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Smash Music get a rare chance to speak to
Tim Rice-Oxley about the new record 'Under The Iron Sea', their change in
musical direction and saving themselves from self-destruction!
Phil - Firstly, tell me about the launch gig you did for the album in
London. I heard it was deep below London Bridge tube station?
Tim Rice-Oxley - It was in a dank, smelly, rat-infested cave deep below London
Bridge station - we loved it! We had all sorts of crazy, beautiful art
installations, and women in Victorian ball gowns plying people with champagne.
We played the record for people in two halves because we wanted it to feel like
a trip to the opera or something, then we pulled back a huge velvet curtain to
reveal a whole different room, where we rocked through a few songs live. Then we
drank a lot and had a massive fancy dress party.
Phil - It's been a relatively short time between the end of touring Hopes and
Fears and writing/recording this record. Your sound has developed into something
very different in that time. Was that something that you were striving to do or
was it more of a natural progression.
Tim Rice-Oxley - Both. This record was never going to sound anything like Hopes
and Fears, just because we've been playing live so much over the last couple of
years, we're a bit older, we had a lot of pent-up anger and dark energy. All of
that instinctively found its way into the songs and the sounds. The most
important mental leap was deciding to lock ourselves away and forget about what
anyone else expected of the record. We wanted to find songs, sounds and ideas
that were thrilling for us, and gave us that electrifying feeling that a band
gets when you create a powerful piece of music out of thin air.
Phil - How have you managed to make all of these amazing sounds with just
pianos? Did it ever get to the point where one of you would look across the
studio at a guitar and suggest plugging it in?
Tim Rice-Oxley - Early on in the process we were saying "oh, we should try
putting some guitar on this and that". But we just never got round to it,
especially once we realised the potential of putting the piano into vintage
effects and pushing the sound of that instrument into new places. We used all
sorts of cool gadgets that I'd picked up in American thrift stores and the like,
or we'd weave tour t-shirts between the strings and then screw with whatever
sound came out of that. It was all experimental - some of the sounds were shite,
some of them were absolutely stunning and totally new.
Phil - Were there any strong influences when making this album? Were there any
particular bands you were listening to a lot at the time of writing it?
Tim Rice-Oxley - the two records I listened to the most last year were the
Anthony and the Johnsons? record and the MIA record. The first made me realise
that atmosphere is more important than anything else in making a record that's
genuinely powerful. The second reignited my love of more electronic and beatsy
music that started with Kraftwerk and Aphex Twin, and that made me want to make
a record that was more sexy and funky.
Phil - The new album, 'Under the Iron Sea' is scheduled for release on 12th June.
Could it possibly be any more successful than Hopes and Fears, and would it
bother you if it wasn't?
Tim Rice-Oxley - We've had a good dose of commercial success and we know only
too well that that's not what matters to us. We had to write these songs and
play them in this way in order to cling on to our sanity. We had to rescue
ourselves from the brink of self-destruction, and we somehow did that - and that
in itself is enough of an achievement for me.
Phil - How do you think the fans will take to the new record and did that ever
cross your mind when you were making it?
Tim Rice-Oxley - All I know is that as a music fan I love to see a band change
things up and keep moving. If a band makes the same record twice, I start to
lose interest.
Phil - You have two albums that have quite different feelings about them. When
you play all these songs live, are things a lot more complex now?
Tim Rice-Oxley - Technically it's a lot more complex. There are a lot of sounds
that I need to be able to reproduce with effects and so on. We're doing stuff no
one has ever done before, so we've had to build our own gadgets and spend a lot
of time getting everything sounding great. We're also pushing ourselves a lot in
terms of our own performances. We're all using every limb available, stamping on
pedals, playing various different keyboards, Tom's playing a lot more, all three
of us are singing. But it all means there's a lot more variety and also a lot
more chaos, which keeps the shows interesting and unpredictable.
Phil - Can we expect a UK tour around the release of the album? Do you have
anything confirmed yet?
Tim Rice-Oxley - We'll be on tour for most of the next two years I imagine,
starting with lots of sweaty club shows and festivals this summer, then the
first big UK tour will be in the autumn. As far as I know we don't haven't
anything confirmed yet, but I may be wrong!
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