Four years is a long time in the music scene. Coupled with Bloc Party and Hard-Fi as the UK’s brightest indie hopes to emerge in 2004, The Futureheads broke out with a killer cover of Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love and a chirpy performance style that tempered their pop nous with a punk edge. The Sunderland act’s darker 2005 album, News And Tributes, failed to connect with fans or critics, with the band finding themselves dumped from their major label just three years after signing the deal. Suddenly, The Futureheads looked like relics as whippersnappers such as Arctic Monkeys, The Kooks and Klaxons emerged on the UK scene to fanfare and accolades.
Dusting themselves down for their independent third album, This Is Not The World, The Futureheads have relocated their fire. Bassist Jaff Craig admits that first single The Beginning Of The Twist finds the band staking their claim in a UK scene overcrowded with new talent.
“You wanna make sure that you’re valid, that you have something to say and that you appeal to the record buying public,” the bass player begins. “I think the important thing for us on this record was to get back and kinda show people that we still mattered in the climate of today’s rock music. There are a lot of bands in Britain at the moment and I think loads of them are terrible, so I think it’s really quite important for us to kind of come back and show that we still mattered. I think The Beginning Of The Twist as the first single is a great statement of intent to that end.”
The band are the first to acknowledge that News And Tributes failed to capitalise on the initial interest afforded to them.
“We did take a bit of a beating on the second record - the critics didn’t like it so much and the public didn’t buy it so much. It was all about writing what we felt was a mature second record. We felt like Fleetwood Mac - we were like, ‘We’re gonna make Rumours and it’s gonna be cool!’ but actually we made a record that disconnected us from our fans.”
In the meantime, mediocre guitar rock proliferated across the United Kingdom.
“Every A&R man is just signing any handsome young band with a haircut and none of them can play the guitar, none of them write the songs and certainly none of them can sing,” Jaff spits. “We have to stand apart from that and say, “Look, we were here first and we got a record deal when dance music was popular’. We made a claim for guitar bands - we almost kind of pioneered in England this movement with Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and then the Kaiser Chiefs. Since then it’s just been a wealth of dross released in the UK.”
So how do you think you’ll go then when you’re playing festivals throughout the European summer and have to interact with these bands that aren’t much cop backstage?
“Well,” Jaff laughs, “the thing is people are nice and it’s easy enough to talk to people. There are a lot of bands I like these days but they just don’t seem to get as much attention as the shit bands do - that’s what’s frustrating to me. You see some bands that are just shit and they’ve gone platinum. You guys are dreadful - how did you manage this?
“But bands are personable and you get chatting. That’s one of the best things about playing festivals - you do get to meet people backstage and see what people are about. That’s why you gotta be careful not to slag people off, ‘cos you might meet them and they’re really nice!”
For their career rebirth, The Futureheads have called in British producer Youth to hone their sound. Well known for his marijuana intake (immortalised in song by Neil Finn during the recording of Crowded House’s Together Alone), Jaff suggests Youth has retained his unconventional methods.
“He’s such a creative man and is very spiritual and kind of mythical. He produced most of our album lying down, pretty much. He smokes a lot of weed and he’s a very content, happy man within himself, but he takes you out of your box, pushes you in different ways and his management skills are very good. The Beginning Of The Twist was a bit of a mess before he got his hands on it and it had a David Bowie Rebel Rebel feel to it in the chorus. He just turned the song around and that’s kinda like when we started to trust what he said and believe in him. It was a great experience working with Youth.”
But you had a few fights with him?
“Oh yeah! We had a few fights alright!” Jaff chuckles. “He’s quite confrontational when he wants to be! We were very much into having our own way and he was into saying, ‘I’m the producer - you’ll do what you’re told!’ and I think where that line meets is where the great music’s created. There’s a few songs he made us do some things we were definitely very uncomfortable with – and 50 percent got used and 50 percent got canned – but he’d throw a big strop and say ‘You have to do it. You have to jam on this Indian folk music!’”
It sounds like he was trying to turn you into Kula Shaker.
“He definitely likes his spirituality, but we’re not into that. He likes to push people as far as he can, waits until they blow up and then retreats a little bit. We’ll push him and he’ll push us again and we’ll come up with something different. But we’re almost 99 percent certain that we want to make the next album with him.”
This Is Not The World is out now through Liberator.