All of this week on Beats 1, London Grammar are Julie’s UK Represent ahead of their new album dropping this Friday. They discuss the new album, working with Paul Epworth, their favourite moment from this album, creating the track list, the track ‘Oh Woman, Oh Man’, Elton John calling them, being into Mabel and Loyle Carner and much more!
On what it feels like to release this album
Dan: I think it’s quite astonishing how quickly this has come around. In my mind, I think we were making it for a while and the build up has been quite long, so to suddenly be here just feels almost unreal, it feels like, am I dreaming? I’m not dreaming, okay it’s fine.
On the four years between their last album the new one
Hannah: It doesn’t feel like yesterday, but I also can’t believe it’s been four years. I don’t really remember anything that’s happened in the last four years, that is kind of weird.
Listening to the new album in full
Hannah: A while ago, I have my favourites that I go back to but in full, I’d be too scared to do that because there’d be so much I’d probably want to change, and then that would just be…
If they could change one thing on the album
Hannah: I would turn down the drums slightly, there’s a whole list of these things, that’s one.
Dan: to be fair I actually kind of agree
On working with Paul Epworth
Dan: It was amazing, he’s obviously an incredibly experienced producer, and made some amazing records and albums, singles, lots of things, and it was just a massive learning curve, he pushed us quite hard in areas maybe we’ve not gone before, and that was interesting. As a Studio, this place is legendary so the two combined was great.
Hannah: He is into like vibing up the room which I really love, he was like burning sage, it might have been sage, he is a sage kind of guy.
On the process of creating the track list
Hannah: It always is really, every part has its difficulties, so there are lots of songs that didn’t make it which is very sad. I think that’s actually the hardest decision process sometimes because here are songs that maybe Dan really loves, that me and Dot don’t so much and vice versa, and suddenly you find yourself in a band and you have to decide what’s actually going on, you don’t always agree but we got there in the end. They didn’t make it yet because they didn’t fit, but I feel bad about it, I feel sorry for them.
Dan: some that make it to like, you know we do deluxe records now, so there are some B sides essentially that go onto the deluxe. But then there are the C sides that never see the light of day, so one day we should do a C sides
Hannah: And that can either be the making of us or the breaking of us
Dan: I reckon if we call it C side with a picture of a beach on it, it’s probably going to break us
On their favourite moment from this album and why
Dan: The drums on Bones Of Ribbon…
Hannah: I too will say Bones of Ribbon, minus the drums I wish were a little quieter, but Drums of Ribbons is probably my favourite song
On being aware of wanting something that feels complete together
Hannah: That is exactly it, I think we realised pretty quickly that we’ll never be a singles band, that’s just not really how we work, and it does feel like a snapshot in time, it kind of makes us really excited for the third album if we get there hopefully.
On releasing singles away from the complete package
Dan: It is very difficult, especially today and things have changes since we released our first album, because music is moving so quickly right now, so I think it is a difficult decision, but it’s about just taking people on some kind of journey to when they feel like they’re ready when the album comes out, they can listen to it as a whole, and hopefully have some insight to it at that point. That’s the approach we took.
On the catalyst points of creating what they made now
Hannah: I think trying to be relaxed is quite important, and just listening to loads of music and going back to some of the old records that I listened to growing up. That was what I did.
Dan: I think we all do that individually, because we all have quite different tastes, so then it’s a point of trying to combine the tastes and produce something that becomes the sound of the band. With us, there doesn’t seem to be any formula, we just do it, which is pretty risky at points, but that’s just how we are, we throw ourselves into it.
One track Hannah had on repeat when making the album
Hannah: I had the whole Fleetwood Mac – Rumours album, and Michael Jackson as well. I go back to those artists a lot, I think my parents listened to them a lot.
On putting their track, Hey Now, on the internet
Dan: I remember putting it up and there was an initial sort of excitement about the song which was amazing, and then it sort of faded, and then I think really, the big catalyst was Triple J playing it in Australia, they picked up on it very early, and it was bizarre, they were playing a rip of it just taken off of SoundCloud, and that sort of developed and then I think beyond that, it was a process of going full steam into trying to release the record, and it was sort of a whirlwind from that point onwards.
Hannah: I actually don’t remember which is really weird.
On what was happening in music at the time
Hannah: We had signed a record deal at that point, so we knew what we were doing in the sense of like, well, we kind of made most of an album, which one should we put online first, I guess this one? And then, we went with that one. And that was kind of it.
On where they were when writing, “Metal and Dust”
Hannah: That was a really early one, before we even signed a record deal I think, Dan had written the guitar part, and then I kind of wrote the top line. We did spend two years on a few different versions of it, kind of piecing it together.
Dan: We were working with a friend of mine who worked as an engineer in a studio, then he would like, in the night times when everybody wasn’t there, we would go in there and record demos, and I remember recording Metal and Dust there, his name is Ben, he’s a very lovely chap and a very good engineer, he was amazingly helpful at that point because he gave us the chance to begin to record music when we didn’t have the opportunity beforehand.
On performing Metal and Dust live for the first time
Dan: No… We played it at the Electric Works, that was really the first London show that we did, and we played it there, but it’s developed so much now, and now we end our set, every set we ever do, we always end with Metal and Dust.
On their track Rooting For You and how far after the first album, they wrote the new one
Hannah: There kind of was (a huge gap between the albums) because we were touring so much, and then we just, it was a bit like being a rabbit in headlights, so I don’t think we knew what was happening, and then it was only when we kind of started to tear off at the end, some songs started to appear. It was the first one, we were doing our last tour, it was a tour we had to reschedule, and I was singing it in sound check, and then when we came home, we had a couple of months of and it was the first thing in the studio we worked on.
