Editors Interview with Tom Smith (Dec 2007)

EDITORS

by Craig Ablitt

When we get hold of Editors’ well-spoken and entirely charming leader Tom Smith, he’s fresh from recording an appearance with his band on Jonathan Ross’ chat show, sharing that famous green room with such luminaries as Hollywood megastar Will Smith, “a cool, nice bloke,” remarks Smith, the Strictly Come Dancing judges, “obnoxious”, and tit rag/trash mag darling; the ‘cocaine hovering, Mum of the year’ Kerry Katona, “a sweetheart really, a normal girl,” he surmises.

Regardless of what anyone thinks about these public figures, sharing television programmes with such recognisable names is simply a measure of how highly regarded Editors have become in the two and a half years since they crash-landed into the album charts at number two with debut album The Back Room. In a year that has seen the Birmingham-based band go one better with not so difficult album number two An End Has A Start, conquering Glastonbury and selling out the Academy-sized venues reserved for Britain’s musical glitterati, Smith and co. are safe in the knowledge that 2008 could be their biggest yet, after watching the likes of Alexandra Palace sell out with ease for next March’s tour.

“It has been a great year for Editors in our relatively short career,” agrees Smith. “It seems hard at the moment for bands to get a second album out which is more successful than the first, but ours went to number one, which is something you dream about doing and not a realistic aim,” he quips a little too modestly in our opinion. Modest due to the fact that An End Has A Start realised the expectations raised from the melodic, chorus led, soul-baiting euphoria of the first record, notable on the grandiose and ambitious gestures heard on tracks such as ‘The Racing Rats’ or the big world optimism of ‘Escape The Nest’. Although, throughout the interview Smith remains considerate of his words, distancing himself from bands who “shout from the rooftops, proclaiming that they are the biggest band in the world,” (anyone see our Hard-Fi interview?) Smith seems more comfortable explaining how Editors have tackled their second album that has – if you excuse the cliché – elevated their status.

“I think it was the confidence we got after the success of The Back Room that made us more ambitious on this album,” Smith points out. “Before, we would have been scared to pick up an acoustic guitar or sit at a piano, or add strings and things like that, but I think we channelled that confidence into ambition to make a record that wasn’t just four people in a room,” he adds, nodding to the at times wall-of-sound feel to the second record. “It hasn’t made us the biggest band in Britain, but the gigs have been getting bigger, we’re a better band than before and it feels good,” he continues, assessing the band’s success in a justified manner.

“When we were making the second album, we couldn’t wait for people to hear it. We have this quiet self belief that we won’t let get too big as you can come across as arrogant, but it is inside us,” he continues, choosing each word carefully as not to sound like one of many of Britain’s notorious rock & roll big heads. “You do need a certain bravado and arrogance when you’re in a band though and need that when you get onstage to perform to a room full of people.”

Anyone that has been in these rooms can testify that it is in this environment where the true energy and the quiet self-belief Editors possess fully unfolds itself, garnering them a reputation as one of the most exciting live acts to see in the country. The evidence is clear from the size of venues the band step up to with each tour they announce. Last year they smashed Brixton Academy with three sold out nights, as already mentioned; they were one of the highlights of this year’s Glastonbury, and next year sees them taking in some of the biggest halls in the land, with the aforementioned two night stand at the gargantuan Alexandra Palace. Typically of Smith, his modesty and both feet on the ground attitude towards being placed in such lofty scenarios translates to the live arena also.

“It’s all a bit bonkers really,” he chuckles, when it is put to him that near on 100 000 people will be attending next year’s UK tour. “It’s a big deal for us that we get to play these big shows, and if you analyse that too much, you’ll go insane!” he laughs. “We’re very excited about it though and we’ll go at it with al guns blazing, but it will be hard, because we’re new at this and not an arena band by any stretch and in front of 8000 people you need bigger gestures to work the bigger rooms, so you need to do something big,” he says, remaining consistently grounded about the prospect.

So what will this ‘big’ thing be? Pyrotechnics? Pink Floyd-esque theatrics and ridiculous stage props akin to the cock-rock hair metal fools of the 1980s? Of course not, it’ll be just the band unleashing An End Has A Start’s anthemic qualities tin the size of venue it deserves, whether Smith agrees of not.

“You mention the word anthemic, and some of our songs are big songs with big chorus’ and melodies,” he agrees with us. “Traditionally, those things work for other bands in big spaces and I don’t know if we’re quite there,” he says, continuing the reserved and unnecessary theme of almost self-deprecation. “Maybe it will work, maybe we’ll fall and look like idiots, maybe it’ll be magic. I do know this; when we recorded and rehearsed songs like ‘Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors’ and ‘The Racing Rats’; the hairs on the neck stood up and moved us. Hopefully people will feel that connection as well.”

As we come to the end of the interview and of course the end of 2007, now is the time to ask Smith what 2008 has in store for Editors. Another album so quickly may be a bit too much to ask seeing as we only got An End Has A Start this year, but according to Smith, he’s already putting the wheels in motion for what he describes as “the third record we need to make.”

“I already have three or four songs in me trying to get out,” he reveals. “There’s no fixed ideas on how the record will sound, but we’re hopeful that we can get at least a couple of new songs up and running to play on the tour and at festivals next year,” he continues, revealing news that will please those attending next year’s dates. “We enjoy playing live and there’s an element of intensity and size of the sound of something about playing live that I don’t think we’ve captured on record yet, so that’s what we’ll be aiming to do with the next album.”

So how to sum up Editors? The country holds them in obvious high regard, but there’s a burning feeling you get from Smith, that in his eyes whether he’ll admit it or not, that the band have got their eyes on something a lot bigger than they already have their hands on. “Doing this does feel like Christmas and birthday all at once,” he offers. “Very few people find that thing they love doing and manage to do it for a living and be successful or be in between that, and that’s where I think we are at this moment – in between. We don’t want to let any of this slip, or take it for granted.”