(MUSE) Origin of Symmetry Interview - Abbey Road
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| (Sorry about the quality of the picture. The footage is over twenty years old, and trying to clean it up with the limited tools I have, does not make it look any better) |
2001
dotmusic.com
Q: What's the mood in the band when you finished touring, and got back in the studio?
MATTHEW: I went swimming. I went on holiday for a while.
DOMINIC: We had a little bit of time off to sort of relax after touring hard, so...I think..,well, we went in the studio in October straight after tour, straight off festivals, and we did a few tracks with Dave Bottrill...
MATTHEW (teasing his enthusiasm): And that was "All right, what have we got to do this year, boys? Let's make a plan. Let's make an album to remember." Do something that has got to be remembered for the rest of time...let's change the face of music...that was our general approach...with that sort of approach...literally that approach...do you know what I mean? With like, yeah, on the one hand, we are having a bit of a joke here.
Q: But with that approach it is pretty relaxed.
DOMINIC: The first time went in the studio with Dave Bottrill, we went in straight off the road, so we sort of knew what we were going to do. The songs we were recording were new songs we were playing live, so we were still in that sort of live vibe.
MATTHEW: Yeah, yeah, well initially we just recorded songs we had been playing live, so those ones I'd say just sound like a three peice raw sort of thing. It wasn't until I went away on holiday for a bit..took maybe a couple of weeks here to have a break...since we've been working with John Leckie that's when we've been starting to do the stuff which really is sort of quite different to what we've been doing before, trying out new ideas, things like that. Working with John Leckie has been good, because he's really, uh, he's just, you know, great producer..,and he's always playing us like, you know, weird music that we've never heard before, which is always a good thing to have 'round you when you are making a new record, is to surround yourself with stuff that's all new and never heard before.
Q: Was there a temptation to overindulge?
MATTHEW: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. On the album?
Q: Yes
MATTHEW: Oh yeah...
DOMINIC: We've been there and done that already
MATTHEW: We've gone and done that already...yeah it's going to be that...it's going to be...you'll hear it, someone will hear it...and they'll get us indulging it
Q: How do you draw the line?
MATTHEW: What's that?
Q: How do you draw the line?
(Slight argument begins)
MATTHEW: We don't. We just go as far as we possibly can.
DOMINIC: You can. But you can always do what you want at a later stage.
MATTHEW: Don't draw a line. If you draw a line that's like covering yourself up.
DOMINIC: It's best to do as much as you can, and as much as you think you need,
MATTHEW: Well it's not like...it's not a quantity, it's just doing what you want...and not being embarrassed about who you really are, and trying to get that on record. Yeah, to some people, that may seem...if everyone just let go of their inhibitions, and showed everyone for what they really were, some people might not like them. Some people might really like them.
(PLUG IN BABY clip plays)
MATTHEW: "Plug In Baby" is probably the first song we recorded. First off the record with Dave Bottrill. Uh, uh, it's um...it's like um..
DOMINIC: pretty rocky track...
MATTHEW:..It's alright. Yeah.
DOMINIC: It's a track we have been playing for quite a while. Most, well, quite a bit of last year really...live. Like one of the only few new songs that we were doing.
MATTHEW: It's a three piece band...
DOMINIC: It's very sort of...
MATTHEW: It's got a guitar, bass and drums, and like the bass distortion is on that side of the speaker with pan (right)...and the guitar is on that side (left)...and that's not very normal. Normally, you have the bass in the middle, and then like loads of guitars around the side. So we are trying to make it sound like what we are like on stage, which is drums, bass and guitar sort of thing...which is quite, which is quite...so we tried that...
DOMINIC: It's pretty normal.
(CUT)
MATTHEW: What it was, we only actually wanted to do...we only planned to do...even if there was any element of planning, was we've got to do "Plug In Baby" with Dave Bottrill, because we happened to have like one week in the studio, and a week off. And we were supposed to have a week off, and we might as well go to this place which is a nice studio. Relax there because it's got a swimming pool, and record one song. Cos erm...so yeah...so whilst we were in there, it happened that the studio said, "Oh we've got an extra week", and we said, "Oh, we may as well do some more songs then". So that was like a bit of chance really. That was probably the only reason why we ended up doing four or five songs with Dave Bottrill, because we had that bit of extra time. He had to disappear anyway after that, and he's been in the States doing the Tool album, so...but he...but we never had plans to do a whole album with him, we were always planning to do the main bulk of it with John Leckie.
