Speaker 1: Like I remember a couple shagging up the back during
Speaker 1: the good Morning showing of Horton. Here's a who I
Speaker 1: say why this is not what touchers, suspand won.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Midnight Chats, a podcast of laid back conversations
Speaker 2: with leading names in music. In keeping with these informal interviews,
Speaker 2: each new one is published weekly at midnight. This week's
Speaker 2: episode is hosted by me Greg Cochrane from Loud and
Speaker 2: Quiet magazine. Tonight. My guest on the podcast is Lauren Maybury, singer,
Speaker 2: multi instrumentalist and songwriter with the band Churches. It's been
Speaker 2: a decade since Lauren came together with Martin Doherty and
Speaker 2: Ian Cook to form the synth pop trio. Previously, they'd
Speaker 2: each been part of various old rock projects around the
Speaker 2: Glasgow area. They released their debut album, The Bones of
Speaker 2: What You Believe in twenty thirteen. Since then, they've gone
Speaker 2: on to become one of Britain's biggest and most uncategorizable,
Speaker 2: if that's even a word bands, having collaborated and toured
Speaker 2: with a wide variety of artists ranging from Paramore to
Speaker 2: the National Marshmallow to Deaftones. You've no doubt heard the
Speaker 2: song lay released recently here now in June twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: It's with Robert Smith from The Cure. It's called How
Speaker 2: Not to Drown. If you haven't come across it, I've
Speaker 2: dropped a link to the video into the show notes.
Speaker 2: The tale of getting Robert involved is really good, and
Speaker 2: so too are some of the stories about getting to
Speaker 2: know him. Lauren talks about all of that in the
Speaker 2: chat you're about to hear. The conversation is pretty fresh,
Speaker 2: recorded just a few days ago thanks to Lauren, who
Speaker 2: was speaking to me from her place in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: We were joined at the start by her cat, the
Speaker 2: excellently named Cactus, and Lauren was really generous with their time,
Speaker 2: a really open person to speak to, so thank you
Speaker 2: to her. We covered loads of ground in this, including
Speaker 2: the pressures and the perils of the internet, particularly if
Speaker 2: you're a woman fronting a band, and all the toxic
Speaker 2: stuff that she has been subjected to her days working
Speaker 2: in the local cinema back in Scotland, and how that
Speaker 2: gave birth to a love of horror movies that have
Speaker 2: gone on to inform this current period of the band,
Speaker 2: and really interesting to hear her thoughts on the art
Speaker 2: versus artist debate and where she stands on if and
Speaker 2: how those two things can be separated. For the record,
Speaker 2: I'm withe or on that, And of course we talk
Speaker 2: a bit about Church's forthcoming new album, Screen Violence, which
Speaker 2: is set to be released on the twenty seventh of August.
Speaker 2: Just finally, excuse the very occasional interference on the mics.
Speaker 2: It's just the way these things go, sometimes doing things
Speaker 2: on opposite sides of the world. So here we go.
Speaker 2: This is Lauren Maybury from Churches on episode one hundred
Speaker 2: and eleven of Midnight Chats. This episode of Midnight Chats
Speaker 2: is supported by Because Music, the record label that's home
Speaker 2: to Christine and the Queens, Jango Django, Metronomy, Charlotte Gainsbourg
Speaker 2: and many other brilliant artists. Justice are another one of those,
Speaker 2: and Because have just released the debut solo album from
Speaker 2: gaspar Uga, who is one half of the French electronic duo.
Speaker 2: The album is called Escapades and it's out now, something
Speaker 2: totally different from what you might expect, so do go
Speaker 2: and check it out. You'll find it in any decent
Speaker 2: record shop or online retailer, and it's also available to
Speaker 2: download and stream now that's Escapades by gaspar Auge and
Speaker 2: thanks again to Because Music.
Speaker 1: As soon as I sit down in the office to
Speaker 1: do any kind of promotional activity you want, who is this?
Speaker 1: That was Cactus. She has a sister called Poppy who's
Speaker 1: in the other room, doesn't care for the promo, isn't bothered.
Speaker 1: But it's just as soon as you shut the door
Speaker 1: and they think you're doing something amazing and they have
Speaker 1: to confind it.
Speaker 2: Is she called Cactus because she has like a sort
Speaker 2: of prickily personality.
Speaker 1: Come from well, they came with the names. We got
Speaker 1: them from a rescue place and they'd already named them.
Speaker 1: But they were teeny weeni when we got them. But
Speaker 1: I think she's called catchus because at the time she
Speaker 1: had really spiky. For now she's just insanely fluffee. So yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was like, that takes the pressure of me
Speaker 1: for naming the cat. I don't feel so bad of
Speaker 1: it anyway.
Speaker 2: Would you have relished the challenge to name your cats
Speaker 2: or would that have been like quite difficult one because
Speaker 2: some people sort of have something like they want to
Speaker 2: name their cat after their favorite sports player or their
Speaker 2: favorite like musician or something. Don't they but.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I've met I met a white cat
Speaker 1: called Steve ol buy No once. I was like, pretty
Speaker 1: spicy but fair enough. But yes, I've been naming fantasy
Speaker 1: cats for like ten years because we were on tour
Speaker 1: so much, I couldn't really get a pit. But in
Speaker 1: a way it took the responsibility away. They were like,
Speaker 1: do you want the cat or not?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes, so pre named cats all good.
Speaker 2: Cats are one of those pets that because yeah, when
Speaker 2: you do go onto it and it's months on end
Speaker 2: that you're away for, at least, the cat is slightly
Speaker 2: This is just like their personality is more to be independent,
Speaker 2: and they're kind of you might get home, you might
Speaker 2: get home after three months away and you open the door,
Speaker 2: they take one look at you and just sort of shrug.
Speaker 1: Yes, I feel less guilty if I feel like if
Speaker 1: with a dog you'd be breaking its heart while leaving.
Speaker 1: I like to think the cats would notice in so
Speaker 1: far as they receive less treats because I am the
Speaker 1: active treat giver. But other than that, I think they'd
Speaker 1: be fine, which is nicer, nicer for them, I think.
Speaker 2: But we've died into talking about the new album Screen
Speaker 2: Violence twenty twenty one is ten years since the start
Speaker 2: of churches, which is amazing, a whole decade. What are
Speaker 2: your feelings on that, reflections on that. Does a milestone
Speaker 2: like that mean anything to you or do you? Are
Speaker 2: you not the kind of person that dwells on that
Speaker 2: type of thing.
Speaker 1: I feel like I dwell on the passage of time
Speaker 1: a lot, especially in the last couple of years. I
Speaker 1: feel like maybe it's like turning thirty, and maybe just
Speaker 1: everything that happened in the last eighteen months for everybody
Speaker 1: makes you reflect lot more. I kind of not even
Speaker 1: thought that it was ten years until we started doing
Speaker 1: promo and then people were like, did you know, there's
Speaker 1: been ten years of your life? And honestly, it feels
Speaker 1: like I don't really remember a time where I wasn't
Speaker 1: in churches, and so for like, emotionally, it feels like
Speaker 1: that's just been there for a long time. But also
Speaker 1: what happened to the twenties and twenties just disappeared in
Speaker 1: a good way doing something really amazing that so few
Speaker 1: people get to do. So I'm very lucky, but I
Speaker 1: think I'll sink in for us when it's like ten
Speaker 1: years since the first album. It'll be weird because we
Speaker 1: haven't seen Ian in such a long time, because Martin
Speaker 1: and myself were in Los Angeles and Ian's in Glasgow,
Speaker 1: so fingers crossed in theory we might see him before
Speaker 1: the end of the summer, right.
