Guillemots Interview

GUILLEMOTS

Like Kids In A Sweetshop

by Craig Ablitt

When the Guillemots arrived with their debut album Through The Windowpane in 2006; Britain was greeted with the sort of wide-eyed, melody laden, zestful enthusiasm that could only be attributed to the sort of musical genius likened to Brian Wilson. Windowpane demonstrated their irreplaceable leader Fyfe Dangerfield’s ability to paint musical landscapes with no attention to rules, genres or blueprints made real by the eclectic tastes of his multi-instrumental bandmates and rightfully earned them Mercury Prize and MOJO nominations for best album.

Next month sees the Guillemots release their sophomore album Red, which if to believed, paints an even broader sonic palette than the debut and will once again throw the cat among the pigeons in the all too often predictable popscene we ‘enjoy’ today. Given the fact the band now has their own studio and nerve centre in a converted synagogue in Bethnal Green to do as they please, we tracked down drummer Greig Stewart to find out just what to expect from the intriguing prospect of Red.

“Having our own studio certainly gave us the opportunity to spend more time experimenting with lots of different sounds,” Stewart offers in his gentle Scottish tone. “We have all these small rooms and places in there so we took advantage of that. For instance; we recorded in the lift shaft on one of the dancier tracks and also recorded the sound of air whooshing out of an air bed!” he laughs, before adding: “There were some bats in there too, so we recorded the sound of them and there was one track Fyfe wrote, where he went away for the weekend and he came back to find this weird drum sound on there. He was like ‘what’s that?’ ‘Oh, it’s a cheese grater!’ I guess we’ve been like kids in a sweetshop!”

Paired with the usual array of bizarre instrumentation, Guillemots have of course let their imaginations run away with them when approaching the sound and melody of each track. Where in the past Dangerfield would come to the band with songs of his own, Red sees Guillemots take a different approach to recording with all four members pitching in their own ideas. Interesting given the quartet’s diverse musical background; guitarist MC Lord Magrao is known to love metal and experimental house, bassist Aristazabal Hawkes is a classically trained pianist and jazz lover, Stewart a rock fan, also into world music and Dangerfield; well a bit of everything.

“On paper it’s hard to see how we manage to work as a unit! It does, but even I can’t explain it,” Stewart chuckles. “At the beginning we just started jamming out all these different songs and ideas and it was a little chaotic and took a while to get used to, but we got there in the end,” he states. “I guess the only difficulties came at the end when we were mixing the album and discussing minute things and parts we didn’t like that someone had done, but it was a democracy and everyone got a fair say.”

Fans will have already heard a taster in new single ‘Get Over It’, but unlike many artists; this snippet offers no clues to the variety of sounds and ideas portrayed on the album. Take the wonderfully bizarre deranged disco refrain of ‘Kriss Kross’, the porcelain-like fragility of ‘Standing On The Last Star’ and the track that’ll really catch the attention of fans of their unexpected nature; the modern US and A R&B pop attack of ‘Big Dog’. A bold genre-leap if there ever was one. A risky jump even by Guillemots standards.

“At the beginning we did want some of the tracks to have this American, sort of Timbaland production and even tried out one of his guys Jimmy Douglas to produce a couple but it didn’t work out properly,” he reveals. “We’ve really been into the sort of stripped down, new R&B pop stuff like Justin Timberlake’s ‘Sexyback’, but once he (Douglas) sent the tracks back; it was obvious our take on R&B and his must have been different!”

For any Guillemots fans beginning to worry that they have transformed into a multi-genre pop music experiment that has lost sight of melody and their trademark craftsmanship; Stewart is quick to point out that for any band to stand out and progress; experimentation is key.

“We couldn’t just make Windowpane part two,” he offers. “Fyfe maintains that The Beatles were really experimental and still managed to make great pop records with good melodies, but these days if you do something weird you run the risk of being called kooky and pretentious,” he adds. “Some of Red is dancefloor motivated, some of it is ballady, some of it you can jump up and down to. We want to appeal to new people as well as our fans but you can’t please everyone at once!”