Interview // Everything Everything

It was one of those moments, engine ticking over, wipers annoyingly syncopating with the radio, stationary outside my house that I first heard ‘NASA is on Your Side’, one of the mesmerising tracks from Everything Everything. Zane Lowe had been extolling their virtues just a few minutes earlier, then the track sang out and resonated enough that I sat in my car to give it its justified ending. Satisfying ourselves with their few MySpace offerings, the band are yet to release an album, but took some time out of their studio sessions to talk to us…

We’re doing this interview as a precursor to your time on the NME tour, which you must be excited about?

Yeah, it’s gonna be extensive, because we’re going out on the road with Hurts and also Delphic at the same time, so we’re basically on the road for about six weeks, so it’s gonna be good.

Delphic aren’t doing the NME tour, so that’s something different for you then?

Yeah, Darwin Deez all of the other guy on tour with us for NME and I’m looking forward to meeting that chap ‘cause apparently he keeps saying nice things about us. We’ll have some good laughs with him hopefully.

I’ve heard there’s a bit of a tradition with the NME tour bands playing football when they come to Norwich…

Oh really, well I personally am a terrible, terrible football player, but the two longer members of the band will be alright I think; they look funnier than me.

Will they wear shorts?

If they wore shorts, no-one would play. We will be… dressed.

You’ve just come back from SXSW, but where are you now?

Right now I’m rehearsing in Manchester, just getting some equipment together, getting some of the other songs off the album ready for live, getting ready for this tour because there are a lot of songs to learn.

And you’ve been spending some time in the studio recently – is that all finished?

Hmm, we’re just in the middle of mixing it and we’ve got about half of it to do still, mixing wise. It’s happening this week and next week and it should all be done then. We’ll be safe in the knowledge it’s all done… gotta make a video yet of course – left that a little bit too late I think! Believe it or not, it’s been like this for a long time, so I’m not too phased by it.

We’re very excited about the album coming out; we’ve been playing ‘Suffragette Suffragette’ for what seems like ages now, but when did you write the first song that’s included in the album?

Well ‘Suffragette Suffragette’ is almost definitely going to be on there, and that’s an old one, but there’s also a song called ‘Weights’ that pre-dates that and will be on there as the last track probably. It was written in 2005 maybe. Yeah, it’s crazy; you only get this chance once on your debut to clear out your back catalogue of oldies and we’ve done about half and half, oldies and new ones. Some of the tracks we literally wrote in the studio, so we’re still getting used to them.

Do you think as listeners we’ll hear that progression between what you wrote five years ago and what you’ve written recently?

I think people will be surprised because I think some of the stuff sounds really new, when it’s actually really old and I think some of the newer stuff sounds new as well! Hopefully it’ll all sounds quite new, but I don’t know what kind of progression there’ll be with it, but there’s definitely a difference between songs like ‘Suffragette’ and something like ‘Schooling’ which will probably be our new single.

There’s so much we haven’t heard yet with the album not having been released yet…

Well most of it’s only just been recorded.

Are you going to keep tight hold of it in a system that often sees releases leaked early?

Yeah. Afraid so… As soon as it’s out, it’s out you see with today’s internet!

People seemed to have really grabbed hold of you this year, with the Sunday Times, I think it was, saying you were the British band with the potential to produce the first truly great album of this year and you also featured in some of the Sound of 2010 polls. With you having done this for a while now, do you think it’s strange that it’s all gathered momentum this year?

Not really because we’ve been going about two and a half years and we always knew there’d be a time when we’d strike, because we didn’t really want too much attention early on because I think it can be very damaging for a lot of bands to get too much hype before they’re ready, so we waited until we were ready and aimed for that particular poll, you know, that time of year because it’s a lot of publicity for free really, because people like to talk about bands at the beginning of the year, so we thought we’d just pop our heads above the parapet, and at that point we thought it would just boost us… for no real reason either because it’s not like we’ve released anything. So the press attention isn’t anything that’s surprised us, because that’s how we intended it to be; we didn’t want anything too early on. We’ll really be in everyone’s faces when the album comes out, like ‘here we are’.

It’s great that you’re orchestrating the hype, because it can often catch bands out when they’re underprepared.

Yeah and you can control a certain amount, but then you can’t control it at all really. You just have to take a shot and say, “I’m ready now, come and have a listen…”

Are you comfortable with the label of recognition and hype you’re getting now – are you ready?

Yeah, because some people will know who we are, but we’re not media darlings of any particular publication or anything like that; we’re not annoyingly in your face, but if you want to know about us, we’re out there. I think it’s a good blend, or balance really.

You’ve had a great champion in the form of –

Zane Lowe? Yes! I guess we might be media darlings of his!

