Not Your Average Night Out - Metronomy

Slipping under the indie scene because of a mostly instrumental album only to return out of the blue with a couple of tuneful, outrageously memorable singles to wet the appetite for a second album, all eyes are eagerly raised in the direction of Joseph Mount’s masterpiece he likes to call Metronomy. Between the former (‘Pip Paine – Pay The 5000 You Owe’) and the future (‘Nights Out’), Metronomy have had to build up a credible reputation on the back of originally-done remixes and risky support slots due to a few label troubles. It seems as if they’ve ignored all the road-blocks that were preventing them from being on the brink of this hot-stuff future that they’ve finally arrived at. It has only been 2 years between the debut album and the next one but one can assuredly declare that Metronomy have gone a few huge steps forward in between the two.

Two accompanying members to boast and a couple of critically acclaimed singles and they’re finally going places. But that’s not saying it’s been easy. “Really the only way that we’ve been gaining fans is through the live stuff and I guess there are two schools of thought for the support slots” explains Mount to Gigwise: “either it’s a bit shameless to try and steal other people’s fans or it’s just good because we’re getting exposure”.

It was a surprise to us when we found out that Metronomy only embarked on their first headline tour early 2008, they’ve had to survive as the band which nobody really turns up to specifically see. “Sometimes the fans of other bands fucking hated us; I didn’t think it was that bad! The CSS tour was brilliant but we did the Kate Nash one and tried winning the crowd every night which was pretty fun”.

Of course being on the tour bus with the likes of CSS, Foals and Kate Nash is something to brag about, no matter how difficult it is to stay positive while you’re playing to an emotionless crowd – but now Metronomy finally have the opportunity to be in the spotlight – it seems Mount is eager to make the most of it. “Because of supporting so much, you don’t necessarily expect the crowd to like you! So it was just great to feel like people were actually there to watch us, singing along and everything.”

Mount justifies a few pauses in-between sentences with the fact that he’s hungover from a gig the night before – he’s clearly enjoying himself. And you can hear how much fun they’re all having on the basis of the recent studio material; ‘Radio Ladio’ and soon-to-be-global-hit ‘My Heart Rate Rapid’ are relentless joy in the space of 3 minutes plus, a sign of things to come in the record.