Interviews
Fyfe Dangerfield talks to Britsound
Interview with Fyfe Dangerfield from Guillemots, January 11th, 2007.
ROB QUICKE: Welcome to Britsound, Fyfe. How are you doing?
FYFE DANGERFIELD: Thank you very much, I am good. We are building a studio. I dare say building a studio - we are doing very little - we are having one built for us to record our next record. We have just been looking at it and it's great. It's an old synagogue.
RQ: An old synagogue?
FD: Yeah, it's really exciting. It's an amazing building.
RQ: Let me ask you about 2006 - it was one heck of a year for you. Congratulations by the way - you won our “Best British Album of 2006”. What is your perspective on the last 12 months?
FD: It has just been a bit mad really. It has been a bit of whirlwind. It has been really exciting for us. Making the records with Dave Vernon, like, is just amazing. Knowing people like it and seeing it in the shops and things like that is really exciting. The year itself has been crazy. We have all gone from having a very, very gentle pace of life to having an itinerary months in advance – it’s mad! It has been good. It has been quite a shock to the system but it’s been exciting.
RQ: But isn’t this what you wanted all along?
FD: Totally. Totally - that is the thing. It is not the kind of thing you can really complain about at all. It is definitely what we would have wanted. It is just weird. It’s just something that you can never really prepare yourself for, like, just the way your life changes, and it is not like we are a particularly big band. God knows what it must be like for U2 or something. Yeah, it has been great, amazing. And it is really lovely just to be able to live off music. That’s what all of us have dreamed of doing all of our lives. We know that we are very lucky and we hopefully will keep appreciating that.
RQ: Let’s go back to 1999; I think it was, when you did a John Peel session. Did you get to meet him?
FD: Oh God, yeah. He was amazing. I really, really miss him. We didn’t actually meet him when we did the session. This is my old band - this wasn’t Guillemots - this is a band I formed at school. We went down to London to give our demo tapes to people and went to Radio One and we were leaving the building and we saw him coming down the street. I kind of panicked. “Oh my God, it is John Peel.” I started searching for a CD in my bag but he was great. He was really, really nice and waited and took the CD.
And the next thing I knew - we stayed in London - my mum called up and was like: “People have been calling the house - John Peel played your record and read your number out on air for if anyone wants a copy.” And then he rang up at the weekend. I was so annoyed that I was out when he rang up and spoke to my mum. And was like: “You probably don’t know me. My name is John Peel and I played your son’s record on the radio. I just thought you ought to know.” (laughs) It was very sweet. We met him once or twice after that and he was always, totally approachable and lovely. I think he was a really big inspiration to so many people just for being so encouraging. I think there is a very big hole now he’s gone and it will be very hard for anybody to fill it, I think.
RQ: John Peel is gone, also now Top of the Pops has gone. But you made it on to Top of the Pops just before it was axed. What was that like?
FD: It was really exciting. It was amazing doing Top of the Pops. I am just glad we got on there before it was taken off air. I don’t know whether we were, like, the last straw for the producers or something but it was great. Greig panicked us all a few minutes before we were going up to play, telling us he had forgotten how to play the song! But he was all right (chuckles) I was the same. I was panicking. I had to write down my lyrics and stick them to the keyboards it’s like “We are on live television!”
RQ: Were you panicking because it was Top of the Pops?
FD: It was a bit of everything. It was the first live TV thing we had done but it was also...yeah, it was because it was Top of the Pops. I think of the TV appearances that we have done that one is probably still the best one.
RQ: Also, looking back over the last year – you were nominated for The Mercury Music Prize. Were you disappointed that you didn’t win it?
FD: No. Obviously it’s impossible to not get swept away with these things when you are nominated. We were all not that bothered about being nominated and then, as it built up throughout the day, by about an hour before it, we were looking at each other, saying: “It would be really good to win wouldn’t it?” (Chuckles) It was disappointing for about 10 minutes and then it was fine. I said along - and I think it is true with something like that - the nomination is the main thing. With any award that it is the case but especially with something like the Mercury. It is not like there are loads of different categories - there is just this one list of bands and acts. And just to be on that list is great. Just getting a chance to meet people.
Richard Hawley’s record, I think, is amazing and in a way I was surprised he didn’t win, rather than the Arctic Monkeys. I think the Arctic Monkeys are cool as well. I think they deserved it. It was cool, you know. It was just nice to be there.
RQ: I did an interview with Gomez last year...
