Editors - exclusive interview!
With the release of second album ‘An End Has a Start’ Editors made the leap from indie favourites to stadium superstars, with an album that soared with giant, emotional anthems of love, death, rats, and other grand themes. But it’s still pop music, says bassist Russell Leetch. ‘We get played on the radio next to Paolo Nutini!’
For the second album what’s the process of making the new songs?
Tom writes initial ideas on a fourtrack, he’s the lyricist. We all listen to it then push it and pull it and tear it and change it, then it eventually becomes Editors. It’s a different way of working but it works for us.
Is it a fairly diplomatic process or are there a few rows?
We’re not averse to giving our opinions. ‘The weight of the world’ took five years to get right. It started out as an out and out pop song like ‘Bullets’, and evolved into a talking heads-like ditty and then became a sort of murder ballad.
You’ve played some epic gigs this year, like Glastonbury. What’s your history there? Have you played on that stage before?
We played there in 2005 at one in the afternoon, so to come back and be like second headline and have that slot was amazing for us, we loved every second of it, it was a joy. It was a lot of fun and we’ll always remember that gig.
It was quite an emotional moment for a lot of people, it was interesting being in the crowd and hearing everybody singing along. What’s that like for you on stage?
It was great. It’s the biggest platform to play our new songs and the best way to start this album. You can’t beat it, we loved the gig.
What’s the plan now with the album now? Are you gonna be on the road for another 22 months hammering it?
Yeah, we’ll be on the road until this time next year. That’s good, we want to be out playing to people. It’s going to be a lot of fun I think.
Is there a difference between doing a tour and playing dedicated venues to your own fans and playing festivals where you’re likely to have a wider range of people? Do you find the audiences are different?
Yeah, a little bit because not everybody at the festival will be a fan, so you’ve got to go out and impress them – especially in America where we’re just starting really. You’ve got to get those people with their arms crossed to having them in the air.
Do you find that there are differences in fans around the world? A lot of artists are taken aback by the dedication of the Japanese fans, say…
Yeah, the Japanese fans are amazing, it’s an absolutely amazing place to visit and to go to! Its great to go to places like Japan where you can play songs where they don’t even share the same alphabet or language as you. It is different in some places, in Europe we’re doing quite well and in America again, we love touring the states.
What’s life on the road with Editors like, as a group of guys going out together on this journey?
We like going out, going to bars and stuff. We have a lot of fun, we’ve got to, you know, we’re seeing the world if there’s a thing to do we go and do it.
Your music might make people think you all sit around dressed in black watching film noir all the time. That’s really not the case is it?
(Laughs) Y’know if there’s a big tower we like to go and climb it! We go to the cinema or just out and walk around town. We definitely like to have a lot of fun out on the road.
That’s good to hear. It looks like you genuinely enjoy your live shows… Of course, you know, we enjoy playing our songs, we like to put on a rock show I suppose!
From a professional point of view you want to go on and be entertaining and give something different from the record… Is that your approach?
You’ve got to get on and play your songs in a different manner I suppose. It’s getting up there and saying ‘this is who we are, and we want to be the best that we can be.’
Do you like to play around with the music?
Definitely! It’s always good to do unplugged versions and acoustic stuff because that’s essentially how the songs are written. We’re not scared of doing a totally synthetic sounding song, like a dance track. We’re happy to try things out, it’s the best way really.
When you’re recording do you like to be in a bubble or are you out trying to find new sounds and sources?
A bit of both really. When we’re in the studio we always reference stuff but if it’s like an electronic sound we can reference something like Kraftwerk, guitar sounds we’ll reference Franz Ferdinand…and sometimes we just see what happens.
Editors’ sound is really distinctive, you can tell from the opening few bars that it’s going to be you. When you first started playing together did that sound just happen, or is this something you’ve really tried to develop?
It’s naturally developed, from our early demo’s we sound quite a bit different. I suppose we had more songs like the slower tracks off our records, that’s what we focused on to start off with, but then once we moved to Birmingham we developed this kind of urgency I suppose.
Does Birmingham have something to do with that?
I don’t know, Ed (Lay, drummer) and I still live there. It gets a lot of flack but it’s a good city, there’s always stuff bubbling under in Birmingham. I like the people, I like their sense of humour.
Are you going to be playing similar venues on the tour or are you upscaling now?
In the States the venues are tough, playing in front of 600 people. It’s slightly smaller than over here but it’s good, it’s good to get over to those places and play for those people.
So it helps to still be able to see the whites of the eyes every now and then?
Definitely, sometimes the hot, sweaty club gigs are some of the best, they’re a lot of fun.
Do you have an experience of gigs where it hasn’t gone the way you wanted it to? Do you have gigs you’d rather forget?
Yeah, totally, you’ve got to: because not every gig can be perfect and great, it’s just not the way. It’s just a thing where if it doesn’t go right then that’s fine, you learn to deal with that. It’s like ‘oh well, that’s happened but we’re playing another gig tomorrow so let’s do our best again.’
So you don’t dwell on them….
No, you can’t beat yourself up about stuff like that.
What would you say to people who are just discovering your music that the main themes and sound that the band has is like?
I don’t know, it’s hard to describe sound… just have a listen. We’re not averse to melody and we like hooks basically, that’s kind of what we try to do. We just try to make passionate, powerful pop songs.
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