Not satisfied with being labeled the next big thing from the U.K., the Maccabees are constantly looking towards the future. While they just finished a North American tour with Bloc Party and will be doing the festival thing in Europe this summer, the band has their sights on a second album.
Hold on there, we just got done enjoying their debut album, Colour It In, with those tightly constructed post-punk songs that gives you that happy feeling in your feet. So for us in the U.S., we'll absorb their freshly released debut album.
Orlando Weeks is the Maccabees lead singer and I talked with him while the band was in Canada with Kele & Co. I would like to welcome him to this space.
How did the band come together?
We all use to meet around at this park called Clapham Commons that was by our house. My brother went to school with Hugo, the guitarist. We got bored playing football around the park so often that we just decided to form a band instead.
Did you know early on what you wanted to sound like?
There was a big learning curve when we were starting out playing instruments. We were just hoping something would sound right. In the beginning we would rehearse in our bedrooms, just trying to keep it quiet. Then when we found a proper rehearsal space, so we could branch out and progress.
What’s that area of London like, the Clapham area?
It’s actually pretty cool. It has a good music scene. It's known for having a big DJ culture. I was not listening to a lot of variety of music, but the boys were massive Dylan fans. Then when we started playing more, we started listening to The Clash.
What’s the songwriting process for you because some of your lyrics are not straight-forward?
The first we do is find the style we’re going for, whether it be a baseline or guitar-part with melody. We don’t actually have a formula. It depends on the song – sometimes the lyrics will come first or comes out of the recording.
Your first single was "X-Ray". Did you make this song as sort of an introduction to the band and your sound?
I suppose so. We didn’t do that many recordings when we released the song. It was just the song that sounded the best. I guess it did represent us at the time. From there, after we started touring with Bloc Party, we were making music that was more intricate and had more of a dance feel.
My favorite song on the album is "Latchmere," which was your second single. It has an interesting structure because it starts out with a harmonica and it has a fun, unusual chorus. Did you play around with the song in order to get to the final product?
Well, it was pretty straight forward. It started out as a song about my friend who couldn’t swim. While we were in the studio, I told the boys that and as it turns out, they all knew about this swim park called Latchmere and the wave machine there. So we made the song about that.
You got some of the best producers working on the album, Stephen Street and Ben Hillier. How did you decide which producer would work on which song?
Ben had us record some songs in a swimming pool. The songs we did with Stephen were more up-tempo and were done in a nice, crisp studio. Then the songs that we recorded with Ben, they were more spirited I suppose. Our approach with him was a little more experimental.
Well, I hope you got the water out of the pool before you recorded.
It’s funny you say that because we recorded it in the middle of the summer in central London and it was unbearably hot. We had to use these dehumidifiers to keep the temperature down. The amount of sweat we produced probably could have filled that swimming pool.
"Toothpaste Kisses" is a slow song among all you’re big rock tracks. Did you want to have a song like that on the album that kind of balances out the rest of the album?
We recorded that track after we had done all our singles. We figured we needed something that was a bracket to whatever we will do on the next album. We actually wanted something on the album that was more optimistic. We also felt we needed a song that hints at the direction we’re going to take musically in the future. While we still love the Strokes and Interpol, we’ve started to listen to different things like Rufus Wainwright and Violent Femmes. So hopefully "Toothpaste Kisses" is a sign of things to come.
How does it make you feel when NME labels you the Best New Band in the U.K.?
It’s very complimentary and we do appreciate it, but then again, that label is given to a band every week. So we take it with a gain of salt.
S
o did this album turn out how you expected?
Well, I was hoping that by releasing the album, it would give us an opportunity to make a second album. While sonically, it’s a good representation of what’s we’ve done up to that point. For me, I don’t listen to the album any more because I want to concentrate on new material.
You’ve toured a lot with Bloc Party, they treating you okay?
Very well. I think they are going to let us store some of our gear in their trucks now, which would be a big help [laughs].
This first U.S. tour is a baptism by fire for you. You’re playing some pretty big rooms to start out with.
We wouldn’t have it any other way. We treat every gig the same. It’s a treat to play our music to a new audience in every city. People have been enjoying it and know some of the words, so we get a kick out of that. It’s also great to see all of the U.S.
Final question, how does it feel to be part of the liberation movement that won independence for the Jewish people?
We don’t care, we just appreciate that their name is really good [laughs].
great interview. thanks for giving them the attention they deserve!