FD: Oh Yeah. Who we keep bumping into Tom, I had to play a radio darts competition with him.
RQ: (Laughs) I did an interview with Ian and basically he agreed that winning a Mercury Music Prize was…
FD: Did they win it? Did Gomez win it?
RQ: Yeah, they won in...
FD: Oh, fabulous!
RQ: And they agreed that after they won, all this pressure was put on them which, of course, is impossible to live up to.
FD: Yeah, I mean there was that kind of side of things. I think maybe because we thought we wouldn’t win we kept going: “Ah, it would be a terrible curse if we won - God, we don’t want to win.” There's some truth in that. But I think of all the people that have won it, it doesn’t really seemed to have made anyone...I don’t really know if it has improved anyone’s career - that has won it. Some people were already quite well known and they stayed like that and there some people who disappeared. I don’t really believe that it is an actual curse or whatever. It is what you make of it, I guess.
I think we have had a lot of pressure on us in other ways. The thing is, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves anyway. We are always our own worst critics in a way. I am not sure whether if we had have won it, the pressure would have made things worse or not I don’t know. But we didn’t anyway. It was a fun night though!
RQ: Let me ask you about America. I gather you came over to America to play just a few gigs - is that true?
FD: Yeah, we have been over three times but the first time we were supposed to be doing some gigs but because of the rather strange entry laws into the country, our guitarist couldn’t get in because we hadn’t planned it enough in advance - he is Brazilian. I guess they thought...I don’t know (chuckles)...I don’t know what he was going to do. But the rest of us just went on a promo trip. We came over twice last year and played some gigs and had some bizarre things happen. We played in this guy’s house on the Hollywood hills - an agent who gets music and films and stuff. And then we did a gig in LA and Kirsten Dunst and Jake Gyllenhall came to watch us which was rather strange.
RQ: Kirsten Dunst?
FD: Yeah, and then we met Jake Gyllenhall afterwards. It was really, really nice - saying he loves our record in the car and stuff.
RQ: So is Jake a major fan then?
FD: Yeah. They came to the gig but I think they had already split up at that point. They came separately. Yeah, he seems to be really into the band and he knew all the words which is really nice. So that’s cool.
RQ: British bands, when they reach a certain level of success - commercial success and critical acclaim - at some point look to America and try to crack it. Is that on the horizon for Guillemots?
FD: Yeah it is. Originally the plan was we were going to spend the first three month of this year in America but plans are constantly changing. I think we scheduled to do pretty much every song on the album for release as a single at some point as well. Everything has been changing with us. I think now, just the way things are happening, it has taken us a while to find the right label to put things out and I think we are just about securing something now with a label in America.
Hopefully, Through the Windowpane will actually be a popular release over there before too long. But I think the way we are looking at it now is that it would be better if we just get on with making our next record and then spend a lot more time over in America once we have got that record done as well. We may be coming over for a couple of weeks - March, April time - we are not quite sure.
RQ: Well if you do and you come to Chicago, you have got to come in and see us!
FD: Definitely, yeah definitely.
RQ: Let me ask you about Through the Windowpane because the best thing about the album, in my opinion - and obviously it was our “Britsound Album of the Year”, is that you absolutely cannot pigeon hole it.
FD: Yeah, that’s great if that’s true. We always hoped that the record would be the kind of thing that wouldn’t really be put into a box of a certain style or whatever. Not to make some kind of statement but just because we all have such a diverse record collection and we listen to so much different stuff and I think we all wanted to make something which sounded of its own ilk rather than being part of a ‘scene’, or a style of music or anything.
We kind of intended for the record to play like one long piece of music and almost be this kind of trip - it sounds a bit pretentious. You know, almost like going back to a more old fashioned way of making records when I think people used to conceive of records as being something you would set aside some time to listen to, sort of drift off to…listen to on headphones.
Whereas now, with iPods and everything, it is almost like culture is moving much more away from the art of the album in a way and much more towards just having lots of individual songs that you just shuffle around. In a way, it was like a deliberate reaction against that and we wanted to make something that was very much an album and was greater than the sum of its parts.
RQ: Was the album released in the UK on vinyl at all?
FD: Yes, it is on vinyl. The vinyl looks great actually. It took - as ever with us - for some reason it took about three months longer to actually get the vinyl in the shops because there were various weird errors in the printing. We eventually got it out and it looks lovely. The lyric books looks amazing - it is so big and colorful. We are all like babies when we see our records on vinyl. It is like: “Wow, it is on vinyl!” I still haven’t got a decent record player, actually. Magrao is the only one who has a decent working record player out of all of us.
