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Post by Captain Crieff on Nov 6, 2019 13:25:08 GMT
INTERVIEW: Editors’ Ed Lay on Best-Of Album ‘Black Gold’ In continuation of what’s been one of the most prolific creative streaks of their 15-year career, Editors have released their best-of album ‘Black Gold’ via Play It Again Sam. ‘Black Gold’ includes 13 tracks from their 6 studio albums, alongside 3 brand new offerings: ‘Upside Down’, summer festival anthem ‘Frankenstein’ and the gothically dramatic title track ‘Black Gold’ – out today.
The band will also be embarking on a 27 date European and UK Greatest Hits tour in early 2020, which will see them play shows in Birmingham, Manchester, Dublin and Glasgow, with a landmark performance at London’s SSE Arena Wembley set for Friday 28th February. Mark Millar caught up with Editors Drummer Ed Lay to talk about the new release and upcoming tour. On October 25th Editors will release best-of album ‘Black Gold,’ a new compilation album that covers 15-years of the bands recording career. Why did you think it was time to put the bands first retrospective compilation?
I don’t think any of us were particularly mentally ready to do it. There’s a lot of water that’s passed under the bridge, and as a band, you try and focus on the brand new stuff, but to use it as a vehicle to put out some new tracks was very appealing because we didn’t have to write a whole album for it. We had some tracks that we could put out almost immediately after having written and recorded them, which was wonderful, but also while we were putting those together, you look back on your career, and it gave us a little bit of a chance to celebrate it which we haven’t before. When you are in the midst of it, you don’t consider that – you don’t look back and enjoy it as much as you should do. So this was quite an opportunity to do that and get other people’s experiences of our band as we’ve gone along as well and reminisce a little.
Was it tough choosing the songs from such a rich catalogue?
Yeah, we could have gone two ways. We could have done a double record with more deeper cuts with songs that the band could have chosen individually, but I think everybody has their option to playlist their best of, of any band through Spotify or whatever so they can do that themselves. We wanted to put out a collection of songs that span all of the albums and all of the different types of sounds and moments and members we have used throughout our career, and wrap them all up in a bundle with extra songs of where we are at currently. It could have got long-winded, and we could have got deep into what song deserves to be on there for different reasons, not just it being a greatest hits album. We all thought we wanted to have something quite succinct and have a record that flows together interestingly.
‘Black Gold’ includes three brand new tracks ‘Upside Down’ ‘Frankenstein’ and title track ‘Black Gold’ What can you tell me about the recording and writing of those tracks?
We have been playing ‘Frankenstein’ over the summer, and it’s become an instant moment in our set. It’s one of those songs that you don’t have to know to get into. It’s brilliant for festivals – we start playing it, and immediately get a field dancing, without them having been listening to it on repeat for the last six months.
The three songs were produced by Garrett “Jacknife” Lee who you worked with on ‘An End Has A Start’ Why did you decide to work with him again?
The opportunity arose – we have never repeated our time with a producer, we’ve never gone back into the studio with somebody we have used before. Of course, every one of the producers we have had worked with in the past has had an impact on our sound. But I think the point we were at with Garrett going into a second record after having quite unexpected success with our first record having someone there with so much inspiration and so much dedication and hard work for our band, like Garret fighting our corner at the time of our second record, was so important for our career. It let us have more of a kind of bump up to the world than anyone else could have given us. To go back into the studio 12 years later after the initial time we were working with him – it was crazy to see how much we had all grown up, and to see how much he had changed and changed his style. We have changed as well – we have all grown up and have got families, and the whole dynamic shifts, but the hunger that Garrett has for producing new sounds is much greater than it was back then. He was a joy to work with.
The deluxe version has ‘Distance: The Acoustic Recordings’ Could you ever foresee the band writing an acoustic album of brand new material?
I am open to it, but it’s difficult because I’ve never really been involved in that side of it. When the guys go out and do their press essentially, it’s a bottom-line problem because more people are too expensive to go out and do full sessions, because you need more crew, more freight, and more hotel rooms. So they try and whittle it down to three people, and they are going to be the singer, the guitarist, and somebody who plays the piano – so the rhythm section goes immediately. But we have done a couple of shows when we have performed as an acoustic five-piece, and they have been brilliant.
The acoustic songs that they have reworked for this record aren’t necessarily the ones that everybody has heard before, such as ‘Violence’ from the last record, and ‘Let Your Good Heart Lead You Home’ which was a B side on the first record. They have gone back and chosen different songs that people don’t expect to hear, and reworked them – I think that is exciting. A band like us have to play the songs that everybody wants to hear almost in the manner that they are accustomed to such as ‘Munich’ and Smokers Outside the Hospital Door’ – people want to hear them and get the previous feelings from when they had seen us before or when they heard them on the radio when they were eighteen. But to go back and dig deeper into our back catalogue and produce acoustic tracks is something we wouldn’t mind doing as a whole group.
Of all the songs on the compilation which one means the most to you?
For me, it’s probably ‘Sugar’ from ‘The Weight of Your Love’ album, because we had gone through a split-up of the group essentially when Chris left. We had released three records and had a massive high and massive low with the band almost ending, so to come out of that with a new band and direction and ferocity of song was great. Everybody in the group was intrinsically involved in making that track. It was a very much a group effort, and that feels very special to me. ‘The Weight of Your Love’ was such a band record – it was written traditionally as a band would, with five guys and with not a lot of other gear, just in a room together jamming around tunes. And to go over to Nashville to make that record with all the history that the town has, and try and emulate the great people who had worked there before was amazing. It’s a special record that sounds beautiful to me, and maybe it was overlooked at the time.
The Editors sound is always evolving you can never be accused of making the same record twice so what can we expect for the next album?
