A little bit of Everything

Aug 28 2010 The Journal

They're 50% Northumbrian and are about to release their buzz-laden debut album. Paul Loraine talks to the band who are so good, they named themselves twice.

AT this very moment, while fans wait in anticipation for their copy of Everything Everything’s debut album, managers of music stores across the country are no doubt scratching their heads at how to categorise it.

The four-piece band – two of whom are from Northumberland – can take you from a disco feel to a huge stadium riff and back to a thoughtful harpsichord-infused ballad in no time.

Already Man Alive, which hits the shelves on Monday, has been touted as one of the albums of the year, marrying unforgettable pop melodies with harmonic and rhythmic complexity. NME has called them ‘pop’s new Picassos’ and the praise just keeps coming.

Lead singer Jon Higgs, who is from Gilsland, near Haltwhistle, explained that despite the seemingly endless flow of ideas in the music, it has pop at its heart. “It wouldn’t get off the ground for me unless it had a hook.

“If I just wrote some really stupid prog thing I would lose interest, but you keep coming back to the hookiest things. We always end up at the pleasurable pop pay-off.

“You have to go to those same old places to keep everyone interested, including us, but it’s how you get to those places that we do differently.”

Jon revealed one of the hardest things about the process of making the album was when to step back and stop making changes.

“It is really weird because every time we’d hear something we did I wanted to do it differently. I realised recently that is never going to stop.

“In a way it feels really nice to let some of those things go as well, because a lot of emotional stuff gets tied up in the songs.”

The band, who are in their mid-twenties, got together around three years ago, moving into a house together in Manchester and rehearsing in the basement. Bass player Jeremy Pritchard went to university with Jon, while guitarist Alex Robertshaw joined the band around a year ago.

They quickly gathered momentum and were signed last year by Geffen before playing at this year’s Glastonbury Festival and at this weekend’s Reading and Leeds Festivals.

Drummer Michael Spearman, who is from Newbrough, near Hexham, and, like Jon, is a former pupil at Hexham’s Queen Elizabeth High School, said it was a relief to get the album finished. “We’re excited about people hearing it now.

“It’s hard for us to take a step back and enjoy it because you still remember all the little details in the recording that we were thinking about.

“Hopefully by the time we’ve done the next one we can listen back to what we’ve done and properly enjoy it. We’re all proud of it though.”

The album was recorded in Bryn Derwen in Wales under the stewardship of producer David Kosten who worked recently with Bat for Lashes.

Michael said: “Having David’s experience was great because he’d say ‘OK, I’ve heard everyone’s opinion and now we need to make a decision.’ We also didn’t have forever to make it, which helped.”

As well as recording the album, the quartet have done their fair share of travelling, playing at venues in Europe, the USA and Japan.

“Japan was really incredible,” Michael said. “It was a whole new experience for us. The shows were great. The audience is very different there because they’re very respectful – kind of like at jazz gigs here.”

Anyone who buys the album – and it is one that anyone with a passion for music could very easily fall in love with – will see that ideas are not in short supply for Jon, musically and lyrically. I wondered whether there was a typical process for him when it came to composition.

“There isn’t really a ‘usually’ – I never start with a melody, it will be chords, or part of a bassline, or a feel.

“More recently I’ve moved over to the laptop completely – I don’t really sit there with a guitar. I can come back to the band with unplayable demos.

“Sometimes the guys have to take a look to say this is the heart of it and that’s why it works.”

While some of the songs – the minimalistic Tin (The Manhole) – came together very quickly, Jon said others went through various mutations.

“I recorded Tin in my bedroom. I played it to everyone and in the end we didn’t change it – we just took the bedroom vocal. Then there are other songs have gone through more versions. Come Alive Diana has a completely different chorus to how we played it initially.”

While a lot of songwriters hone their craft in cities, which bring with them the influence of trends, Jon feels he benefited from growing up somewhere relatively isolated from the pull of fashion.

“Gilsland’s a place no-one knows about with an amazing history. I think growing up there did influence me – I didn’t have a TV and we were detached from any kind of hub because Newcastle’s 40 miles away.

“Being away from what is fashionable is ideal. It’s what makes you different – look at Wild Beasts from Kendal (in the Lake District). What they’re doing is amazing.”

The launch of Man Alive is being followed by an autumn tour, with a date at The Cluny in Newcastle on September 28, which Jon and Michael are particularly looking forward to.

“It’s always amazing,” Jon said. “We always get an amazing response. It’s a really nice community – it needs more attention and music venues.

“There are people out there doing it but it doesn’t get the attention. It would be great if people would start calling us a North East band instead of a North West band. It’s definitely somewhere we’re proud to be from.”

And should the album get the recognition it deserves, it will surely be a place that is proud to have spawned them.

:: Everything Everything’s debut album Man Alive is out on Monday. The band play The Cluny, Newcastle, on September 28. Call 0191 230 4464.