Even after four albums, countless tours, a headline show at Ally Pally and a decade in the music industry Joe Mount remains charmingly, explicitly ordinary.
Sat backstage before Metronomy’s show at Hyde Park, the singer can scarcely believe he’s about to support Blur at Barclaycard British Summertime. “I was reading the review of Beck and The Strokes in the Guardian, I think it was, and when I was reading other people's names in the same position we’re in I thought… oh. Shit!”
In an era dominated by the search for instant success, Metronomy’s approach has been refreshingly gradual. “That's the way I've always wanted it to be, and I think it's the best way for it to happen, really,” he explains. “You look at all the bands which have come and gone very quickly, none of them glacially come and then disappear. It's really sad, and part of the reason why that happens is that to suddenly be successful is quite a headfuck, probably.”
“Having said that,” the singer muses, “if at any point along the way we'd had some huge single, been in the public conscious, I would have hoped that we wouldn't have frittered it away. Because I think that for a band like us, at this level, you're incredibly grateful for any little thing which adds to your success. I like to imagine that if we'd had some huge step up it wouldn't have been frittered away.”
Modest though he may be, Joe Mount can’t quite escape the notion that Metronomy are, well, kind of a big deal. Thankfully, the band remain for busy that they are forced to keep their feet on the ground. “Everything's gone really quickly and you're suddenly in these positions and before you know it, it's gone,” he marvels.
“We did Ally Pally this year, which was huge for us, a massive deal. The next day we were in Manchester, doing a big show in Manchester but it seems that every time we have a really significant thing you forget about it! Well, you don't forget about it in the long run, but we're not able to wallow in the glory. It's a shame.”
Keeping their festival commitments to a minimum this summer, Metronomy have begun to sketch out plans for their next album. “This time it's been a bit more me-centric,” the singer smiles. “Again, because of families and stuff like that it becomes more time efficient. That sounds really boring. We're all kind of all over the place.”
“I've been demoing stuff at home,” he continues. “I've been trying to embrace that side of the modern world, but then taking it into a studio and doing it in a very focused way. I'm very excited about the next record, I think it'll be… kind of a good one.”
Whereas 2014’s ‘Love Letters’ release was very much informed by the band’s live show, Joe wants Metronomy’s next album to be something quite distinct. “I read this thing about how Muse dropped their electronic direction as it was too hard to play live,” he explains.
“As soon as you start letting the thought of performing live affect your creative process it's not necessarily going to make the best music. So with this album I'm trying to make it without thinking about how we're going to play it live. The idea of making a good record is making a good record and not troubleshooting. It should be about how it sounds.”
Working from his base in Paris, Joe Mount intends to the new Metronomy material to be a little more groove-based than previous endeavors. “I'm trying to make a bit of a dance album, a bit of a party record,” he says. “That's the plan. That kind of simplifies what it will be. But that's the idea – to make a nice groovy record.”
Metronomy spent almost the entirety of 2014 on the road, leaving Joe Mount desperate to return to the creative process. “We played 150 shows last year and that's at least 50 days traveling away from home. It adds up to being a hugely disproportionate amount of time away from home,” he grimaces. “If you're playing 150 gigs a year and you're releasing one album every three years, that is a massively disproportionate figure. At least release three albums. It'd be nice to level it up a bit and apply that kind of work ethic to recording as well as playing live.”
“It should always have equal footing to performing, and I think often it should have a more important role than live music,” he continues. “But it's tricky nowadays, because bands quite literally aren't afforded the time to do that. It'll sort itself out a bit better in the future, I think. I love recording, and if you ask anyone they'll say they absolutely love it.”
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Photo Credit: Nik Hartley