Our challenge was always to evolve and to push ourselves in a direction that maybe we hadn’t thought about on the last record, so maybe we are talking a mini step towards where we are going with the three new tracks on the best of – I think each one of the new tracks is fairly different individually. You’ve got the drive and weird poppiness of ‘Frankenstein’ and then there is ‘Upside Down,’ which is a real groover and probably more like Editors’ tracks of old, but it’s a got a real groove to it that I don’t think we have necessarily harnessed so far. I think as a set of songs they are different anyway, so I think we could use them as a stepping stone to where we are going to go, but it could be somewhere that we haven’t thought of already, and that would be exciting.
How do you feel when going in to record a new record, are you nervous or excited?
I am massively nervous – it’s always my period of extreme stress, I think. I can’t sleep the day before we go in to record. I constantly think about the issues that we might encounter – its a fretful period for me. I think its purely because when we are on stage you do something and it’s gone. People go to live shows for that very reason – that it’s never going to happen again and that’s enthralling, and obviously it’s nerve-wracking getting up in front of a lot of people, but I don’t mind that. My thing about recording is you have a moment that’s going to be recorded and locked somewhere and digitised forever and ever, and people are going to look back into our history and take a slice into it and say, “This is what Editors sound like.” So I feel huge pressure to get it right, but I’ve always felt like that from day one to now.
Is the album format still important to you?
Yeah, but having said that we’ve got this ‘best of’ going on, which feels almost like an album because it’s got new tracks and it’s got its own identity to it. It’s got a strong look, and we have built something around it that I think people might be able to look at and want to own, rather than thinking, “We can do that ourselves on Spotify.”I think we all feel that it’s really important for a band to make a record. We have always looked at our contemporaries and our inspirations before us – bands like R.E.M for example, or Fleetwood Mac, or the Cure – we have always looked at them putting out records and bodies of work that include long players, and things for people to get their teeth into. I don’t think we will discard that idea at all – I think we will always want to records LPs.
The band will also be embarking on a 27 date European and UK Greatest Hits tour in early 2020. What kind of show do you have planned?
We have kind of thought about it – it’s going to wrap up a lot of the stuff that we started to do on the last album. There will be a new stage show and a new selection of songs. I think we will probably try and play all three of the new tracks, because it is their platform. It is not going to be an album tour per se, because we have got our history to celebrate and it will be the one time we will allow ourselves to do the greatest hits set rather than concentrating on a whole record. We want to have a really good time.
Do you enjoy being on the road?
Massively, yeah I do – I think it’s what I am built for. I’m comfortable travelling and experiencing different cultures and cities in a very short space of time. Bus travel is almost my happy place – it’s working, but it makes me feel like I’m necessary and I enjoy it.
You are looking back over the last 15 years what has been your highlights?
It’s funny because as you are doing it, you kind of miss things. For example, you miss the feeling of walking on stage at Glastonbury for the first time because it is wrapped up with another show the next night, and one the previous night, the gravity of it doesn’t affect you. We played Top of the Pops when it was on – that was nuts. We did an acoustic session on a building in the middle of Belgium just before Christmas about ten years ago. That was a special experience.
Nobody knew we were going to be there, and there was an excitement around it, and people were very positive about us being there, and we raised a lot of money for charity. We have been allowed to do visits with Oxfam to highlight the plight of refugees and to able to have that opportunity through the job that you do, from writing and playing a few songs to people around the world is amazing. It’s opened up so many different worlds to us and we have met so many good friends along the way. One thought about something we have done over the last fifteen years triggers another thought, and I could speel out all this stuff that goes on forever. So for us to make an album and the sense of that album means we can appreciate all that time, and we can appreciate the work that we’ve put into it, is a pretty cool moment.
link: www.xsnoize.com/interview-editors-ed-lay-on-best-of-album-black-gold/
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Post by Captain Crieff on Nov 6, 2019 13:35:27 GMT
I love this one: A Basket Full Of Songs: We Let Editors Rummage Through Their Own DiscographyAfter fifteen years in the industry the British independent rock institution takes a moment to look back on their career so far. Following their freshly released compilation album 'Black Gold' we caught up with Tom and Elliott to dive even deeper into the group's musical back catalogue.
I sometimes wonder how future generations will reflect on their first encounter with their favourite bands and artists. Will they actually remember when they stumbled upon something late at night on YouTube? As a person in my mid thirties I still grew up in a more physical world of music consumption and that makes certain stories easier to tell. Like when a friend of mine gave me a burned copy of the Editors debut album The Back Room back in the late summer of 2005 which was wrongly labelled “The Black Room”. I think it took me a year to notice that mistake and in-between that I massively fell in love with the album, all the B-Sides I downloaded off the internet and I also managed to see the band on their first German tour around that time where they played in front of thirty people, I think. The group around Tom Smith has been a stable force in my life ever since, carrying me through many emotional moments of my twenties. They lost me a bit in-between (around the time of 2013’s The Weight Of Your Love record) but managed to reignite my love again later.
Fifteen years after my first encounter with that wrongly labelled CD Editors released six studio albums, changed their line-up, played countless shows all over the world and managed to significantly increase their following. Today, they are one of the few remaining bands from the Mid-00s indie music wave that still appears to be vital and hungry for new adventure. They managed to stay relevant and in many ways now is the perfect time for a bit reflection. Black Gold is the name of the band’s freshly released first Best Of album. Or is it more a Greatest Hits album? Where’s the difference anyway? “It really depends on how many hits you got,” says Tom Smith with a big smile when we met him along with the keyboarder Elliott Williams to reflect upon those days. Over the past years Editors recorded and released many wonderful songs with Black Gold only containing a few ones. And as a longtime fan I was eager to know the stories about the other ones as well. But how do you pick them out of this massive back catalogue? Well, why not let the luck of the draw decide? I confronted the two musicians with a basket full of songs from their discography. The basket wasn’t set up, they simply picked and we let them talk. This is the unfiltered result of that encounter.
