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TOM: There's
a certain darkness in the sound of your music. Can you tell me
what that reflects about you guys? Is there something you are
trying to get across about this moment in time, or is it
something more internal?
|
|
ADRIAN:
It's how it comes out when
we play. We might start off a groove with a bass and drums.
We'll always play slow, and we'll always play down, and we'll
always play minor key. It's not like we're deliberately not
playing in a major key. But me playing in a major key would be
like me playing a country western song-- it just wouldn't be
right. Always soundtracks, always minor-key ones, slightly
atonal, shifting, on the sad side. It wouldn't be an up thing.
And it's always a mode. |
|
TOM: And
is that a reflection of the way you guys view life?
|
|
GEOFF:
When we made the record we
were in quite a depressed state...
|
|
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ADRIAN:
Turmoil, wasn't it? |
|
|
GEOFF:
Yeah , it was turmoil.
|
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TOM:
I heard you guys almost broke up. Is that true-- and was it
because of stress?
|
|
GEOFF:
Yeah, it was stress. It
was never people. But it wasn't about splitting up. Really, it
was more about being unhappy. So those feelings that came out in
the music.
|
| TOM: Was
it just a matter of getting used to the live sampling?
|
|
ADRIAN:
That was tough to do, that
because it meant that there was a weight of work. We had to go
in and actually do that stuff, we had to perform it. |
|
TOM:
Was that basically the dilemma?
|
|
ADRIAN:
No, there were many
things, weren't there, Geoff? |
|
|
GEOFF:
It was just that I had set
up all these rules saying we couldn't do certain things. |
|
ADRIAN:
A lot of those were wrong,
but we had to go through it. |
|
DAVE:
We constricted ourselves
too much. |
|
|
ADRIAN:
We didn't actually finish anything. It just looked like an
enormous amount of scrappy bits of work done. We didn't feel as
if we were getting anywhere-- although, in fact, we were. I
think that we were all kind of positive that we were-- that we
just had to stick a few tunes together and finish them. Then it
was like, "Fuck, we actually have got something and can
start moving on.? |
|
TOM: You
sort of evolved your sound and didn't realize you were doing
it?
|
|
ADRIAN:
We were trying to avoid
our [previous] sound and reinvent, which we really shouldn't
have done. |
|
|
GEOFF:
We got comfortable being
ourselves and actually sounding like ourselves.GEOFF: We got
comfortable being ourselves and actually sounding like
ourselves. |
|
|
ADRIAN:
We got back to feeling OK
about being who we were. |
|
TOM:
What was it that caused that beginning uncomfortable? Was it
fame? The fact that your album did so well?
|
|
GEOFF:
That was surprising, but
fame wasn't the cause of it for me. For me, it was hearing all
of these bad tunes around. You know what I mean-- turning on the
radio and not being inspired. And then hearing a loop of a
soundtrack that sounds really heavy but is just a loop of an
album. It wasn't the idea of people doing something that we had
done. We wouldn't say that we absolutely created [trip-hop], or
whatever. We're not about that. For me it was just weird. We put
all of our ideas into Dummy, we didn't have a break, and
we went straight back into the studio afterwards. |
|
|
ADRIAN:
What about the disruption
with playing live? It was never on the agenda, really, and now
it is. |
|
|
GEOFF:
Exactly. Playing live
fucked me up a bit, as well, you know. |
|
TOM:
Now you guys are more confident trying to conquer that?
|
|
GEOFF,
ADRIAN, AND DAVE: Yeah
.(4)-NEXT
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