; it’s horrendous! You’ll like the lyrics! I didn’t write them. Well I did but I feel like I was possessed when I wrote them. I’m not taking responsibility they’re quite predatory if I’m honest, and not autobiographical in any way.” Chris: “And they can be read in two different ways.” Cool! So that’s the serious part of the interview over and done with. Speaking of ‘holidays are coming’, I assume you’ve all behaved yourselves, what would you like Santa to bring you this year? Matt: “A Paddy Power voucher?” Joe: “Paddy Power vouchers yeah! £10 free bet.” Chris: “I wrote a list of about 20 vinyl I want to get this Christmas. I think I might just give it to my parents and hope they get them all.” Matt: “Very nice. I want some more house plants.” Joe: “Really? Are you going all horticultural?” Matt: “I’ve got a plant for my room and I want more.” But are you a succulent man, or a fern man? Matt: “I’m more of a fern man, succulents are kind of boring. They just sit there; at least with the leafy ones you can kind of wave them about a bit. Yeah! Houseplants and, you know, it’s free oxygen. Just give them a good sniff every morning you don’t have to pay for it!” Joe: “You don’t have to pay for oxygen anyway?” Matt: “Grow your own oxygen! What else is there? I mean you don’t really give a shit after a while do you?” Chris: “Well you’re not going to get anything now are you?” Matt: “Oh yeah, I do really care about presents please give me some.” Joe: “Yeah mine is a £50 Paddy power voucher.” Last question! It relates to your song ‘Junk Food Forever…’ Matt: “Haha! Don’t do this to us!” It’s slightly different, I promise! I love pizza – what’s your favourite pizza topping? Matt: “That’s good!” Joe: “Listen to the question! Favourite pizza topping. I’m a pepperoni passion kind of guy if it was from that particular vendor. Pepperoni and maybe some jalapeños.” Matt: “I like the make your own ones where you put your own shit on there. I like olives and sweetcorn, and mushrooms. I never really think about the relationship between the flavours but I always just like go ‘I like that, I like that, I like that’ and put them on.” Chris: “I’ve been watching every episode ever of Man vs Food and I really want to try one of the ones where everything is disgustingly hot. So I think my favourite pizza topping is still out there.” Matt: “Spinach and egg! I’m going to take it all back, spinach and egg.” Joe: “I think you should just have a margarita with chillies on it, so like jalapeños, bird’s eye, scotch bonnet; all the chilli.” Chris: “Or just all ghost?” Joe: “And a glass of milk.” Chris: “No glass of milk!” Well, you wouldn’t be able to taste anything for the rest of your life after that anyway, I suppose! Chris: “I’ll just do the thing Homer Simpson does where he has the wax and just pours it, he trips balls after it!” Haha! Well guys, thank you again for speaking to me today. I look forward to seeing you on stage later! Matt: “No worries!”]]>