Colours
Elliott: This is way before my time. (laughs)
Tom: Do you even know the tune?
Elliott: Probably a B-Side from the first record.
Tom: I don’t know, mate.
It’s from the Munich single.
Elliott: Did you ever play that live?
Tom: Yes, we did. There are a few from that era that are favourites of the fans.
When you take a look at the B-Sides and bonus tracks that were released around The Back Room it’s probably twice as much musical content as on the album.
Tom: It’s the same for a lot of young and new bands I think. You spend a lot of time in the studio, recording many songs and finding a musical path for you. There’s always way more material when you make your debut record. This really reminds you of a time of excitement and uncertainty around 2004 and 2005. We were full of ideas and energy and this is obviously an uptempo one. I don’t remember how we decided what was on the record and what not, so this one unfortunately didn’t make it. Damn, I even have trouble remembering it …
[ sings the first verse ]
T: Thank you very much. (laughs) Yes, I think it got some good chords [ starts imitating them with his mouth ] Yeah… we were serious and ambitious young men.
Well Worn Hand
T: Ah, the closing tack of our second album.
When I look at your records you always tend to nail the closing tracks pretty well. Feels like it’s a special area of expertise for you.
E: I think a lot of artists do but they tend to neglect the fact that building the proper structure for your album is an important thing to do. I think that dies a bit in the Spotify age when everybody tries to frontload their albums.
The tracklist of the Black Gold best of is also following a certain story, right? It’s not chronological order.
T: We wanted it to have its own identity and not feel like a pure ‘here’s the singles’ release. Getting back to Well Worn Hand… it’s a really sad song. There was a guy I went to school with. We were friends during that time but the friendship got way more lose after school. He was murdered, just walking home late at night. Around the time I was writing songs for An End Has A Start lots of things in my life happened that made me feel a bit closer to death. I thought about mortality and this is obviously resulted in such bleak tracks as this one.
What Is This Thing Called Love?
T: Oh, that’s a good one to talk about. That’s your song, man.
E: You had this song lying around for quite some time before we recorded it. I remember you playing it solo at the PIAS night …
T: Ah, yes, I did. It was one of the first demos I wrote following our third LP In This Light And On This Evening. It was a fractured period.
E: I was quite scary to work on that. It felt like quite a big ballad and pop song at that time and we desperately wanted to get it right. It was also fun, especially when we put the strings on it. I always loved it but we never played it live.
T: It’s hard … vocally and instrumentally. I’m not regretting the result… I sometimes wish we would have approached this song a bit later in our career, maybe on In Dream. The demo was a bit more like Nothing Compares 2 U, a bit like Massive Attack.
E: It could have been a bit more fragile but ended up being pretty epic.
On the same album, 2013’s The Weight Of Your Love, there was also this track Nothing which you always played differently live than on this album. It might have been a transitional record with Elliot and Justin also joining the band …
T: You’re right. It was a fucking confusing time and there are bits and pieces on the album that weren’t 100% right and with a song like this I really wish we would have approached it a bit differently. It might easily be one of the best tracks we’ve ever written. However, people might still be confused about me singing the falsetto. (laughs)
Sugar
E: It’s a super important song, especially for me. When me and Justin joined the band it was one of the first tracks we started working on. That was even before we became official members.
T: You were on trial period. (laughs)
E: Indeed. But it came together pretty quickly and felt right to all of us.
It also feels like a slow burning fan favourite that is now mandatory in your set. What connects the audience with the song?
T: It’s a bit more masculine than the stuff we did before. It’s less post-punk and more rock. It also got this Goth undertone and lyrics which people also seem to like a lot.
E: I didn’t realize how gothic it was until we played it at Amphi Festival and I started seeing people move to it.
A Ton Of Love
T: That reminds me of Nashville.
E: Yes, totally. I feel like we really nailed it on this one. We had such a great time there recording this album. It’s the best holiday you can get as a band, getting to know each other.
T: We also had to come back with a confident tune after a longer break and that was a perfect one.
Fall
Another one you re-recorded for the new acoustic sessions.
T: You’re damn right. This version however is pretty close to the original.
Is it easy for you to listen to the early stuff of yours?
T: I mean it’s not causing me pain. Sometimes it’s nice, sometimes I think we could’ve done better. Sometimes it’s also cringy but in general it’s a good feeling.
E: Time was pretty good to these tracks. When you go back to an album like The Back Room it doesn’t sound dated to me.
T: We toured a lot when this album came out. Towards the end of the cycle we did a tour with Franz Ferdinand and I remember how good it felt to perform Fall in all those arenas, next to all the uptempo tunes like Blood and Munich people partly came for. A song like that was an indicator of what we were capable of in terms of epicness and you know, actually playing in these bigger arenas.
Ever thought about doing one of those ‘We play our debut album’ tours like plenty of bands are doing these days?
T: No, not really. I think the whole Best Of record was in the back of our heads for a few years now so this forthcoming ‘Greatest Hits’ tour might be the closest we’ll get to this.
Escape The Nest
Ah, this is one of my personal favourites. Can we somehow get it back into the set?
E: We talked about actually. It always comes up.
T: We probably should do it. I don’t really know what’s stopping us, maybe because we’re not all 100 percent comfortable with it. I don’t know.
Any plans to let fans decide what to put in the Best of setlist?
T: Nah, screw that. (laughs)
E: When you do this you open the floodgates to something even weirder.
T: I’m forced to learn the chords to Colours again.
E: Maybe for a smaller show concept but not when you do these bigger gigs.
T: There are a few moments at a show where you get to do whatever you want. The opening track for example. That’s why we recently started the gigs with The Boxer from our 2009 album In This Light And On This Evening.
Counting Spooks
The last time I saw you live you played every track from the then freshly released Violence album… except this one.
Both: (laugh)
T: We tried to work it out but it was tough.
E: It’s a weird tune.
