Like I remember a couple shagging up the back during the good Morning showing of Horton. Here's a who I say why this is not what touchers, suspand won.
Welcome to Midnight Chats, a podcast of laid back conversations with leading names in music. In keeping with these informal interviews, each new one is published weekly at midnight. This week's episode is hosted by me Greg Cochrane from Loud and Quiet magazine. Tonight. My guest on the podcast is Lauren Maybury, singer, multi instrumentalist and songwriter with the band Churches. It's been a decade since Lauren came together with Martin Doherty and
Ian Cook to form the synth pop trio. Previously, they'd each been part of various old rock projects around the Glasgow area. They released their debut album, The Bones of What You Believe in twenty thirteen. Since then, they've gone on to become one of Britain's biggest and most uncategorizable, if that's even a word bands, having collaborated and toured with a wide variety of artists ranging from Paramore to
the National Marshmallow to Deaftones. You've no doubt heard the song lay released recently here now in June twenty twenty one. It's with Robert Smith from The Cure. It's called How Not to Drown. If you haven't come across it, I've dropped a link to the video into the show notes. The tale of getting Robert involved is really good, and so too are some of the stories about getting to know him. Lauren talks about all of that in the
chat you're about to hear. The conversation is pretty fresh, recorded just a few days ago thanks to Lauren, who was speaking to me from her place in Los Angeles. We were joined at the start by her cat, the excellently named Cactus, and Lauren was really generous with their time, a really open person to speak to, so thank you
to her. We covered loads of ground in this, including the pressures and the perils of the internet, particularly if you're a woman fronting a band, and all the toxic stuff that she has been subjected to her days working in the local cinema back in Scotland, and how that gave birth to a love of horror movies that have gone on to inform this current period of the band, and really interesting to hear her thoughts on the art versus artist debate and where she stands on if and
how those two things can be separated. For the record, I'm withe or on that, And of course we talk a bit about Church's forthcoming new album, Screen Violence, which is set to be released on the twenty seventh of August. Just finally, excuse the very occasional interference on the mics. It's just the way these things go, sometimes doing things on opposite sides of the world. So here we go. This is Lauren Maybury from Churches on episode one hundred
and eleven of Midnight Chats. This episode of Midnight Chats is supported by Because Music, the record label that's home to Christine and the Queens, Jango Django, Metronomy, Charlotte Gainsbourg and many other brilliant artists. Justice are another one of those, and Because have just released the debut solo album from gaspar Uga, who is one half of the French electronic duo. The album is called Escapades and it's out now, something totally different from what you might expect, so do go
and check it out. You'll find it in any decent record shop or online retailer, and it's also available to download and stream now that's Escapades by gaspar Auge and thanks again to Because Music.
As soon as I sit down in the office to do any kind of promotional activity you want, who is this? That was Cactus. She has a sister called Poppy who's in the other room, doesn't care for the promo, isn't bothered. But it's just as soon as you shut the door and they think you're doing something amazing and they have to confind it.
Is she called Cactus because she has like a sort of prickily personality.
Come from well, they came with the names. We got them from a rescue place and they'd already named them. But they were teeny weeni when we got them. But I think she's called catchus because at the time she had really spiky. For now she's just insanely fluffee. So yeah, and I was like, that takes the pressure of me for naming the cat. I don't feel so bad of it anyway.
Would you have relished the challenge to name your cats or would that have been like quite difficult one because some people sort of have something like they want to name their cat after their favorite sports player or their favorite like musician or something. Don't they but.
Yes, I mean I've met I met a white cat called Steve ol buy No once. I was like, pretty spicy but fair enough. But yes, I've been naming fantasy cats for like ten years because we were on tour so much, I couldn't really get a pit. But in a way it took the responsibility away. They were like, do you want the cat or not?
Yes?
Yes, so pre named cats all good.
Cats are one of those pets that because yeah, when you do go onto it and it's months on end that you're away for, at least, the cat is slightly This is just like their personality is more to be independent, and they're kind of you might get home, you might get home after three months away and you open the door, they take one look at you and just sort of shrug.
Yes, I feel less guilty if I feel like if with a dog you'd be breaking its heart while leaving. I like to think the cats would notice in so far as they receive less treats because I am the active treat giver. But other than that, I think they'd be fine, which is nicer, nicer for them, I think.
But we've died into talking about the new album Screen Violence twenty twenty one is ten years since the start of churches, which is amazing, a whole decade. What are your feelings on that, reflections on that. Does a milestone like that mean anything to you or do you? Are you not the kind of person that dwells on that type of thing.
I feel like I dwell on the passage of time a lot, especially in the last couple of years. I feel like maybe it's like turning thirty, and maybe just everything that happened in the last eighteen months for everybody makes you reflect lot more. I kind of not even thought that it was ten years until we started doing promo and then people were like, did you know, there's
been ten years of your life? And honestly, it feels like I don't really remember a time where I wasn't in churches, and so for like, emotionally, it feels like that's just been there for a long time. But also what happened to the twenties and twenties just disappeared in a good way doing something really amazing that so few people get to do. So I'm very lucky, but I think I'll sink in for us when it's like ten
years since the first album. It'll be weird because we haven't seen Ian in such a long time, because Martin and myself were in Los Angeles and Ian's in Glasgow, so fingers crossed in theory we might see him before the end of the summer, right.
