Britain’s Wild Beasts created a stir last year with their sophomore album Two Dancers. Combining the untamed falsetto of Hayden Thorpe with the earthier sensibilities of Tom Fleming, the foursome created a beautiful album of frank sexuality and gorgeous melodies that recalls the fearsome qualities of early Strokes and the arty excesses of Kate Bush.
I sat down with Thorpe and Fleming at an important time for the young band. Just three nights into Wild Beasts’ first headlining tour of the United States, both exuded a genuine excitement that seems rare in a day when young bands explode overnight thanks to the internet. During our discussion we touched on the wonder of touring the States for the first time, the band’s evolution thus far and the Smiths. Thorpe and Fleming were humble, articulate and receptive to my questions. I am proud to present the Spectrum Culture interview with Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming of Wild Beasts.
This is a pretty big deal for you guys. This is your first headlining tour of the United States and you’ve never been this far west before. What are your impressions?
TF: It’s great. The amount of landscapes we’ve encompassed just coming from LA to Portland is unbelievable. It’s been getting noticeably colder and wetter. Portland’s great. It’s got a really great atmosphere about it. The little bits that I’ve seen and the people that I’ve met. Everyone’s told me that Portland’s great and that I have to spend a day in Portland. This is the whole result of being here. We went 12 hours yesterday to even get here and have that time off.
HT: I think that because the cities are here are so spread out, there is a self-sufficiency to them in terms of the music and arts scenes. This is really compatible for bands to fit in. It’s nice that everything is just there for us to walk in and play the show without a huge amount of difficulty where in the UK everything is much more condensed. Everything there is really London-centric.
TF: Yeah, if you’re not big in London, you’re nothing. This doesn’t quite seem like that.
HT: Our show in LA will contrast hugely with our show tonight, no doubt. It’s just different atmospheres and I think we enjoy that. Every gig is its own animal. It always amazes me that there is always a random group of people that throw in together and sometimes that can be hysterical to be a part in and sometimes it can be more intense. But it’s our job to adapt to that.
You guys on the road again tomorrow?
TF: Yeah, Seattle.
That’s only three hours.
TF: But we gotta get there for a radio session midday though. Which is shame. Well, not a shame but all that short drive stuff is taken away because we have to be there early.
HT: I think that US bands going to the UK must be laughing. Like where’s the next city? Oh, it’s an hour’s drive down the road. Okay! Let’s conquer this place.
This is a special time for you and I hope you guys remember this. I’ve talked to other UK bands before and they’ve said, “Wow! The one thing about the United States is the variety of the landscape.” The first time they go it’s gigantic.
HT: The scale is just mind-boggling.
Yes, but after talking to other bands, like Art Brut, they say, “Yeah, but we get used to it after awhile.” So, it’s special you guys get to do this for the first time.
TF: And deeply shocking sometimes. After Seattle, we’re going to Minneapolis in two days. It’s like…wow…(laughs). That’s the Rockies and the Great Plains. That’s a long way.
Are you driving that?
TF: Oh yes.
Oof!
TF: (laughs hard) That’s what we said. Although I’m sure it will be beautiful. It’s winter. It will be absolutely breath-taking, no doubt.
HT: If we had been coming from the UK, I think we would have been more shocked. But we played in Australia. So we were flying two to three hours a day to get the show. We’d fly across vast deserts and fly across a huge continent for 45 minutes work. So I think we were slightly sort of numbed in that sense.
Now imagine if you were like U2 and had 20 trucks going with you?
TF: The other thing is you are so removed from that. You are sitting in the Hilton noodling. To get to that stage, what do you have to do? Know what I mean?
HT: At this stage, and it’s easy for us to say this, we probably wouldn’t want it any other way. We want to experience that mythology. For UK bands, America does hold that mystique. There’ is a darkness there that we want to go into and come back out of alive. UK bands come back almost come of age. If you get through a US tour on the road, you’re okay.
TF: It won’t get more grueling than that, I suppose. We don’t go home until April. After this we’re doing a UK tour straight away after New York and then Ireland and then continental Europe, finishing up in Berlin. This is what we wanted. It’s finding a way to sustain what you do and make sure you’re good every night. We can’t afford to go and get drunk and party because it’s just in the van and go. You gotta be able to sing and play when you get there and actually play with conviction. It’s a commitment. Remembering that, this is fun, but you are actually doing something here. You are over here for a good reason.