T: I love it on the album, especially the disco ending. Originally it was meant to sound more industrial but then we took it into more disco territory. The process might have been a bit fractured but it was great bringing it together in the end.
The Phone Book
T: This is one of my favourites. This is the ballad from The Weight Of Your Love we actually got right.
E: We played it all in a room together when we recorded it.
T: We only did four takes of it, I think, and picked the best one in the end.
Distance
E: I love this one.
T: Yes, and we also freshly re-recorded it for the acoustic bonus tracks of Black Gold.
There are some great rarities that you picked here as well. How did this feel?
T: Recording these acoustic versions was a nice excuse to spend some more time with my friends. We sat in Justin’s basement in Doncaster and recorded a song like Let Your Good Heart Lead Your Home and I remember thinking ‘Oh damn, I haven’t thought about that song in ages’. And then I remembered how we recorded it in the first place and it’s great to spend more time with these tunes as well.
E: It’s the closing track of The Back Room, right?
T: Yes, we love a slow finish. Once again. (laughs) There’s a demo version floating around which is a bit more traditional but on this song we started experimenting with synthesizers and drum machines for the first time. On the album I always saw this one and Camera as companion pieces ’cause they share these more electronic moments.
How does it feel for you to get back to these tracks after so many years?
T: It’s a nice thing to do. And the whole idea of Black Gold was also to look back on these past fifteen years, reflect on what we achieved and also what went wrong. It’s nice to stop a bit and take your time.
E: We really wanted this album to be a beginner’s guide into the world of Editors. Not just a plain singles collection but a selection of songs that gives you a broader understanding of what this band is about.
link (with photos): nbhap.com/stories/a-basket-full-of-songs-editors-discography-black-gold
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Post by Richard on Nov 6, 2019 13:59:36 GMT
That’s gotta be one of the most interesting Editors interviews I’ve ever read. And damn I wanna hear WITTCL In Dream style now
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Post by bugman13 on Nov 6, 2019 15:17:24 GMT
wow! so good interview!can't wait to see them in 2020!
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Post by Captain Crieff on Nov 10, 2019 16:33:04 GMT
Here are some quotes from an interview with Tom, Justin and Elliott on Radio Trójka. The first part was broadcast yesterday and is now online here www.polskieradio.pl/9/359/Artykul/2401082%2CThe-Editors-dobrze-sie-czujemy-we-wlasnej-skorze but unfortunately for most of us it's dubbed into Polish. It sounds like a really good interview though. Earlier on they're talking about how "wonderfully weird" people can be, and odd interview situations etc. Tom mentions Japan and any reason to repost this gem is a good one:
DannyManta likes this
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Post by Captain Crieff on Nov 10, 2019 21:48:29 GMT
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Post by Captain Crieff on Nov 15, 2019 11:35:57 GMT
Editors: ‘The first time a politician made us angry? The Tories, every single day’ Twice a week, we ask one band or artist a set of quick-fire questions that all start with ‘the first’, from their first shows and paycheques to the first time they got drunk. Up next are the Birmingham rock outfit Editors, who have just released Black Gold, a compilation album spanning their extensive back catalogue (plus three new tracks)
Over the past 15 years, Editors have scored six top ten albums, making them one of the UK's most consistently successful rock bands in a generation. Now, the Birmingham four piece – made up of frontman Tom Smith, Elliott Williams on keys, dummer Ed Lay and guitarists Justin Lockey and Russell Leetch – are releasing Black Gold, a compilation album made up of 13 tracks from their previous records, plus three brand-new offerings, including the titular lead single. Next year, Editor's will be embarking on a mammoth 27-date tour, with arena shows booked across Europe and the UK. Who says guitar music is dead, eh?
We caught the band just before they start rehearsals to talk formative firsts, from stage outfits and record deal pay days to falling in love and the politicians they just can't stand.
The first time you all met...
Tom Smith: I met Ed and Russell around 2000 at Staffs Uni. I met Ell through his old band Airship, in Camden, I think, 2009ish. I met Justin at his first Editors – now legendary – rehearsal, in 2012.
Ed Lay: I met Russ first, we bumped into each other on the open day for Stafford Uni where the band eventually began. I was with my dad and there he was, this massive enthusiastic guy with a skin head and a big grin and who just seemed to want some company, so we tagged along together. Meeting him swayed my decision to go to Stafford, where we met Chris and Tom. I met Elliott at the legendary – now closed down – Borderline in London at an Airship gig and Justin was in a rehearsal room at the legendary – and also now closed down – Rich Bitch studios in Brum.
The first time you played as Editors in front of a live audience...
Russell Leetch: It was supporting The Boxer Rebellion at the Liverpool Barfly on 9 September 2004. I remember sitting at the bar and a young Scouse lad was putting up posters for the upcoming shows. He asked, “Do you know who invented blue tack?” No idea mate. “Nasa”. Then he walked away. It’s always stuck with me.
Ed: I wasn’t in the band originally, so I saw them with their first drummer – they were called Pilot at the time – in a few places locally. Most memorable was probably at a venue called The Surgery in Stafford. It was on my birthday and they sang a song for me and we got plastered on absinthe.
The first time you got silly drunk...
Tom: At a house party – Alex Cliffs' house – when I was in secondary school. I was probably about 15 years old. I had way too much whisky; my mum had to come take me home.
Russell: Rosie O'Brien's, Solihull circa 1998. A pound in, a pound a pint. By three in the morning, all those pints were down the front of my parents house.
Justin Lockey: Some point in the early Nineties at a house party in a pit village near Doncaster. The house party didn't happen, so me and my best friend smashed a bottle of 20/20 in on the bus home. Mucho sickness and mucho apologising to friend's parents followed. I couldn't drink anything synthetically orange flavoured for a good few years after.
The first time you fell properly in love...
Russell: I got a cat last year.
Tom: None of your business... When I met my wife, obviously.