(CUT)
MATTHEW: Some producers, like you know, you wonder what...twiddling knobs and stuff, and like they want to get more involved and that, if they can, and most of the time we don't ever let...well the producer really interfere with anything like that you know like the arrangements. But I think I know what you are saying, Dave Bottrill is the only guy that he actually said anything once about a song in terms of arrangement, and we actually went "that's a good idea".
(DOMINIC makes agreeing sounds)
Q: Do you ever think about doing it yourselves?
MATTHEW: What the arrangement?
Q: No, the whole production.
DOMINIC: I don't know how to use an SSL, that's the thing.
MATTHEW: Uh yeah, we probably need to get someone to use the things..the gear...everything we have done has been co-produced. With John and David, it's always co-produced anyway. I mean "producing" is a loose term. It can mean a lot of things, a lot of different things. I think to me what it means is selecting what songs you record. How you record them. And erm, things like that...and where you put the microphones, what sort of sounds you want to go for. That sort of producing thing is always a co thing like done between us.
Q: Do you think that next time round you will be taking more of a control?
MATTHEW: I don't know. I think what the way it is now, we've got complete control really. You know I'll say that I will want it to sound like this, and John will know how to do that you know. I'll say I'll try to describe a sound, like "I want a piano sound like this", "I want some sort of...", "I want it to sound like you know a piano, a weird one with you know, a microphone for a tank". And he'll do that, and he'll have the means to make that happen. So it's sort of like we have the ideas, and then like you have people with technical knowledge to make it happen. That's sort of how it works.
(PLUG IN BABY clip)
CHRISTOPHER: I think like with the Dave Bottrill session, we had a set up with a big PA in the room. So it was pretty much identical to playing a gig. Just put this big PA up in the room, and turn it up really loud. And I think you know, doing that meant we could get more of a live energy sort of thing rather than just wearing headphones, and being in separate rooms. Just all in this room, in front of this PA, sounds good. Yeah, it's pretty loud.
MATTHEW: I think I got a lot of um...when we made the first album I didn't really have...my amps weren't very good and stuff. I didn't really have any of my proper amps, and my guitars weren't really that's great. Um, and so I didn't really, you know, I didn't really...I was a bit loose generally. The only one with this when making this album is I've got a rig, like a setup or whatever. I've got my guitars that I know are the sounds that I want, and amps and I think we've got all, you know, backline in terms of you know, drum kits, gear. We've all got the stuff that we know we want to use, and we know that's what we want the sound to be. Whereas the first album, I think we were a little bit more sort of...because we weren't sure what, because we didn't even have amps really.
Q: What can people expect from the album generally? Apart from "Plug In Baby?"
MATTHEW: Um...there'll be a few tracks like that. There will be a few tracks like "Plug in Baby" sort of like. Up tempo, may be a bit more positive sounding than stuff on the first album. Uh, a couple of quite long songs. Yeah. Uh, I mean, not really songs like long sort of things that have, you know, uh, sort of like...there are a couple of things like seven, eight minutes long of of sort of...I mean it's not...some I think expect arrangements to be quite unusual. There's a lot of stuff that where it is clear what is a verse or chorus, or isn't clear what's going on in that sense. Um...there's a couple of songs I've got no guitar on, but are still very heavy, which is quite weird.
Q: Do you think the British public are kind of screaming out for a decent British band?
MATTHEW: Rock band?
Q: Yeah
MATTHEW: I don't know. I am.
Q: There is a bit of a gap there.
MATTHEW: Oh um, I think it's dominated mostly by American bands. Rock. Big rock. Big shows. Big pyrotechnics. American bands...you get the big obvious names like Limp Bizkit and stuff like that, and they've done so well over there that they can come over here and play a massive stadium, and I think...I suppose it's a shame that there's been no bands from Europe even, let alone in the UK that have got to that level in terms of guitar rock. I think all the guitar music in this country is quite about mellow songwriting and stuff. Um, so I suppose yeah, I suppose there seems to be a lack of stuff like that in this country...from this country...Um, I think that's because, you know, Britpop ruined everything. Well, internationally, everyone sees British bands as a bit of a joke since then, especially in the USA.
NOTES
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