The Futureheads Interview
Are you looking forward to the tour later this month?
Yeah absolutely, it’s in conjunction with UniLive, so we’re just playing universities which means we get to go to loads of places we’ve not played in before. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a record out, so it’s great that there’s no pressure – the tour should be quite unique for us.
How much new material will you be playing on the tour?
There’s twelve tracks on the new album and we’ll be playing about eight of them on the tour – probably five or six each night.
What should fans expect from the new album?
It’s a got a lot more energy. With the last one (2006’s ‘News & Tributes’) we went out of our way to make it sound different from the first album. Our live shows are 90% about energy and our songs are only really enjoyed by the fans when we’re throwing ourselves around, so this time we really concentrated on bringing that to the album.
Why did you decide to put out ‘Broke Up The Time’ as a free download last month?
We just wanted to prove to the hardcore fans that we’d done something as we’d been gone so long. We wanted to reward their faith. It’s a good track, it’s fairly indicative of the whole album.
Do you have a release date set and a title for the new album yet?
It’s looking like it’ll be out on the last Monday of May, and we’ll put out two singles first. The title’s going to be ‘This Is Not The World’, it’s a song on the album. I just want to get it out now, we spent far too long waiting around, a year’s a really long time in music. I was sitting at home over the summer watching the festivals on TV just wishing we were there playing.
Do you plan to play any festivals this summer?
Definitely, I’d love to do Glastonbury again, it’s been a few years since we last played. And maybe V again, we’ve not played there for about six years. We want to play lots in Europe as well. We focused on America mainly with the first two albums, but this record is more about Europe. It’s a beautiful place.
The album was produced by Youth, who’s worked with Smashing Pumpkins, Primal Scream and The Verve. How did that come about and what was his influence on the album?
Youth saw us at the Astoria in September 2006 and he got in touch with our people, asking “what are their plans?”. We really didn’t expect someone like that to work with us, but yeah, he was a really instrumental influence on the album and our renewed optimism. We recorded the album in three weeks in Spain. Youth wanted it to be a lot faster and more direct. He said that our songs are essentially anthemic pop tunes, but that we mask them, so he made us not be afraid of big choruses. There’s nothing wrong with writing songs that can appeal to a lot of people. He totally changed our recording really.
What did you do in Spain when you weren’t recording?
We just hung about really, played football... Jaff wrote off our hire car so we couldn’t really go anywhere. It was all lethal mountains up there, by the time we took the car back the door was coming off, the radiator was leaking, it was a complete write-off! But then when you’ve got zero-excess on a hire car it’s rude not to really.
How come you left 679 Recordings in 2006 to form your own label, Nul Records?
It was mutually beneficial to everyone really. I think they’d lost faith in our ability, and we’d lost faith in their ability as a record label. I do think it’s the future for bands to release their own music, it gives power back to the bands. The music industry doesn’t know what it’s doing at the moment. We’ve got a good distribution deal with Vital so all the boring stuff is sorted now.
Do you hope to sign any other bands to the label at some point?
We’re not thinking about it at the moment, but if it all works out and we have the time we’d definitely want to sign other bands, yeah - so many great bands get overlooked by labels.
What are your hopes for 2008?
Truthfully, I hope the record does amazingly well and that we can spend all year on tour!
What new bands do you recommend looking out for this year?
There’s a great band from Canada call Tranzmitters, they’re sort of old-school new-wave. There’s a band from County Durham as well called Catweazle, I really hope they make an album. And MGMT from America, they’re absolutely awesome.
Interview with Ross Millard, 14th January 2008.
Written by Will Martin.
