Features & Interviews
Seeing Red
WITH a name as
outlandish as Fyfe
Antony Dangerfield
Hutchins,
Guillemots'
frontman was
always likely to be famous.
The fact he
can sing and write appealing pop songs
also helped stack the cards in his
favour. Guillemots' first album,
Through The Windowpane, featured
string and brass sections and delicate
melodies plus pop songs Made Up Love
Song £43 and Trains To Brazil.
The lush debut reflected the lavish
surroundings in which it was recorded -
Air studios in North London, which was
founded by The Beatles' producer Sir
George Martin.
Red, too, is the product of where it
was conceived. The four-piece took out
a long-term lease on a studio in a gritty
East London district.
"I think having our own place is what
we've all always wanted," says
Canadian double bass player
Aristizabal Hawkes. "The studio's like a
home really. We don't have to tidy it up
and we can come over in the middle of
the night if we want, there are no time
restraints like that."
As a result of the new surroundings,
Red is much more sparse and
industrial-sounding. Distorted,
aggressive basslines occupy many of
the album's 11 songs, while death is a
constant theme running through many
of the tracks.
"Yes, a lot of it's about death," nods
Brazilian guitarist MC Lord Magrao,
"But not in a negative way. I don't think
dying is the end of anything anyway."
It's then pointed out the most
prominent theme on the album is the
sky - nearly all of the 11 songs mention
the heavens in some way. None of the
band have noticed this, and the
realisation comes as a bit of a shock.
"That's a good point," says Fyfe,
visibly thinking through the lyrics of
the new album to check. "It's not
intentional. I did have this thing a few
months ago where I thought we should
call the album Towers, which is a
terrible name. I thought the songs were
either about looking up, or falling
down."
"We often get asked why all our songs
sound so different from one another. We
don't really know though," says Fyfe.
"Take an album like Revolver by The
Beatles. It has Tomorrow Never Knows,
Here There And Everywhere and Got
To Get You Into My Life on it, which are
all massively different songs.
"It's 40 years old, and it's weird how
things have moved on. People used to
want variety, but now music fans are
almost suspicious if you make an
album where every song is different," he continues.
"Isn't it boring where every song on
an album sounds the same? It works for
some records, where there's a mood
across the whole thing, but I think as
people we've just got short attention
spans, so it's exciting to have an album
like this."
All four members of the band helped
write Red, whereas Through The
Windowpane was written almost
exclusively by Fyfe before he even
formed the band - he recruited a band
to bring to life the album he had in his
head.
Drummer Greig Stewart is a huge fan
of African music and his influence can
be heard clearly on every song, while
MC Magrao, who hails from Sao Paulo,
explains how his guitar sounds are
heavily inspired by the sound of the
city in which he grew up.
"I want to create sounds like a
motorway because I was born near
one," he says. "I'm not directly
influenced by samba music, as you
might expect, but I'm Brazilian and I
have my country in my blood."
Arista, meanwhile, confesses she
loves Rn'B and hip hop, and the jazz
music her dad played when she was a
youngster has also seeped into her
playing style.
"I've lived in the UK since I was ten,
but I go back to Canada a lot, and my
mum lives in LA, so I go there to see
her. I guess that's where my hip hop
fascination comes from."
Their current single, Get Over It, is
currently getting airplay on the nation's
radio stations. Airplay is something of
a sore point for the band, however, after
their most commercial-sounding song
Trains To Brazil, failed to set the
airwaves alight. The band then made a
rare concession and re-recorded their
next single Annie Let's Not Wait in the
hope of getting more exposure.
"We didn't do it under duress or
anything, but we regret doing that now.
It worked, though, because that song's
the most-played thing we've ever had,
but we all felt really blank about it
because it was nowhere near as good a
song as Trains To Brazil," says Fyfe.
"Part of me wants to scream out
'we're pop!' and have No 1 singles while
the other part of me wants to be really
obscure and only release limited edition
vinyl. Ultimately, we want to be hugely
successful, be poppy and have people
love us, but only because our songs are
so good."
■ TOUR DATE: May 27 - Newcastle
University
■ Guillemots released their second
album, Red, on Monday
4:51pm Thursday 27th March 2008
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