White Lies

0:00I haven't used the new one yet, that looks cool. Oh yeah, it's different. Yeah, they updated it. Looks more professional. Just a little one. So first show of the tour. We were just talking about it, I've repeatedly told me before. This is the first show of the tour. Yeah, the first show really for us to be doing a headline set with the new record. The option to play more than an hour, because we've been playing songs at the new record all summer at festivals, but only a few. And this time we get to build a whole hour and a half a set. How does a festival set work? Play the hits is the rule.

0:47That's the way you take a look at it. Different bands have different ideas of playing. Because I mean, you know, it's not all your fans. Not everyone's here to see you as opposed to tonight. You have to basically worm in a few new songs and songs that people know just to keep them interested. But we've had a really good summer at festivals. We've gone down really well. The new tracks that we've been playing, you know, it's been a good balance in new songs. Some people do know already. It's been pretty well received on the whole for us. It must be interesting when you put out a record to see how those new songs, I mean, you guys work on them over and over the studio when you hear a song. I'm sure as you know, over and over. They become super catchy to you, but no one else has heard them yet. So what was it like to see those new songs go over live at these festivals as the crowd hears them for the first time and starts to get into them?

1:33Were there any that really stuck out? Yeah, I think we've had a pretty good response by and large. It's been pretty positive. I think certainly for our fans as well, the new album has been very welcomed. It's been received very well. I think that the new record sounds a lot like what we've seen. People expect what people want from white lives. And that's what we wanted to... Which is what? What people want from white lives? It's just the sound of the band. I think the way that we approached this record was we spent a long time writing the songs. And then we thought long and hard about what is it production-wise that makes up the sound of white lives.

2:19And so we really tried to deliver. It's just a few... I mean, it would be very boring to go into specific. No, I like this kind of stuff. But it's stuff like... An example is that there's one of our favourite bands that we were first starting out as white lives. And still it is. It's the cars. And especially the song, just what I need is. And the guitar stabs in that. Like the muted, palm-muted guitar stabs is something that we did quite a lot on our first record. And revisited a lot. In fact, I'm on our second record as well, but we've done it a lot all the way through. And that's something that is part of the sound of the band. That's like a very small thing that we've always done. It's that kind of thing.

3:04You just try and employ those things. I mean, you have to keep it interesting because you kind of shoehorn it into everything. But that kind of thing is, I think, what makes the record sound like a white lives record. That's interesting because as you grow as a band, do you want to try and shy away from that? Or do you want to embrace that this is what we have in it and we build off what we are trying to do? I think it's about embracing it and then trying to add new things as well. So what was that on this record? What did you try and add to spice things up? I think the whole approach to the production of this record was very specific to this record. It's not really a way we've worked before. It's a very straight back. We're a band that very easily chucks everything into a track. Like 30 tracks of guitar.

3:51Exactly. Whereas on this album, by and large, with very few exceptions, maybe a minute of music on the whole record, there's only ever two guitars playing at one time, one left and one right. Is that because the live show you think we would try and recreate it as well? Well, in a sense it was, but I think it was about making the record sound like a band playing in a room. Which is a poster. Yeah, as a poster. So you can still hear the sound of the pick hitting the strings. The other thing is the way we were writing for this record, which was a very long process and a very kind of gradual process, like whittling down the foundations of the song first until we're happy with just a chord progression and a melody, and then starting to arrange it and then adding the different parts.

4:38And I meant that, especially Jack and I had so much longer to write our own parts for the songs than we've had before. Like, I feel like, certainly on the last record, we made these kind of electronic demos. That was the easiest way to make demos of the songs and then we went straight to the studio with them. We were importing the demos into the computer and going right. Let's put some drums on it. Like go play something and Jack would play for hours and hours until something sounded cool. And then I would do the same with bass. And you know, that works. There's good moments. But it was really nice on this record for Jack to have weeks to go to a drumroom and write the part he wanted to play, learn it immaculately, and then I could listen to that and then write the bass line to that.

5:24So it's like when we were coming to the studio, everyone knew what they were playing and we felt confident with that. And it meant there was a lot more sort of electricity in the... Wow. Kind of a geek, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah. Like we did a get a chat on, really. So that was, I think that was a good learning curve and something that we'll do in the future. You feel so much better at being in a studio when you kind of have... It was nice to go in and just be able to crack on straight away and feel very confident about what you're doing and not, you know, less time-wasting and more immediate productivity is really nice when you're actually in a room that, you know... Or maybe we won't do that. And we'll make a really long, protracted record with no cost-related power. And just go to the studio without it. Literally with nothing.

6:11Yeah. Not even a guitar. But rent the most expensive show. Yeah. Spend all the budget on one week. It's practice. Fapping. For a few hours. Yeah. What was the most daunting? I mean, I think I heard you guys talking about how a lot of these songs came really quickly. Or at least first time Collar did, I think. Which is the new video and I kind of want to talk about that tune. But... It's a bad question. I'm not going to ask it anyway. Why does it seem like all the good songs end up being written super quick? I know. I think it's really frustrating actually because you... You plug away at all the other songs and they just never turn out the tune. I think it's because you're still fresh at the beginning and you're not thinking... I think we weren't thinking too much about how to write it. And about... It was just like, okay, let's just try and write something and just let's not go.

