Views and Tributes: The Futureheads

Who’s ever been to Scarborough? In the summer it’s all long beaches, Ice creams, donkey rides and fish and chips. In short it’s lovely. In the winter it’s a different story, drained of the tourism it lives on it’s a cold, harsh town where the only site worth seeing is the sign that says “Thank you For Visiting Scarborough”

For a short period in The Futureheads career it looked like winter was the season they were set to follow. ‘Carnival Kids’ and ‘First Day’ were released to critical praise but neither troubled the Top 40. The bands eponymous debut album was finally released in 2004, a full 2 years since they first emerged on the scene. Jerky, punky, instantaneous fun, it hit a note with the indie fraternity, however the band needed a defining moment, a trademark song, something to be remembered by. The bands epiphany came in the shape of ‘Hounds Of Love’ a song that sounded weird even on an album full of bizarre time signatures, shouty vocals and quirky arrangements. As well as sounding weird it sounded brilliant. It was obvious that a Mackem rendition of a Kate Bush classic was what was going to take The Futureheads by the hand and skip into the summer of their career. So it makes sense that The Futureheads came to Scarborough to record ‘News And Tributes, the follow up to the bands debut and an album that has seen the boys mature into a ‘proper’ rock band. Gigwise caught up with bass player Jaff to discuss ‘News and Tributes’.

So, how exactly is the new album different to the bands first effort? “Well it’s more focused, the first album was done as a bit of a laugh, we didn’t really know what we were doing. We were very serious about it but we were naïve as well. This new record has more traditional songs and I think its better.” comes the answer. Much has been written about the recording of ‘News and Tributes’ so we asked Jaff for his account of how it went, “ The first album was a nightmare to record, we did it in London in about 3 different studios with two different producers ( Andy Gill and Paul Epworth), it was a terrible experience. On the new album we did it in five weeks on a farm we converted into a studio.” Recording on a farm is bound to influence a band in certain ways, Jaff assures us that no cow bells were used however producer Ben Hillier (Doves, Blur) did have them try some odd things, “ We wanted to get the instruments sounding right before we recorded them rather than relying on the mixing desk. Ben told us that if you record a guitar in a greenhouse it will sound quite shrill, if you record drums in a barn they sound quite “boomy”. So you end up with a much more natural sound”.

The Futureheads toured their first album hard, playing hundreds of gigs all over the world, how did that affect the song writing process? “Well Barry writes most of the songs, Ross writes a few and then we get together to arrange the instrumentation. Barry had written about ten songs on the road. When we got back to Sunderland in September we rehearsed them for two weeks then spent five weeks in the recording studio and another five mixing it.” Producer by Ben Hillier has clearly pushed the boys out of their comfort zone on ‘News And Tributes’ and the results are clear to hear. Why exactly did the band pick Hillier? “There were lots of names put  forward but we were all big fans of Bens, the Blur record he worked on (Think Tank) was really good and he was really nice when we met him, we knew right away he was “The One”.

‘Skip To The End’ the first song released from the album is a track with one foot in the new album and the other in the bands debut effort. The odd vocal arrangements are there but the sound is much bigger and more confident. Away from ‘Skip To The End’ is there a song Jaff is particularly proud of? “We all have different ones but for me the song ‘Burnt’, it’s the first time we have used an acoustic guitar and the melody is really nice, it sounds like an old 60’s pop song. A lot of the bands we toured with last year had a massive effect and I think it sounds a bit like The Pixies.” Which other bands have had an effect on the new album we wonder? “I think the Foo Fighters did, songs like ‘Cope’ and Return Of The Beserker’ are a lot harder. We toured with Queens Of The Stone Age and they were just awesome, we wanted to get away from the really trebly, quirky angular sound and be a bit more straight forward”

Though future singles may be just a twinkle in label 679’s eye, Gigwise is always in the market for a scoop so have the band thought about what else they will release from the album? “I think the next single will be ‘Worry About It Later’, we just actually recorded a different version of that and made it a bit more poppy. The other contenders for singles are being debated, there is talk of ‘Up In The Air’ and ‘Favours for Favours’. It’s up to the label because we are so proud of the album we just want people to get into it.”