That'd be great, wasn't it?
And then I think hopefully we'll be in the same place around the tenth anniversary thing, which I think will be good.
Would you get together, go to the pub and just sort of like talk the talk about like early months or something like that. Would you vuation a bit like that, allow yourselves to be nostalgic for a night.
I think so, because when you're in the thick of it and you're just like doing it, doing it, doing it, especially like pre twenty twenty, like, there isn't a ton of time to reflect on stuff. And at least I've been bad at doing that. Not that you're not grateful
for it, but you don't. I never really sat in thought about how mad a lot of the stuff that happened around our band was, just because you were just like, oh man, better take these opportunities before they go away, And we were just like running, running, running, running, and we knew it didn't happen a lot for people in Glasgow and where we come from, but we didn't know if that was uncommon in general. And now that I know more people in bands and how things happened for them,
I'm like, yeah, that's that doesn't happen every day. That is quite a mental story the way it rolled out for us. So I'm very grateful for it, I said, I'm very wistful. I had a whole year inside to think about this.
We did like loads of those sort of odd jobs that you just never get round to doing, like whether that's like going through the boxes at the bottom of your wardrobe and you find like family photos or you or a friend messages you that you haven't been in touch with for ages. It was there was something about particularly the first sort of lockdown of the of the pandemic that I guess maybe it was just the pure time on your hands, but also it just it was
a sort of reflective period, wasn't it. It Just it did allow a bit of time and space to maybe things to just come into your mind.
Yeah, and I hope that we hold on to that stuff. I think that I got a lot out of that. In a weird way, which seems kind of fucked to see, but yeah, I don't think I would. We wouldn't have stopped the regular trajectory of our work lives had that not happened. And I think everybody did some soul searching and good ways and bad and I hope that you take that into the next chapter with you. But I think I'm annoying the guys already because everything that's happening.
I'm like, oh my god, you guys just hold onto the look at this moment, and they're like, oh my god, my god. It's like it's a it's a thumbnail of single art for the internet. Like why, I'm like, oh, can you believe the third piece of artwork for the fourth album?
Oh?
And I think that's going to get old pretty quickly, but you know, I would rather be I don't know. It made me very conscious that all of this is going to go away, like in all senses of it, like everything from churches to the literal existential stuff. I'm like, none of this is around forever. And I feel like I've definitely taken it, not taken advantage, just been bluzzy
about certain things at certain times. And I don't want to do that anymore, so they just have to put out with me being like, oh, you guys are first five am flight.
What what are your recollections from those first few months of being together in churches? Because it was was it around the summertime or that you got together eleven?
Yeah, So I met ian In at the end of September twenty eleven because he was recording an EP for my old band. I would have been like October time that I did the like rough recording for what ended up being Churches. And it was that Ian and Martin had been working on these songs together. I think they wanted to try and write songs for other people, maybe
try and get publishing. And then when I'd played with Ian he was like, oh, maybe it'd be good for her to sing some backing vocals or it would make it easier to present to people, so it's not just male singing. But yeah, I mean I didn't know what I was doing at the time. I don't think any of us really knew. Like Martin loves to maintain that
he knew, like he's the seer. He was like, yes, this is going to be massive, and he was definitely more plugged into like hype Machine and like what was current at that time in a way that Ian and I just weren't. Yeah, I don't think you can ever really plan any of that stuff. And there's so many things about about the band that are just a happy accident.
Like there's so many bands and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but there's so many bands that came out at the same time as US or a few years after that do roughly the same thing, and they don't. They haven't had the same life span as US, And I don't know what that is for. I don't know. I don't know why. I think we're lucky to have an incredibly rabid fan base that was there from the beginning.
And I feel like whenever people talk about the resurgence of synthpop and then they list the bands that they're talking about, I'm like, ah, I don't even think about those people as being peers of ours in terms of what we're trying to do or what kind of writing you're doing. I think we were always a lot more focused on emotional content and lyrical content and having I feel like that a band has an identity, for better
or worse. Some people love us, some people hate us, but most of the time it doesn't seem like there's an in between, which I kind of think is a positive sign. I would rather be saying something lyrically and literally than just be benign.
You know. That's sort feeds into something I was going to ask you about later on, but we might as well get onto it now. With just that idea of like churches being just my opinion, but sort of genre fluid, sort of audience fluid. Just you do your thing, and like it just seems like different communities of people really
get into what you're doing. Like, you know, the obvious examples being, you know, to illustrate that point being that you've been on tour with a whole bunch of diverse artists from Deaf Tones through to like you know, you're going out with Donna miss Or later in the year, Like this is a really diverse sort of group of people that you've worked with and been associated with and
collaborated with and stuff. We're all familiar with the kind of old school way of thinking around the kind of like the boxes that fit neatly over genres and festivals and the way that we consume music. The very titles that we flick through when we go into a record store, and like, it feels like churches could kind of fit into a lot of different ones. And so is that something you intentionally wanted or you've just been happy that it's emerged in that way.