You can’t help it if he loves what you do…

We played him half the album yesterday because he came down to the studio and he was like [Jonathon does a canny Zane-alike] “Facking hell guys!!” He’s just amazing; he’s been a real help to us and he’s a really nice guy so we can’t really thank him enough for that. About six months ago he actually said “right, I’m gonna step back now and stop talking about you, otherwise people are gonna get annoyed – I’m just gonna let you go and make an album”, which was really good of him, to recognise not to destroy us with his own hype!

With SXSW, it sounds like the most exciting place to be in the world; is it as good as it sounds?

Yeah, it’s really great. The best thing about it for me was just the vibe of the place and the way people were behaving; at festivals here, people just get pissed out of their heads at the drop of a hat, and sort of tend to act a bit like idiots and the music tends to come second to having a good time, because the way we have a good time here is by getting pissed. But over there, people were drinking there, but no-one was acting like an idiot and there were no police around and there didn’t need to be any because people were just having fun and being genuine by listening to music. It made a big difference to how everyone felt, and it’s something I took away with me. I don’t know if it’s an American thing, or a Texan thing, or just about that week in that city, but if not for the music, I’d go back for that, it’s really good.

No people covering themselves in mud or painting their faces then?

No, with it being in a city, if you managed to cover yourself in mud something really strange would be going on.

Yeah, you’d have to be really dedicated to mud finding wouldn’t you? So did you get to find much new music as you played? What was the balance like?

We didn’t really see much to be honest because we were playing at least a show a day, but we tried to see the things we knew about. We got to see The Invisible, who we’re really big fans of, but we basically liked wandering in to somewhere not knowing what you’d find. There seemed to quite a lot that we didn’t know what it was, but most of it was pretty good.

It’s an exciting prospect, but do you think it would work in the UK, to have that sort of extended festival?

I don’t know… maybe in Scotland or somewhere, I don’t know. Give it a go, give it a go… but not in London.

I guess we get close to it with The Great Escape, but even that’s sponsored by Red Stripe I think…

Yeah, it just seems darker I guess and a little less fun. Our guitarist went last year and he said it was the same, that it had a really nice vibe about it.

Was it hard coming back to Britain after that heady time?
No, not at all, because by the last night we really did need to come home after that heady time because no matter how much fun we had, it was really insane because of the jetlag and stuff. The first day we got there, we were on TV at 2 o’clock in the morning, which was about 4am in our brains, or an even greater distance than that – it was completely insane, the stuff we were doing; we had a camera crew following us around and stuff like that, so it felt like a long time by the time we got to the last show, and we needed to go to sleep for a long time!

Was the enthusiasm unbounding at 7am in the morning as well, like in that full-on American way?

Yeah, it was, but even with the jetlag we were fine at the time because we were working off the adrenaline.

I can imagine it being hard for British bands going over though, because we don’t always approach things with the same blithe enthusiasm that the Americans do! I’ve been reading about your opinions of Manchester – you’re not all from Manchester, but you formed there – was it a uni thing that brought you together?

Yeah, I met Jeremy at Salford Uni and then the other two guys were from home; one of them was any way – our ex guitarist but not our new guitarist, so at the beginning most of us were from Newcastle, and now only half of us are! To say we’re a Manchester band is completely wrong, but we live there… well even that’s not strictly true because only three of us live there! To say we are isn’t a bad thing though, I mean, we love it here.

You’ve mentioned that legacy of being in Manchester and shaking off that Madchester reputation that most bands there are labelled with because people don’t want revivalist music any more in Manchester.

No… I don’t think they do. But I don’t think it’s so much that we had to shake it off so much as I don’t think it was attached to us, but there’s definitely a legacy of music and importantly it’s about forward thinking when listening to music. To keep retreading the old ground isn’t really news and it isn’t what Manchester’s about and I don’t think it’s what Manchester really wants, but it’s just sort of comforting, I think.

It doesn’t give you credit for original thought either…

Yeah, and I’m sure the Stone Roses don’t want 1000 bands to sound like them in 20 years; they don’t even want to play it themselves, so I doubt they want to hear another version of it!

Would you still call Manchester your homecoming city though?

Yeah, because it’s where we live and where we got our first gig. We’ve got lots of fans here and it’s an amazing city; we couldn’t have done it anywhere else I don’t think – there’s a really good balance here. You have the ability to be in a band and it not be a dream here – you don’t get swallowed up like you would in London. You can be in a band and it not seem crazy, but neither do you get lost.

Hurts, who’re touring with you on the NME Tour are also from Manchester – do you know them?

No, we’ve never met them, but we exchanged a couple of emails with them when we knew we’d be touring with them. It’s gonna be fun though; they seem like nice guys. It’s always good touring with other bands and getting to know them after a few days and weeks and getting to know their songs; that’s what we do anyway and then go from there. Those guys seem to have their tongues somewhere in their cheeks, so they should be good fun; they’ve got an opera singer with them… I’m not sure though, they could be serious but we’ll have to guage it as it comes.

Emma Roberts

Everything Everything will be appearing as part of the NME Radar Tour as it comes to the Waterfront in Norwich on May 11^th. For tickets, go to www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk.