| |
 |
 |
 |
Engineers - Come In Out Of The Rain
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 Ok folks I am here to deliver some good news and some bad news, in that order:
Engineers are back with a new album!
We might need to wait a few months before it’s released!
Engineers Dan McBean [guitar, keyboard], Mark Peters [bass] and Sweeney [drums] from Wigan with the indispensable addition of lead vocalist Simon Phipps, a Londoner, released their eponymous debut album in 2005.
‘Engineers’ the Lp is a beautifully crafted emotional and surreal walk through a dream, and is still a must have to any record collection.
Due to the fact that fortunately for us and unfortunately for the band and despite the positive reviews, this wasn’t a case of overplay, overexposure, over saturation, to listen to their first Lp today is as fresh and exciting as when it was first set free from the recording studio.
After a seemingly never ending self imposed absence, Engineers have come out of their lab to present us with their forthcoming second album.
Nameless for now or unready to hit the shelves just yet, the band aired their new material and teased their fans at a couple of long awaited shows in the UK.
Tonight and just before their London gig at Sonic Cathedral, I meet up with Simon and Mark for a chat.
They talked at length about their new record and to my surprise vented their disappointment in certain aspects of the music industry.
Gracious and forthcoming interviewees I found their honesty never less than touching...
Florence: It’s nice to see you back on the live scene after what seems like a really long time....
Simon: Seventeen months!
The last time we played was in France, in Rennes at the Transmusicales festival.
It’s been a while but we’ve been making an album!
Florence: Let’s talk about that. Your debut Lp came out two years ago and you are now ready to release the follow up...
Mark: We don’t have a date just yet but we are working out some business such as the album being licensed to a record label and it’s all happening as we speak.
Florence: ‘Engineers’ is a real beauty and was rightly critically acclaimed. How do you follow something that good?
Simon: Second albums are harder to write because you’ve had a long time to do the first one, since you were fourteen I suppose!
Mark: We are not so worried about getting good reviews, however we didn’t want to make the same album again. The circumstances in which the first album was written were a lot different from the second. After all we’re a lot older!
This new album has been written and recorded after a good couple of years of us touring together, everybody has had a lot more input as opposed to certain people writing songs by themselves as happened on ‘Engineers’.
Florence: Apart from the writing process which has evolved over the years what would you say are the key differences between the two records?
Mark: The first Lp was very low key, sound wise.
Simon: It was also self produced but this time we worked with a producer, which was a big difference.
This one was a very different experience.
Mark: That gave us a lot more time to think about the playing, the actual performances and the vocals as opposed to just thinking about the way it sounded. This album has got a lot more emotions in the actual playing. It is more live sounding really.
This material will also be easier to play live. It’s more rhythm orientated. We played in Manchester two days ago and people who came to us after the gig thought that it was a lot ‘meatier’.
A lot more guts basically.
Florence: It’s very promising that you are so confident about the new recordings.
Mark: We wanted to do something more like this for this album.
Although we really love the first one, it’s very difficult to play live because it is quite subtle and delicate in a lot of places, and that’s difficult to put across especially vocally.
For some bands, their live sound is what happens on the records but with us it had to be tailored a little bit. Some of the tracks were kind of a representation of the live sound but the others were a lot more intricate and a lot more layered.
We started writing this album as soon as the first one came out and within about six months we had half the album, although we had written about twenty tracks.
The tracks that we wrote, besides the ones we kept, felt like tracks we’d already released whereas we wanted to come back with something different, not just different for us but a new sound really.
Florence: So we are expecting a real musical departure?
Simon: It’s ‘dancier’ and also darker. I hope you don’t think that it’s less beautiful but it’s gonna work better live.
Florence: Is that due to the fact that your inspirations changed?
Mark: It’s more influenced by sort of German 70s groups like Kraftwerk...in fact we’ve sampled a track by Harmonia. We’ve also used a string quartet on a few tracks and made a big thing out of it.
I think that the use of strings on the first album was kind of a little bit syrupy. We all felt that it wasn’t quite what we wanted, but this time it’s a bit more rough and real.
We scored the parts for the string players ourselves rather than leaving it to the producers to do.
The lyrics are much better as well, they were kind of secondary on ‘Engineers’ but this time we spent a lot of time writing lyrics and it’s more about our lives.
In fact it has a lot more edge emotionally and sound wise
Simon: I’m not from Wigan like my band mates, I’m from just outside London and we’ve only known each other a few years and we’re kind of still exploring each other’s record collections. We’re always playing different music to each other, Mark has just given me a Van Morrison and a Kraftwerk cd. We’re excited about music and probably still inspire each other.
Florence: So Mark you are from Wigan...
There is a lot of talent over there.
Mark: There are lots of really new bands coming out like Filthy Romance who are really really good and are gonna do very well soon.