I think it was just something that was always in the dna of it because we all come from rock and alternative band backgrounds, So when we were doing started to do a quote unquote pop band, there was always going to be like a strange juxtaposition. And I think for me, you can always tell when someone's quote unquote going pop because they think it's a smart thing to do,
or whether they really love it. And I feel like the thing that always frustrated each of us individually in other bands was that pop was bad and melody was not allowed and you had to always bury those things because all of us do love pop music like you can love all things at once, like you think it's okay.
And so when we went into the alternative pop space and never really fully felt like we've fitted there, and I know that that's been frustrating to people around us that work with us sometimes because it's like, ah, they're not fully accepted by this community but not fully accepted by that community. And for booking and playlisting and genre genre all that stuff, it does feel like we fall between two stools sometimes, but I think in the long
run that's been a real strength for the band. Because the day the first album came out, we played a session on Radio two and at night we played a boiler room session, and I said, those are two most bizarre things, but I think that's always yeah, And then once we realized that that was a thing we could do, and you can tell from shows or online that the demographic is pretty broad in terms of age and interests
in all those things. So I think once we realized we were allowed to do that, we definitely lent into that more, and especially the last few years. Like I personally think it's really great that we can do a collaboration with a big EDM guy, and then we can work with Robert Smith, and we can make a record with Greg Kristen, and then we can make a record basically over zoom. I kind of feel like that's a
real strength to the band. And I don't really read reviews very much, but I read a review of like one of our shows that we did at Ali Palley, and the premise was like, for a band that's never had a hit, there's a lot of people of this show. And then I was like, yeah, I think that's really cool though, because for us, it's always these little, like
five percenter things rather than like one big smash. It's always like somebody heard you on some TV show or a video game, or a friend found it on SoundCloud when they were at university and then they told them about it, And yeah, I feel like that's something that we're really grateful for and want to invest in in terms of like what does a long term project look like? What how do you keep people interested? How do you keep your touring good? How do you stay around? And
you're not going to be hot property forever? You know? And I think that's something that we figured out after the second album, was that you're not always going to be everybody's favorite Darling kind of thing. But how can you invest in the people that have invested in you and keep evolving rather than you know, you don't have to evolve into super mainstream pop to keep moving forward.
How hard is it to not constantly spend time second guessing yourself, like listening to you there talking about it, like presumably the idea is that when you sit down to write some new music, you kind of want to just detach and you want to retreat to that sort of original essence of what creating music is to you and and amongst the three of you in the band.
But you've come a long way, like you said, you've gone on this trajectory that's actually probably been really great for like longevity in terms of like building building and you've got like really kind of loyal people that have come with you the whole way. Does it still play on your mind? Of all those things you just mentioned, there's loads of like competing factors. How do you filter out the noise or is it even possible to filter out the noise when sort of creating something new.
I think I've done better and worse jobs of that at different times, Like yeah, when I've heard heard people comment on the lyrics over the course of time. I think the ones that have connected with people much better are the ones where we are being more vulnerable and
we are being more open and honest. And I think there was a time period where I found that quite unpleasant to have to do because it felt like everything, everything that comes out of my mouth is being analyzed, and why would I give people more rope to hang me with. I don't want people to know any more than they already know, because it's not good for my
well being. But I think that the songs suffered because of that, because they don't need to be even stream of consciousness about yourself, but you need to be putting enough of your own emotion and honestly into a song, no matter who the narrator is, I think, and yeah, I look back on those songs, I'm like, those songs are good, but they don't have the same emotional weight to them because they or maybe that's just how I feel about them. I feel like they feels more disconnected
because that's what they were designed for. But that's not what people necessarily want our band to be. So, if anything, last year felt the most akin to the first album in terms of being in a vacuum. Like when we made the first album, we'd written most of it before anybody heard the band, really, so you were writing without expectations.
And I think that of all the horrible things that happened last year, the band kind of ceased to exist in the truest sense of it, Like, if nobody sees you, nobody hears you, you don't go anywhere, you don't do anything. Does a band exist If a band tree falls in the woods, So you know, like then like the band became. Instead of this chaotic, wonderful, chaotic godzilla that just tramps through our lives, it was like a source of consistency
and comfort almost. We would meet up and we would write, and we were just kind of writing for each other. As cheesy as that sounds, We're like, let's just try and make something good. It doesn't seem like this is gonna We'll try, but we don't know what's gonna happen. And if anything, I think not having anybody watching or listening and having a mental health break from what is a wonderful but pretty fucking insane job was I think helped us a lot in terms of finding a better
balance with that. And I think, yeah, the fear of writing personally kind of disappeared for me on this album, So I think that was good. If you, again, you've only had a certain amount of times, you might as well, what's the point If you only get to put a certain number of records, you might as well put something on it that you can look back on and be like, yeah, yeah, I hang my han on it.