Speaker 2: That'd be great, wasn't it?
Speaker 1: And then I think hopefully we'll be in the same
Speaker 1: place around the tenth anniversary thing, which I think will
Speaker 1: be good.
Speaker 2: Would you get together, go to the pub and just
Speaker 2: sort of like talk the talk about like early months
Speaker 2: or something like that. Would you vuation a bit like that,
Speaker 2: allow yourselves to be nostalgic for a night.
Speaker 1: I think so, because when you're in the thick of
Speaker 1: it and you're just like doing it, doing it, doing it,
Speaker 1: especially like pre twenty twenty, like, there isn't a ton
Speaker 1: of time to reflect on stuff. And at least I've
Speaker 1: been bad at doing that. Not that you're not grateful
Speaker 1: for it, but you don't. I never really sat in
Speaker 1: thought about how mad a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 1: happened around our band was, just because you were just like,
Speaker 1: oh man, better take these opportunities before they go away,
Speaker 1: And we were just like running, running, running, running, and
Speaker 1: we knew it didn't happen a lot for people in
Speaker 1: Glasgow and where we come from, but we didn't know
Speaker 1: if that was uncommon in general. And now that I
Speaker 1: know more people in bands and how things happened for them,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, that's that doesn't happen every day. That
Speaker 1: is quite a mental story the way it rolled out
Speaker 1: for us. So I'm very grateful for it, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm very wistful. I had a whole year inside to
Speaker 1: think about this.
Speaker 2: We did like loads of those sort of odd jobs
Speaker 2: that you just never get round to doing, like whether
Speaker 2: that's like going through the boxes at the bottom of
Speaker 2: your wardrobe and you find like family photos or you
Speaker 2: or a friend messages you that you haven't been in
Speaker 2: touch with for ages. It was there was something about
Speaker 2: particularly the first sort of lockdown of the of the
Speaker 2: pandemic that I guess maybe it was just the pure
Speaker 2: time on your hands, but also it just it was
Speaker 2: a sort of reflective period, wasn't it. It Just it
Speaker 2: did allow a bit of time and space to maybe
Speaker 2: things to just come into your mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I hope that we hold on to that stuff.
Speaker 1: I think that I got a lot out of that.
Speaker 1: In a weird way, which seems kind of fucked to see,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't think I would. We wouldn't have
Speaker 1: stopped the regular trajectory of our work lives had that
Speaker 1: not happened. And I think everybody did some soul searching
Speaker 1: and good ways and bad and I hope that you
Speaker 1: take that into the next chapter with you. But I
Speaker 1: think I'm annoying the guys already because everything that's happening.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, you guys just hold onto
Speaker 1: the look at this moment, and they're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: my god. It's like it's a it's a thumbnail of
Speaker 1: single art for the internet. Like why, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: can you believe the third piece of artwork for the
Speaker 1: fourth album?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: And I think that's going to get old pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: but you know, I would rather be I don't know.
Speaker 1: It made me very conscious that all of this is
Speaker 1: going to go away, like in all senses of it,
Speaker 1: like everything from churches to the literal existential stuff. I'm like,
Speaker 1: none of this is around forever. And I feel like
Speaker 1: I've definitely taken it, not taken advantage, just been bluzzy
Speaker 1: about certain things at certain times. And I don't want
Speaker 1: to do that anymore, so they just have to put
Speaker 1: out with me being like, oh, you guys are first
Speaker 1: five am flight.
Speaker 2: What what are your recollections from those first few months
Speaker 2: of being together in churches? Because it was was it
Speaker 2: around the summertime or that you got together eleven?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I met ian In at the end of
Speaker 1: September twenty eleven because he was recording an EP for
Speaker 1: my old band. I would have been like October time
Speaker 1: that I did the like rough recording for what ended
Speaker 1: up being Churches. And it was that Ian and Martin
Speaker 1: had been working on these songs together. I think they
Speaker 1: wanted to try and write songs for other people, maybe
Speaker 1: try and get publishing. And then when I'd played with
Speaker 1: Ian he was like, oh, maybe it'd be good for
Speaker 1: her to sing some backing vocals or it would make
Speaker 1: it easier to present to people, so it's not just
Speaker 1: male singing. But yeah, I mean I didn't know what
Speaker 1: I was doing at the time. I don't think any
Speaker 1: of us really knew. Like Martin loves to maintain that
Speaker 1: he knew, like he's the seer. He was like, yes,
Speaker 1: this is going to be massive, and he was definitely
Speaker 1: more plugged into like hype Machine and like what was
Speaker 1: current at that time in a way that Ian and
Speaker 1: I just weren't. Yeah, I don't think you can ever
Speaker 1: really plan any of that stuff. And there's so many
Speaker 1: things about about the band that are just a happy accident.
Speaker 1: Like there's so many bands and I don't mean this
Speaker 1: in a disrespectful way, but there's so many bands that
Speaker 1: came out at the same time as US or a
Speaker 1: few years after that do roughly the same thing, and
Speaker 1: they don't. They haven't had the same life span as US,
Speaker 1: And I don't know what that is for. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I think we're lucky to have
Speaker 1: an incredibly rabid fan base that was there from the beginning.
Speaker 1: And I feel like whenever people talk about the resurgence
Speaker 1: of synthpop and then they list the bands that they're
Speaker 1: talking about, I'm like, ah, I don't even think about
Speaker 1: those people as being peers of ours in terms of
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do or what kind of writing
Speaker 1: you're doing. I think we were always a lot more
Speaker 1: focused on emotional content and lyrical content and having I
Speaker 1: feel like that a band has an identity, for better
Speaker 1: or worse. Some people love us, some people hate us,
Speaker 1: but most of the time it doesn't seem like there's
Speaker 1: an in between, which I kind of think is a
Speaker 1: positive sign. I would rather be saying something lyrically and
Speaker 1: literally than just be benign.
Speaker 2: You know. That's sort feeds into something I was going
Speaker 2: to ask you about later on, but we might as
Speaker 2: well get onto it now. With just that idea of
Speaker 2: like churches being just my opinion, but sort of genre fluid,
Speaker 2: sort of audience fluid. Just you do your thing, and
Speaker 2: like it just seems like different communities of people really
Speaker 2: get into what you're doing. Like, you know, the obvious
Speaker 2: examples being, you know, to illustrate that point being that
Speaker 2: you've been on tour with a whole bunch of diverse
Speaker 2: artists from Deaf Tones through to like you know, you're
Speaker 2: going out with Donna miss Or later in the year,
Speaker 2: Like this is a really diverse sort of group of
Speaker 2: people that you've worked with and been associated with and
Speaker 2: collaborated with and stuff. We're all familiar with the kind
Speaker 2: of old school way of thinking around the kind of
Speaker 2: like the boxes that fit neatly over genres and festivals
Speaker 2: and the way that we consume music. The very titles
Speaker 2: that we flick through when we go into a record store,
Speaker 2: and like, it feels like churches could kind of fit
Speaker 2: into a lot of different ones. And so is that
Speaker 2: something you intentionally wanted or you've just been happy that
Speaker 2: it's emerged in that way.