Justin: It was in the mid-Nineties...
Elliott Williams: Michelle, who was my country dancing partner at primary school. I'm not sure if it was proper, but it felt it at the time. I then fell in love with her older sister a few weeks later.
Ed: When I first met Russ as described earlier.
The first record you ever bought...
Russell: Queen's Greatest Hits.
Tom: I asked my parents to buy me The Best Of Status Quo.
Elliott: I had two babysitters that were very into heavy metal. I went to a car boot sale and brought the most metal-looking tape I could find. I had it on next time they came round to show off – they laughed a lot. It was Meat Loaf's "Bat Out Of Hell". Not metal but... good artwork!
Justin: I have two older brothers who, thankfully, had great musical taste growing up so I didn't have to buy much music. I remember buying "Feel The Pain" by Dinosaur Jr on a CD single and thinking it was bloody magical. I played it to death.
The first time you put together a stage outfit...
Tom: Black shirts back in 2003, when we decided to dress a little sharper. Baggy brown chords out, black shirts and jeans in. That’s pretty much still the rule.
Ed: When I was in the second year of high school, I somehow got involved in a vocal harmony group. We went into this record shop called Essential Selection in Ipswich and pestered the guy into making us a backing tape. We went home and tried to come up with some lyrics and the chat got to clothes. I was told that I should buy some big black DM’s and some white combat trousers. That was the end of that.
Your first teenage pin up was...
Tom: Michael Stipe. Didn’t really have girls on my wall growing up, or now.
Russell: Kurt Cobain was on my wall.
Ed: A huge poster of a Ferrari Testarossa in a gold frame that I got from a car boot sale, though I couldn't give a toss about cars.
The first time you made money out of being a musician...
Tom: Signing our first deal to [our label] Kitchenware – £10,000, off we go!
Justin: After my first band signed to Fiction / Polydor. We paid ourselves a wage and worked like mad. It all came crashing down when, three albums later, it was more than evident that a math-meets-art rock band doesn't really make singles for radio or actually sell many records.
Ed: Me and my mates at school used to put on our own gigs at a pool club in Ipswich, who were famously liberal with their age limits for serving booze. We charged entry on the door and sold our tapes and after just two gigs we had enough money to buy our own PA.
The first time you blew your paycheque frivolously...
Tom: I took a year out before going to uni, working in a plastic factory near home. I spent every paycheque on beer and music.
Russell: Well, not necessarily a paycheque but I’d gone through the majority of my first uni year with the help of my parents. It was coming up to the long summer so instead of working it I got the student loan for the last week of uni and hammered it over the summer. Idiotic but fun.
Justin: When I made a bit of cash producing other bands I bought an old BMW 316 coupe. It was falling to bits but I loved it dearly.
Elliott: One summer my folks went away for a week so I brought a massive paddling pool from Argos after work. It took hours to fill up, I got all my mates round and we had some beers in it. Used it once, turned stagnant and killed my parent's grass.
The first time a politician made you mad...
Russell: Dominic Cummings isn’t really a politician but he does seem to have "c***" written on his forehead.
Justin: Every single fucking day. And that's both sides of the divide. Mainly the Tories, though. Actually, pretty much always the Tories. Fuck the Tories.
Ed: When George Galloway went on Big Brother. It lowered the bar for both TV entertainment and politics I reckon.
The first time you met a fan...
Tom: We had a few characters who would come and say hello before we were signed, back in the Birmingham days.
Justin: Someone asked me to sign their jeans in a guitar shop once, in the really early days in my career. I'm the least impressive guitarist in the world of rock music, so I guess he's gutted I ruined a decent pair of trousers for him.
Ed: We used to have this set of twins who came along to loads of early gigs and they were called Jelly and Jam. They were proper fans, but I never will remember their actual names. Respect to those guys from the early days.
The first karaoke you always want to sing...
Russell: Vanilla Ice, "Ice Ice Baby", although my cadence has wained over the years.
Ed: "Piano Man" by Billy Joel. I sang it at this amazing bar in Nashville called the Twin Kegs and I gave it everything. I’ve retired it since that night.
The first thing you'd do if you became prime minister...
Tom: Sack off the internet, ain’t worth it.
Russell: Legalise marijuana and put every single penny back into schools and hospitals.
Justin: Reinstate arts funding across the board. Push mental health way up the agenda.
Ed: I’d prorogue parliament just to prove that I am also not fit to be PM, then step down immediately.
The first time you realised you were any good...
Tom: I still remember the first rehearsal we played "Bullets". That was back at uni, before we moved to Brum. It sounded like the song of a signed band.
The first time you threw punch and meant it...
Russell: One of the Jeffcott brothers at school – fighty muthafuckers, the pair of 'em.
Tom: Never have. I'm a lover not a fighter.
Justin: Some shit fight at school for some shit reason.
The first time you got given a rider...
Tom: Crisps and beer. Not much of either.
Justin: Sandwiches. But not enough to go round.
Ed: Probably a slab of Carlsberg and a multipack of Walkers. There was one promoter who gave us a baked potato for dinner once, but was so tight that he refused to stretch to beans and cheese.
link: www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/editors-band-interview-2019this is some good content. I can't decide if I'd vote for Russell or Justin though
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Post by thegodfthr on Nov 16, 2019 10:53:06 GMT
Editors: ‘The first time a politician made us angry? The Tories, every single day’ Twice a week, we ask one band or artist a set of quick-fire questions that all start with ‘the first’, from their first shows and paycheques to the first time they got drunk. Up next are the Birmingham rock outfit Editors, who have just released Black Gold, a compilation album spanning their extensive back catalogue (plus three new tracks)
Over the past 15 years, Editors have scored six top ten albums, making them one of the UK's most consistently successful rock bands in a generation. Now, the Birmingham four piece – made up of frontman Tom Smith, Elliott Williams on keys, dummer Ed Lay and guitarists Justin Lockey and Russell Leetch – are releasing Black Gold, a compilation album made up of 13 tracks from their previous records, plus three brand-new offerings, including the titular lead single. Next year, Editor's will be embarking on a mammoth 27-date tour, with arena shows booked across Europe and the UK. Who says guitar music is dead, eh?