I mean you mentioned they're the importance of switching off, taking a break from it. Having done that in between the release of the last record and then the start of the pandemic, what did that entail for you? Was that a case of just was that like turn your phone off? In a practical sense, How did you manage to create a bit of distance, to give yourself some headspace, to be able to start over, to start again, to want to start over again.
I don't know that we did really, Like I guess the album came out in twenty eighteen, and then we toured like mad bastards, and then we put out this EDM collaboration thing in the springtime twenty nineteen, so that we toured off that for a bit, and then we put a song for a video game, and then we toured off that for a bit. So we only finished
in December, end of December twenty and nineteen. Then we had the Christmas period, a little bit of time at home, and then we came back to start writing in February twenty twenty. And then ever they even fell apart obviously, So I think a lot of the reflecting was done when everybody was fully, fully locked inside their houses and pretty fucking terrified.
Yeah, I mean those early days were so strange, but like just just following the kind of directives of being like, how how is today different from yesterday? Wasn't it was? It was quite confusing and just yeah, it was terrifying. It was kind of this thing ripping through the through the world.
And I think if anything, for me, that having spent that time, it was important to reflect on that because a lot of mad stuff happened for us in good ways. I'm bad, and I think sitting reflecting on those things, it was almost like an epiphany where I was like, why am I wasting my fucking time on certain things? Like certain things within the job. I was like, like, I just don't have any fucks to give on those
fronts anymore. And I think that the we've made better music because of it, And yeah, I think that people are responding better to the music we put out so far because that we just took off these parameters that we put on, if that makes sense, because everybody will tell you all, well, we just we don't mind We're fine, We'll just make whatever we want. No artist is ever worried, but especially for people like customer where we come from.
I'm like, I spent a lot of time, especially around the third album, I mean really fucking a worried that it was all going to go away and it was going to be because I didn't do it a good enough job, or like you're kind of told this or sold this idea that it's a whole colive disappear. There's not enough time quickly, quickly, like you have to do better, bigger, faster, like and I don't know that that's true necessarily in terms of making stuff that's actually good in a real sense.
Did that just feel like a momentum of people saying, like, work harder, work harder, work hard? Is that what it feels like? Just sweet? More play more shows, do more TV appearances more like? Is that what?
Like?
I guess I'm just trying to get to like that pressure that it sounds like was on there, the idea that things might go away, and like that somehow the solution was that you just you've got to keep sprinting. What kind of things were they? And how did you? How did you and to say that enough is enough. Did you just do that almost like one day where you're like, I can't do this, I need to stop doing that.
Well, I think we've been really lucky in terms of the people that we work with. Have never really been like that with us, Like we were really lucky with who we signed with and all those things. But it is just a fearful pressure from within yourself sometimes like no barons are the same, you should not be comparing yourself to other people. But then it is like, oh, so and so is much more engaging with their fan base on the internet, and then their tickets sell better
because of that. And then this person did the collaboration with this person, which meant they got this tour support, which made it's just like you're just trying to keep your career for as long as you're allowed. And you know, on the third record, I feel like there was a sense within all of us that we were like, Okay, well we can't make the same album again, so we have to do something different. But I don't really know
what that is. So I think we went in feeling a bit directionless, and we found what I think is a good direction when we worked with Greg Kirstin, who's who we ended up working with on that. But I know that a lot of the FAMI base didn't really like that record that much, and I think I look back on that and I wonder if that was because the lyrics weren't as personal or as a motive. I'm not sure, But for me, I'm like, I don't regret any of those things because I learned so much from
working with somebody as crazy talented as that. And if you made this, if we made the ones of What You Leave part three, people wouldn't have liked that, Like it wouldn't. You have to grow and evolve as a person as a writer, you have to try stuff like
I don't want to be afraid to try things. So I feel like the only thing I would change about it is that over the course of that album cycle, I think I learned better about listening to my gut about certain things because I think, for better or words, I think I have a good, pretty good sense of what I think it essentially big headed, I have good sense of what we should be doing. But I just mean, you know, all three of us, I think we have, but we kind of got psyched out of trusting that
if that makes sense. Music first becomes popular people like the honesty of it and what it is, and then you sit and second guess what that is and you try and focus group out the things that yeah, and it's just it's endless. So I feel like this was a good time for us to just be like, we need to trust ourselves more and if anything that I had a conversation with our manager at one point in twenty nineteen and he was like, I understand, I totally get it, and he made a good point to me,
and I think about a lot. He was that you can say no to all these things and that's totally fine, but if you say no to something, you have to come back with what you do when I do, And I was like, So then I sat and steward on that and I was like, what do is see? How am I supposed to know? I'm not the buzz or everything.