Posted by: ShelvesofVinyl | June 27, 2007 at 01:44 PM
i do like them, shame i couldn't see them when they played the knitting factory in early june. college stuff to attend to but i hope they come back soon, i check their tour dates and things periodically.
Posted by: mandy | July 19, 2007 at 10:00 PM
Fantastic band.
Saw them at Glastonbury this year in a tiny tent and haven't been able to stop playing the album since.
Posted by: Steve | August 02, 2007 at 05:57 PM
The Maccabees are amazinnnnng! First Love, Latchmere, About your Dress & Toothpaste Kisses are brilliant...I cannot WAIT for the second album.
Posted by: Louise | August 30, 2007 at 07:18 AM
whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa what?!
the maccabees were NOT in canada were they?! i knew they toured the US with bloc party but i didn't think that canada was even a stop on that tour. omg. what? i know this is way overdue but somehow i don't believe you...
Posted by: Tennie | July 27, 2008 at 11:03 PM
.It seems that there isn't much you can do to separate a peosrn from his beloved preconceptions: apparently, some reporters and news editors already "knew" that the rabbi is against the trees, and once they knew that, nothing--not even their own reportage--was going to change the way they present the story.Even now, when the trees are back up, the rabbi promised not to sue (at least not this year), and the airport has (sort of) intimated that they may respond positively to his request.... next year (maybe), the media continues to spin the "War Against Christmas" story and the hate mail continues to pour in.The irony is that, for the last 25 years, there has been an ongoing debate within the Jewish community on the very issue of religious displays in public places during the winter holiday season--with Rabbi Bogomilsky and his colleagues squarely on the very opposite side of the debate than the side that's being attributed to him.The sight of one menorah burning proudly through the night will do more for Jewish continuity than the removal of 1000 Christmas trees... There are 300 million people living in America, a large majority of whom are proud Christians; among them live about 5 million Jews. Come December, trees and other holiday paraphernalia blossom forth throughout the length and breadth of the land. Many Jews feel challenged by this phenomenon. "How can I raise my child to feel secure in and proud of his Jewishness," they wonder, "when he's confronted by these displays in every store window, hotel lobby and village square? How can I myself avoid feeling resentful, left out, discriminated against?"Not long ago, the answer for many was: We'll fight the trees! We'll take them to court, we'll cite the Establishment Clause, and get all religious symbols removed from the public domain.Chabad-Lubavitch took a different tack. Don't fight to remove the trees--put up menorahs! Don't direct your efforts to make America "less Christian"--work to celebrate America's freedom to encourage Jews in their Jewishness. Would not a single positive message be so much more effective than a thousand un-messages? Would not the sight of a single menorah burning proudly through the night do more for Jewish pride and Jewish continuity than the removal of a thousand trees?Today, most of the Jewish community has been won over to this view. But it wasn't so long ago that Chabad-Lubavitch encountered vehement opposition for spearheading the "shower them with light" approach. I remember one particular year in the mid 1980's when I was involved in helping organize the activities surrounding the public menorah lightings during Chanukah in Seattle (yes, the very same Seattle). A national Jewish organization took the city to court to try and force them to revoke their permission for Chabad-Lubavitch to put up the menorah. They were actually quite apologetic to us: "Please understand, we have nothing against your menorah, but we're suing the city to make them take down the Christmas trees and cre8ches, so in all fairness, we need to fight the menorah too..."So, irony of ironies, a Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi trying to put up a menorah is portrayed in hundreds of newspapers and television broadcasts from coast to coast as... the man who made SeaTac Airport remove the trees.Shamefully, the airport is still obfuscating about why it is one of the only places in the United States to deny a menorah request. Hopefully in the short time left between now and Chanukah they will "see the light."But if there's a lesson here for the rest of us, it may simply be: don't presume. Don't think that you already know what your fellow human being is all about, what he or she stands for, what s/he wants to achieve. If we'd listen to each other more, we might actually like what we hear.Happy Chanukah! www.chabad.org
Posted by: Doreen | July 23, 2012 at 12:54 PM
It's not fake. The sensor bar has two aryars of IR LED at each side and the wiimote has an IR Camera, so it can read a static position and then the wiimote decides where the pointer is. It works with a couple of candles because any flame irradiates infrared light. The wiimote indeed works without the sensor bar for some games, but you will not have the pointing function.
Posted by: Varanasi | July 23, 2012 at 06:43 PM