We caught the band just before they start rehearsals to talk formative firsts, from stage outfits and record deal pay days to falling in love and the politicians they just can't stand.
The first time you all met...
Tom Smith: I met Ed and Russell around 2000 at Staffs Uni. I met Ell through his old band Airship, in Camden, I think, 2009ish. I met Justin at his first Editors – now legendary – rehearsal, in 2012.
Ed Lay: I met Russ first, we bumped into each other on the open day for Stafford Uni where the band eventually began. I was with my dad and there he was, this massive enthusiastic guy with a skin head and a big grin and who just seemed to want some company, so we tagged along together. Meeting him swayed my decision to go to Stafford, where we met Chris and Tom. I met Elliott at the legendary – now closed down – Borderline in London at an Airship gig and Justin was in a rehearsal room at the legendary – and also now closed down – Rich Bitch studios in Brum.
The first time you played as Editors in front of a live audience...
Russell Leetch: It was supporting The Boxer Rebellion at the Liverpool Barfly on 9 September 2004. I remember sitting at the bar and a young Scouse lad was putting up posters for the upcoming shows. He asked, “Do you know who invented blue tack?” No idea mate. “Nasa”. Then he walked away. It’s always stuck with me.
Ed: I wasn’t in the band originally, so I saw them with their first drummer – they were called Pilot at the time – in a few places locally. Most memorable was probably at a venue called The Surgery in Stafford. It was on my birthday and they sang a song for me and we got plastered on absinthe.
The first time you got silly drunk...
Tom: At a house party – Alex Cliffs' house – when I was in secondary school. I was probably about 15 years old. I had way too much whisky; my mum had to come take me home.
Russell: Rosie O'Brien's, Solihull circa 1998. A pound in, a pound a pint. By three in the morning, all those pints were down the front of my parents house.
Justin Lockey: Some point in the early Nineties at a house party in a pit village near Doncaster. The house party didn't happen, so me and my best friend smashed a bottle of 20/20 in on the bus home. Mucho sickness and mucho apologising to friend's parents followed. I couldn't drink anything synthetically orange flavoured for a good few years after.
The first time you fell properly in love...
Russell: I got a cat last year.
Tom: None of your business... When I met my wife, obviously.
Justin: It was in the mid-Nineties...
Elliott Williams: Michelle, who was my country dancing partner at primary school. I'm not sure if it was proper, but it felt it at the time. I then fell in love with her older sister a few weeks later.
Ed: When I first met Russ as described earlier.
The first record you ever bought...
Russell: Queen's Greatest Hits.
Tom: I asked my parents to buy me The Best Of Status Quo.
Elliott: I had two babysitters that were very into heavy metal. I went to a car boot sale and brought the most metal-looking tape I could find. I had it on next time they came round to show off – they laughed a lot. It was Meat Loaf's "Bat Out Of Hell". Not metal but... good artwork!
Justin: I have two older brothers who, thankfully, had great musical taste growing up so I didn't have to buy much music. I remember buying "Feel The Pain" by Dinosaur Jr on a CD single and thinking it was bloody magical. I played it to death.
The first time you put together a stage outfit...
Tom: Black shirts back in 2003, when we decided to dress a little sharper. Baggy brown chords out, black shirts and jeans in. That’s pretty much still the rule.
Ed: When I was in the second year of high school, I somehow got involved in a vocal harmony group. We went into this record shop called Essential Selection in Ipswich and pestered the guy into making us a backing tape. We went home and tried to come up with some lyrics and the chat got to clothes. I was told that I should buy some big black DM’s and some white combat trousers. That was the end of that.
Your first teenage pin up was...
Tom: Michael Stipe. Didn’t really have girls on my wall growing up, or now.
Russell: Kurt Cobain was on my wall.
Ed: A huge poster of a Ferrari Testarossa in a gold frame that I got from a car boot sale, though I couldn't give a toss about cars.
The first time you made money out of being a musician...
Tom: Signing our first deal to [our label] Kitchenware – £10,000, off we go!
Justin: After my first band signed to Fiction / Polydor. We paid ourselves a wage and worked like mad. It all came crashing down when, three albums later, it was more than evident that a math-meets-art rock band doesn't really make singles for radio or actually sell many records.
Ed: Me and my mates at school used to put on our own gigs at a pool club in Ipswich, who were famously liberal with their age limits for serving booze. We charged entry on the door and sold our tapes and after just two gigs we had enough money to buy our own PA.
The first time you blew your paycheque frivolously...
Tom: I took a year out before going to uni, working in a plastic factory near home. I spent every paycheque on beer and music.
Russell: Well, not necessarily a paycheque but I’d gone through the majority of my first uni year with the help of my parents. It was coming up to the long summer so instead of working it I got the student loan for the last week of uni and hammered it over the summer. Idiotic but fun.
Justin: When I made a bit of cash producing other bands I bought an old BMW 316 coupe. It was falling to bits but I loved it dearly.
Elliott: One summer my folks went away for a week so I brought a massive paddling pool from Argos after work. It took hours to fill up, I got all my mates round and we had some beers in it. Used it once, turned stagnant and killed my parent's grass.
The first time a politician made you mad...
Russell: Dominic Cummings isn’t really a politician but he does seem to have "c***" written on his forehead.
Justin: Every single fucking day. And that's both sides of the divide. Mainly the Tories, though. Actually, pretty much always the Tories. Fuck the Tories.
Ed: When George Galloway went on Big Brother. It lowered the bar for both TV entertainment and politics I reckon.
