With the release of ‘This Is Not The World’ post-punk tykes The Futureheads completed a remarkable comeback.
Sticking a certain finger up at major labels, The Futureheads recovered their pop touch and triumphantly toured the nation. However since then things have taken a turn for the worse with astonishing damage being inflicted on the financial markets.
With unemployment creeping up on a daily basis, huge public sector cuts looming on the horizon and no end in sight for the market chaos, the nation no longer feels as secure as it once did.
Retreating to their Sunderland base, The Futureheads latest offering ‘The Chaos’ is recession rock. Dark, brooding and lo-fi is takes inspiration from Fugazi, Minutemen and other outlaws who spotted the darkness behind Reagan’s ‘Morning In America’.
ClashMusic tracks down Ross Millard to talk about their provocative new album…
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It’s been a busy two years for The Futureheads, did you consider taking time off?
To be honest, with regards to this album we almost saw the creative experience of making the album to be taking time off in a way. We made the record entirely at home on the North East, and it was a much more gradual process than any of our albums since our first really. Our drummer Dave had a kid with his girlfriend, Barry got married and we definitely saw using Sunderland and the North East as a base to rehearse as having one foot in and one foot out of working. It was a lot more casual, especially in the early few months last year than it would have been otherwise.
Was the material constructed before going into the studio then?
We finished touring ‘This Is Not The World’ in 2008, and took time in January and February last year to just work independently of each other. We worked on riffs, getting some fundamental songs working. Then March time we began working together in the practice room over in Sunderland. We recorded four or five tracks quite early doors with Dave Brewis, who helped us engineer the sessions. Those four or five songs pointed us in one direction which would inform the rest of the writing. That was quite important, rather than coming up with twenty songs off the bat and recording it in one go. We’d done that for the second and third records, and we wanted to do it in a different way this time.
‘The Chaos’ is a darker experience that ‘This Is Not The World’ was this intended from the beginning?
I think the only real conversation that we had about new music prior to work on this album was the little slogan we had, which was ‘bringing the chops back’. We very consciously made a pretty straight ahead rock record on the last album. That was partially working with the producer, as he likes to maybe iron the creases out of the band. I think in hindsight those creases are actually what makes us The Futureheads, you know? But that album was perfect for us at the time, as we’d been so public about the debacle with Warners. It led people to think that we maybe wouldn’t be making a third record. That was a really important album for us, like our re-arrival as it were. For this album, we wanted to be considered away from that back story and make a real Futureheads record. We wanted it to have its own head of steam, and for us to be able to make that happen we needed to have all of the charismatic elements which make up the band: the twists and turns, the counterpoint harmonies, the stop-start pacing of the songs.
At times it almost resembles groups such as Fugazi, did those style of groups serve as an influence?
Absolutely. That sort of direction is what steered us in the very beginning. Fugazi, Minutemen, Wire, Black Flag – that American hardcore scene. Maybe not going as far as Guerrilla Biscuits, but the interest in quite tough stuff, the hard working rock bands from over there. In a way, this record does re-introduce those elements in some respects. I’ve never had to practice my instrument as much as I’ve done on this record! There’s something quite rewarding about going home from band practice knowing there’s something you’re really going to have to work on, you need to know how to play it before you go back in the next day. We haven’t had that since the first record and it was good to get back into that mindset. It was almost a bookish approach to arranging specifically the guitar parts I guess.
Lyrically the album again seems darker – where do these themes come from?
I think on this record we were more aware of what was going on in the world, it’s a more politically driven record. I’ve thought about this a lot since we released the album, but a lot of the songs on the album are dealing with some quite dark matters but we’ve tried to deal with them in an up way – the spirit of community, rising against. I think the biggest problem in our society is apathy. For example, people talk about the recession as being the worst since the 80s, but if you look at that era there was a whole community of resistance, and a conversation between youth groups with regards to politics. There was a voice which was heard there. In our society now there is a danger of people thinking that politics is beyond them, that the state of the nation is too far gone to bother with. It’s quite interesting how our record came out right on the election, as that’s a good indicator of how involved young people are with this kind of debate. The only way things can change is if your voice gets heard.
Is the art work designed to reflect that?
We wanted to use the record label logo to a certain extent, but we also wanted it to fit into the chaos symbol, the eight arms of chaos. I think it was supposed to be the whole punk rock, transmission from the beginning of nowhere kind of thing. It might be minutiae on the surface but if you’ve heard it then it had significance. ‘The Chaos’ is a good name for the album, we think, as the process of recording the album took a long time. We used a lot of different studios and it took a lot of different sessions to complete it. The idea of chaos is crazy really, as for chaos to work it has to be routinely chaotic – there is always order to chaos, in a weird metaphysical kind of way. It fitted with us well on the record, it was an intriguing concept to get lost in.
Drummer Dave Hyde has been working on solo material, will this be the first of a few side projects?
Dave’s record will be coming out in the summer, he actually recorded that while we were making this one. It’s a good effort from him considering he’s just had a kid! In a way he’s been busier than the lot of us. We want to focus on things that aren’t Futureheads, or maybe not typical Futureheads and release it on the label. But right now we’re more concerned with touring this record, getting some shows booked in and pushing ahead with this record. It won’t be a traditional album next time. We’ve talked about doing a musical even. Something a little bit more outside of the cycle of recording and releasing albums – we want something with more of an arts element, with more of a performance element.
‘The Chaos’ is out now
