A CONVERSATION WITH… THE AMAZONS
The Amazons' Matt Thomson tells us about the past 2 years and inspirations behind How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me?, out September 2nd on Fiction Records.
HEY MATT! HOW ARE YOU DOING?
Very well! It’s been a couple of days since the tour finished now. It was part of my life before and will be again.
SO YOU’RE JUST SETTLING BACK INTO NORMALITY?
Yeah, definitely a reluctant normality because it was such an amazing time, but we will get there and I’ll start being productive again. Tour is a great shield from all your real world problems because you can pass off everything as “I’m on tour now.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TOURING WITH ROYAL BLOOD?
So many things, it was quite the change of pace from life over the past two and half years. We almost have to take stock a couple days in and not be too hard on ourselves, we were trying to get ourselves back into the groove like nothing happened but so much has happened. It’s just about being kind to ourselves and giving ourselves some sort of leeway. It was such a thrill to play to the most people cumulatively as The Amazons, to tour with Royal Blood who we have known for a few years, and to finally make it happen was such a light at the end of the tunnel.
YOU SAID “I SAID TO THE BOYS, ENOUGH WITH THE DARKNESS”, WAS THAT FEELING BROUGHT ON DUE TO THE PANDEMIC OR WAS IT ALWAYS THE PLAN TO HAVE A SHIFT IN TONE?
Yeah, I think we were always going to do that - sonically at the very least. Ideas and meditations we were having at the end of the Future Dust campaign, so around 2019/2020 when we were finishing the American tour I said to the boys “You know what, there is something missing here.” I had really enjoyed indulging in the darker side, it was successful in its own right for what we wanted to do but going forward we wanted to do something that was more fulfilling, productive and uplifting.
Our news feeds weren’t particularly positive pre-pandemic, I don’t want to add another voice talking about how bad everything is. We were influenced by going to an art museum in Melbourne, they had this counter-culture 60s exhibition. It talked about the baby boomers, the explosion of art and creativity in the face of some crazy things like the Vietnam War. I just loved the colour, the energy, the positivity of the music. I loved that they chose to go for the positive tone and that really played into it.
IT’S REFRESHING TO HAVE MUSIC THAT FOCUSES ON MORE OF THE POSITIVE SIDE.
I’m back on the road from May, playing the length and breadth of the country and going into Europe too. I’m looking forward to taking these songs out there and playing festival season too! It's been a long while since we had a good long honest festival season! I'm ready to get muddy in a field y'all and tell some stories and stomp some blues.
WHO WERE YOU LISTENING TO WHILST YOU WERE WRITING AND RECORDING HOW WILL I KNOW IF HEAVEN WILL FIND ME?
There was a lot of 90s stuff like Blur and Oasis, a lot of Bowie in his experimental stuff, more late 70s stuff where he goes to Berlin and he’s playing with these crazy atmospheric sounds. I adored Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves, War on Drugs, Springsteen and I really loved some songs from Fine Line by Harry Styles.
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS YOUR PERSONAL FAVOURITE TRACK?
Ohh.. I have two, I can't choose between them. One is called ‘Say It Again’, the third track on the record and I think ‘Northern Star’. They are more of the melodic records but they represent something different for us, they are different moments we haven’t had in the band in our last couple of records. They are specifically about the person this whole record is about, they are the ones that make me feel alive and so proud we wrote and recorded those songs.
IS IT TRUE THAT YOUR NAMESAKE IS INFLUENCED BY THE NOVEL ‘SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS’? HOW DID THAT COME AROUND?
Yeah, it’s a British children's book by Arthur Ransome, no one really seems to know it outside of the UK. It’s set in the 1920s in the lake district. It's dreamy, whimsical and I enjoyed reading it. It's just about gangs of kids running riot in the summer holidays. What attracted me is the idea that no one else had called themselves The Amazons and I thought it was the most obvious name ever.
DO YOU THINK THAT INFLUENCED YOUR STORYTELLING IN YOUR MUSIC?
Maybe so, but definitely subconsciously. When i think of ‘Swallows and Amazons’, it's one of those children's books with a map at the front. Someone said in an interview yesterday “Does geography actually affect stuff?”, because we talked a lot about the last album we did in Wales, and this album is about space and navigating distance and time between two people so i guess in a way in that aspect it does.