And then about three weeks later, I've been looking through like some archive stuff I had of churches and I found this list of band names that we were going to call the band, and there was a lot of bad ones, but then Screen Violence was on. It was something we were going to call the band, and I was like, well, that would be if we're feeling a
bit disjointed. Sure, and maybe that's just a good writing prompt because we all love everything from that era and for me lyrically that pheze now means something very different than what it did at the time. So I thought it was just going to be a cool writing prompt for us to all get excited about old movies, and then it kind of evolved into this other, this other thing, and now here we are. So if anything, yeah, it's all part of the journey. If you take one of
these blocks away, the whole thing falls down. So I don't really believe in the whole look back and regret thing. Personal life, totally life, no.
Screen violence, and settling on that title and then the various meanings like you just said there that it sort of collects together, like your your your love of classic horror movies and like that genre. But then also this sense that we've all just come out of or still a lot of us in a period of basically life has been continued via screens like technologies. Basically in the one thing that's allowed to kind of that it's meant that we can sort of stay together in the during
this period starting on the on the movie side of things. Actually, where did your love of horror movies start? Because did you you worked in the cinema at one point, I did.
I worked in two cinemas. I worked in the Sunny World on Renfrew Street in Glasgow, Glasgow, this big multi story one, and then I worked in the in theory it's alternative but still owned by a big company called the Grooveler in the West end of Glasgow. So okay, yes, I have cleaned up a lot of stuff.
That was very diplomatic there the way you said a lot of stuff because my brother worked in the cinema when we were teenagers. And yeah, some of the stuff that goes on in the cinema and also some of the things like I would never eat a hot dog that's been made in the cinema. Despite that weirdness, you have fond memories of working in the cinema.
I really do, Like if I of thing all those just disgusting stories, Like there's so many disgusting stories of like I remember a couple shagging up the back during like a morning showing of Horton. Here's a who And I was like, why this is not what Toucher Seuss would want. I don't know, maybe you would, I mean, I'm not sure, and more sinister things than that. But I look quite fondly on that time, because I mean
I did just love movies. I still love movies now, Like I think, for me, it's always been like escaping and storytelling. And I grew up in a pretty remote area where there wasn't a lot to do, so a lot of the escaping that you did was into films and you would get a bus and then two buses into Sterling so you could go to the one of the two screens in the Bengo Hall. And like you know, I think that's always been something that's really attractive to me.
And Ian and Martin are really big movie heads also, but we all kind of align on that that kind of Cronenbergie John Carpenter world. And I do think you can hear that in the music to a degree because of the synths that come from that time period. And yeah, it was always something that we found interesting and because churches started out specifically using only those synths, that's where the kind of idea for the name came from. So but we decided at the time where like is too
specifically retro. It's going to make people think that the band is just this retro only project, which wasn't what we wanted. But I kind of like that the idea of what screen violence means to us has evolved since then. It means this aesthetic thing. So that's the horror aesthetic for the album. But the songs aren't concept horror songs,
you know, they're about the other parts. I feel like it's always like when we talk about it, violence on screen, violence through screens, and violence by screens, if that makes sense, because I feel like this stuff that we're talking through right now is incredible and it's insane that we're able to do this, But I don't know that that technology
is great for us emotionally as human being. And also I think my relationship with those things as a female and as a female in the job I have has been quite tricky at times, to see the least, so I think, and we did sort of quite a lot of that with in twenty nineteen, So I think coming into this rating, there was a lot a lot of fodder for the idea of being feeling possessed or hunted and all those kinds of things, concepts, concepts everywhere.
Selecting one of those talking about the almost like screen time and our relationship with the Internet and just just how that shapes us and the impact it has and
our well being. Early on in the podcast, you mentioned like hype Machine in relations like that when you were starting out with the band, and like the way that people would kind of discover music and stuff, and instantly the feeling I had in that moment was like that felt like a bit of a simpler time, like and makes you sort of throw back to like the healthy in days of MySpace in biber or something, but like it, Yeah.
That was that for a while. It started it because the whole like who do you give your daily heart to thing like not started but that kind of like likes culture is weird.
Yeah, and that's just like it's you know it likes culture on acid now with Instagram and everything else. But yeah, if you kind of is your relationship with that reshaped over time? And have you ever been curious about the idea that if if we just turned off the Internet, and what would what would happen? What would life be like if in twenty twenty one we just turned off the Internet for a bit of a break from it all.
Well, I feel like our band has a really specific relationship with the Internet because we came out at such a specific time, as you say, like it was SoundCloud and blogs and Hepe machine and that just doesn't exist in the same way now. I don't think.
So.
Yeah, we were like really heavily immersed in the Internet from the beginning of the band. But I remember being on an early churches tour and our manager being like, you guys should get this thing called Instagram, and we were like, oh, and then like putting up a picture of Martin in like a service station in England somewhere, and think I was like, I'll just show you Instagram.
