From the nerve-wracked twitchy guitars and staccato vocals of Colour It In, to the atmospheric, Markus Dravs produced Wall Of Arms, and the textured “we’re grown-up now” vibes of Given To The Wild, The Maccabees have created one of Britain’s more varied indie discographies. Yet unlike other bands whose evolution into a more serious proposition leads them to pretend their earlier records never happened (Foals, Biffy Clyro), The Maccabees are regularly bullish about getting fans to lose their shit time and time again about an automated wave machine at Latchmere, their local swimming centre.
Right now, things are looking fairly rosy for the group. Marks To Prove It, released at the end of the month, has been receiving some pretty encouraging reviews, while a recent interview with Melvin Benn, the guy in charge of Reading & Leeds festivals, said that he’d like to see The Maccabees headline those festivals in the near future. In the run up to the release of their new record, we nabbed a moment on the phone with guitarist Felix White to see if he could stomach ranking the group’s four records to date.
4. COLOUR IT IN (2007)
Why is this your least favourite?
I don't know. I thought about it… it's hard to have total perspective on your own records isn't it? I genuinely do think that the records have got better as they've gone on. So I think my least favourite one is the first one: Colour It In. Sorry Colour It In mate! We still play quite a lot of the songs from Colour It In, and live, the songs have aged really well actually. There's something really touching that they still mean something to people, and there's quite a deep sentiment in the songs ten years on. But I think I slightly regret the way we recorded it. If you listen back to it, which I had to because we re-released it for the first time on vinyl about a month ago, I think the recordings already sound quite of their time. And it was only made seven years ago! It was very cleanly recorded and the vocals are really loud in the mix. It sounds the most vulnerable of all the records we made. Which is probably why people like it as well.
I can definitely see that. People always lose their nut when you whip out “Latchmere” at your gigs.
Yeah! That's why I don't want to knock them as songs. I think there's something, like I said, that's really lasted and really nice about it. The record is packed with musical ideas, and it’s really got its own personality. But like I said, I just think the recording makes it sound quite vulnerable, and yeah, maybe of its time.
3. WALL OF ARMS (2009)
Wall Of Arms is my third favourite Maccabees album. As a recording, I think it's pretty far evolved from Colour It In. It was a really good time recording it; we did it with Markus Dravs (Arcade Fire, Björk).
The engineer we did it with, who we were really close with, Francois Chevalier, died at the age of 29 a couple of years ago on holiday. I went to see his grave when I was in Paris a few days ago. So hearing that record, it’s like listening to something packed full of little memories of Francois. Especially the last song “Bag Of Bones” - which is probably, sonically, one of the most accelerated things on Wall Of Arms and it was a hint of where we were going. So I’ve always got Francois to thank for that. I always just did it with him in a room while the rest of the record was going on. But, yeah, Wall Of Arms, I like the brass on it and it still sounds super fast to me. A bit over enthusiastic for an album! It's a good record.
2. GIVEN TO THE WILD (2012)
We were all sure Given To The Wild was our best record when we made it. I think there are a number of reasons for that. It was a very ambitious record to make because of the amount of layers on it. It was the first time we decided, right, we want to consciously make this not sound like a band in a room and try and just see where we can take it. So it does sound, at times, very consciously composed and soundscaped, and there are loads of eccentric bits where things pop out. So I think, as far as pushing ourselves a few years ago, we didn't have any idea we were capable of doing something like that, so it was definitely something we were very proud of at the time. Again, some of the songs - like “Pelican” and a few others that we play live - I think actually still work better live. “Pelican” is a bit rougher and has more of a dynamic when we play it. The recordings are maybe slightly softer and a little bit tamer. Which I suppose is the case with most bands really.
1. MARKS TO PROVE IT (2015)
The music came together the slowest out of every record we've made with Marks To Prove It. It took a long time to get it going, and part of that was that we had to put a sort of framework on what the aesthetics were and what we were trying to achieve. We had to put that in place in order to get any music out of it, because it was so hard. It came a little less naturally. But I think in hindsight now, that's really made it the best record we've ever made, because we were so sure we wanted it to sound as close to how The Maccabees sound when you come and see us as possible, which I don't think any of the other records quite achieved. So it's got a really specific character - whereas Given To The Wild was a little bit less tangible, a bit non-specific in place. So we achieved something really good on Marks To Prove It, which is actually harder than it sounds, so I'm glad we did that.
I think listening back to it, it sounds, emotionally, quite heavy and quite moving. I don't know if that's just me, but that's the feeling I get. It’s much less layered and it’s way more direct - which doesn't mean it's quicker or faster or energetic; it just gets to the point in more direct ways. I think it's been a success.
Hand on heart; everyone else in the band feels the same as well. And the other really nice thing about this record, which has come about accidentally, but listening back to it, it's got a nice context and perspective to what The Maccabees is. On every record from before, it's like we're running away, saying “oh no, we're not that any more” whereas this has its own thing, but with hints of every record that has come before it. And so I think that feels really self-assured about that, and we can be like “this is The Maccabees. This is what The Maccabees sound like”. I don't think it's been that easy to say that before. It's always felt like the live set has been hard to fit every different type of song into it and gauge where we're going, but now this has given us a concrete identity. Which has taken a while! But yeah, this is what I think this record does really well in playing the songs live. But we'll wait and see. You never really know until a few years later do you really?
Thanks for your time, Felix. It seems like you guys are in such a great place right now, especially with festival organisers saying they’d like to see you as future headliners.
Ah mate, it's only taken ten years! But that's touching to hear. I think we're in a good place, but I hope we can be in a happy place wherever it is on the line up. Cheers Lucas.
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