a conversation with… THE WOMBATS
Taylor had a chat with Dan of The Wombats ahead of the release of their 5th studio album, Fix Yourself, Not The World out January 14th.
YOU WERE QUITE FAR APART DURING THE PANDEMIC, HOW DID THAT AFFECT THE WRITING PROCESS OF MAKING THE ALBUM?
So fortunately we made about half the album before the pandemic, writing wise myself and Tord had been over to LA to work in the studio there for about 5 or 6 weeks. Which was great because we had a really good template for the album like ‘Method To The Madness’, ‘Ready For The High,’ ‘People Don’t Change’ etc. We had this basis for the album already. The strange part was making the decision to record the album even though we couldn’t be together in the same country. We had worked long distance in the past as well so we kind of knew where we stood. Technology is so good now, it’s all doable. The time difference meant when Murph was asleep, we were working and when we were asleep, he was working. It meant there was always a Wombat working.
COMPARED TO YOUR PREVIOUS ALBUMS, ‘EVERYTHING I LOVE IS GOING TO DIE’ FEELS QUITE EMOTIONALLY CHARGED. WAS THAT A CONSCIOUS DECISION OR WAS IT A RESULT OF THE PANDEMIC?
Musically, we do often end up having a high energy positive sound. It always seems to work well so you can deal with heavy subject matters because if it was low energy music, it would bring out the drama and the anxiety that’s in it. The fact the music is lighter means it puts you in a different frame of mind when thinking about those subjects.
WHAT WERE YOU GUYS LISTENING TO WHILST RECORDING THE ALBUM?
All three of us have some influences that are the same, we all love 90’s grunge so that really comes out in ‘Ready For The High’. Our love for Radiohead, The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers really came in, there’s constant references in the studio but it’s often after you’ve made the music and your trying to explain to the producer what you were going for that you go ‘It’s kind of in the same words as’. No matter how hard we try it always seems to end up sounding like The Wombats but it’s fun to push yourself in different directions.
THERE’S A REFERENCE TO ICARUS, “ICARUS WAS MY BEST FRIEND, SO I’M GONNA MAKE HIM PROUD IN THE END.” YOU’VE MADE A FEW GREEK MYTHOLOGY REFERENCES THROUGHOUT YOUR MUSIC, WHERE DOES THAT COME FROM?
The greek myths have so many obvious lessons that are surrounding certain names so with Icarus he flew too close to the sun, so with ‘Everything I Love Is Going To Die’, it’s about how living in the moment too much can have unintended coincidences and can be a bad idea. His name gets that whole essence into that song. We have always loved stories and story telling, even pre-pandemic lots of Wombats songs are very introspective looks at mental health and dealing with your own demons and this album takes that a little bit further.
THE USE OF THOSE WORDS OR PEOPLE LIKE ICARUS REALLY MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND THE MESSAGE BEHIND THE SONG, MAKING IT MORE INTERESTING.
We all love imagery in songs, you just get proper visions in your mind. There’s certain things that make you get these images come to life and I’ve always loved music that did that.
YOU SENT YOUR SONG FILES TO FIVE DIFFERENT PRODUCERS AND NOTED IT WAS “PURE MADNESS,” WHAT WAS YOUR ‘METHOD BEHIND THE MADNESS’?
[Laughs] It was mainly because of the pandemic. Murph done some with Jackknife, a couple with Gabe Simon and Paul Meany did one. We were going to do them all with Mark Crew in London but once It became clear we couldn’t all be together, we have never worked like that before but it was really fun and interesting.
IF YOU COULD ONLY SAVE ONE TRACK FROM THE ALBUM, WHICH WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
Probably, ‘Method To The Madness,’ I remember when we first made It and we looked at each other like “Fuck this feels amazing” and it was so new and exciting for us. It’s such a journey of a song and it sums up the album pretty well.