Speaker 1: I think it was just something that was always in
Speaker 1: the dna of it because we all come from rock
Speaker 1: and alternative band backgrounds, So when we were doing started
Speaker 1: to do a quote unquote pop band, there was always
Speaker 1: going to be like a strange juxtaposition. And I think
Speaker 1: for me, you can always tell when someone's quote unquote
Speaker 1: going pop because they think it's a smart thing to do,
Speaker 1: or whether they really love it. And I feel like
Speaker 1: the thing that always frustrated each of us individually in
Speaker 1: other bands was that pop was bad and melody was
Speaker 1: not allowed and you had to always bury those things
Speaker 1: because all of us do love pop music like you
Speaker 1: can love all things at once, like you think it's okay.
Speaker 1: And so when we went into the alternative pop space
Speaker 1: and never really fully felt like we've fitted there, and
Speaker 1: I know that that's been frustrating to people around us
Speaker 1: that work with us sometimes because it's like, ah, they're
Speaker 1: not fully accepted by this community but not fully accepted
Speaker 1: by that community. And for booking and playlisting and genre
Speaker 1: genre all that stuff, it does feel like we fall
Speaker 1: between two stools sometimes, but I think in the long
Speaker 1: run that's been a real strength for the band. Because
Speaker 1: the day the first album came out, we played a
Speaker 1: session on Radio two and at night we played a
Speaker 1: boiler room session, and I said, those are two most
Speaker 1: bizarre things, but I think that's always yeah, And then
Speaker 1: once we realized that that was a thing we could do,
Speaker 1: and you can tell from shows or online that the
Speaker 1: demographic is pretty broad in terms of age and interests
Speaker 1: in all those things. So I think once we realized
Speaker 1: we were allowed to do that, we definitely lent into
Speaker 1: that more, and especially the last few years. Like I
Speaker 1: personally think it's really great that we can do a
Speaker 1: collaboration with a big EDM guy, and then we can
Speaker 1: work with Robert Smith, and we can make a record
Speaker 1: with Greg Kristen, and then we can make a record
Speaker 1: basically over zoom. I kind of feel like that's a
Speaker 1: real strength to the band. And I don't really read
Speaker 1: reviews very much, but I read a review of like
Speaker 1: one of our shows that we did at Ali Palley,
Speaker 1: and the premise was like, for a band that's never
Speaker 1: had a hit, there's a lot of people of this show.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, yeah, I think that's really
Speaker 1: cool though, because for us, it's always these little, like
Speaker 1: five percenter things rather than like one big smash. It's
Speaker 1: always like somebody heard you on some TV show or
Speaker 1: a video game, or a friend found it on SoundCloud
Speaker 1: when they were at university and then they told them
Speaker 1: about it, And yeah, I feel like that's something that
Speaker 1: we're really grateful for and want to invest in in
Speaker 1: terms of like what does a long term project look like?
Speaker 1: What how do you keep people interested? How do you
Speaker 1: keep your touring good? How do you stay around? And
Speaker 1: you're not going to be hot property forever? You know?
Speaker 1: And I think that's something that we figured out after
Speaker 1: the second album, was that you're not always going to
Speaker 1: be everybody's favorite Darling kind of thing. But how can
Speaker 1: you invest in the people that have invested in you
Speaker 1: and keep evolving rather than you know, you don't have
Speaker 1: to evolve into super mainstream pop to keep moving forward.
Speaker 2: How hard is it to not constantly spend time second
Speaker 2: guessing yourself, like listening to you there talking about it,
Speaker 2: like presumably the idea is that when you sit down
Speaker 2: to write some new music, you kind of want to
Speaker 2: just detach and you want to retreat to that sort
Speaker 2: of original essence of what creating music is to you
Speaker 2: and and amongst the three of you in the band.
Speaker 2: But you've come a long way, like you said, you've
Speaker 2: gone on this trajectory that's actually probably been really great
Speaker 2: for like longevity in terms of like building building and
Speaker 2: you've got like really kind of loyal people that have
Speaker 2: come with you the whole way. Does it still play
Speaker 2: on your mind? Of all those things you just mentioned,
Speaker 2: there's loads of like competing factors. How do you filter
Speaker 2: out the noise or is it even possible to filter
Speaker 2: out the noise when sort of creating something new.
Speaker 1: I think I've done better and worse jobs of that
Speaker 1: at different times, Like yeah, when I've heard heard people
Speaker 1: comment on the lyrics over the course of time. I
Speaker 1: think the ones that have connected with people much better
Speaker 1: are the ones where we are being more vulnerable and
Speaker 1: we are being more open and honest. And I think
Speaker 1: there was a time period where I found that quite
Speaker 1: unpleasant to have to do because it felt like everything,
Speaker 1: everything that comes out of my mouth is being analyzed,
Speaker 1: and why would I give people more rope to hang
Speaker 1: me with. I don't want people to know any more
Speaker 1: than they already know, because it's not good for my
Speaker 1: well being. But I think that the songs suffered because
Speaker 1: of that, because they don't need to be even stream
Speaker 1: of consciousness about yourself, but you need to be putting
Speaker 1: enough of your own emotion and honestly into a song,
Speaker 1: no matter who the narrator is, I think, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I look back on those songs, I'm like, those songs
Speaker 1: are good, but they don't have the same emotional weight
Speaker 1: to them because they or maybe that's just how I
Speaker 1: feel about them. I feel like they feels more disconnected
Speaker 1: because that's what they were designed for. But that's not
Speaker 1: what people necessarily want our band to be. So, if anything,
Speaker 1: last year felt the most akin to the first album
Speaker 1: in terms of being in a vacuum. Like when we
Speaker 1: made the first album, we'd written most of it before
Speaker 1: anybody heard the band, really, so you were writing without expectations.
Speaker 1: And I think that of all the horrible things that
Speaker 1: happened last year, the band kind of ceased to exist
Speaker 1: in the truest sense of it, Like, if nobody sees you,
Speaker 1: nobody hears you, you don't go anywhere, you don't do anything.
Speaker 1: Does a band exist If a band tree falls in
Speaker 1: the woods, So you know, like then like the band became.
Speaker 1: Instead of this chaotic, wonderful, chaotic godzilla that just tramps
Speaker 1: through our lives, it was like a source of consistency
Speaker 1: and comfort almost. We would meet up and we would write,
Speaker 1: and we were just kind of writing for each other.