Some bands complain that when they are on tour they never get to do anything besides drive, get out, play the show and then drive.
TF: That’s kind of the way it is. But we’ve been touring for the past three years and we’re kind of used it by now.
HT: We’re lucky, in a sense. We’ve got an amazing American crew with us. You need luck on your side so badly. The best description I ever heard was a band called ¡Forward Russia! They were a Leeds band, a generation before us and they came to America. There is a town in Yorkshire called Hull, which the most deprived and notoriously awful town in the UK and they said it was like 13 hours a day to get to Hull. And the same the next day, which is nightmarish. But so far so good. We have not had that experience. But if we had to come here without US crew it would be like never stepping on a boat and manning a ship to bloody the Antarctic. We need that experience.
I took an overnight bus once from London to Edinburgh when I was young once and that sucked.
Both: (laugh)
Are there any towns or venues that you are playing on this trip that you are really excited about?
TF: I already mentioned that everyone said, “Portland’s going to be good! Portland’s going to be good!”
I don’t know if you saw the place yet, but you’re playing the best venue in town.
TF: Yeah, we like it. We haven’t seen the others, obviously, but this one seems pretty good. Minneapolis was unknown territory, but apparently it sold really well and Minneapolis is a really cool town where there’s lot of good things going on. We’re really looking forward to going to Chicago. Of course, we’ve got two shows in New York, one in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan and they are looking good. We really enjoyed New York very much last time. It was a real education and really heartening that people are actually listening over there. I don’t mind telling you that I was actually quite genuinely moved coming into San Francisco. It’s the birthplace of a lot of my favorite things. I was like, “My God! This place is sold out and people actually want to see us.”
Are you sold out tonight?
TF: I don’t know for sure. We’re hoping for a good crowd. It’s healthy, let’s say.
Back to what you said, what things from San Francisco do you love?
TF: There’s a lot of music recently. Like the freak folk movement. There’s a lot of improve bands and singer-songwriters that come from San Francisco. Things like poetry presses and small publishers. Painters and that sort of thing. These places all have a cultural weight in America but we don’t understand. We see it as tourist destinations and these ethereal places. But to actually be on the streets of them and think about what actually happens in these places and the character of them is cool. Like they say, you do come of age. You do get a better handle on what you’re doing.
The nice thing is you can get a taste and then come back on your own.
TF: Yeah, absolutely.
HT: It’s definitely taster. It’s just a sample. It’s nothing more than that.
TF: We’ll have to come back several times.
Hopefully you guys will get bigger and bigger and then come back.
TF: That would be nice.
People like to put things in a box. It seems like whenever people describe your music it’s always “art rock” or “art funk.” What the hell is that all about?
HT: I take that as a compliment.
TF: Not straightforward, I suppose. Art is art, I suppose, because it doesn’t necessarily have a use.
HT: It needs interpretation. We’re always open to interpretation which is a line we always want to exist on, I suppose. If I had to describe us, I would say we’re avant-garde pop. That’s cool. I’m happy we have that sort of scary edge to us that people may do have to think when they approach us. Just because we couldn’t exist in any other way. To have to moderate ourselves or dumb ourselves down to some mass consumption would automatically be damaging.
I’m glad you used that word because another term that is bandied about is “art-damaged.”
TF: Art-damaged? Yeah, that’s nice. I’ll take that. Yeah, why not?
It also seems commonly said, if you guys read reviews, is the first album is kind of uneven and the second album appeared right after, more fully formed. There wasn’t much space between the release of Limbo Panto and Two Dancers. Were they conceived at the same time?
TF: No, remember between writing and recording an album and it being released there’s a lot of time. There’s a real post-orgasmic chill afterwards. You have this rush and you go through this massive process that is really difficult and afterwards you have a pause. You some time and think, “Well, what did that capture? What did we like about that? What didn’t we like? Let’s move forward from here.” We had time to write and rehearse.
Do you guys feel like you’re going in the right direction?
HT: It is definitely an issue of momentum. You have to generate so much momentum to get to a position to release an album for a start. On the surface it looks quite calm but underneath the legs are kicking like hell so there’s a lot of momentum generated. Once the first album was out, we generated so much momentum we just took flight really. And that is what the second album was, being more graceful, where the first record is a limbering up for what was to come. I still think we feel like that.
