65daysofstatic

Een aantal maanden terug kwam Britse 65daysofstatic met We Were Exploding Anyway. De act was op z’n zachts gezegd allesbehalve standaard, maar doet daar op deze plaat nog een schep bovenop. De muziek is elektronischer en vooral dansbaarder dan voorheen. Een aantal tracks uit hetzelfde opnameproces komen uit op Heavy Sky Ep en dit vonden we reden genoeg om voor aanvang van de show in de Groningense Vera een gesprek met gitarist Paul Wolinski aan te knopen.

“Hi, I’m Paul and I play in 65daysofstatic.” De band is weer terug in Nederland, wat vinden ze ervan om terug te zijn? “It’s pretty good and it’s getting better. When we first came over here, I guess we were kinda lucky, because the great venues here take chances with us. The first time we came here, it was really quiet. A few years ago, we played a show here and there were like thirty of forty people, it wasn’t very big but the venue treated us like every other band, which was very nice.”

De band kwam vandaag pas om zes uur ‘s middags aan bij de zaal, vrij laat om nog even de stad in te duiken. Doen ze dat normaal gesproken wel? “It depends on the tour. When we’re on a big tour, we’re on a bus and we try to make the most of it. Actually, it depends on a lot of things. It depends on how we feel, because the show is the most important for the day and we’re really looking forward to play. In the beginning of the tour we can get up early, drink loads of coffee and run around for a few hours. As the tour rolls on and you go to cities you’ve been so many times, you realize it gets boring so you just chill at the venue, read a book or something.”

De dag na de show in Groningen speelt de band alweer in Engeland, dus dit is een losse show? “Yeah, well this is one out of four shows, like a little tiny tour. We were going to play a festival in Germany tomorrow, which was booked first. So when were coming that way, we wanted to do some shows on the road leading to that festival. The German-show got cancelled, but we didn’t want to cancel everything, that’s why we play our show here.”

Later in het jaar komt het viertal voor twee shows terug naar Nederland, een in de Sugar Factory te Amsterdam en eentje in de Eindhovense Effenaar. “Yeah, definitely Amsterdam. We never played that venue, we always played the Paradiso, in the small hall upstairs. That sold out for three times in a row, it would be nice if the other venue sells out as well.”

Twee jaar terug heeft de band met niemand minder dan The Cure getoured. Ze speelden dus in veel grotere zalen, maar hoe was dat voor de band? “We definitely had a different preparation than normally. It was strange, because we knew that every night, 99% of the crowd had no idea who we were. For us, it kinda made sense to play some sort of greatest hits show then. So we played songs that could grab people straight away. Honestly, it was an amazing tour. At first, we were terrified, because of the big venues and large crowds, but it got easy along the way. It was different: you don’t get the intensity because the crowd is so far away and the light show is very minimal. But instead you get this huge sound that you‘re making and it’s filling this big space. That is so satisfying. It’s not the same kind of satisfaction that you get when the crowd is right next to you, hot and sweaty and very chaotic.”

The Cure en 65daysofstatic is een vrij aparte combi, maar hoe kwam het zo ver? “Robert Smith just visited our dressing room. Really. In Brighton actually, the same venue where we played last night. After the show he came to us and said ‘I’ve seen you before and just watched you again, I really like you guys to play some shows with us.’ So we were like ‘ehhh, all right!’ For us, Madison Square Garden and the show in Paris were the best shows that tour. Most of the times the venues weren’t even half-full, sometimes they were half-full, but those two shows were totally full when we played.”

Vlak voor die tour kwam The Destruction of Small Ideals uit, maar tijdens die tour werden daar maar weinig tracks van gedaan, hoe kwam dat? “It was a strange period for us, because Destruction was a that we wrote to be an interesting record, but we didn’t thought of how we should translate that into an live show. We only ever played half that record, that we’re happy with. Also, it’s probably the least represented album in our live show.” Tijdens die tour is er een livedvd/cd opgenomen, Escape From New York, en hier staan ook twee non-album tracks op. Volgens Paul waren die twee tracks toegevoegd aan de setlist om eens wat anders te doen dan normaal.