Speaker 1: As cheesy as that sounds, We're like, let's just try
Speaker 1: and make something good. It doesn't seem like this is
Speaker 1: gonna We'll try, but we don't know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: And if anything, I think not having anybody watching or
Speaker 1: listening and having a mental health break from what is
Speaker 1: a wonderful but pretty fucking insane job was I think
Speaker 1: helped us a lot in terms of finding a better
Speaker 1: balance with that. And I think, yeah, the fear of
Speaker 1: writing personally kind of disappeared for me on this album,
Speaker 1: So I think that was good. If you, again, you've
Speaker 1: only had a certain amount of times, you might as well,
Speaker 1: what's the point If you only get to put a
Speaker 1: certain number of records, you might as well put something
Speaker 1: on it that you can look back on and be like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I hang my han on it.
Speaker 2: I mean you mentioned they're the importance of switching off,
Speaker 2: taking a break from it. Having done that in between
Speaker 2: the release of the last record and then the start
Speaker 2: of the pandemic, what did that entail for you? Was
Speaker 2: that a case of just was that like turn your
Speaker 2: phone off? In a practical sense, How did you manage
Speaker 2: to create a bit of distance, to give yourself some headspace,
Speaker 2: to be able to start over, to start again, to
Speaker 2: want to start over again.
Speaker 1: I don't know that we did really, Like I guess
Speaker 1: the album came out in twenty eighteen, and then we
Speaker 1: toured like mad bastards, and then we put out this
Speaker 1: EDM collaboration thing in the springtime twenty nineteen, so that
Speaker 1: we toured off that for a bit, and then we
Speaker 1: put a song for a video game, and then we
Speaker 1: toured off that for a bit. So we only finished
Speaker 1: in December, end of December twenty and nineteen. Then we
Speaker 1: had the Christmas period, a little bit of time at home,
Speaker 1: and then we came back to start writing in February
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. And then ever they even fell apart obviously,
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of the reflecting was done
Speaker 1: when everybody was fully, fully locked inside their houses and
Speaker 1: pretty fucking terrified.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean those early days were so strange, but
Speaker 2: like just just following the kind of directives of being like,
Speaker 2: how how is today different from yesterday? Wasn't it was?
Speaker 2: It was quite confusing and just yeah, it was terrifying.
Speaker 2: It was kind of this thing ripping through the through
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: And I think if anything, for me, that having spent
Speaker 1: that time, it was important to reflect on that because
Speaker 1: a lot of mad stuff happened for us in good ways.
Speaker 1: I'm bad, and I think sitting reflecting on those things,
Speaker 1: it was almost like an epiphany where I was like,
Speaker 1: why am I wasting my fucking time on certain things?
Speaker 1: Like certain things within the job. I was like, like,
Speaker 1: I just don't have any fucks to give on those
Speaker 1: fronts anymore. And I think that the we've made better
Speaker 1: music because of it, And yeah, I think that people
Speaker 1: are responding better to the music we put out so
Speaker 1: far because that we just took off these parameters that
Speaker 1: we put on, if that makes sense, because everybody will
Speaker 1: tell you all, well, we just we don't mind We're fine,
Speaker 1: We'll just make whatever we want. No artist is ever worried,
Speaker 1: but especially for people like customer where we come from.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I spent a lot of time, especially around
Speaker 1: the third album, I mean really fucking a worried that
Speaker 1: it was all going to go away and it was
Speaker 1: going to be because I didn't do it a good
Speaker 1: enough job, or like you're kind of told this or
Speaker 1: sold this idea that it's a whole colive disappear. There's
Speaker 1: not enough time quickly, quickly, like you have to do better, bigger, faster,
Speaker 1: like and I don't know that that's true necessarily in
Speaker 1: terms of making stuff that's actually good in a real sense.
Speaker 2: Did that just feel like a momentum of people saying, like,
Speaker 2: work harder, work harder, work hard? Is that what it
Speaker 2: feels like? Just sweet? More play more shows, do more
Speaker 2: TV appearances more like? Is that what?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: I guess I'm just trying to get to like that
Speaker 2: pressure that it sounds like was on there, the idea
Speaker 2: that things might go away, and like that somehow the
Speaker 2: solution was that you just you've got to keep sprinting.
Speaker 2: What kind of things were they? And how did you?
Speaker 2: How did you and to say that enough is enough.
Speaker 2: Did you just do that almost like one day where
Speaker 2: you're like, I can't do this, I need to stop
Speaker 2: doing that.
Speaker 1: Well, I think we've been really lucky in terms of
Speaker 1: the people that we work with. Have never really been
Speaker 1: like that with us, Like we were really lucky with
Speaker 1: who we signed with and all those things. But it
Speaker 1: is just a fearful pressure from within yourself sometimes like
Speaker 1: no barons are the same, you should not be comparing
Speaker 1: yourself to other people. But then it is like, oh,
Speaker 1: so and so is much more engaging with their fan
Speaker 1: base on the internet, and then their tickets sell better
Speaker 1: because of that. And then this person did the collaboration
Speaker 1: with this person, which meant they got this tour support,
Speaker 1: which made it's just like you're just trying to keep
Speaker 1: your career for as long as you're allowed. And you know,
Speaker 1: on the third record, I feel like there was a
Speaker 1: sense within all of us that we were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well we can't make the same album again, so we
Speaker 1: have to do something different. But I don't really know
Speaker 1: what that is. So I think we went in feeling
Speaker 1: a bit directionless, and we found what I think is
Speaker 1: a good direction when we worked with Greg Kirstin, who's
Speaker 1: who we ended up working with on that. But I
Speaker 1: know that a lot of the FAMI base didn't really
Speaker 1: like that record that much, and I think I look
Speaker 1: back on that and I wonder if that was because
Speaker 1: the lyrics weren't as personal or as a motive. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, But for me, I'm like, I don't regret
Speaker 1: any of those things because I learned so much from
Speaker 1: working with somebody as crazy talented as that. And if
Speaker 1: you made this, if we made the ones of What
Speaker 1: You Leave part three, people wouldn't have liked that, Like
Speaker 1: it wouldn't. You have to grow and evolve as a
Speaker 1: person as a writer, you have to try stuff like
Speaker 1: I don't want to be afraid to try things. So
Speaker 1: I feel like the only thing I would change about
Speaker 1: it is that over the course of that album cycle,
Speaker 1: I think I learned better about listening to my gut
Speaker 1: about certain things because I think, for better or words,
Speaker 1: I think I have a good, pretty good sense of
Speaker 1: what I think it essentially big headed, I have good
Speaker 1: sense of what we should be doing. But I just mean,
Speaker 1: you know, all three of us, I think we have,
Speaker 1: but we kind of got psyched out of trusting that
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. Music first becomes popular people like
Speaker 1: the honesty of it and what it is, and then
Speaker 1: you sit and second guess what that is and you
Speaker 1: try and focus group out the things that yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's just it's endless. So I feel like this was
Speaker 1: a good time for us to just be like, we
Speaker 1: need to trust ourselves more and if anything that I
Speaker 1: had a conversation with our manager at one point in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen and he was like, I understand, I totally
Speaker 1: get it, and he made a good point to me,
Speaker 1: and I think about a lot. He was that you
Speaker 1: can say no to all these things and that's totally fine,
Speaker 1: but if you say no to something, you have to
Speaker 1: come back with what you do when I do, And
Speaker 1: I was like, So then I sat and steward on
Speaker 1: that and I was like, what do is see? How
Speaker 1: am I supposed to know? I'm not the buzz or everything.
