CHVRCHES perform in The Current studio
by Mac Wilson and CHVRCHES
October 12, 2015
CHVRCHES may have spent a good part of Saturday, Oct. 10, at the Electric Fetus record shop in Minneapolis, but Lauren Mayberry was looking for a book. "I really want to find the Grace Jones book because she's awesome," Lauren says.
Explaining his lack of purchases, Mayberry's bandmate Iain Cook was simply being pragmatic. "The problem with touring is that by the time you actually pack all your clothes and everything, there's no room for buying anything else," he says, "so vinyl shopping tends to be a low priority."
While visiting The Current's studio ahead of that night's show at the Myth in Maplewood, Minn., CHVRCHES — Mayberry, Cook and Martin Doherty — spoke to host Mac Wilson about their recent album, Every Open Eye. The album has been receiving positive reviews, and the band members themselves are pleased with the effort. "This record feels like a distillation of album one, it feels like a progression, it feels like more of a natural development as opposed to trying to reinvent the wheel which is definitely what we were trying to avoid," Doherty says. "Ultimately, that arc from album one right through to now has been continuous and steady and has progressed in a really nice way for us, it's great."
Here are additional highlights from Mac Wilson's interview with CHVRCHES:
On the challenge of making their second album:
Doherty: "I don't think we were drawing from any one particular example, because second records are very difficult, I find, when you go back through. We were well aware of that. It's the classic thing of the band is new and exciting and you bring people to the shows and people buy your first record because you are new and maybe it is exciting, but do those people stay with you on the second record? We spent some time thinking about that, but luckily we managed to lock those thoughts out of the studio. We had a great time making this record to be honest; we toured Bones [debut album, The Bones of What You Believe] for almost two years. By the time we got back to Glasgow, we were properly ready to be in the studio, to flip back to the mode we were in before anyone knew or cared about this band. We had such a good time."
On the band's DIY attitude:
Doherty: "We were always of the mind we would make all of our output ourselves, once we still felt inspired as writers, as producers — as a team, first and foremost. By the time we came to make album two, we were very much still in that mindset and we are now."
On the ballad-like sound of the song, "Afterglow":
Doherty: "That's where we were aiming, that stuff, the classic songwriting, maybe a bit more to the emotional core than you might find these days in pop music. & hellip; Did we wrestle with this song for quite some time! And we fell out, and two months of back and forth, it was almost in the bin at one point. And then eventually, [we] stripped everything out and just let the song breathe a little bit. I'm really proud of that, I think it's the most restraint we've ever shown in a recording, on that song."
On Every Open Eye being compared to Jimmy Eat World's 2001 album, Bleed American:
Mayberry: "I did not think about that [while making the album], but Jimmy Eat World is etched on my teenage soul, so maybe subconsciously I wanted to be Jimmy."
On CHVRCHES' emo roots:
Mayberry: "When I was a teenager, I didn't know that 'emo' was a dirty word. I lived in a rural area and it was just music I found out about from reading in magazines and certain late-night TV shows. I guess, for me, it just means music with emotional content, and I don't think there's a problem with that in any way because that's what I look for in the music I listen to. … I don't think it's bad, I'm happy. I've got my emo t-shirt on all the time in my heart."
Listen to the complete interview to find out more about CHVRCHES, including the artists they'd love to collaborate with, inspired by the way Franz Ferdinand have collaborated with Sparks.
Songs Performed
"Leave a Trace"
"Afterglow"
"The Mother We Share"
The first two songs are off CHVRCHES' 2015 release, Every Open Eye, available on Glassnote Records; "The Mother We Share" comes from CHVRCHES' 2013 debut, The Bones of What You Believe, out on Glassnote Records.
Hosted by Mac Wilson
Produced by Derrick Stevens
Engineered by Michael DeMark
Web feature by Luke Taylor (words) and Leah Garaas (visuals)