On how different Oh Woman, Oh Man is different to their first song they released
Hannah: For me, it is our most different song, it’s kind of new territory I think. Dan, I think your guitar has changed a lot, and it’s my favourite guitar he’s ever written.
On what has changed the most about them
Dan: I think lyrically the development is there. I feel like I could say that objectively because Hannah writes the lyrics, I think they’re just, whether it’s more mature or more insightful, I don’t know what it is, but I think there’s just more meaning there, in a deeper sense maybe that there was before, but I think that’s just naturally part of developing as a writer I suppose. I think also, hopefully, music has that as well, in terms of just maybe being more emotional, I think that’s what we intend to do all the time.
On what happened when Elton John called them
Hannah: It was my friends birthday actually that day, and she was having a pub crawl and she kept on ringing me the whole time hogging the line, just pissed out of her mind. I was like, Holly, stop calling me, Elton is about to call me, please can you stop. That was a great conversation, he was really lovely, the line kept on dropping out all the time, because he was in Buenos Aires doing a show, I was really nervous.
On how many days of touring they did
Dan: Hundreds, probably, definitely, 300? 400? I don’t know
Hannah: It depends, if you count like, when you go and do something like SXSW, you’ll do six shows in a day, and radio sessions, and I think that’s kind of why there are patches that I just don’t really remember, because it’s all just blurred into one.
On what the plan is now for the album/performing and live shows
Dan: We’re already beginning to dabble in it, we played a festival at the weekend in Denmark which was amazing, and I think for us it’s just a custom for us to playing the new music because, we develop, for us we record a song and then we take it live and it takes on a whole new landscape in the song, it changes. I think because we’re essentially a studio band in as much that we don’t rehearse the tracks, we don’t pre-produce songs together as a band in a more traditional sense, we build the songs up with different elements, and then we learn to play the tracks and perform them live. There’s an element of development that goes on when we’re actually performing them, and they change and things, things get added and taken away and whatever, that’s how it works.
Hannah: And by the end of it you’re like, oh this is what it should’ve sounded like.
On doing a live version of the album
Hannah: I would love to do that. I think there is something about live music, that is how it’s meant to be heard, and there are things you can’t capture I think sometimes by just recording in a studio, that would be a really cool thing to do.
On what stages they’ve not played on yet and are looking forward – the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury
Hannah: Well we’re doing John Peel, not Pyramid Stage, but there still will be plenty of pee in my pants doing John Peel. All the pee and maybe a little sick in my mouth, that’s happened before.
On having stage fright
Hannah: Two minutes before we go on, I’m like, why am I doing this to myself, why? This is just the worst idea. But I am better than I was, and I think I’m starting to realise that, and if you kind of, I think for us when we tour correctly and if we’re not getting too tired, then my stage fright, it gets better, but it will always be there. I wouldn’t even describe it as butterflies, I couldn’t even put it into words, I just think it’s the people, I think it’s a really weird physical response to just lots and lots of people, it’s not rational, it is a kind of irrational thing. I look at Dan a lot, I look at Dot a lot for reassurance, sometimes it goes away, but it has, on occasion, not gone away, and there may have been a couple of occasions where, or one where I just walked off stage…
Dan: You can also always get the classic mid-song panic, and it just comes out of nowhere and you’re just like, OH… You’ll be playing and then suddenly this insidious thing will enter your brain and it will be like, you don’t know the next chord.
Hannah: The thing is as well, I know him so well I can turn and look at him, and one or two things will happen, either he’s come up in Hives, like he’s red, his neck looks like the world axe, or he does this thing where there’s this pause before the next chord, and then I start freaking out because he’s freaking out.
Dan: I think the big, learning experience this time round has been this acceptance of that you, in music, make mistakes, you make mistakes and that’s what makes it life. We’re coming to terms with that.
On what songs they’re excited to perform live
Hannah: For me, Bones of Ribbon and Leave The War With Me, I just love those songs.
Dan: I think Oh Woman, Oh Man is enjoyable to play, we’ve been playing that and I do think it offers something different, and it seems to have a good energy I think.
Last new lyric that you wrote down
Hannah: I actually wrote a song yesterday, it’s like, “build your structures…” that sounds shit doesn’t it? It’s not finished yet, it was like, I’m making myself look really rubbish right now.
Dan: I reckon its going to be on C sides
Hannah: You mean D sides
The last album you listened to that you fell in love with
Dan: I just love Loyle Carner’s record, Yesterday’s Gone. I think in fact, it’s probably because of the track, Isle of Arran which was the single, and then, I just love, hi hop that is maybe, he’s probably been influenced by listening to it sort of native tongue type sounding records, and so yeah, I just really loved it.
That last photo you took on your phone
Hannah: again it’s a new phone, I’m so boring and rubbish with this phone, but it was most likely one of my cat, let me have a little look for you. There are just too many of her it’s kind of weird. She’s called Honey.
Who’s the last famous person you met
Dan: I usually cower away from famous people. When I was at The XX gig, Sadiq Khan was knocking about backstage, and I was like, oh hello. And that was it. He’s a busy man, you know, it’s the mayor.
Last time you had to say a genuine sorry to someone
Hannah: probably to you and Dot. We apologise to each other a lot as a band.
Who is the last new artist that you have discovered that you really like
Hannah: I really like Mabel, so we did Jools with her, and she was just so cool, I love the songs, I loved her performance, she’s got an amazing voice. She was quite shy, her personality, and then all this sass and attitude came out, she’s my new fav.
Dan: I would say Loyle Carner again, but I’ve also become really into this chap called Jon Bellion, who’s quite well known on the internet I guess, but he’s amazing, super creative and really amazing songs actually, quite Michael Jackson-esque in some ways I think. A very talented person.