Speaker 1: And then about three weeks later, I've been looking through
Speaker 1: like some archive stuff I had of churches and I
Speaker 1: found this list of band names that we were going
Speaker 1: to call the band, and there was a lot of
Speaker 1: bad ones, but then Screen Violence was on. It was
Speaker 1: something we were going to call the band, and I
Speaker 1: was like, well, that would be if we're feeling a
Speaker 1: bit disjointed. Sure, and maybe that's just a good writing
Speaker 1: prompt because we all love everything from that era and
Speaker 1: for me lyrically that pheze now means something very different
Speaker 1: than what it did at the time. So I thought
Speaker 1: it was just going to be a cool writing prompt
Speaker 1: for us to all get excited about old movies, and
Speaker 1: then it kind of evolved into this other, this other thing,
Speaker 1: and now here we are. So if anything, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all part of the journey. If you take one of
Speaker 1: these blocks away, the whole thing falls down. So I
Speaker 1: don't really believe in the whole look back and regret thing.
Speaker 1: Personal life, totally life, no.
Speaker 2: Screen violence, and settling on that title and then the
Speaker 2: various meanings like you just said there that it sort
Speaker 2: of collects together, like your your your love of classic
Speaker 2: horror movies and like that genre. But then also this
Speaker 2: sense that we've all just come out of or still
Speaker 2: a lot of us in a period of basically life
Speaker 2: has been continued via screens like technologies. Basically in the
Speaker 2: one thing that's allowed to kind of that it's meant
Speaker 2: that we can sort of stay together in the during
Speaker 2: this period starting on the on the movie side of things. Actually,
Speaker 2: where did your love of horror movies start? Because did
Speaker 2: you you worked in the cinema at one point, I did.
Speaker 1: I worked in two cinemas. I worked in the Sunny
Speaker 1: World on Renfrew Street in Glasgow, Glasgow, this big multi
Speaker 1: story one, and then I worked in the in theory
Speaker 1: it's alternative but still owned by a big company called
Speaker 1: the Grooveler in the West end of Glasgow. So okay, yes,
Speaker 1: I have cleaned up a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: That was very diplomatic there the way you said a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff because my brother worked in the cinema
Speaker 2: when we were teenagers. And yeah, some of the stuff
Speaker 2: that goes on in the cinema and also some of
Speaker 2: the things like I would never eat a hot dog
Speaker 2: that's been made in the cinema. Despite that weirdness, you
Speaker 2: have fond memories of working in the cinema.
Speaker 1: I really do, Like if I of thing all those
Speaker 1: just disgusting stories, Like there's so many disgusting stories of
Speaker 1: like I remember a couple shagging up the back during
Speaker 1: like a morning showing of Horton. Here's a who And
Speaker 1: I was like, why this is not what Toucher Seuss
Speaker 1: would want. I don't know, maybe you would, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, and more sinister things than that. But
Speaker 1: I look quite fondly on that time, because I mean
Speaker 1: I did just love movies. I still love movies now,
Speaker 1: Like I think, for me, it's always been like escaping
Speaker 1: and storytelling. And I grew up in a pretty remote
Speaker 1: area where there wasn't a lot to do, so a
Speaker 1: lot of the escaping that you did was into films
Speaker 1: and you would get a bus and then two buses
Speaker 1: into Sterling so you could go to the one of
Speaker 1: the two screens in the Bengo Hall. And like you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's always been something that's really attractive to me.
Speaker 1: And Ian and Martin are really big movie heads also,
Speaker 1: but we all kind of align on that that kind
Speaker 1: of Cronenbergie John Carpenter world. And I do think you
Speaker 1: can hear that in the music to a degree because
Speaker 1: of the synths that come from that time period. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it was always something that we found interesting and because
Speaker 1: churches started out specifically using only those synths, that's where
Speaker 1: the kind of idea for the name came from. So
Speaker 1: but we decided at the time where like is too
Speaker 1: specifically retro. It's going to make people think that the
Speaker 1: band is just this retro only project, which wasn't what
Speaker 1: we wanted. But I kind of like that the idea
Speaker 1: of what screen violence means to us has evolved since then.
Speaker 1: It means this aesthetic thing. So that's the horror aesthetic
Speaker 1: for the album. But the songs aren't concept horror songs,
Speaker 1: you know, they're about the other parts. I feel like
Speaker 1: it's always like when we talk about it, violence on screen,
Speaker 1: violence through screens, and violence by screens, if that makes sense,
Speaker 1: because I feel like this stuff that we're talking through
Speaker 1: right now is incredible and it's insane that we're able
Speaker 1: to do this, But I don't know that that technology
Speaker 1: is great for us emotionally as human being. And also
Speaker 1: I think my relationship with those things as a female
Speaker 1: and as a female in the job I have has
Speaker 1: been quite tricky at times, to see the least, so
Speaker 1: I think, and we did sort of quite a lot
Speaker 1: of that with in twenty nineteen, So I think coming
Speaker 1: into this rating, there was a lot a lot of
Speaker 1: fodder for the idea of being feeling possessed or hunted
Speaker 1: and all those kinds of things, concepts, concepts everywhere.
Speaker 2: Selecting one of those talking about the almost like screen
Speaker 2: time and our relationship with the Internet and just just
Speaker 2: how that shapes us and the impact it has and
Speaker 2: our well being. Early on in the podcast, you mentioned
Speaker 2: like hype Machine in relations like that when you were
Speaker 2: starting out with the band, and like the way that
Speaker 2: people would kind of discover music and stuff, and instantly
Speaker 2: the feeling I had in that moment was like that
Speaker 2: felt like a bit of a simpler time, like and
Speaker 2: makes you sort of throw back to like the healthy
Speaker 2: in days of MySpace in biber or something, but like it, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was that for a while. It started it because
Speaker 1: the whole like who do you give your daily heart
Speaker 1: to thing like not started but that kind of like
Speaker 1: likes culture is weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's just like it's you know it likes
Speaker 2: culture on acid now with Instagram and everything else. But yeah,
Speaker 2: if you kind of is your relationship with that reshaped
Speaker 2: over time? And have you ever been curious about the
Speaker 2: idea that if if we just turned off the Internet,
Speaker 2: and what would what would happen? What would life be
Speaker 2: like if in twenty twenty one we just turned off
Speaker 2: the Internet for a bit of a break from it all.
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like our band has a really specific
Speaker 1: relationship with the Internet because we came out at such
Speaker 1: a specific time, as you say, like it was SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and blogs and Hepe machine and that just doesn't exist
Speaker 1: in the same way now. I don't think.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were like really heavily immersed in the Internet
Speaker 1: from the beginning of the band. But I remember being
Speaker 1: on an early churches tour and our manager being like,
Speaker 1: you guys should get this thing called Instagram, and we
Speaker 1: were like, oh, and then like putting up a picture
Speaker 1: of Martin in like a service station in England somewhere,
Speaker 1: and think I was like, I'll just show you Instagram.
Speaker 1: I don't know, So, you know, like I feel like
Speaker 1: we've been at the We've been at the birth of
Speaker 1: so many of those things, but nobody understood what it
Speaker 1: was going to be in that what it would evolve into.