I don't know, So, you know, like I feel like we've been at the We've been at the birth of so many of those things, but nobody understood what it was going to be in that what it would evolve into. And I don't know. My partner doesn't have any social media and I see the joy that that brings him, So I do think. I don't know. I think if I wasn't in the job i'm in, I don't know
if I would. I don't think I would do it because I don't use it really, like I'll message a friend who replies to something I posted, but I don't use it personally just because that's not what my relationship is with it. But it's I do think it's an incredible way to communicate with people, and especially for an artist, I'm like, okay, well, it's the only place really that you get to say exactly what you want to say,
apart from your actual art. Like, if I can, I try and make the Instagram less about pictures of my face from certain angles and use it more as like a mood board's like Pinterest. Especially in the run up to the album coming out, I was always like, this is how you kind of set the tone, and but the like sculpture is weird because nobody wants that. Really. I'm like, guys, let's make something creative and find a community, and you know it is a direct line to your
fan base. But even though I know how the sausage is made, is still feel like it makes us all feel terrible about ourselves, especially esthetically, like it's just so bizarre, so bizarre and dark in a lot of ways. And even though I know how long it takes I'm like, that person took that photo forty times, and then these are the filters that they put on it, and this is a professional photo that they obviously paid for from
a shoot. But when, even if you know that, when you're not in the right mindset and you look at it, it just makes you feel fucking terrible. Like I have never known more about what's right wrong with my physical appearance the other than when people tell me on the internet, you know, and I don't We all think that about ourselves anyway, because of the images that we the messages that we take in from the world, and then it's just odd that, Yeah, I feel like we're in this
spinning wheel. I don't know where it's going to end. I don't know.
Yeah, I feel like we're in a real kind of pivotal point. I do think there'll be something will happen in the next couple of years whereby you know, we've got governments and we've got platforms and they're kind of telling each other that they need to take responsibility for
this stuff. And then we've got kind of third parties, you know, people that are on those platforms saying, you know, it's time to do something about this, and it does feel like we're moving towards a point where things will happen. I don't know exactly what, but yeah, I.
Guess it's just this tricky space because it's like, oh, if you start pulling at this thread, then you have to pull it this thread, and you have to pull it this one. And I was like, yeah, that's interesting. In the conversation around like streaming and things like that, it feels like that conversation is really waited towards one or two services. And I'm like, but if you hate that,
then you're going to have to hate YouTube. And if you hate YouTube, then no more cat videos for you, and like, you know, like it's just and I don't know, it's like why are we mad? Like I think it's we're mad at those companies for what they've done to the music industry, but major labels have stakes in those companies, and we're not mad at the music industry for not
getting a fucking clue fast like they knew. Like I've watched enough documentaries on this, I'm like, you basically handed the keys to tech companies because you were being so stubborn about the change that was happening, and you just couldn't see it. And now everyone's annoyed that tech companies control music. But I think labels are doing fine because they figured out how to get a back end on that, you know.
I think I think a huge amount of that could be like like it was like this big pendulum swing that came at like just into the you know, the millennium came along, and like Napster was there in Lime Wire and basically they just absolutely smash their hand on the panic button and we're like, we're going to go the other direction here. I think the industry is living with the consequences of that period and their reaction to that.
Yeah, and it is tricky when artists talk about it because I don't think that's set up in that system is correct. But if I was a teenager, I would be overwhelmed. I would overjoyed because you can have access to so much music And why is it your It's not really your job as a fan to care about why this person is or isn't making money. And I also don't think that you're owed a living from making music,
Like making music is a privilege. And yes, the problem is if other people are making money in a way that you are not, but I think that, yeah, it's never guaranteed. And even ten to fifteen years ago, if you were an artist of a certain size, you probably weren't making very much money then either. So yeah, I guess it's how the pie is broken down, is I think what's upsetting people. But some of the narrative I do think is strange because I'm like, well, but none
of us are guaranteed that this is a job. We're not unionized in that way, like there's a daily rate and our wage like.
There just isn't.
So I don't. It's a tricky it's very tricky thing. It's a hot potato. I don't know how to handle it, and I don't know what's right. And I resigned from this conversation.
Let's move on to talking about Robert Smith. Yes, I mean you're going to get asked, obviously, in every single interview you do around this album about working with Robert Smith and the Cure an amazing more an amazing track,
but also what an amazing experience. I read that basically you had approached him to contribute to the track and it went off into the ether, and you weren't really necessarily sure whether that collaboration would happen, and then he sent it back and said, what do you want and he said to record something for us, and he sent it. He sent his vocals for the track back on Halloween. That feels very appropriate.
He says, there's an accident, But I wonder. I'm like he maybe he was doing as a service as fans. He was like, this is what I know they want,
Let's just do it this way. But yeah, it's beyond my mind still is like boggled by the fact that that happened at all, just because we're all such big fans of The Cure and of Robert's lyrics and his writing, and just the way that he has carried himself through his career, like like they've always been completely unique and had such an integrity to it, and yeah, I think that's something that we're always in awe of, and working
with him has honestly been the best it's been. He's been the best, easiest, nicest person that we've collaborated with. And that's saying a lot, because we've worked with a lot of nice people. So yeah, he's just incredibly engaged and really generous, Like he's so conscious of not wanting to be treading on what we're doing, and I'm like, tread, tread all over the song, please, and he just yeah, I think he was a big one.
