Embrace
by Steve Lamacq
Broadcast on the Evening Session 15 Aug 2001
Ahead of the release of their new single 'Wonder' and album 'If You've Ever Been', Danny and Richard from Embrace joined Steve Lamacq on the Evening Session to talk about the album. Also, as it's their third Steve put took them through the 'Third Album Check-list'.
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Track: 'I Hope You Are Happy Now'
How has your year been so far, because it's been out of the public eye?
D: "Yeah, we've just been recording the album, so we try and keep out of the way when are doing that sort of thing - it keeps us focused."
Are you getting to the stage now where you feel like the older brothers of the scene?
D: "No, we still feel like lonely outsiders."
R: "I think we feel like we don't fit in, we feel like other people could do it better."
Have you found the atmosphere has changed between bands? It strikes me the scene is full of bit more camaraderie than it was four years ago.
D: "Never noticed it, we've always been on the outskirts looking in. It just looks as forbidding and frightening as it ever has done. The charts are a place for celebrities and media darlings, the small tent at T In The Park is the place for my favourite bands. So, it doesn't make any sense to me."
Have you always been naturally quiet as people?
D: "I think I'm quite shy."
R: "It's probably why I mumble a lot, because when I was a kid he used to do all the talking. My mum actually said when I was a baby Danny used to tell her what I was saying - it's pretty much what goes on now. He does it on stage now, I'll say something off-mic and he'll repeat what I said."
You've changed in the way you put things across, you are more at home just talking about the music, rather than standing on the top of a tower block with a megaphone...
D: "We are not really the kind of band that likes doing TV and that, you kind of just go on and not look like an arse-hole, you try and come across as not embarrassing. You go on and be as open and as honest as you can, and hope that people will get that."
Let's talk about this record. When did you record it?
R: "We finished recording it about two months ago and started at the beginning of February. We did quite a lot of pre-production this time and made sure all the songs were ready to rock before we went into the studio."
What was your frame of mind when you went you went in to do this record?
R: "I think in the past we'd been guilty of taking the p**s a bit, recording in big expensive places and using far too many musicians. So this time we wanted to concentrate on what it is about us, rather than the whole process. This time if we could, we played it ourselves. We were going to get a gospel choir in for 'Wonder', but we decided it was just people singing harmonies, so we did it ourselves."
D: "Everyone had a go. I felt like a rocket fuelled space-ship right from the start doing this - like I was on a mission."
Is that why it was done so quickly?
D: "Possibly, yeah. It kinda freaked me out that it just poured out. It took me five days to get the first lyric, which was in 'I Hope You Are Happy Now', and that just seemed to inform the whole lot. 15 day's later I'd finished the whole album."
Was that because you had loads to say and material, or was it the frame of mind?
D: "Well, you know when you've been going out with someone for a long time or a friendship that's lasted a long time, you might see that person for ten hours a day. But it's not until 3 o'clock on Saturday morning when you are both drunk out of your skins that you tell each other what you think - any resentments or things you've wanted to say for a long time suddenly come the surface and get said. It seems like writing lyrics is kind of like that. As soon as I start writing, it takes a while to tune into something like that, but as soon as I am it all pours out - all the stuff that I leave unsaid in my day to day life. It's a quite frightening experience, and I come out sometimes feeling a bit shell-shocked, your heart is splashing and you cannot really sleep. It isn't something that I take to doing lightly, writing lyrics, it's probably the hardest part of being in a band. The fact that it all happened so quickly shocked me more than anything did - it's usually the last thing to come together... I definitely feel very different when I'm writing lyrics to how I feel most of the time. I'm quite instinctive, I don't really contrive to write lyrics, half of the lyrics for most of the songs I write as I'm writing the melody. It's only afterwards that you try and make some sort of sense to it. It's like we've just done a load of interviews across Europe and they were all asking me what the songs were about, and I found myself stumbling to explain."
Track: 'It's going to take Time'
You wanted to play that track, is there any particular reason?
R: "It's quite immediate. I think the album as a whole is something that creeps up on you and grows on you more than our other albums."
The third album check-list:
The bass player writes a song...
"No that's not happened."
Guest vocalist...
"No."
Band attempt production themselves...
"We've already done that."
You only work with Mercury Music Prize winning producers...
"Two out of the three albums have been."
Gratuitous use of piano...
"We've done that before as well."
Band becomes aware of it's own mortality...
R: "That's not so far from the truth because there was a point where we were getting a bit up tight about things."
Is there something you've achieved, which you don't think you've achieved before?
R: "I think we've managed to record an album which has got the same sort of atmosphere to it from beginning to end. In the past we've said we've done it, but looking back we can see there's a schizophrenic up and down roller-coaster ride to stuff we've done. This one takes you on a journey and there's only a couple of peaks on it where it jolts."
What are your expectations for this record? You are obviously very proud of it, have you built your self up to be hurt if it doesn't do as well as you'd like?
D: "I kind of don't really quantify it in that way. My favourite bands like Flaming Lips and Beta Band don't do well at all commercially, but it doesn't mean that they are any less ace than they are. At this stage, it's only a few weeks after finishing it, it's hard to get any distance or be objective about it. I've never felt this proud at this stage."
You want to play 'Satellites', why?
D: "It's kind of the other side of the album. 'It's Going To Take Time' is quite brash and poppy, then the other side of the album is sort of dark songs where you slip your headphones on and float downstream - and this is kind of one of them."