Speaker 1: And I don't know. My partner doesn't have any social
Speaker 1: media and I see the joy that that brings him,
Speaker 1: So I do think. I don't know. I think if
Speaker 1: I wasn't in the job i'm in, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I would. I don't think I would do it
Speaker 1: because I don't use it really, like I'll message a
Speaker 1: friend who replies to something I posted, but I don't
Speaker 1: use it personally just because that's not what my relationship
Speaker 1: is with it. But it's I do think it's an
Speaker 1: incredible way to communicate with people, and especially for an artist,
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, well, it's the only place really that
Speaker 1: you get to say exactly what you want to say,
Speaker 1: apart from your actual art. Like, if I can, I
Speaker 1: try and make the Instagram less about pictures of my
Speaker 1: face from certain angles and use it more as like
Speaker 1: a mood board's like Pinterest. Especially in the run up
Speaker 1: to the album coming out, I was always like, this
Speaker 1: is how you kind of set the tone, and but
Speaker 1: the like sculpture is weird because nobody wants that. Really.
Speaker 1: I'm like, guys, let's make something creative and find a community,
Speaker 1: and you know it is a direct line to your
Speaker 1: fan base. But even though I know how the sausage
Speaker 1: is made, is still feel like it makes us all
Speaker 1: feel terrible about ourselves, especially esthetically, like it's just so bizarre,
Speaker 1: so bizarre and dark in a lot of ways. And
Speaker 1: even though I know how long it takes I'm like,
Speaker 1: that person took that photo forty times, and then these
Speaker 1: are the filters that they put on it, and this
Speaker 1: is a professional photo that they obviously paid for from
Speaker 1: a shoot. But when, even if you know that, when
Speaker 1: you're not in the right mindset and you look at it,
Speaker 1: it just makes you feel fucking terrible. Like I have
Speaker 1: never known more about what's right wrong with my physical
Speaker 1: appearance the other than when people tell me on the internet,
Speaker 1: you know, and I don't We all think that about
Speaker 1: ourselves anyway, because of the images that we the messages
Speaker 1: that we take in from the world, and then it's
Speaker 1: just odd that, Yeah, I feel like we're in this
Speaker 1: spinning wheel. I don't know where it's going to end.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like we're in a real kind of
Speaker 2: pivotal point. I do think there'll be something will happen
Speaker 2: in the next couple of years whereby you know, we've
Speaker 2: got governments and we've got platforms and they're kind of
Speaker 2: telling each other that they need to take responsibility for
Speaker 2: this stuff. And then we've got kind of third parties,
Speaker 2: you know, people that are on those platforms saying, you know,
Speaker 2: it's time to do something about this, and it does
Speaker 2: feel like we're moving towards a point where things will happen.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly what, but yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Guess it's just this tricky space because it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: if you start pulling at this thread, then you have
Speaker 1: to pull it this thread, and you have to pull
Speaker 1: it this one. And I was like, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: In the conversation around like streaming and things like that,
Speaker 1: it feels like that conversation is really waited towards one
Speaker 1: or two services. And I'm like, but if you hate that,
Speaker 1: then you're going to have to hate YouTube. And if
Speaker 1: you hate YouTube, then no more cat videos for you,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, like it's just and I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's like why are we mad? Like I think it's
Speaker 1: we're mad at those companies for what they've done to
Speaker 1: the music industry, but major labels have stakes in those companies,
Speaker 1: and we're not mad at the music industry for not
Speaker 1: getting a fucking clue fast like they knew. Like I've
Speaker 1: watched enough documentaries on this, I'm like, you basically handed
Speaker 1: the keys to tech companies because you were being so
Speaker 1: stubborn about the change that was happening, and you just
Speaker 1: couldn't see it. And now everyone's annoyed that tech companies
Speaker 1: control music. But I think labels are doing fine because
Speaker 1: they figured out how to get a back end on that,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: I think I think a huge amount of that could
Speaker 2: be like like it was like this big pendulum swing
Speaker 2: that came at like just into the you know, the
Speaker 2: millennium came along, and like Napster was there in Lime
Speaker 2: Wire and basically they just absolutely smash their hand on
Speaker 2: the panic button and we're like, we're going to go
Speaker 2: the other direction here. I think the industry is living
Speaker 2: with the consequences of that period and their reaction to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is tricky when artists talk about it
Speaker 1: because I don't think that's set up in that system
Speaker 1: is correct. But if I was a teenager, I would
Speaker 1: be overwhelmed. I would overjoyed because you can have access
Speaker 1: to so much music And why is it your It's
Speaker 1: not really your job as a fan to care about
Speaker 1: why this person is or isn't making money. And I
Speaker 1: also don't think that you're owed a living from making music,
Speaker 1: Like making music is a privilege. And yes, the problem
Speaker 1: is if other people are making money in a way
Speaker 1: that you are not, but I think that, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: never guaranteed. And even ten to fifteen years ago, if
Speaker 1: you were an artist of a certain size, you probably
Speaker 1: weren't making very much money then either. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess it's how the pie is broken down, is I
Speaker 1: think what's upsetting people. But some of the narrative I
Speaker 1: do think is strange because I'm like, well, but none
Speaker 1: of us are guaranteed that this is a job. We're
Speaker 1: not unionized in that way, like there's a daily rate
Speaker 1: and our wage like.
Speaker 2: There just isn't.
Speaker 1: So I don't. It's a tricky it's very tricky thing.
Speaker 1: It's a hot potato. I don't know how to handle it,
Speaker 1: and I don't know what's right. And I resigned from
Speaker 1: this conversation.
Speaker 2: Let's move on to talking about Robert Smith. Yes, I
Speaker 2: mean you're going to get asked, obviously, in every single
Speaker 2: interview you do around this album about working with Robert
Speaker 2: Smith and the Cure an amazing more an amazing track,
Speaker 2: but also what an amazing experience. I read that basically
Speaker 2: you had approached him to contribute to the track and
Speaker 2: it went off into the ether, and you weren't really
Speaker 2: necessarily sure whether that collaboration would happen, and then he
Speaker 2: sent it back and said, what do you want and
Speaker 2: he said to record something for us, and he sent it.
Speaker 2: He sent his vocals for the track back on Halloween.
Speaker 2: That feels very appropriate.
Speaker 1: He says, there's an accident, But I wonder. I'm like
Speaker 1: he maybe he was doing as a service as fans.
Speaker 1: He was like, this is what I know they want,
Speaker 1: Let's just do it this way. But yeah, it's beyond
Speaker 1: my mind still is like boggled by the fact that
Speaker 1: that happened at all, just because we're all such big
Speaker 1: fans of The Cure and of Robert's lyrics and his writing,
Speaker 1: and just the way that he has carried himself through
Speaker 1: his career, like like they've always been completely unique and
Speaker 1: had such an integrity to it, and yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's something that we're always in awe of, and working
Speaker 1: with him has honestly been the best it's been. He's
Speaker 1: been the best, easiest, nicest person that we've collaborated with.