For me.
I was like, oh my god, oh he's not a prick. I really also say, oh, this is going to be so dissolutioning if he's a prick. But no, he's generally everything that you would would think. And yeah, we're really excited about that. And yeah, I feel it's exciting to see the crossover and the fan bases as well. What Like, I've seen enough Cure shirts or shows to be like, I think that they will like this, and I guess yeah. For me, I'm like, there's a thread that goes through
all these bands. Like when you mentioned Deaftnes earlier, I'm like, well, the Cure and Deftones have a connection in a different way. And for me, I'm like, yeah, it's always this. There's this kind of honesty and emotion and melancholy or something that goes through all those bands and hopefully through our
band as well. So yeah, I always like to think about not a scene in a traditional sense, but like a scene in terms of like a tapestry of music that makes sense together we're trying to get Robert in our scene. Basically we're trying to get into Robert's scene. Yeah, like a tiny version of Robert's career sounds pretty amazing to me.
Yeah, going back to what we were talking about earlier about kind of managing how you your relationship with like the online world. One of my favorite I don't know whether necessarily whether this is true, but one of my favorite things I'd heard about Robert Smith was that he has got it absolutely sewn up because he he basically does all of his email correspondents on like one day of the week and basically you know that you're only going to get any email back from Robert Smith on
like a Thursday or something like. He treats it a bit like fan mail, so like on a Thursday he will go through all of his emails and say like, yes I'll do that interview, Yes I'll go on that track, and like, like, I don't know.
He did say that he he has he does have a smartphone, and he has he bought like five or six versions of the same phone at the same time, but ten fifteen years ago because he was like, I know, I like this one, which I respect, and then I feel really bad because he's been so generous to us. I'm like, it's like charity outreach for us because he's he got FaceTime and Zoom so he could do promo like he hadn't used at any point in the pandemic. And then he was just like, Span needs my help.
I will help them get this interview by doing a FaceTime and you know, like most people would not in his position, wouldn't do that. I don't think so. I he'd like self taped at home the stuff for the music video. He just did it in his house and sent it to us, and he doesn't need to be
doing that. But I feel like that sums him up as a as an artist, or what I would like to think about him as an artist is that it is about creation and collaboration in the truest sense, you know, and ultimately that's what we're all supposed to be doing. Like he said something on an interview the other day which got me a little misty, but then I'm was like, I was already a crier. Twenty twenty pushed me into
the stratosphere, like there's no coming back, Formina. But what he said was the interviewer had been like, oh, yeah, it must be difficult to not be constantly working on a track because you know your work is right there all the time. And then he immediately was like, but music, music's not work. It was like, this is work. Other things around. Facilitating your right to make music is work,
but actual making of music is not work. And I don't ever think about it in it And as I feel like that's maybe.
All be more like that, I think, yeah, that takes the wisdom from Robert Smith. I think he's Yeah. I mean, he's always struck me as like a really generous spirit and also really straight talking, which I've always said as a fan appreciated. And I also love the fact that maybe he's walking around with sort of five Nokia thirty two tens in his pocket, just like I like this one. It's easy. I like the texting on this one.
And he's smart because then there's no there's no even temptation of any of the things that we've just been talking about, because you're safe from the devil, because the devil's not in sage your phone exactly.
We probably haven't got time to kind of go in and sort of talk about lots of kind of individual songs on the album, but I particularly like Good Girls. I think it's an amazing, amazing track, And I like the line that you have in there talking about well your reference like killing your idols and this idea of kind of that that's a chore and it's difficult but
almost maybe potentially kind of a necessary thing. And I was wondering whether that was just a reference to some of the sort of the sort of habits and attitudes that go along with much older generations and how like in time they will disappear, and maybe that makes you feel a bit hopeful about what the sort of general like your generation and generations below you, the kind of world that they might create. Yeah.
Well, I guess the opening line came. I had written it down in my notebook after a lengthy pop discussion with friends about certain musicians who have been doing certain things. And I guess I feel like the concept of councel culture has really evolved and snowballed and almost now been weaponized by the right, and I don't know that that's I feel like accountability culture makes more sense in a lot of ways, but it's not as catchy, it's not as quick and also a lot of things that people
are getting quote unquote canceled for. There's another name for a lot of those things. If you're getting fired for a workplace for doing a certain thing, that's not cancel culture.
That's abuse. So yeah, but I sat and listened and listened to this thing, and then I just had this kind of quiet rage where I was like, Yeah, but isn't it a privilege to sit and talk about that, talk about whether what this person has done is hurtful, to talk about whether this person is an abhorrent racist, or talk about whether this person is is abusing women because it doesn't affect you, It doesn't affect your life.
