Simply Red: Guillemots

Did loads of songs not make the album?
Fyfe: “No. We had a few weeks at the start where we wrote a load of stuff but in terms of recorded stuff there were only two other tracks. One of them was a song I’d written, and the other’s a ragga, kind of R‘n’B type thing. We’re thinking of finishing it as a demo and selling it, taking it to a publisher and getting someone to sing it.”
Arista: “Sean Paul or Whitney.”

Wow! So how about the order of the record – was that more troublesome?
Fyfe: “I was on a train going to Birmingham, listening to the mixes we’d got so far, playing around with the order on my iPod and I’d got this one order I thought was great. I texted everyone and they all thought it sounded good, so that meant that two or three months before we finished the record the order was complete. There’s a track on ‘Red’ called ‘Cockateels’ – if it was in the wrong place it could sound really overly twee,  and weirdly putting it after ‘Last Kiss’, because it’s so different, it makes ‘Cockateels’ sound better because of the variety. “

How do you feel about reviews - do you find it hurtful to read something you don’t believe?
Fyfe: “I think we’re getting to the point where we’re not so bothered by it – you’ve got to be thick-skinned. We knew the NME were going to be like that because we’re not a cool band, it’s just one of those things. It’s a gossip magazine and it has been for quite a long time. Though getting a two star review from Uncut though – I was like ‘fuck, it’s a good magazine’. It’s one person’s opinion but it was quite shocking. It’s been the same with the live shows – in the Guardian we got a two. Were they even there? They said ‘Get Over It’ left everyone bored but everyone was loving it so I don’t understand.”
Arista: “With the last album I read everything, but this time round I haven’t paid it any attention. I feel a bit cut off but ultimately we’re not going to stop doing what we do because of what some people say. What’s the point in making your life miserable for no reason!”
Fyfe: “Reviews are funny things as well because even with the good ones, they look at things in such an analytical way.”

Do you wish that you weren’t written about? Obviously people do have the opportunity to just listen to your music, but do you sometimes wish the middle man was cut out?
Fyfe: “I think the nearest thing is if your girlfriend says ‘why do you love me?’ – you can’t really…”

No, you don’t need to…
Fyfe: “You can’t really list things or go anywhere near explaining what you feel. And the same when you hate someone. It’s like that with our record. We’re a bit of a mismatch as people and influences, and if you add it up mathematically it won’t work. And I reckon a lot of reviewers have only listened to it once.”

That’s not enough.
Fyfe: “You can’t get it after one listen. Most records that we like you don’t get after one listen. There’s some that you do, but generally speaking, most records I think are amazing first time aren’t the ones I come back to. Whereas Neil Young, Bob Dylan, The Fall or Tom Waits – the first time there’ve been one or two tracks I’ve liked, but there’s been something that makes you want to listen again and by the fourth listen, you’re obsessed with it.”

Changing the subject, what are the plans for the next single? How do you intend to get across the diversity on the album?
Fyfe: “It’s going to be ‘Falling Out Of Reach’. There’s a side of us that wants to put out the most experimental tracks, but everyone from radio to our record company really likes it. And we’ve got a really exciting video being planned for it which we’re keeping under wraps.”

And why’s the album called ‘Red’?
Fyfe: “Partially because we couldn’t think of anything better.”

Is it to with the colour of the sound, in an LCD Soundsystem or Beatles kind of way?
Fyfe: “It does feel like a red record, yeah.”

In what respect?
Fyfe: “Well red’s very in your face, it has connotations of lust and greed and warmth, all these things on the record. There’s a sense of stop and start – red can mean stop at a traffic light or in recording it means ‘go’. It wasn’t those reasons though, it was instinctive.”

And finally – is there much common musical ground between the four of you?
Fyfe: “There are things. It’s hard to find, but that’s why the band exists. Because that’s how we make our common ground in a way. There’s a certain type of music that we want to exist, and none of us really had those records. So that’s why we try and make stuff – to try and make that record that all of feel is missing in our collection I suppose.” 

That was Guillemots. And after about five listens, ‘Red’ is thankfully more than living up to Fyfe’s ramblings – in fact it looks set to be one of 2008’s great pop albums, whatever pop can be deemed to constitute these days. And despite the ‘eccentric’ moniker that’s permanently attached itself to the band, today they’ve proven themselves down to earth, frank and oh so humble. Now to make it back to the train station without getting run over…