Interview: Noah and the Whale

So, you’ve been on the road a while now… just got back from Europe?

Tom: Yeah, we got back from France on Friday, haha, had the weekend off!

Urby: Well other than Sunday…

Tom: Yeah that’s true.

Urby: We did a little show on Sunday.

Where was that?

Tom: Well me and Charlie [Fink, lead vocals] did the Andrew Marr show in the morning, and then we had this charity gig in the evening.

Great. How’s it all going so far?

Tom: Yeah, really good. You know, we’ve got tours now booked up until December; this one doesn’t end ‘til Glastonbury.

Busy year for you then… so what’s a Noah and the Whale day off amongst all this?

Tom: Erm…. I dunno!

Urby: No, well a lot of the time it’s washing, dry cleaning. Frantically maybe try to say hi to as many people as possible… or that’s what I ended up doing, don’t know how advisable it is.

So you’re on the festival circuit this summer: do you prefer the festivals to these smaller gigs, or would you rather be in front of the more dedicated fans?

Tom: They’re different, a different animal…

Urby: You kinda go in with different expectations, at the festivals… Tom: It’s like, you get a lot of people will just wander over. There’s part of it that’s trying to impress people that have never heard you before… and also just having fun. It is a less pressured situation.

Urby: Also you don’t, or rarely have a soundcheck, and often you’ve just got twenty minutes… twenty minutes to change over and stuff. A lot of the time you’re often flying by the seat of your pants in a festival environment, often with hired gear if you’re doing it somewhere else. Whereas with a show like tonight, you’ve got a certain level of control over it, that bit more than a festival.

Has that control changed a lot since the early days?

Tom: Not really. Essentially we’ve now got a few more crew, and have more things we’ve wanted to put together for shows and stuff, but the actual essence of our show is very much the same, it’s just to… give people the best night of their lives!

And I’m sure you will… a bit different to ‘Give it all back’ on the new album. Are the lyrics to that song speaking from experience for Charlie?

Tom: Yeah, I mean it’s not totally literal, but it’s certainly a common cause that can fit to a lot of people… the excitement of being young and playing.

Urby: I remember my earliest musical experiences were sitting in a school hall aged like four, sitting on the gym horse together, and after a really boring two and a half hour concert of guys getting up and playing like grade one piano, and really poorly tuned acoustic, classical guitars, and all that kinda thing. And then this rock band got up, played some Dire Straits track. They were like thirteen, the eldest guy. And that was like the coolest thing I’d ever seen at the time, it was really loud, you couldn’t talk over it, it was great.

Well speaking of Dire Straits, the new record seems to have a bit of an old-school feel to it?

Tom: Yeah. Dire Straits weren’t really an influence…

Urby: But bands around the time of Dire Straits…

Tom: Yeah, there’s definitely that. There are strong kinda Springsteen, Petty, Lou Reed influences.

I’d actually thought the same listening to it; I’m a big Springsteen and Petty fan myself…

Tom: Oh, cool! And also then at the other end of the spectrum there’s people like Prince and Arthur Russell… yeah, it all kinda goes in there.

Because this record, it’s quite a bit different to the last one isn’t it? Was that something you intended when you set out, or did it just naturally turn out that way?

Tom: I think Charlie purposefully wanted to write in a different style to the last album, which was far more introverted obviously. And to challenge himself as well, writing in the third person, and writing little stories for each track. And musically, again, we wanted to do something different: we’re not a band who likes to sit still.

It’s a bit more electric too.

Tom: It is a bit more electric, and that’s partly because, as I say, we’re listening to these new influences on us, but also partly… the whole drum machine thing… that’s partly due to the fact that we didn’t have a drummer. You know, we were there in the studio, having to make things that were within our capabilities.

Urby: I think also when you’re dealing with electric guitars and stuff, there’s always… you need more of a sense of self-restraint with it, because there’s a massive element of fun and ease, so you could easily just chuck guitar solos on everything [a blistering exemplification of such reared its head two minutes into their set, it transpired], and have all this kind of thing, the volume and everything with it – to be musical with it is actually, I think, almost more of a discipline.

Tom: You know, [Charlie] wrote it the exact right number of songs for the album, there was always a clear cut view of what songs would be on the album.

You’re not the sort of band that writes twenty five tracks and narrows it down from there?

Tom: No, not at all, not at all. The only thing that… the reason why we took longer on this album was that we were trying to make it as concise as possible, and obviously the time to cut things down. There’s a track on the album called ‘Wild Thing’, which originally the demo was like nine minutes long. That was our aim with this record was to make it very concise, straight to the point, the sort of thing we’ve never really done before.

In terms of how the record’s selling, you’re obviously pleased, but is that something you care too much about, or is it more about just being out on the road?

Tom: Well, the point about it is, when you’re out on the road, it’s always nice to play to a room full of people, that’s really what makes the shows just take off.

Urby: How many of them have bought the album, or…

Tom: That’s the point, that’s only a bonus…

Urby: Yeah, exactly, it doesn’t really… concern us really. Tom: So yeah, I mean we’re thrilled, so far, as I said before, we’ve been touring basically since February, and we’ve only been met by, like, incredible crowds, we’re getting really excited about it and… it seems to be going really well.

Have you noticed the fan base growing?

Tom: Yeah, course, it’s great.

You probably know, but the album’s still number fifteen in the charts this week, and it’s been out a while now…

Tom: It has, yes, it’s been out like two months, so it’s very encouraging. So… you know we’re going to have to see what happens, hopefully it’ll keep up there.

Any plans for the future yet?

Tom: Well, only up to the end of the year…

Urby: Or going into early next year…

Tom: yeah, I think it will carry on. You know we just love playing, and that’s very much the kind of mentality we’ve got at the moment, just going out touring.

Is it the touring that makes it worthwhile?

Tom: No, not at all, we love being in the studio, but they’re very different disciplines, and at the moment we’re very much focussed on the gigging side of it.

Urby: Also this album’s an album that I think we’re far more comfortable taking to… especially with the backup of the first two records as well… the body of work we’ve got going, and representing ourselves I don’t think we’ve ever been more comfortable, and also more capable, of putting on a show that’s gonna appeal to people who haven’t heard the band before. There’s an accessibility to the set now.

Tom: Our show’s now got such variety now, you know what I mean? That’s the beautiful thing.

And yes, a few hours later I definitely knew what he meant. You couldn’t help hearing superlatives being muttered as the audience filed reluctantly out of Leeds Met SU; and while Charlie said onstage what a pleasure it was to be back in Leeds, I’m sure the feeling was mutual.

Add Comment

You must log in to submit a comment.