Onlangs was uw interviewer in een platenzaak, waar ze me vertelden dat The Destruction of Small Ideals de enige plaat van de band was die op vinyl is uitgebracht. “False, because the new record is out on vinyl as well. We want to release the other two albums on vinyl and Monotreme Records, who put them out, is still interested in doing that. So when the time is right and hopefully on time!”

De nieuwe plaat is niet alleen veel dansbaarder, maar laat ook een soort evolutie van de band zien. Is dit een natuurlijk proces geweest? “It’s a combination of a lot of things, but for us it has always been there. When we started as a band, we had a drumcomputer and it was a lot noisier and dancier than our first record. When we incorporated livedrums in our sound, we got a lot better as a band. There was always some electronics on our records, but with the new one some more. Primarily, we wanted to make a record that we could play live. That meant that we only wanted to use the equipment that’s on stage, you know our backline. With Destruction we had grand pianos, string sections and all sorts of other things, this made it so hard to play it live with the things that we have.”

“Obviously, we have more electronics on stage, because nowadays we can effort more. We thought: ‘Lets all play that, lets work something out that all four of us can use electronics all at once.’ We spent a lot of time to write music that is electronic, without writing typical electronic songs. This was very exciting to do. I like instrumental bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Mogwai and when the those bands are good, they’re incredible. But there is some kind of self indulgence when bands think they’re very good, but aren’t. Bands who act so serious, but play simple notes with delay pedals and try to make people cry. It can get so wrong. We didn’t want that, but at the same time we knew we’re never going to be as good as Godspeed or Mogwai, so we did our own thing.”

Tijdens de vorige tour speelde de band nummers van de nieuwe plaat, maar ook een aantal van de opkomende EP. Was dat een soort try-out? “Yeah, it was. We called it the ‘test tour’ because we had half a dozen new songs and throughout that tour we played those tracks. That was a deliberate thing, because we knew that those songs weren’t entirely finished. We finished those tracks after that tour, but hearing them on a loud stage is so much better than hearing them in a rehearsal room. And a few tracks who weren’t on the album are on Heavy Sky EP, because all of those tracks, except ‘Guitar Cascades’ which came a little bit later, could’ve been on the album at one point. And a few of them even were on a provisional tracklisting.”

Als voorbeeld geef ik ‘PX3’, een nummer dat wel tijdens de vorige tour gespeeld is, maar waarom staat dit nummers dan uiteindelijk niet op We Were Exploding Anyway en wel op Heavy Sky EP? “Well, it’s the same as the rest of the tracks. And when we made the final tracklisting, it suddenly made sense. We were really worried at one point, when the album was already mixed. And maybe it was because of that we made a different album, we thought we didn’t quite nailed it. On the last day we fixed one track and when we listened to the album after that we were like ‘Ah! This is it, this is it!’ and it all kinda fell in it’s place. It was one song shorter that we thought it would be, but it felt good. And we always want to do something with the other songs, so it’s nice to put out a new EP.”

Overal op het internet staan allerlei bands waardoor 65daysofstatic door beïnvloed zou zijn. Dat gaat van Aphex Twin tot Mogwai en Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Door welke act is de band geïnspireerd voor het nieuwe album? “Probably Daft Punk, above all of them. I always listen to those other three bands, and I knew that Daft Punk was good, but when I sat down and listened to them I realize they’re very good. The music was so moving, so inspiring. Them and Deadmau5 actually, which is also very good.” Omdat Paul nog geen goede soundcheck heeft gedaan, moet ik het interview ietwat inkorten, dus sluit ik nu al af met de schoenmaatvraag. “My shoesize? Well, believe it or not, 8’s, 9’s and 10’s…I have a really hard to find type of feet. I just keep changing sizes I guess!”