In 2004, The Music should have been feeling on top of the world. Despite worldwide acclaim for their eponymous debut album’s blend of rock and dance grooves, the Leeds act were feeling imprisoned and manipulated in an Atlanta studio recording the follow-up, Welcome To The North. Faced with two years of promoting an album the band admit was aimless, frontman Robert Harvey’s troubles with drugs and depression deepened and rifts within The Music threatened to finish them.
Four years after their Welcome To The North troubles, guitarist Adam Nutter is standing in the Leeds sunshine discussing the tribulations experienced to arrive at third album, Strength In Numbers.
“We have gone through a complete change really,” Adam begins. “We’ve become a much stronger band and we’ve become much stronger people and we’ve really evolved as a band.
“We’ve all been through difficulties and we’ve all found it hard. There were times where we were thinking about splitting up and that sort of stuff. That was very difficult, but we turned it around and we’ve managed to sort of save it. And we’ve come back together with a much clearer idea of what we want really. That’s the most important thing I think. We are really set on what we want to do as a band and the music we want to make.”
Formed by four high school friends in 1999, by 2001 The Music had a major deal and were experiencing whiplash momentum that saw them go from suburban practice sessions to touring the globe with acts such as Coldplay, Oasis and U2. Returning to their Leeds homes after world tours messed with the band’s state of mind.
“That’s a real mind fuck for anyone. That’s kinda how you start to lose it. You come home from non-stop partying and you’ve got to kinda come down; it can be hard to do sometimes. It can be hard to separate yourself. It’s different from the life you live on the road and the life you lead when you come home. Sometimes lines become blurred, you know what I mean? It’s difficult to see where we are, what’s real and what’s not and that sort of shit.”
Hardships were also encountered working with acclaimed producer Brendan O’Brien on Welcome To The North. Although the name behind extraordinary albums from Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen and Rage Against The Machine, Adam suggests relocating to Brendan’s Atlanta studio aggravated The Music’s woes.
“We spent so much time touring America and then to head back to make the record there was really hard for us to do. It was a difficult experience, it wasn’t easy at all. Again, that was one of the reasons why we felt we got into the situation we did - we kind of felt like we were being made to do it by Capitol. We didn’t really know how we wanted it to turn out, that was more the point. In that point in our lives we weren’t the most emotionally equipped to know what we wanted. We were kind of pushed in certain directions and we kind of went along with it.”
This time around, The Music found a new label and drafted in Flood and Paul Hartnoll to produce the album. Although the pair seem perfect foils for The Music, Adam boasts the band had the album honed before the UK producers became involved.
“I think that the producers got involved quite late on really. Everything was done and everything was clear as to what needed to happen, we just needed a really great producer to come in and capture it all and to realise the potential of our idea. I think that’s where I felt Paul and Flood came in. They were helping us take a step back and to look at our ideas in a slightly different way. That different perspective on things can make things look different and be really useful.”
With Flood’s album credits including Achtung Baby, Sam’s Town and Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, the Brit had plenty of tales to tell his Leeds acolytes. One of his anecdotes about working with Nine Inch Nails particularly took Adam’s fancy.
“He told us quite a few stories about Trent Reznor and when they recorded somewhere in America. I think they were making The Downward Spiral or Pretty Hate Machine. The bloke who owned the studio pissed off Trent Reznor, so he went to a butcher’s and bought a ridiculous amount of minced meat. Apparently he just stuffed it into every single orifice in the studio. He stuffed it into computers. He stuffed it into the air conditioning system. He stuffed it in the furniture. He stuffed it everywhere. He took the backs off equipment and he took the screws out and filled these things with fucking meat. I thought that was great.”
New Music track Fire is not only a storming return, it also offers a very similar riff to U2’s Vertigo. Adam sniffs when asked of the resemblance.
“Funnily enough I’ve had that riff for a long time, a lot longer than that U2 song’s been out. I kind of thought, ‘Well, fuck it. I’ve had it that long that I’m not just going to not use it’. A lot of people have said that it sounds like that, so I’ve said, ‘I learnt that before he wrote it, so fuck you!’. I don’t think it sounds that much like it. I think it’s got similarities to it, but like I said, those things happen. There’s only so many notes you can play in so many different ways.
“I don’t mind if The Edge came up with the same riff.”
Strength In Numbers is out now through UMA. The Music perform at the sold out Splendour In The Grass, Byron Bay, Sat Aug 2 and Sun Aug 3.