Speaker 1: And that's saying a lot, because we've worked with a
Speaker 1: lot of nice people. So yeah, he's just incredibly engaged
Speaker 1: and really generous, Like he's so conscious of not wanting
Speaker 1: to be treading on what we're doing, and I'm like, tread,
Speaker 1: tread all over the song, please, and he just yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he was a big one.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, oh he's not a prick.
Speaker 1: I really also say, oh, this is going to be
Speaker 1: so dissolutioning if he's a prick. But no, he's generally
Speaker 1: everything that you would would think. And yeah, we're really
Speaker 1: excited about that. And yeah, I feel it's exciting to
Speaker 1: see the crossover and the fan bases as well. What Like,
Speaker 1: I've seen enough Cure shirts or shows to be like,
Speaker 1: I think that they will like this, and I guess yeah.
Speaker 1: For me, I'm like, there's a thread that goes through
Speaker 1: all these bands. Like when you mentioned Deaftnes earlier, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: the Cure and Deftones have a connection in a different way.
Speaker 1: And for me, I'm like, yeah, it's always this. There's
Speaker 1: this kind of honesty and emotion and melancholy or something
Speaker 1: that goes through all those bands and hopefully through our
Speaker 1: band as well. So yeah, I always like to think
Speaker 1: about not a scene in a traditional sense, but like
Speaker 1: a scene in terms of like a tapestry of music
Speaker 1: that makes sense together we're trying to get Robert in
Speaker 1: our scene. Basically we're trying to get into Robert's scene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a tiny version of Robert's career sounds pretty amazing
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, going back to what we were talking about earlier
Speaker 2: about kind of managing how you your relationship with like
Speaker 2: the online world. One of my favorite I don't know
Speaker 2: whether necessarily whether this is true, but one of my
Speaker 2: favorite things I'd heard about Robert Smith was that he
Speaker 2: has got it absolutely sewn up because he he basically
Speaker 2: does all of his email correspondents on like one day
Speaker 2: of the week and basically you know that you're only
Speaker 2: going to get any email back from Robert Smith on
Speaker 2: like a Thursday or something like. He treats it a
Speaker 2: bit like fan mail, so like on a Thursday he
Speaker 2: will go through all of his emails and say like,
Speaker 2: yes I'll do that interview, Yes I'll go on that track,
Speaker 2: and like, like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: He did say that he he has he does have
Speaker 1: a smartphone, and he has he bought like five or
Speaker 1: six versions of the same phone at the same time,
Speaker 1: but ten fifteen years ago because he was like, I know,
Speaker 1: I like this one, which I respect, and then I
Speaker 1: feel really bad because he's been so generous to us.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's like charity outreach for us because he's
Speaker 1: he got FaceTime and Zoom so he could do promo
Speaker 1: like he hadn't used at any point in the pandemic.
Speaker 1: And then he was just like, Span needs my help.
Speaker 1: I will help them get this interview by doing a
Speaker 1: FaceTime and you know, like most people would not in
Speaker 1: his position, wouldn't do that. I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: he'd like self taped at home the stuff for the
Speaker 1: music video. He just did it in his house and
Speaker 1: sent it to us, and he doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: doing that. But I feel like that sums him up
Speaker 1: as a as an artist, or what I would like
Speaker 1: to think about him as an artist is that it
Speaker 1: is about creation and collaboration in the truest sense, you know,
Speaker 1: and ultimately that's what we're all supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1: Like he said something on an interview the other day
Speaker 1: which got me a little misty, but then I'm was like,
Speaker 1: I was already a crier. Twenty twenty pushed me into
Speaker 1: the stratosphere, like there's no coming back, Formina. But what
Speaker 1: he said was the interviewer had been like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it must be difficult to not be constantly working on
Speaker 1: a track because you know your work is right there
Speaker 1: all the time. And then he immediately was like, but music,
Speaker 1: music's not work. It was like, this is work. Other
Speaker 1: things around. Facilitating your right to make music is work,
Speaker 1: but actual making of music is not work. And I
Speaker 1: don't ever think about it in it And as I
Speaker 1: feel like that's maybe.
Speaker 2: All be more like that, I think, yeah, that takes
Speaker 2: the wisdom from Robert Smith. I think he's Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's always struck me as like a really generous spirit
Speaker 2: and also really straight talking, which I've always said as
Speaker 2: a fan appreciated. And I also love the fact that
Speaker 2: maybe he's walking around with sort of five Nokia thirty
Speaker 2: two tens in his pocket, just like I like this one.
Speaker 2: It's easy. I like the texting on this one.
Speaker 1: And he's smart because then there's no there's no even
Speaker 1: temptation of any of the things that we've just been
Speaker 1: talking about, because you're safe from the devil, because the
Speaker 1: devil's not in sage your phone exactly.
Speaker 2: We probably haven't got time to kind of go in
Speaker 2: and sort of talk about lots of kind of individual
Speaker 2: songs on the album, but I particularly like Good Girls.
Speaker 2: I think it's an amazing, amazing track, And I like
Speaker 2: the line that you have in there talking about well
Speaker 2: your reference like killing your idols and this idea of
Speaker 2: kind of that that's a chore and it's difficult but
Speaker 2: almost maybe potentially kind of a necessary thing. And I
Speaker 2: was wondering whether that was just a reference to some
Speaker 2: of the sort of the sort of habits and attitudes
Speaker 2: that go along with much older generations and how like
Speaker 2: in time they will disappear, and maybe that makes you
Speaker 2: feel a bit hopeful about what the sort of general
Speaker 2: like your generation and generations below you, the kind of
Speaker 2: world that they might create. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess the opening line came. I had written
Speaker 1: it down in my notebook after a lengthy pop discussion
Speaker 1: with friends about certain musicians who have been doing certain things.
Speaker 1: And I guess I feel like the concept of councel
Speaker 1: culture has really evolved and snowballed and almost now been
Speaker 1: weaponized by the right, and I don't know that that's
Speaker 1: I feel like accountability culture makes more sense in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, but it's not as catchy, it's not
Speaker 1: as quick and also a lot of things that people
Speaker 1: are getting quote unquote canceled for. There's another name for
Speaker 1: a lot of those things. If you're getting fired for
Speaker 1: a workplace for doing a certain thing, that's not cancel culture.
Speaker 1: That's abuse. So yeah, but I sat and listened and
Speaker 1: listened to this thing, and then I just had this
Speaker 1: kind of quiet rage where I was like, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: isn't it a privilege to sit and talk about that,
Speaker 1: talk about whether what this person has done is hurtful,
Speaker 1: to talk about whether this person is an abhorrent racist,
Speaker 1: or talk about whether this person is is abusing women
Speaker 1: because it doesn't affect you, It doesn't affect your life.
