Taken from www.theplayground.co.uk
The Words interview
Pure simple and frank are three apt words to describe the music from The Words – 4 piece indie rock band from Manchester. The guys are developing an exciting reputation as one of the top up and coming acts in the country by combining an incredible passion for what they are doing with the ability to create ‘music for the masses’.
Forming 6 years ago, the band now is about to release their debut album ‘Truth & Faith’ in mid November with a slew of shows during that period and a showcase party at Manchester’s prestigious Factory 251 venue.
The Words have released several acclaimed EP’s, and the latest one ‘Everybody’s With You’ will appear at the end of October, as the first track taken from the album. The Words’ fan base is growing as well, with their biggest gig to date at the Stuttgarter Sternstunden festival playing in front of 40,000 fans whilst supporting 30 Seconds to Mars and Placebo celebrating Mercedes-Benz 125th birthday.
It took you a while to record your debut album, was it hard to pull songs together from such different points in the bands lifetime?
When we were recording our album we just really wanted to make sure that we could get everything down that we had at the time in the studio. The hardest part was picking 12 songs out of about the 35 we had previously recorded as we had old favourite’s that we had polished up and lots of new songs as well coming through all the time. We had lots of ideas we wanted to try on some old songs and we ended up picking the 12 songs we felt best represented us as a band.
Do you have any musical arguments when you’re working on your songs?
Obviously when we’re writing new songs everyone has different ideas, maybe this bit of the song should have a change or this part of the song should stop at a certain point and come back in, but we don’t really have musical arguments as such we just all contribute our ideas until we’re happy.
What is the most exiting thing about touring and playing onstage? How have your new tracks been effected or molded by touring?
Touring and playing onstage is the best part about being a band and the reason we all do it. Going playing in London one night then Manchester the next night to totally different crowds is such a great feeling, especially when you know that people have travelled to come see you play with friends. The new songs have also gone down really well when we have played them live, and we keep evolving them when we play them live so it’s great to keep things fresh.
Anyone you would like to collaborate with, who are your favorites at the moment?
We’d love to play a song with someone like Brian Molko or Brandon Flowers. That would be amazing!
You were supporting Placebo this August in Stuttgart. Have you had a chance to have a little talk to somebody from the band?
We did get to speak to the bass player and drummer from Placebo at the after party and they said some great things about us, the drummer Steve Forrest was even watching us from the side of the stage during our last few songs. They were really nice guys and it was great to hear such nice comments about our show from one of the biggest bands in the world.
How was the Stuttgart show in general? It was the biggest crowd that you have been playing for, wasn’t it?
The show in Stuttgart this August was literally the best 2 days of our lives and yes, by far the biggest crowd we have ever played too. The crowd got into our sound right from the very beginning and the moment we started playing they were clapping along to the drum beat, waving their hands in the air and having a great time, we even saw some of the crowd singing along to some of the songs which made us feel incredible.
Have you ever received some special gifts from your fans?
Since the Germany gig we have had a few things done for us, for example people have drawn pictures of the band and posted them on the Facebook page which is amazing to see.
We’ve seen a chat you’ve had on your FB page with some fans and it was in Polish! Do any of you guys speak Polish?
Since playing in Germany the amount of new fans we’re picked up throughout Europe has been incredible and they interact amazingly with us on Facebook, posting in Polish was just a way of interacting with them in their own language. None of us actually speak Polish though, that was Ste using Google Translate! We’ve picked up loads of fans from Germany, Poland, Austria, Italy, Finland, Russia and many more places. We’re being asked all the time when we’ll be touring Europe and we’re currently looking to setup a tour of Germany for later in the year or early 2012.
Where you find an inspiration for the songwriting?
We all take different inspiration from different bands when it comes to song writing which seems to work great, when we all get in the room and write songs together there’s nothing better, they all sound so different to each other and it’s a great feeling to draw on so many different influences.
What do you do to relax and get away from music?
Well when we are not touring or playing music we all like to do different things in our spare time. Hanging out with friends, football, Graeme is into his paintballing. As a band we get on amazingly well so even when we’re not rehearsing or gigging we’ll often just get together.
