Haze Meets: Band of Skulls

Feel good being back in the UK? Emma: Good, Well we were just out in America for 5 weeks and we've been doing festivals this year. Yeah I saw you at Kendal Calling. Russell: Yeah that was our last show in the UK and we've been in America... ever since, it feels like it at least How was America? Russell: Great, it's just the distances are so big you can't really comprehend it, it's only when you get back here you realise how close everything is. So sometimes there were drives that were like, a thousand miles to the next show. Emma: Like 14 hours What are the crowds like in comparison? Russell: There's lots of similarities then there's lots of differences, it's cultural really you know. People there go out, they like to express themselves and shout out how they feel a bit more. In England people kind of go with their mates and have a party at the gig and dance. It's a different kind of energy sometimes. Is there any particular UK shows you're looking forward to? Russell: Tonight. Emma: Tonight's going to be amazing, this venue is so cool. You've not played here before have you? Emma: No we played the Rtiz last time. Russell: And what's the bigger one? The big theatre? Oh it'll have been the Apollo then! Russell: Yeah that's cool as well, but this is nice. Emma: It's a beautiful room, we spent a few months writing this record in a church so then to arrive and walk into this beautiful building, it feels quite apt. Are there any UK festivals you're particularly fond of? Emma: It's always amazing to play Glastonbury festival but then there's also a lot of smaller festivals that we play. Like 2000 trees, we've headlined a couple of smaller ones and you could see that they're growing in a good way, they've got a kind of real dedicated following and that seems really cool. Russell: We've just got a new one in Southampton actually Emma: Common People, Rob Da Bank, who does Bestival has got a few smaller ones. Russell: That's pretty cool for our hometown, cos' that's not been there for a while, that kind of size event. So yeah, big ones, new ones, small ones and we did Secret Garden Party that was pretty good. And we just played a festival in a carpark, in Las Vegas, in the middle of Vegas, which was another vibe and it was really good! It's obviously been a pretty big year with the new album and everything, is there any standout moment? Russell: It's funny, it's just everyday, it's just ah, you just exist in it, it's hard to sort of pinpoint a moment. It's like asking you what's the best day of your year so far. It's such a big question. I think it's nice to debut the new songs. That first show was really special, the first show back in the States was really good. What's the response to the new songs been like? Russell: Yeah really good. We're very fortunate to have a fanbase now that they want to hear us do more and want to hear us do some different stuff. Obviously that record's still pretty much brand new, but how soon do you switch to thinking about the next one? Russell: Instantly really, because once you've sort of said, right that's the new record in our world, when we finish recording it a bit before it's' released so you do move on and even more so nowadays. People are hungry for new information and more content. The world's a much faster place so I think that, it would be great if everyone could release more music more regularly. Perhaps that might be the future. But we're not adverse to putting out more work more regularly. We've done an album every other year of our career which is still a lot of work. But people seem to think 2 years is like an eternity. Emma: Things just move fast Russell: So perhaps people are going to have to work a bit faster. I mean it must be nice that people constantly want this new music, you must be doing something right? Russell: Yeah it's just finding the right balance between doing gigs and making records and as it goes forward every band's going to have to ask that question a bit more. Has the way you write albums changed? Russell: We do more gigs now, so it's about finding the time and on this record, we just said we're gonna go away and write loads of songs. So we stopped touring, just to make sure that the quality of our music didn't dip down because of it. We wrote 100 songs and we've put out 12. So there's a bunch of stuff that we wanna do next. We put a lot of time and effort into that and we're still writing tunes now and we'll add those in. It has to change, cos when we were young we kind of had our whole lives to write songs and then on the first couple of records we had sound checks to write songs and yeah it's always shifting and evolving around so it's not the same and you don't get stuck in a rut. I've mentioned this to a few other musicians I've spoke to, there was an article in the guardian about how the Maccabees were the last British guitar band worthy of headlining major festivals. Surely that's damaging surely to bands like yourself and new ones coming through? Russell: Well yeah, Maccabees definitely are headline material, and it's a shame, it's not just them there's lots of bands that are getting to that moment and then stopping. I think it says more about the industry than it does about that particular band or that particular journalist. His opinion, he's right in the fact they were headline material but it's not the fact there's not lots of other bands that could fill that role, the stepping stones to that role, even that the maccabees had aren't there anymore. There's gonna be, it's already happening, there's gonna be a big drought of sort of headliners which in turn will stop the big festivals having bands to put on and it has a knock on effect. So really it's about helping young bands start, getting medium sized bands into proper venues and then giving medium sized bands a bit more props so that they can headline. All those little steps have to need more support. Especially here, it's really famous for music. But when you've got journalists of that magnitude basically putting a downer on it straight away... Russell: Well I don't want to go to a festival of journalists, no offence, No I completely agree. Russell: But you know that wouldn't be very entertaining, so like we need a headliner, and people need to support not just the headline acts of today but the grassroots of it need looking at. It's definitely a very perilous situation right now. Especially right at the beginning, it's near impossible for a smaller act to make that next stage. It's like being a young footballer, if there wasn't that bit there to get you that proper experience, you're not gonna get the next best player in the world. Do you think you are anywhere near being able to headline the major festivals? Russell: Well we're ready in the fact that we can play a show. And we've got an audience. And we know what we're doing we're not gonna mess it up, but our audience is a certain size. And there's lots of bigger bands that would take that role above us right now, so you know that's a thing for the future we'd fulfil that role. Was there a moment when yous were starting out when you kind of looked around and thought “shit we've actually got something good here” Emma: The beginning really, there was that belief in it, when you play together as a band and you know, you feel it's good. No one needs to say anything. Russell: We went from eating canned soup to like, fresh soup. We kind of went from really struggling and thinking what the fuck are we doing to like, it functioning. Was there ever a particular album or song that you listened to when you were younger that made you realise you wanted to get into music? Russell: Yeah, every musicians got one, erm, there's two records, one is Sex Pistols – Nevermind the Bollocks another one is Buzzcocks, their first release Spiral Sratch, a song called Boredom on that, which I can play and I couldn't play the guitar. The fact that I could get along with the song which is the punk ethic. The first time I heard it I was like, yeah I can do this and I can play the guitar. Finally, is there any headliners alongside Radiohead you'd like to see it Glasto? Emma: I'd say maybe in support of newer bands coming up or bands that should now be being picked as headliners, maybe Foals. I know they're pretty much main support already. Russell: That's why that article just isn't right. Let's talk about Glastonbury in 10 years time and a band like Foals have more records out, it's perfect and there should be some new bands that come out in the next 10 years at Glastonbury. It's whether they make it that far is the question. We're already a band, so if we decide to carry on, we'd love to play. But it's whether bands can make it, to even get onto a stage at Glastonbury in the first place. That's gonna be the problem, finding the audience as well. Are there any smaller bands that you're tipping? Russell: It's hard to say who's gonna make the next big step, there's bands that we like, our support bands are what we like. So there's a band here 'Bones' a brand new band, 2 girls really exciting. Emma: Great players. Russell: And there's a band in America, that we just had on tour, called Mothers, they've been touring over here actually. It's not stadium rock but it's really interesting music, and it's beautiful. There's new music being made all the time, it's just, lot's of things need to change to how that gets put out there. Buy records, go to gigs, it just needs a little bit of love right now

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