Third album Skying represents a mature and exciting progression for these English punk purveyors. UTR caught up with front man Faris Badwan about the new album and well, the few things he would actually talk to us about.
You've just played Glastonbury, how was that?
Um, well I mean it was OK we had some sound problems but yeah it was alright. We had a really good crowd which was great. Most of the festival itself was buried under three feet of mud so we saw what we could, and I mean we definitely made the most of it.
Did you see any bands who blew you away?
I mean I don’t know about mind-blowing but I saw a couple of bands that I liked - I really like Wilco and I got to see them.
Tell me a little bit about your new album, Skying.
Well we have been wanting to record ourselves for a long time in our own studio and that’s what we did really. We didn’t really think at all about the direction the album was going to take but we thought about how we were going to record it and we worked out the essentials from there.
So there was no reference points going into the recording process?
Um, well I think the album has a lot of personality. When you try and describe something that you spend a lot of time on in a few words it contracts from it.
It’s a progression from Primary Colours and Strange House, though, were you trying to explore anything new musically?
No, we were confident that we had grown enough as musicians to take this album to a new place.
Is there anything in particular that you’re proud of on the album?
Well I think we all have our favourites. I like ‘Oceans Burning’, the last track, it's definitely my favourite on the record.
Is the songwriting process in The Horrors the same for each song? Tell me a little bit about that.
We make things when we’re not together - we’re all off in separate rooms - much like how most new songs are made.
Your musical aesthetic is pretty directional, what draws you to the sound you have been exploring across Primary Colours and progressing on Skying?
I think that it's just five people pulling in different directions. Whenever we’ve tried writing in a particular way it doesn’t sound like The Horrors. An important part of our sound is simply the fact that we’re all involved in it.
Strange House and Primary Colours are quite different. What made you step away from the sound of your first album?
I think that if you’ve got two years between records and you’ve been a band together that time you are going to change a lot. I think we’ve always wanted to develop and I hope we continue to develop otherwise there’s no point doing it.
Tell me about where the title for the album came from.
We felt like it summed up the feeling of the record.
If you were to further discuss the feeling of the record overall or what you want people to take away from it, what would you say?
I don’t know, it’s really important for people to just get out of it what they naturally get out of it.
As a new body of work, what do you think is different about it or exciting about it compared to your last two records?
I think the most exciting thing is the fact that we’ve done it; that we’ve been given the opportunity to do what we want. We get to be in a band and write and record whatever and not really worrying about any of our work going wrong. We didn’t have to worry about being a pop band. We want to write strong melodies but we don’t want to take the easiest route of doing that.
-Courtney Sanders