Speaker 1: And I just that, like it just made smoke come
Speaker 1: outd my ears as I was just that I don't
Speaker 1: understand why you would sit, you would go to such
Speaker 1: lengths to make excuses for Woody Allen like things like that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I just don't get that. Like, and they
Speaker 1: almost get more annoyed at the people who are pointing
Speaker 1: out the thing than they do the man that's done it,
Speaker 1: and it's mostly always a man. But not that women
Speaker 1: can't be terrible, especially white women. We can be really
Speaker 1: fucking shit. But yeah, it was just interesting sitting thinking
Speaker 1: about it, being like yeah, but whether for me as
Speaker 1: a listener, I find it difficult to listen to somebody's art,
Speaker 1: especially like the narrator of the song or the writer
Speaker 1: of the film, if I know that the same brain
Speaker 1: that this came from is the same brain that could
Speaker 1: feel something so hurtful and violent and aggressive. And I
Speaker 1: don't know. And I understand that you're not You're never
Speaker 1: gonna agree with somebody on everything. You can't expect all
Speaker 1: your favorite artists to think exactly the same way as you.
Speaker 1: But I feel like as a listener, there's like a
Speaker 1: giving over of control and the vulnerability when you're sharing
Speaker 1: in that with somebody, and I don't I don't want
Speaker 1: to share in Woody Allen's art with him. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that he's not made some profound art, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to share in that. I would find it
Speaker 1: difficult to listen to Modessey in the present day. Like
Speaker 1: you know, there's just certain things that you know when
Speaker 1: everyone feels differently about it. But I do feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of people are able to feel differently about
Speaker 1: it because they come from a place of such protection
Speaker 1: where the discussions around those things are hypothetical for them.
Speaker 1: I just instead of flipping the bar table at leaving,
Speaker 1: I was like, hmm, you see them that later. And
Speaker 1: then you know, and I think as I think, I
Speaker 1: was the only woman involved in that conversation because you know,
Speaker 1: I have a pretty heavy male friendship group and pretty
Speaker 1: heavy male work group because of the profession I work in,
Speaker 1: and I was just interesting to sit and listen to
Speaker 1: people to talk about it. And I was say, hmmm,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people don't have that luxury as
Speaker 1: a woman. I don't feel like I have that luxury
Speaker 1: in terms of making excuses for Louis c. K. Even
Speaker 1: though I have heavily enjoyed Louis K's comedy, at times,
Speaker 1: I don't feel comfortable making excuses for that man. So
Speaker 1: I can continue to enjoy his comedy, like it's just
Speaker 1: it's not abstract for me in the way that it's
Speaker 1: abso act for other people that were in that chat. So,
Speaker 1: but I promise it's a fun pop song. You know,
Speaker 1: we made there, We made the chorus hooky, we made
Speaker 1: the chorus fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is an amazing song. And I think you're
Speaker 2: absolutely right, And I think it's about what you just
Speaker 2: described there is the classic case of kind of a
Speaker 2: real privilege as well of just like maybe yeah, being
Speaker 2: in that sort of male dominated environment of them kind
Speaker 2: of just just being more passive about the subject. And Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm super glad that you've written about it because I
Speaker 2: think I think it will I think it will have
Speaker 2: a real impact. Thanks. Man.
Speaker 1: I'm excited for the men on the internet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my god, we'll just break out your battle armor
Speaker 2: and just like your thicker skin because I think, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: fuck those guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and I think that was what's been interesting
Speaker 1: about it for me is because I don't actively believe
Speaker 1: that I spend a lot of time with any men
Speaker 1: who would think any of those things in a different
Speaker 1: set of but when it comes to defending the art
Speaker 1: of artists that they love, they will definitely go to
Speaker 1: really extreme lengths to explain away those things. And I
Speaker 1: think it's because you then you love the art, you
Speaker 1: don't love the artists. But I think for me, I
Speaker 1: can't ever divorce. I don't know, I just I find
Speaker 1: it difficult. And yeah, even like financially and emotionally supporting
Speaker 1: somebody that has done that, I'm like that's just I
Speaker 1: choose not to do that. I'm not saying that that
Speaker 1: person needs to be disappeared to the top of a
Speaker 1: mountain forever. But do I want to go see that
Speaker 1: person in content and listen to what they have to
Speaker 1: say and emotionally connect with them.
Speaker 2: Not really, But your way of your way of making
Speaker 2: your point is to yeah, not not can see that art.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to support that person. I don't agree
Speaker 2: with what they've done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it doesn't mean that I need to violently
Speaker 1: assault that person verbally on the Internet or any of
Speaker 1: those things. And I just don't need to participate in
Speaker 1: that because I don't want to be contributing to that
Speaker 1: as a worldview or something. I don't know. That sounds
Speaker 1: privileged as well, doesn't it? See im part of the problem.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, we could send thisselves in endless circles.
Speaker 2: That's how these things are so difficult to unravel. My
Speaker 2: final question, just quickly was really just about the practicals
Speaker 2: of how you've worked the last about eighteen months. Because
Speaker 2: the majority of this record that's coming out was made remotely.
Speaker 2: Has it made you think, you know what, in the future,
Speaker 2: we could make albums remotely or has it or has
Speaker 2: the experience made you think, you know what we did,
Speaker 2: that we did a really practical thing. We made it work,
Speaker 2: and next time I would love to get back in
Speaker 2: the studio together.
Speaker 1: I think we were lucky that we had quite a
Speaker 1: lot of the rough demos before we had to separate,
Speaker 1: so at least the structure of them existed in some way,
Speaker 1: whether that was just a demo that Ian and Martina
Speaker 1: had from previously, or I think the only things that
Speaker 1: we'd recorded vocals on before Ian had to leave was
Speaker 1: he Said, She Said and Good Girls were like the
Speaker 1: two first things that had happened. All the rest of
Speaker 1: the lyrics were written remotely, and I think I can
Speaker 1: lyrics remotely, and the guys can do production remotely, but
Speaker 1: that's because the structure's already in place. I think if
Speaker 1: we had to work and write and create songs over zoom,
Speaker 1: that would be really a lot more difficult, because there
Speaker 1: is something about the energy of being in a room
Speaker 1: and like the speeds that you can communicate with somebody
Speaker 1: when you're in a room and you're like, no, no,
Speaker 1: not that sound, what about this? And that's just much
Speaker 1: harder on zoom. And I think it was a really
Speaker 1: special way to make a record and a really special
Speaker 1: way to stay connected. But I don't I think by
Speaker 1: the time, by the time we all get out of here,
Speaker 1: I think we're all going to be very grateful for
Speaker 1: this technology but very happy to not have to use
Speaker 1: it as much again.
Speaker 2: And it would be nice to wrap up a song
Speaker 2: and then say, should have a drink?
Speaker 1: Yeah, should we like hang out rather than And the
Speaker 1: time zone was a real sticker as well, because it
Speaker 1: would mean that one of us would have to be
Speaker 1: up to stupid o'clock in the morning or getting up
Speaker 1: at stupid clock in the morning all the time. And
Speaker 1: I think that brings different energy to your writing. But
Speaker 1: it's just, yeah, you're never in the same emotional state
Speaker 1: as one at least one person in the group because
Speaker 1: you're just not in the same Yeah, you're not in
Speaker 1: the same life at that moment.
Speaker 2: To find previous episodes of Midnight Chats, simply search your
Speaker 2: podcast app, don't forget to follow or subscribe to keep
Speaker 2: up as they're published every week at midnight. For more
Speaker 2: information on the music magazine that makes this series, visit
Speaker 2: Loud and Quiet dot com.
Speaker 1: Anyway, good Night