6:57And then once you've done that, once or twice, it's very hard to read. It's like, okay, that song was fucking great. How do you write another one like that? And then you immediately were overthinking it. And then every other song after that becomes a real struggle basically. Yeah. It sounds like getting even. Which is a good song but just took so long. Like, I don't know, hundreds of different verses. The chorus was already written but... Getting the speed of it right. Speed, tempo, everything. Why was that the song that had to be the teaser for this record? Why was that the first thing you wanted to show the world? I think it was a great track. I think it's a really good rock track as well. A lot of people were really rocking that song. It was really loud guitars and quite in your face.

7:42A lot of people wanted it to be a single but it's... Because it's quite... Of course you can do an edit of it but it was... It's quite... Prog in its structure. And we thought... We're actually really open to having to do radio edits and stuff. Some bands, you know, they really hate it but we get it so it's fine. But with that one it was like, well we could do an edit but we're going to end up having to get rid of an entire section of the song that people will never hear until they hear the real version. So why don't we just put it out instead of doing like an official single. We'll put it out. Some radio stations will play it if they want to even though it's five minutes, some won't but it doesn't matter. It's just a free download. And it worked really well. I wish Harry said as... You know, said this first...

8:27I think in hindsight what we probably should have done is put that out and then drop the album like two weeks later and not even do a single. Just go straight with it. There's so much impact that someone went on the internet. You really don't need to go through the formalities as a band of giving tracks to radios six or eight weeks in advance of releasing the track. Sometimes it just makes no difference anymore. We could have used the buzz of that first song and dropped the album and it would have done great. We would have done the same as it did. Yeah, that's so interesting. I mean it's not a single but it's still a single that we can get that one to another. That's where everyone is. They're on the radio. They're on the internet. That's fascinating. It comes up a lot with bands actually. I do want to... Because I feel bad that they're waiting. That's all. The narrative of this record. I dig the idea of trying to write a story throughout ten songs or twelve songs if you want to have the interludes in it.

9:16When you have that idea in mind was it harder to then fit the songs into that story or did it just... You had that idea and it was like well they all have to fit in or maybe some ended up fitting in because you say they fit into that story. It's quite... In many ways it's a very open-ended and quite a vague story in some ways. It's effectively about a girl that moves to a different city to start a new life and then it's like okay so write some songs about life now. Write some songs about a different... It's something like moving. Yeah, exactly. So it's actually once there was... I definitely remember... Well, I had the idea for the lyrics for first time caller and that was as I said that's the first song that we wrote and I sort of thought to myself.

10:07How could I write this one into the story? And actually it didn't feel forced at all in the end. It made perfect sense for this girl who's fairly lost and doesn't really know what she wants from life anyway to have a sort of a missing and absent parent and for her to go searching for him and that's kind of the story of that song. So and there's obviously a slight twist to it within being a radio detail and all this kind of stuff. So that was fine but it's a really nice way of working. It's a really... To have the idea in mind. Yeah, it keeps everything fairly together. Doesn't mean you can't go off on some wild tangents all the time. It means even though the others aren't writing lyrics, I think it just keeps everything together.

10:54Everyone feels like they know what the project is and they know what the task at hand is. And you can visualize an album very early on as opposed to just a selection of songs that hopefully become an album. So you sort of see the finish line is right so in somewhere or another there will be ten tracks that will tie each other together and musically they should tie together as well. That's why we have the interludes and things like that. And I hope in a way we'll actually keep doing that and go to... I think that roots a good one for us. It works. We get a real kick out of the slightly... I don't know, a little bit more... I guess a sort of narrative way of writing music as well in referencing certain riffs and themes throughout multiple songs and things like that.

11:42So if a good story comes to mind for the next one, I don't see any reason why we wouldn't just do it again. Does the narrative have to stay for a live show or does that just get thrown out the window? No, it just gets thrown out the window. I mean it would be nice, like I would drop a frog. It'd make a live show. Yeah, it'd be a very cool one. With theatrical interludes. With actual interludes. Exactly. I would love to be a band that at some point writes an album that warrants playing an album from the start to finish. Because I've seen Echo and the Bunnyman do Ocean Rain like that and it's great. It's a great album. It's an album where in 15 years time you've won, you've seen it as a charity. I guess you need people who want you to play. That's true.

12:27It's a big component of it. I can let you guys go. So we do something called Five Questions. Five Quick Questions. One more answer is everyone can answer. Okay. Rode or Studio? Rodeo. I think Rode. Yeah. Rode. Leonard or McCartney? McCartney. McCartney. Oh. Wiggens Harry. Yeah, McCartney. When you hear a song what usually hits you first, lyrics melody or rhythm? Melody. Rhythm. Oh, I don't know. Um, melody probably. If someone's never heard White Lies before, what song do they start with? Big TV. Death probably. Yeah, to be honest. I think death. In one word, white lies.

13:14Uh, sexy. No, that's fine. Yeah. Men. Sexy men. I don't think you can, you can, uh, you can, uh, you can go. No, that's all we need. I was gonna add boys. Sexy men boys. I can ask you that. Sexy men boys. That's how that was. Awesome. Thanks guys. Thank you very much.