There is a really good scene going on there.
Florence: With an album to promote I guess we will see a lot more shows being scheduled.
Tonight you are in London [Sonic Cathedral] and two nights ago you were in Manchester.
How did that feel after so long?
Did you just present new material or did you revisit ‘Engineers’?
Simon: Was it hard? Not really, as Mark said this new material is pretty easy to play and I feel that I am a better singer than I used to be. I’m not playing the guitar as much this time around so that’s quite a big change. I had less to concentrate on so I had a good gig. It was good to be back.
We did play a couple of songs off 'Engineers'.
Mark: We hope for a full on tour in the autumn.
In the meantime we want to do some more gigs just to keep in there and because we enjoyed rehearsing together and playing. I think that we really missed that over the last eighteen months.
Florence: Since you’ve been away the music scene has dramatically changed.
How do you fit in now?
Simon: It’s better for us now.
Two years ago it was specifically about small garage bands, The Libertines, The White Stripes...
Florence: You were swimming against the tide...
Simon: Very much and that was really hard.
It affected our shows and the record company wanted us to change what we were doing live. It was very tough.
Mark: This scene is much better with the underground stuff coming up a lot more. But the way we feel about the whole scene has a lot to do with the way we feel about our band, we’re happy and we think that we sound amazing. As far as the first record went we were always very happy but the live side was a bit of a struggle. We were always playing gigs with people that were totally different than us and we were like the black sheep but now we feel that we’re that good that it doesn’t matter.
Also I think that the internet has changed things a great deal. People don’t just go to a record store anymore and buy what is clearly racked, instead they have a search around the internet. Myspace means that you can find yourself listening to something you would not have been listening to two years ago. That’s fantastic and everybody is happy about that. I guess that it’s worst for bands who have a record deal because people buy less music but it’s better for music itself.
Florence: Because of the rise of the internet, in your opinion is it still indispensable for a band to have a record deal?
Mark: Having a deal means that all the stuff that you need to think about, to do with the organisation of a record and promotion is taken care of. But there are a lot of pros and cons.
Florence: Talking about deals, things happened very quickly for you...
Mark: We were signed up in 2003 but we got together as a band about a year before that. In fact we got signed even before we did a single gig.
Florence: You didn’t struggle and play pubs for months on end like so many other bands have to do. You didn’t really suffer for your art, did you?
Mark: We had some songs that we knew were very good and we thought: “ what’s the point of doing an unfinished demo and then try to do a lot of gigs. “ We wanted to record something really good and ready to release, that way we thought that we’d get signed and we did.
Simon: Actually I feel rather rebellious right now!
Our record company did pay for us to make the album but now they’re not going to release it so we don’t feel so indebted to them anymore.
So now we’re only going to play the songs that we really like. I feel ready to do the stuff that we really want to do.
Florence: Do you feel let down somehow?
Simon: They lean on you and try to push you towards making music that could be a single.
Mark: It feels good not to be so corporate.
We didn’t want to come out with an album that was a commercial version of the first one. I think that it looks slutty when people do that.
Simon: For us the money has stopped, [from the record label], but the album is there so we don’t owe anybody anything anymore and we’re gonna do the music we like doing. It’s exciting being in that position really and we feel that we have nothing to loose.
Florence: Do you feel freer to create?
Simon: Yes! Creatively more freedom, financially less so!
Mark: When you are getting a minimum wage and yet have someone on the phone everyday telling you to turn your vocals up or make a song shorter or more catchy....when you’re only getting a small amount of money then that just seems wrong.
Florence: I take it that this is one side of the industry that left you rather disillusioned.
Simon: The money is always there. The money is always going around and it has its own character. Even the people you talk to on the phone, they’re only an extension of what the money wants. You never actually talk to the money but it’s always in the background, it has its own set of demands and they’re very rigourous.
Mark: A lot of people in the industry are your friends, when you’re paying them or when the record company is paying them but when that dries up they’re gone and when there is a chance that that might be there again they come back!
Florence: You’ve obviously learnt a lot.
Simon: We’re less naive and we need to concentrate on what is really important which is the music!
Florence: What would be your message to the world?
Mark: Everyone should stop acting like ‘their world’ is the most important thing in the world. Everyone is self obsessed these days.
You put the TV on and it’s all about yourself, worrying about the way you look and your aspirations. However I’m not saying that everyone should join the Peace Corps!
Simon: I’ve had a think about it and I think that people should do what they want and be more honest about what they want.
If you can be honest with yourself about what it is that you actually want from a situation or your life and be honest with people around you about what that thing is then I think that the world would be a better place.
Mark: Engineers think that honesty is the best policy!
Words: Florence ACHERY
www.engineersweb.net
www.myspace.com/engineers |
|
 |
|
 |
|
