- by Robert Wilkinson
- Tuesday, July 26, 2005
- filed in: Punk Indie
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We’re on Frith Street in a central London ‘caf’. It serves builder’s tea in glass mugs and the most extravagant ‘dish’ on the neon lit menu board is an omelette ciabatta. It’s straight-up, and no-frills – a fitting place to meet Sunderland’s latest musical offering. Following firmly in the footsteps of their close friends The Futureheads, Field Music are another example of why the North East‘s reputation for nurturing simple and honest pop bands is entirely justified.
That said, Field Music are a walking contradiction. At the core their songs are punchy and evolve like clockwork, to well articulated conclusions. But a lack of financial support has created an extreme harmony to their overall vibe – a sort of studio 'Ying' and live 'Yang'. The album marks a sound that dips into the very founding fathers of pop, from The Beatles to the Beach Boys, picking up broad traces of equally innovative sounds along the way, from Thelonious Monk to Talking Heads. That’s the Ying. On the other hand, the sound is taken to a different angle when on stage, attracting obvious comparisons to their pals The Futureheads and at times those Kaiser Chiefs - that’s the Yang. In the end you have two very different, but equally absorbing performances.
Field Music are a band of necessity, crafted from pockets of the North East music scene from the last five years. Guitarist Peter Brewis explains, “We’ve played together for about eleven years. We’ve been in lots of other bands and lots of other people have been in our bands, passing through the New Tellers and Electronic Eye Machine, which were the original two groups. Until recently Tom from Maximo Park played drums with us.” The links don’t stop there. Peter used to play guitar for The Futureheads, whose frontman Barry Hyde was originally in Field Music.
Having had to watch their mates grow commercially, for now at least all three members of Field Music still live and work in Sunderland. The excitement peaks with keyboard player Andy Moore, who’s a microbiologist in Newcastle. “He’s not at liberty to say for whom,” jokes Peter, “we think it’s for the FBI.” The other two don’t work in quite such glamorous fields. David works in Oxfam’s finance office, while brother Peter works at a Sunderland community college. “Christ, I haven’t got any money,” confesses Andy, “I think Outkast was my last album, but it was a birthday present. I can’t afford new CDs!”
“I don’t want to be in a situation when we’re relying on a big wad of cash from a record company.” adds David. “If we were to do this full time then it needs to be something sustainable to enable us to be able to keep doing it. We signed a publishing deal a long time ago, and we didn’t use that time or money as wisely as we could have done. I don’t want to be in a position like that again.”
The band are Sunderland through and through, and naturally they're moulded by the local music scene - not least because of the entangled way those local bands have evolved. “We’re really close (to The Futureheads) as people. We grew up doing music together. It was from the age that I realised I liked listening to music as much as I liked playing. To me, especially with The Futureheads, there are things like polyphony and not repeating yourself or trying not to be boring. But they’ve taken it one way and we’ve taken it a totally different way.”
In a modern context Field Music are fairly exclusive with very few British bands creating a similar sound right now. As a result, comparisons tend to rewind to the sixties, but Peter seems to squirm ever so slightly at any Beatles comparisons. “The Beatles took things from classical music, or jazz music, tin-pan alley or early rock n roll, and I thought that’s a good sort of way to make pop music. I don’t think the way that we write songs is anything like them, but in terms of production and influences I guess there are similarities. Their aim was to be the biggest band in the world, which they succeeded at, and that’s not our aim at all.”
Tonight Field Music play the Borderline in the heart of London. “It’s a lot like home - people are there to watch anyway, and if it’s a good band then great. Then they sit around afterwards to wait for them to play Todd Rundgren to dance to.” Todd Rundgren eh? There’s only one way to top that! “We’re playing the Tapestry Festival in Cornwall. It’s a sort of ‘crazy’ wild west theme park. We’re also playing something called Secret Garden Party, that’s gonna be pretty huge.” A baptism of fire indeed.
The crowd are undeniably into Field Music. More bob your head than thrash your head, but very show seems to convert another couple of hundred punters. It shouldn’t be too long before Oxfam, Sunderland Community College and of course the FBI will be advertising job vacancies.
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