The first time you met a fan...
Tom: We had a few characters who would come and say hello before we were signed, back in the Birmingham days.
Justin: Someone asked me to sign their jeans in a guitar shop once, in the really early days in my career. I'm the least impressive guitarist in the world of rock music, so I guess he's gutted I ruined a decent pair of trousers for him.
Ed: We used to have this set of twins who came along to loads of early gigs and they were called Jelly and Jam. They were proper fans, but I never will remember their actual names. Respect to those guys from the early days.
The first karaoke you always want to sing...
Russell: Vanilla Ice, "Ice Ice Baby", although my cadence has wained over the years.
Ed: "Piano Man" by Billy Joel. I sang it at this amazing bar in Nashville called the Twin Kegs and I gave it everything. I’ve retired it since that night.
The first thing you'd do if you became prime minister...
Tom: Sack off the internet, ain’t worth it.
Russell: Legalise marijuana and put every single penny back into schools and hospitals.
Justin: Reinstate arts funding across the board. Push mental health way up the agenda.
Ed: I’d prorogue parliament just to prove that I am also not fit to be PM, then step down immediately.
The first time you realised you were any good...
Tom: I still remember the first rehearsal we played "Bullets". That was back at uni, before we moved to Brum. It sounded like the song of a signed band.
The first time you threw punch and meant it...
Russell: One of the Jeffcott brothers at school – fighty muthafuckers, the pair of 'em.
Tom: Never have. I'm a lover not a fighter.
Justin: Some shit fight at school for some shit reason.
The first time you got given a rider...
Tom: Crisps and beer. Not much of either.
Justin: Sandwiches. But not enough to go round.
Ed: Probably a slab of Carlsberg and a multipack of Walkers. There was one promoter who gave us a baked potato for dinner once, but was so tight that he refused to stretch to beans and cheese.
link: www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/editors-band-interview-2019this is some good content. I can't decide if I'd vote for Russell or Justin though Legalise the Mary Jane, King Leetch for PM.
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Post by Captain Crieff on Nov 17, 2019 16:03:32 GMT
The second part of that interview on Radio Trójka aired yesterday, still dubbed but while bored I discovered I can edit out the Polish voice better than I expected so here goes... a rockstar would have dropped the mic there Poor Ed. link: www.polskieradio.pl/9/359/Artykul/2401082
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Post by Captain Crieff on Nov 19, 2019 17:00:09 GMT
Okay so this is a pretty great interview despite the title, but if you're also allergic to bad grammar and endless strings of words with little to no punctuation, don't read it at the source... The version in the spoiler is hopefully free from its/it's and your/you're errors.
Editors: An InterviewWith the new greatest hits album Black Gold out now, Sarah Anderson sat down with Editors drummer Ed Lay to talk about their career, the album and the future. S: Hi Ed, how are you doing?
Ed: I’m alright, you know, cold, that time of year, all my kids are suffering with colds so just transferred it to me. Not sure I should be out doing promos, I’m suffering at home with a cold but there you go. How are you?
S: I’m better now, I’ve just got over a horrible cold myself.
Ed: Yea, oh well that’s life. That’s what we get, we get to middle age and start coming down with all kinds of crap, ha-ha! But let's go for it.
S: Thanks Ed, so I’ve checked out the Black Gold Archives and I love the concept. It's like a time capsule! Tell me where the idea came from and how it came about?
Ed: So back in the good old days, sort of when we had our first couple of records out, we had a really lively forum, it was a really community-based place and really social. Lots of people, who came to all of our shows, made long lasting friendships on there. It was a huge kind of meeting point for all our fans, and when Sony dropped us, we kind of lost it. We had to give up the site and it was basically one of those really annoying points. So there was a really boring thing where we had to lose our sort of domain and we just lost that forum and that kind of contact with the fans. And I think ever since then we’ve missed that bit and we’ve kind of found it a little bit hard to re-engage with those people that were with us right at the very beginning. This idea came to us when somebody at PR suggested to maybe reinvigorate that fan base and we just thought it was a wonderful thing to share everybody’s experience in a nice sort of sociable manner, especially at this time. It's the greatest hits, so to come back with memories of past is what it's all about.
S: How would you describe what this album release means to you and the band?
Ed: It's all about celebrating what we’ve done and not feeling bad about it, not feeling guilty about it, but actually saying that we're still a band. We're still going and we’ve got new tracks to go along with it, so let's look back and have some fun with it. It's been overwhelmingly positive, some of the reactions we’ve got back from it and some of the stories we have heard and we’re going to hear [through the Black Gold Archives], you know it's meant to run and run – it's meant to be monolithic and hopefully it will just be this huge area that people can dip in and find something that they’ve never discovered before every time they go on it.
S: It is such a satisfying concept, because I love looking back on old pictures or videos and reminiscing on the old days. It must be so much fun to revive these memories. Have you got any favourite posts on the time capsule that have stood out to you so far?
Ed: There’s mostly stuff about Russell that I like, that’s always fun for me to see. I mean most of my memories of the band come from either Russell doing something like putting me in a bin, or just being generally massive, or drinking heavily and having a good time. They’re always the ones that make me smile. They’re the ones that I sort of hark back to.
S: And how has the response been from the fans, has it been really interactive?
Ed: GREAT! We’ve had loads of people trying to post within the very short time it's been put up there, as I say I just hope this is a rolling thing. I think when we’re asked about our memories from our career, if your put on the spot it's quite hard just to sort of pinpoint something. Because we’ve done so much, it almost turns into this sort of mush as you're doing it. You don’t really consider each part of your career and then when something sparks off another memory, and then another memory and it kind of all spills out, so to be able to have somewhere to point it, to put it on, is really quite overwhelming actually.
S: I agree it’s such a cool and nostalgic concept! So how do you plan to release something like this with the pressure of streaming platforms taking over and kind of killing off record sales?