RQ: A reviewer wrote of the album, “it’s like a musical Kaleidoscope.” Let me ask you about some of the songs, which I think are just phenomenal. If The World Ends - where did that come from?
FD: I think that song...it’s a funny one that, because in a way it sounds very desolate and bleak but in some ways I think it is a very, very happy song. I am always loathe to go on too much about the supposed meanings of songs. All the clichés come up; they are what they mean to everybody. I think that song is about the idea of feeling about someone, that if the world ends - almost imagining that having that person around would make it not be painful, and in a way it’s a love song.
That was one of the songs on the record that was the most ‘live’ in the way that we recorded it. I mean the whole band performed that one live, like guitar, keyboard, bass, drums and vocal. That is probably one of the tracks with the least overdubs on it - apart from “Little Bear”. We put one or two more guitar and keyboard things on, and some strings. And some strings and some harmonies. It has got quite a lot on it. It certainly started off as one of the more ‘live’ tracks.
It is really nice when you are making a record. Obviously on some tracks you end up chopping up some things and messing around with it but it is really nice to have some where everything is as live as it can be. I really like doing live vocals - things like that.
That is the thing with doing the record. So much of the thing is about creating atmosphere and that song is very much about that. We tried recording that song quite a few different times but eventually we just got in the right mood and that was the take.
RQ: Where did you get the line from: “They can’t pin you down”?
FD: “They can’t pin you down”? I don’t know really, it’s just a line in a song. I don’t know. I find that the lyrics I am most happy with tend to just come out fairly easy. They are not normally the kind of things you have to think about too much. It’s like usually the funniest jokes that people say are the ones they just come out with on the spur of the moment, not ones that they are thinking “I should say that sometime…” I don’t really know. It’s not about a specific person or anything like that. I think, probably my words are more the kind of words that just fit a mood. They are not the kind of lyrics that if you take them by themselves they are particularly great lyrics or anything. It is more just like trying to hopefully conjure up a kind of atmosphere.
RQ: If there is one song on the album that you are most proud of what would that be?
FD: It’s a difficult question. It sounds arrogant I guess, but we spent so long on the record that I am genuinely pleased with all the tracks on the record in different ways. It is funny but a track like “Sao Paolo”, as an achievement, I am very proud of it but then I feel more attached to...I mean I really, really like “We’re Here”. I don’t know, though. I like them all in different ways. “Trains to Brazil” I just really like as a pop song and the brass and everything. And then there are just bits - “Redwings” maybe is one as well. It is really hard to say. I just like different songs for different reasons, so it is quite hard.
RQ: It is a tough question.
FD: It’s almost like the bits of songs that I am really proud of. Like the brass in the song “Redwings”. I always imagined that song with a colliery band just like you hear playing carols on the street at Christmas and just remember I had been out of the studio for 10 minutes and just walking back in and hearing them rehearsing that for the first time was one of those moments I will never forget. It was so exciting to finally hear that being played by real people instead of imagining it.
RQ: So in the next 12 months then, looking ahead – to the beginning of 2008: where would you hope Guillemots to be?
FD: Well, the plan is by that point our second record will be out. It’s almost like with this one we have done the dreamy, soundscape kind of thing, which we all wanted to do. Now we are all really into the idea of making a pure pop record but we still want to be really experimental and having some really messed up sounds on it and everything. But to be just a record with 10 four-minute pop songs on it. We want to have loads of dirty bass/drum sounds and thing like that. Almost more of the kind of album you can drive to. I think Through the Windowpane is one you maybe fall asleep to…or maybe make love to (laughter) I don’t know if I would recommend that to anybody. I haven’t tried it myself (Laughs) I think that would be unwise - rather egotistical! Apparently Frank Sinatra used to make love to his records. Anyway, I think we want our next record to almost be like a real, great pop record.
We’ve all been listening to a lot of electro and R n’ B stuff recently. All I can think about is getting that record done really and hopefully, I guess - just gradually - more people will get to know our music. I like the way that things are happening gradually for us. Of course we would like to be known all over the world and I think when you make music you do want people to hear it, and I think what we do is potentially something that’s quite universal. But who knows if it will turn out like that or not!
Links:
http://www.guillemots.com
http://www.myspace.com/guillemotsmusic
