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Congratulations on the new album.
I’m enjoying it. There’s some strong
music on there.
Thank you very much. We always
start as we mean to carry on. We came
off the last album with feeling a little bit
depressed and trying to cheer ourselves
up following the loss of Jonny Brooks.
So it was a bit of a challenge, again, to
not have to think about things like that.
But where we left off on the last album,
we carried on from this album, so we’re
on a bit of a roll.
The recording of
Different Days
was
quite a change then after
Modern
Nature
?
It was hard recording
Modern Nature
;
we had to get into a different mindset.
There’s a lot of people who are spiritual
and some people aren’t, you know what
I mean? I’m quite spiritual, and Jon was.
So with this album, I had to make sure
that he was okay, or make sure in my
own head that he was okay with this
whole thing. We just had to leave
things as they were and just move
on and be happy, ‘cause that’s
what he would’ve wanted. So this
album was a lot easier for me. We
were in a good headspace.
That’s good to hear. As a band,
you have an innate ability to pick
yourselves up and keep moving
forward.
We have to. What are you meant to
do? You can’t pack in. The bandmembers
who have gone before us would’ve done
the same. They’d want you to carry on.
The name of the band was so important
to all of us - The Charlatans as a band
means so much to us. It’s not about
individual people, it’s about a collective.
We’re a collective, and everyone
who comes into this fold really, really
appreciates what The Charlatans mean.
We’ve got Pete [Salisbury, drums] at the
moment. He came from The Verve, and
this band means so much to him too.
When you come into it, you have to be
passionate about it and that’s the whole
thing about The Charlatans. It’s very easy
for every single one of us to go off and
make a record; that’s the easy route,
really. But we’ve got five people, and
to collectively make an album which is
worth listening to is a harder cast than
one person going off and making a solo
album. We’re passionate about working
together as artists, and making a good
record.
What was the writing process like
for Different Days? Did you meet in
the studio and start writing, or did
you come together with demos and
start bouncing ideas off each other?
We all write individually; the whole
band does. We have individual ideas
and we basically bring it to the coffee
table. We sit down and work on every
single one. So we might’ve written 24,
25 tracks, and basically we just picked
the ones that worked together as a
collective. There’s a few songs that didn’t
make it, which, probably now looking at
it, should’ve. But that’s fuel for another
album. We all work together and we
appreciate everybody’s inputs; I think the
biggest thing is we respect each other.
Well, you have spent a lot of time
together - 28 years now. There’s a real
positive feel to the album.
Well, we used to hang out a hell of
a lot together. As we’ve got older, we
don’t need to do that anymore. We just
know what each other is thinking. We
have this kind of telepathy, I suppose
- we know which way to go. I tell you
what, it’s always fun when you’ve got a
good song to work on. When you’ve got
a song that you’re not sure about, that
makes it difficult, but when a song is
good, when it’s got a great vibe, you’re
throwing yourself into it. “I want to do
a bit more”, “I want to do this”, “I want
to do that.” We’re fighting for the studio
time to finish it off.
I think that’s what this album’s proved,
because although it sounded like it
took a long time - we went in there in
September and we finished in January -
we actually only did two weeks in each
month. So in all, ten, twelve weeks
and it was finished. I know it sounds
a long time in a studio environment,
but it’s easily eaten up. For us,
we did it very quickly and only
because we enjoyed doing it.
When you’ve got a dodgy tune you
think is not working, we always put
it to sleep, and we just work on the
ones that do work.
I liked the spoken word and the
instrumental sections between the
tracks - it has a real ‘concept album’
feel to it. Where did that idea come
from?
Well, this is the 13
th
album. How do
we carry on? We can’t just do something
that sounds the same and feels the
same - we need to add something.
Somebody mentioned the idea of
working with our friends. And the whole
idea [was], it’s not just about music. A
lot of our friends are poets [and]
authors, so we wanted to get them
4 3 2 1
The Charlatans
as a band means
so much to us.
It’s not about
individual people,
it’s about a
collective