Ed: I mean it's probably mad to be putting out a ‘Best of’ album, because you can stream, you can have access to everybody’s archive all of the time and you don’t need to buy a record. But I think the way that we have viewed this one was that we wanted it to be quite a stand-alone record, fairly unique, a bit of an introduction into our previous work, but also a platform to show off what we can do at the moment. We’ve got three brand new songs which I think are quite different to our previous efforts. As we’ve gone along in our career I think that’s been the case anyway. So we wanted to create a statement with it: we’ve given it a name. We haven’t just called it ‘the best of’ or ‘greatest hits’, we’ve given it a title, we’ve given it an identity and we wanted it to become its own record that we can use as a point of reference to what we’ve done and what were still going to do in the future. We are still going as a band, it's not just a retrospective.
So can you tell me about the upcoming tour and the three new songs you’ve written?
Ed: So yeah we’ve got a big tour coming out that’s already been announced. A few dates have sold out already. So that’s coming up in February/ March. We’re going all across the UK and Europe with that.
S: Awesome, will you be hitting up any festivals? As I know you’re a pretty popular festival band.
Ed: Erm nothing that I can speak about now. It's difficult because we’re in that period now that people are booking in, so I would expect that we are trying to get as many festivals as we possibly can next year. We were fairly controlled with our festival season this year, we didn’t do too many, but I think we will try and hit them pretty hard next year.
S: Hopefully Glastonbury?
Ed: Along with every other band in the history of music haha! So I think we’ve got quite a lot of competition to fight through. We’ve got a real history with Glastonbury.
S: Yes you’ve played there 6 times, which is incredible and must be great to look back on. But this is the Big 50th anniversary!
Ed: Yea so everybody wants to play it. It’s going to be huge in terms of people’s media coverage and stuff like that. But we want to play it because it’s the festival that’s meant the most to us as a band probably and individually as we were growing up. So it's important to try and get on the bill. We won’t be too downhearted if we don’t make it because we understand the amount of bands and quality, and caliber of bands that are trying to get on it. All the big bands are going to be trying to get on that bill. So if we can get it, we will obviously be made up!
S: Yea my friend was there at Glastonbury 2010, for the Editors gig and told me how it went off when you guys played the track Papillon!
Ed: Oh man, we have had some incredible experiences there! I mean we’ve mostly played on the Other Stage. We have kind of had a third top, second top stage as kind of our place, with the sun going down at that time of night and the views across the crowd, and we’re looking at that sunset. It's moments like that we will take away with us forever.
S: Pretty Momentous, I think it's every musician's dream to play there! What kind of music do you listen to yourself, or are there any new artists that you're interested in at the moment?
Ed: I’m really, really liking Georgia; I saw a little bit of her Glastonbury coverage last summer. It was kind of intriguing: just her, an electronic drum kit and a keyboard. I like the fact that it's only about her. They’re just really melancholic, but upbeat pop songs, similar to the likes of Robyn. So I’m super keen on her and I’m going to try and go and see her next year if I can!
S: I’m definitely going to check her music out. Do you think any of the music that your parents listened to had an influence on you in any way?
Ed: I think so. My dad used to be in little folk bands when he was a kid. He listened to stuff like Steeleye Span, Jethro Tull and Mike Oldfield. I mean we listened to tubular bells in the car on holiday, that was the tape (laughs) so that really brings back memories. I think I’ve probably had a bit of an aversion to folk; I was really into American rock music when I was a kid. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, that sort of stuff, as a sort of anti-folk trip, but I’ve definitely gone back to listening to folk. I’ve been listening to Mark Radcliffe’s folk show on Radio 2 pretty much every week. I just love hearing new interpretations of songs that are 200 years old. It’s a pretty cool thing to do, so I’m sort of delving into that a little bit.
S: Okay, so my boyfriend is also a drummer like yourself and currently touring with a band and finding it extremely challenging, so do you have any advice for any budding artists out there preparing for a tour? How do you prepare yourself?
Ed: Aw man, it's really difficult. I think the first few days before going on tour and the few days coming back, it's really difficult to adjust. I’m sure he feels the same in terms of relationships. Just because your way of life is so different. You're not necessarily going to be up at the same times as when you're at home and you don’t conform to the same little house rules. Everyone’s advice is different, just try and get on with everybody on the tour. If you don’t it can be pretty testy. You’ll get pretty lonely.
S: Well it's been a pleasure chatting with you, thank you for answering my questions while you're under the weather, and I wish you the best of luck with your upcoming tour! Hopefully see you playing at Glastonbury 2020!
Ed: You are very welcome, yeah thank you! Really looking forward to it. Enjoy your winter!
link: urbanistamagazine.uk/editors-an-interview/
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Post by Captain Crieff on Nov 19, 2019 17:06:13 GMT
huh, the old forum disappearing had something to do with Sony?
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Post by sotired on Nov 20, 2019 11:59:01 GMT
huh, the old forum disappearing had something to do with Sony? Yes, I think I posted that at the time the old forum death was announced as it had happened to another favourite band of mine - Teenage Fanclub - after Sony had swallowed up Creation Records and spat out the lesser earning artists (probably all but oasis) The forum was owned, hosted, and managed by sony and the death of the forum occurred around 12 months after they switched labels from Sony so i think they give a 12 month period in which the band could transfer over to a new platform if they desired.
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Post by Captain Crieff on Nov 20, 2019 13:45:43 GMT
I must have read over that post back in the day. All this time I thought they just didn't think it was worth it anymore because there was too much negativity and not enough activity in general.
sotired and DannyManta like this
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Post by Richard on Nov 21, 2019 3:43:44 GMT
Tom and Russel were definately running with the too much negativity line back then, so it's a surprise to hear Ed saying this
DannyManta likes this
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Post by Captain Crieff on Nov 24, 2019 18:20:25 GMT
thegodfthr likes this
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