Maccabees - youlikewelike

youlikewelike

Brighton-based indie band the Maccabees have been gradually building a reputation as the dark horses of the indie scene. Debut album Colour It In brimmed with rousing and joyous, but also strangely innocent, pop songs. On the eve of the release of their new album, we caught up with guitar player Felix White to discuss growing up, second albums and surviving the credit crunch.

After forming in Clapham, London, in 04 and then relocating to Brighton, the band have since retained a core of loyal fans drawn from their early days of gigging. Upon tackling second album, Wall Of Arms, White acceptes that the band are in a "privileged position" of counting on these committed devotes who will follow the group no matter what.

"We know we mean something to a group of people and they feel a kind of loyalty to us," he says. "There is an affinity with certain people. The kids who were 16 or 17 when they first got into our band have kind of grown up a bit with us. So I don't think we felt pressured at all [in making the album]. We only felt pressure because we wanted to make a good record."

Growing up is an important theme of the new record, on which lead songwriter and front-man Orlando Weeks has tapped into a more complex seam of inspiration without losing sight of what the Maccabees are about. However, this renewed take on the world does side-step the current doom and gloom of the global credit crunch, which White says hasn't really hit the band too hard.

"I suppose that people will always want to hear good music, no matter what the social situation is. We're just gonna keep ploughing on with our own thing. We enjoy this band and it gives us a purpose in life. You've just gotta keep your heads down and not worry too much. Stuff always goes on in life and you just have to keep going on your own path."

Earlier in the year, the band unleashed a taste of the new album with the digital release of No Kind Words. Drawing from a Joy Division-style sonic palette, the song about broken down relationships marked a clear progression from Colour It In. As White admits, "I think the new record sounds a bit less naive than the first one. It wasn't contrived, though, as we didn't really contrive to do anything. It just happened. We are all a lot better players, better writers and all that kind of thing. We're a band that presents our little take on the world and the things that are personal to us."

White points out that No Kind Words is "definitely the darkest thing" on Wall Of Arms, but it fits in well with the new sound where there is a "lot more going on in every song". This marks the band moving on from just "playing live in a room" to actually refining the songs to reach a higher level.

"It’s that classic thing of bands doing their second record where the first one was songs that you play live, but you never imagine getting a record deal," White explains. "You play the songs and you know which ones come across best live and when it comes to making an album, you just record the songs you've been playing live. But this time, we sat down before anything was written and really tried to write for a record. There was also a concept which we wanted to go with and things which we wanted to achieve that we hadn't done the first time."

To help conjure up this new sound, the band worked with Arcade Fire producer Markus Drav, who brought the best out of the group with a 'less is more' approach. White points out that it is easy for bands approaching a second album to think big with the production, however, Drav simply reminded them what made the band work in the first place.

"So we've ended up with no pianos, no strings, none of that kind of thing," White says, laughing. "I suppose from listening to this record you can tell that he [Drav] has worked with Brian Eno and stuff, you can hear it. But it also has things that we would never have done before, like having little textures under things and strange noise that you wouldn't even hear unless they were taken out. I may be sounding a bit pretentious here, but I think the record is fucking great."

Drav's influence is immediately recognisable on the album's first single, Love You Better. This epic, sweeping love song retains the Maccabees charm, but presents it in a more mature, accomplished way. Maybe this will help take the band from being dark horses on the indie scene to proper contenders for the big time.

"I think that many people who have made their minds up about the Maccabees are going to change them when they hear this record," White enthuses. "Its proper, man, we'll put it up against anything that people have made in recent times and stand up for it."

Love You Better by the Maccabees is released on 27 April, followed by the album Wall Of Arms on 4 May.

words: Andrew Laughlin