STACK August 2016 Issue 142

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I think it is absolutely part of being a
man today. That song is both a hymn of
praise and a kind of inverted, feminist
cock rock. It's nigh on impossible to call
yourself a feminist as a man, but I feel
we were ahead of the curve in playing
with those kinds of power inversions
and quoting Cixous and Lispector. We
are European men and the idea that we
are victims of anyone but ourselves is
laughable.
Q5/ 2BU is an astonishing track
– it reminds me of Antony and the
Johnsons. How did the melody and
lyrics came together?
Delighted that you mention Antony
and the Johnsons; she [Anohni] is a huge
influence on our music. That song begun
on an acoustic guitar, and the synths
came off an iPad. The rhythm is just 4/4,
but Chris [Talbot, percussion] played
with the accents ‘til it sounded like it
wasn't. The lyrics are kind of a revenge
fantasy, a sort of play on jealousy and
trying to attain the things you'll never
have. Melodically and structurally it's
a simple folk ditty, we just took things
away until it no longer sounded like it
was. Thematically, "I'm the type of man/
who wants to watch the world burn" ties
the album together quite nicely.
Q3/ What do you think are the
primary catalysts of the ‘male
malaise’ that the album investigates?
Well, this album has a real nihilistic
edge to it. It's sort of about acting up
when you have nothing to look forward
to, about performing something you
don't believe in because you think you
have to. In the UK we have an appalling
suicide rate among young men, and
a culture of silence and violence that
creates all kind of problems that could be
avoided. I should stress we are directing
this anger and disgust inwards, which
again is kind of the point of the record,
all the performative anger and cock
rock performance is kind of directed at
ourselves. Fulfilling the macho stereotype
kind of hurts everyone.
Q4/ Alpha Female’s lyrics go “I will
not hold you back, simple as that.”
Do you think recognising the female
position is part of being a modern man?
of it. Truthfully, hand on heart, that storm
was 100% real. We saw it coming in and
pulled over at the last minute to try and
shoot it. It is the biggest storm I personally
have ever seen; it was absolutely crazy.
A lot of equipment got damaged and it
waylaid us for some time, but we only
captured 5% or so of it on camera. Even
for people who are used to a lot of rain, it
was legitimately terrifying.
If the organ which accompanies the gorgeously
stark tracks on Sarah Mary Chadwick’s latest
album sounds familiar, it’s probably because
you – or your mate – had one, sitting like a lump
in the loungeroom, when you were little. “This
guy that I lived with owned it, this big old ‘70s
kind of organ, the kind that nobody wants to buy
because they are massive and you can’t move
them anywhere,” she says. Chadwick bought
it from the housemate when he moved out,
and it’s been a marvellous pain in the neck ever
since. “When my girlfriend Steph [Crase, she
of Summer Flake] and I moved into our house,
the movers were not f-cking impressed. I don’t
really get it. It’s your job, what did you think this
was going to entail!?”
Piano was the first instrument Chadwick
learned; her excellent 2012 EP Eating For Two
leaned heavily on electric guitar, but this month’s
Roses Always Die and
her album of last year, 9
Classic Tracks, have made
the organ queen. “You
know how sometimes
you just need some new
toys, because you get
a bit bored of whatever
you’ve got?” Chadwick
asks. The instrument’s
reverential tones and
lonely beats give an extra confessional feel
these new tracks, which – despite their
lean composition – are rich with divulgence.
Chadwick thinks the “churchie vibe” might be
a result of too many plagal cadences in her
Catholic upbringing, but it’s also really clear that
the solitary feel has prosaic grounds: since she’s
been writing solo, her interest in collaboration
has waned. “I’m actually f-cking really anxious
whenever I have to do things with other people,
which is annoying because it probably would be
fun, but I just can’t really get my head around
it any more,” she says. That’s fine with us – the
strength and beauty of Roses Always Die is in
its total truthfulness, and we wouldn’t have her
sacrifice that for anything.
visit MUSIC NEWS
10 AUGUST 2016
MUSIC
Q1/ The album is full of references
to huge historical figures (as is the
album presser – Hayden [Thorpe,
guitar and falsetto vocals] mentions
Freudian theory and Lord Byron); what
do they mean to your worldview?
Certainly we're aware that we're not
writing in a vacuum – things have been
iterated and reiterated in all kinds of ways,
musically, lyrically, [so on]. A lot of writing
and performing is a kind of imitation,
and we are aware that we're using stuff
from all over the place. Certainly finding
something from maybe 200 years ago that
resonates now is part of the fun, and using
and re-contextualising it is part of the job.
Q2/ The video for Big Cat is
mesmerising! The short scene where
you’re standing on the road outside
of the car, in the headlights and the
wind, with huge cracks of lightning in
the distance – how real was it?
Thank you very much, we're very proud
INTERVIEW
TOM FLEMING WILD BEASTS
continued
SARAH MARY CHADWICK
INTERVIEW
Roses
Always Die
by Sarah Mary
Chadwick is out
August 5 via
Rice Is Nice.
UK four-piece Wild Beasts are releasing their fifth album, the
swaggering, beautiful and very thematically thoughtful Boy King.
We spoke to bassist and tenor vocalist Tom Fleming.
Boy King by Wild
Beasts is out August 5
via Domino.