And I just that, like it just made smoke come outd my ears as I was just that I don't understand why you would sit, you would go to such lengths to make excuses for Woody Allen like things like that. I'm like, I just don't get that. Like, and they almost get more annoyed at the people who are pointing out the thing than they do the man that's done it, and it's mostly always a man. But not that women can't be terrible, especially white women. We can be really
fucking shit. But yeah, it was just interesting sitting thinking about it, being like yeah, but whether for me as a listener, I find it difficult to listen to somebody's art, especially like the narrator of the song or the writer of the film, if I know that the same brain that this came from is the same brain that could feel something so hurtful and violent and aggressive. And I don't know. And I understand that you're not You're never
gonna agree with somebody on everything. You can't expect all your favorite artists to think exactly the same way as you. But I feel like as a listener, there's like a giving over of control and the vulnerability when you're sharing in that with somebody, and I don't I don't want to share in Woody Allen's art with him. It doesn't mean that he's not made some profound art, but I don't want to share in that. I would find it
difficult to listen to Modessey in the present day. Like you know, there's just certain things that you know when everyone feels differently about it. But I do feel like a lot of people are able to feel differently about it because they come from a place of such protection where the discussions around those things are hypothetical for them. I just instead of flipping the bar table at leaving,
I was like, hmm, you see them that later. And then you know, and I think as I think, I was the only woman involved in that conversation because you know, I have a pretty heavy male friendship group and pretty heavy male work group because of the profession I work in, and I was just interesting to sit and listen to people to talk about it. And I was say, hmmm, but a lot of people don't have that luxury as
a woman. I don't feel like I have that luxury in terms of making excuses for Louis c. K. Even though I have heavily enjoyed Louis K's comedy, at times, I don't feel comfortable making excuses for that man. So I can continue to enjoy his comedy, like it's just it's not abstract for me in the way that it's abso act for other people that were in that chat. So, but I promise it's a fun pop song. You know, we made there, We made the chorus hooky, we made the chorus fun.
Yeah, it is an amazing song. And I think you're absolutely right, And I think it's about what you just described there is the classic case of kind of a real privilege as well of just like maybe yeah, being in that sort of male dominated environment of them kind of just just being more passive about the subject. And Yeah, I'm super glad that you've written about it because I think I think it will I think it will have a real impact. Thanks. Man.
I'm excited for the men on the internet.
Yeah, my god, we'll just break out your battle armor and just like your thicker skin because I think, like, yeah, fuck those guys.
Yeah. Well, and I think that was what's been interesting about it for me is because I don't actively believe that I spend a lot of time with any men who would think any of those things in a different set of but when it comes to defending the art of artists that they love, they will definitely go to really extreme lengths to explain away those things. And I think it's because you then you love the art, you don't love the artists. But I think for me, I
can't ever divorce. I don't know, I just I find it difficult. And yeah, even like financially and emotionally supporting somebody that has done that, I'm like that's just I choose not to do that. I'm not saying that that person needs to be disappeared to the top of a mountain forever. But do I want to go see that person in content and listen to what they have to say and emotionally connect with them.
Not really, But your way of your way of making your point is to yeah, not not can see that art. I'm not going to support that person. I don't agree with what they've done.
Yeah, And it doesn't mean that I need to violently assault that person verbally on the Internet or any of those things. And I just don't need to participate in that because I don't want to be contributing to that as a worldview or something. I don't know. That sounds privileged as well, doesn't it? See im part of the problem.
No, I mean, we could send thisselves in endless circles. That's how these things are so difficult to unravel. My final question, just quickly was really just about the practicals of how you've worked the last about eighteen months. Because the majority of this record that's coming out was made remotely. Has it made you think, you know what, in the future, we could make albums remotely or has it or has the experience made you think, you know what we did,
that we did a really practical thing. We made it work, and next time I would love to get back in the studio together.
I think we were lucky that we had quite a lot of the rough demos before we had to separate, so at least the structure of them existed in some way, whether that was just a demo that Ian and Martina had from previously, or I think the only things that we'd recorded vocals on before Ian had to leave was he Said, She Said and Good Girls were like the
two first things that had happened. All the rest of the lyrics were written remotely, and I think I can lyrics remotely, and the guys can do production remotely, but that's because the structure's already in place. I think if we had to work and write and create songs over zoom, that would be really a lot more difficult, because there is something about the energy of being in a room and like the speeds that you can communicate with somebody when you're in a room and you're like, no, no,
not that sound, what about this? And that's just much harder on zoom. And I think it was a really special way to make a record and a really special way to stay connected. But I don't I think by the time, by the time we all get out of here, I think we're all going to be very grateful for this technology but very happy to not have to use it as much again.
And it would be nice to wrap up a song and then say, should have a drink?
Yeah, should we like hang out rather than And the time zone was a real sticker as well, because it would mean that one of us would have to be up to stupid o'clock in the morning or getting up at stupid clock in the morning all the time. And I think that brings different energy to your writing. But it's just, yeah, you're never in the same emotional state as one at least one person in the group because you're just not in the same Yeah, you're not in the same life at that moment.
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Anyway, good Night