White Lies Interview

Storming out of the tracks with their debut album, White Lies seemed to capture the mood of the nation.

When temperatures plunged faster than the stock market, White Lies appeared to document the country's increasingly dark mood. Debut album 'To Lose My Life' was an astonishing success, soaring into the Top Ten.

Yet the commercial success masked the potent and at times uncomfortable nature of the material. Lyrically, 'To Lose My Life' was an intense, deeply personal reflection on a disappearing childhood. A taut and anxious record, in the world of White Lies the grim reaper's bony finger seemed to be pointing at us all.

Taking time off to record their second album 'Ritual', White Lies have now broken cover. Set to play a short burst of shows, the band are confident that they can outdo the success of their debut album.

Ahead of their gig for Spotify and Three's Now Playing series, drummer Jack Lawrence-Brown tells ClashMusic just why that is...

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You’ve taken time off to focus on the album, what factors lay behind this?
It didn’t feel like a year off. The whole time, we had about six weeks off at the start of 2010. We used that to see friends and family, just relax and do things we hadn’t done for a long time. The label said to us that we could have as long as we wanted to finish the new record, so we took the decision to get on with it pretty quickly. As a band we get very bored if we don’t do much for a while. We’d been off the road for a few weeks, so we started to think about getting on with the recording. The whole process from start to finish took about three and a half, four months - from the first bit of writing to the end of recording.

Was it recorded in one long blast?
We did the whole thing in one go. We’ve always felt very much that you shouldn’t split up the recording process, that you should approach the whole thing in one go. We did it all in one go, in London with Alan Moulder producing it.

Did you worry about not road-testing the album before?
We didn’t really worry about that, we were quite happy to do what we do. We didn’t want to go out and play songs that weren’t finished to see if people liked them or not. As a band you have to be confident in yourself to write the material you need to, and if people like them they like them. You need to make something you actually want to make, rather than listening to what people might say about it. So we didn’t worry about that, it was the same process we used on the first record where we recorded a bunch of songs that we hadn’t really played before. We thought the process worked for us.

That first album had such a definitive sound, how can you move beyond its shadow?
I think the first album does have a quite definitive sound, but it sounds like a record that was made in the period of a few months. A lot of the songs have the same kind of motif soundwise. I think with the new album we were a lot more daring in terms of what we wanted to do sonically. As a result, I think people will be surprised by the direction of the new album – it’s a completely different direction in terms of sonics than the first album. I think its much more impressive, and due to working with Alan Moulder after he’s been in the studio with Nine Inch Nails a lot of it is quite guitar heavy. Quite gritty sounding.

How big an impact did Alan Moulder have?
It’s funny. He did have a big impact but even in the very early stages we would send guitar lines and things over to Alan. We wanted everyone to feel involved, as we wanted to get the most out of using Alan as a producer. He did definitely bring a lot in terms of sound to the producer, he had techniques which only he knew in order to create certain sounds. He’s made an incredible career out of certain guitar sounds, and it was amazing to work with someone who in the space of a few switches can make it happen. That was a really important thing for us, as sonically in the studio it was a great opportunity for us to learn.

Nine Inch Nails are also known for their electronic influences, did this carry over as well?
Definitely. There’s a couple of songs which features beats, and there’s a lot of synths on the new album. A lot of sequenzed things, which is something we haven’t really explored before. It’s nice to have some clearly electronic elements along with all the natural sounds. We didn’t want to overdo it, as we didn’t want to redefine ourselves – going electro, or something. We haven’t gone electro, we’re still a rock band but we wanted to try a few things that we knew Alan had experience in, and could bring to the table.

Lyrically, the first album is quite intense is that something which continues on the new material?
I think it is in a way. The first album is quite intense, and quite introverted and I think that the songs are quite intense but the lyrics are more personal but at the same time in quite an extrovert way. I think the lyrics have moved on from the first album, we’re all really happy with it. It’s definitely a change of scene in terms of what the lyrics are all about.

Is it a split between autobiographical and observation, then?
I think the debut album more than anything expressed a kind of ambition which we maybe weren’t ready to follow through. The second album is much more ambitious, in all areas: lyrics, musically and more. The other thing is that the making of the record was just so much fun when compared to the first album, which was quite intense in a way. It was the first time we had done that, whereas the second album took a few months and was a joy to do. The energy is much better, if that’s not too much of a hippy thing to say!

‘Ritual’ – is there a religious theme running through the new album?
I think that’s accurate. The record is thematically geared towards love, death and religion. I wouldn’t say all the songs are about that, but if you write material in a short time you tend to get recurring motifs.

Was it a relief to get back to making music after so long on the road?
It was, really. It’s the same with any band – you tour for a couple of years then get exhausted. When we started to get back into writing and recording we so much pent up activity to get out of our system. We began to feel that we had done a few years without doing anything massively creative, we had played around the world – which is in itself creative – but that’s not the same as doing something out of nothing.

After spending time in the studio are you now ready to get back out on the road?
I think more than anything we want to present the album to people. It always feels weird to play an album that hasn’t been released yet, which is what we’ll be doing on the upcoming dates. Which I suppose is quite a risk when you consider that people haven’t heard any of these songs. It is a risk but it’s good for people to hear the new songs first. We want them to be released, to get them out there. We’ve only played a few dates but they’ve gone well so we’re quite confident.

The first album was given a few dance remixes, is that set to happen again?
Yeah definitely – we’ve already started. When the album was finished we took a week to write down a list of people who we wanted to do remixes. We’ve been sending tracks out there via the label, so we’ve already had a few answers. We’ve pitched pretty high in terms of what we wanted, moving from house to minimal stuff as well. There’s a really good spread of styles and hopefully some big names as well.

'Ritual' is set to be released in January