"I Really Don't Want To Write Pandemic Music!" Everything Everything Interviewed
Jonathan Higgs breaks down new album 'Raw Data Feel'...
*Everything Everything* released the album of their lives - the only snag is that their lives were about to irrevocably change. 'Re-Animator' smashed into the Top 10, but it did so in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic; unable to tour, the Manchester group were caught in limbo.
Yet in some ways they'd spent years preparing for this moment. Creativity was largely individual within the band, slotting together like a jigsaw puzzle across WhatsApp conversations, and Skype calls.
Existing in a kind of semi-isolation for some time, Everything Everything segued into the strictures of the COVID world with ease, and immediately got back to work. Out now, 'Raw Data Feel' is more direct than its predecessor; no less complex, it feels more focussed, less cluttered, and a lot more colourful.
At times, it even dares to be pop. Frontman Jonathan Higgs spoke to Clash over Zoom in the aftermath of its release, discussing the making of the album, his new book of collected lyrics, and where *Everything Everything* could go next.
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*The new album is really impressive, congrats!*
Yeah, we've been sat on it… not as long as usual, but for a while. The whole thing's felt quite streamlined and quite swift. This time, we recorded it really quickly. Didn't sort of labour over it. And I think, actually, it was a huge benefit for how it sounds and how it feels, especially.
*Do you feel in the past you were guilty of over-thinking?*
Yeah, definitely… the last record before this, ‘Re-Animator’. I thought about it way too much. The concept was absurd for a pop album, and it didn't even need to be. I was using it as a sort of escape. And I should have just been much more swift with it.
*How did you manage to switch that off this time round?*
Well, that was born out of necessity. So we had to make this one really quick, because the pandemic fucked ‘Re-Animator’ basically… it meant that we couldn't tour it, and we couldn't promote it. So, as soon as it came out, we just looked around at each other. And we were like, well, we've got nothing to do, we can't really be a band. And the only things bands do is write music and play shows. So we just wrote more music. But because of the how long vinyl takes to make now we had to make it in a three month window… just to get it out today.
So it was just written very quickly and without too much thought. I mean, it's obvious we thought about it, but it wasn't like: I'm going to put this grand concept! It was just more like free creativity… which was really nice.
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*So, first thought, best thought?*
Increasingly, the first thought has always been the best one. I’ve noticed that so many times, especially when it's something like a guitar part. When Alex goes in to record something, and he's like, ‘I don't want to play’ then we just say, play anything. And it's always the very first thing he does that we end up using. We just go back to the start every time. And I think that happens in loads of stuff - across music, lyrics, first is nearly always the best. Things like that just happens. It's really weird.
*Do you think not being able to play live gave the songs on this record a certain directness?*
It means that you’re not weighed down by it, basically, so playing became a pleasure, rather than a chore. It’s a much more natural thing.
I think the pandemic did screw us over, but it's sort of created something better than we would have done otherwise.
*Does the speed you’ve been working at mean that everything the band recorded ended up on the record?*
Everything that got carried through into a full song is on the record, we didn't leave any songs off, but we probably left several 100 false starts off there. We tend to kill things really early now… that's kind of one of the skills we've learned, recognising when something is going to work and when it isn’t. We don’t want to go through that process of forcing a song. It either fucking works instantly or not at all! Everything we recorded is on the record, nothing got left off.
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*So, a song like ‘I Want A Love Like This’ for example, how did that one start?*
I did it in one afternoon, just with Ableton. Open the software, simple chords - well, quite simple boards – and hand it over to Alex.
And he had this brand new synth that does fancy stuff with rhythms, so that was kind of an experiment to see how this new bit of tech works, which is actually how a lot of the a lot of songs began. They were just experiments, really, they weren't like: we're going to do this grand thing. It was like, why don't we try this new piece of equipment and work out what it does? The best way to find out what it does is to is to write a song with it. So that's what I mean by a laid-back approach. It was just like, let's see what falls out of this machine. Let's see what falls out of us.
*‘Pizza Boy’ almost sounds like someone yearning for the hedonism lost during the pandemic.*
It's really more personal, but it's funny how many people have latched on to the line about the mobile phone and think that it's to do with the pandemic specifically… A lot of people have come to me and said, this is like a modern lonely list, but it’s much more personal. I like the way it's resonated.
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*Is that something you as a lyricist enjoy, then? The way songs take on their own meaning in the individual lives of the listeners?*
Yeah, more and more. Like on this record, the first few singles had press releases with it, and then after a couple of those, I just stopped stop writing them because I don't even think telling people what the song is about is something I want to do anymore. Going forwards I don't think I'm going to do that anymore. I think the art is made in the listener’s ears. And I don't really like prescribing - or even hinting - at my life and my influence… I want people to live their own lives through it, you know?
*As a band, you’ve certainly engaged with darkness in your music – this album feels, by contrast, quite bright, and pop-oriented. Was that a conscious attempt to move past the darkness of the past couple of years?*
Well, not the world, I don't care about the world, really! (laughs) I really don't want to write pandemic music. That was something I realised very early on was like, I'm never going to sing about this. And I never want to get anyone's albums about this. It was all from a personal place. I'm in a better place now than I probably would have been on any other record. So that's reflected in what I'm singing about, really, I'm feeling more positive. And no, none of us particularly want to make sad music at this point in our lives… although having said that, there is one very sad song on the record. It’s not all one colour, it just doesn't have the despair that I think that some of our other records do.
*The book of your collected lyrics is also out now, which must be a wonderful thing to finally hold in your hands. What did you learn from looking over those words as one long flow of creativity?*
I like the fact that there's a history, and a sort of law to everything. I like call-backs. And I like thinking of it as if it was a grand, epic tale or like an ever-evolving TV series where something that happened on ‘Man Alive’ affects something that happens on you know, ‘Raw Data Feel’. And vice versa. Like, this album could be set before the first one for all you know… you just have to work it out. I really enjoy that kind of thing – putting Easter eggs everywhere!
*Have you ever thought of writing something outside music – say, poetry, or short stories?*
No, I don’t. But I'm getting quite close to maybe making… maybe a short film or something. It wouldn't be language-based, as it were. Now, I don't feel any desire to demean the book of lyrics. It’s out, so that’s quite, quite satisfying. Really. I don't think poetry is somehow an elevated form of what I do already. I think my lyrics are better because you've got a tune!
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'Raw Data Feel' is out now.
Words: *Robin Murray*
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