We picked “Hooting and Howling” as one of our Top 25 songs of the year.
TF: Thanks!
HT: Excellent!
When I listen to it, it sounds new but it also reminds of stuff from when I was young. Old Suede, for example. It’s more baroque than the popular Britpop. It’s more on the fringes like the Brett Anderson stuff like Dog Man Star.
TF: Funnily enough that song has more to do with Born in the USA or Springsteen than any of that stuff. It’s all filters, I suppose. It’s what you do with your source material.
The interesting about Born in the USA is it’s Springsteen’s most bombastic album. You guys turned it down a little bit from the first to the second album.
TF: I think we got better at organizing and arranging things. It’s also a lot more concise and a lot more blunt in a lot ways. You know what I mean? It’s a lot more direct. The thing about being direct is when you say something, you actually say a lot of things. You know what I mean? When you say something simple, you can say a lot of things depending on how you contextualize it and what you do with it. That’s something we learned. Ideas can do a lot of heavy lifting. You don’t have to do everything at once. It’s learning about space and learning about absence and stuff.
And you have more of a presence on this album too.
TF: That was more accidental than anything. It was written very quickly. As it’s worth so far, Hayden sings what he writes and I sing what I write. It’s not a modus operandi. I suppose it’s a Beatles thing. The album is quite textured as well. It’s not organized so you can hear exactly what’s going on and who’s playing what. Generally speaking there are just four people playing. It’s not that kind of power trio dynamic. It’s a bit more open.
I read an interview recently with you, Tom, where you said you avoid the adulation of fans and Hayden gets it more often.
TF: Well, yeah. I was asked the question, “What is the weirdest form of adulation you’ve received from a fan?” Generally, people tell us they like what we’re doing, which is quite nice. Occasionally we get the odd drink. I just recalled a letter Hayden got which is just hysterical.
You want to share that, Hayden?
HT: Ah….
TF: It’s a bit unfair to finger him like that.
HT: I suppose I do attract the crazies in some sense. That’s fine; I can see where they are coming from. The heaviest thing is when a stranger cares about what you do that much it’s as if they’ve given you something precious of theirs that you have to look after, so you have to treat it with a lot of care and respect. The biggest burden is just not letting them down. The fact of the matter is that we’re lucky in the sense that people publicly see us in the best thing we do. There is no higher compliment than being on the stage to a human being. They look something different. This is your crowning glory. On that sense, when we’re back on level ground you never have the same presence and often you’re tired and dazed and happy but probably never able to do justice to your work. That’s the major thing. I know what it feels like to invest that much care into something and then to be let down.
Do you feel like that’s something you could easily take for granted some day? That adulation.
HT: No, I don’t think that would ever happen. I hope not. The girl who looks after our record here, Mona who works for Domino, she’s a massive Smiths fan, as am I. I know that Johnny Marr is Portland-based. I’ve heard that he is lovely and she said that he’s amazing. I would be fearful of meeting him in the sense that I would be fearful of meeting Leonard Cohen. But she said when she met Morrissey, she just cried. And I would never want to meet him. Also, when we were in Australia, I saw my favorite author in a restaurant
Who is that?
HT: Tim Winton. He’s an Australian writer. I don’t know if they are here, but Australia is famous for its soap operas in the UK.
Like “Neighbours?”
HT: “Neigbours” and “Home and Away.” They are these suburban dramas, which he basically invented. He’s based in Western Australia, so we bumped into him in Fremantle.
TF: It’s been a very long ladder to get to this point and we still have a long way to climb. Knowing that and knowing what a long journey it’s been and knowing that feeling of thinking I’m not worthy of this, I’ll never get there, you don’t really forget that. It should feel amazing. Obviously, sometimes you don’t want to do it and it’s not always fun but…
You think Morrissey feels that way?
HT: Morrissey is…
TF: He’s a funny guy (laughs).
HT: He’s not a good example.
TF: He’s more of an exception to the rule.
One of my friends saw Morrissey at Coachella and said he kept complaining about the smell of cooking meat. I don’t know. Then he got hit in the head with a drink.
TF: In Liverpool. Yeah, it’s not nice to get hit with a drink. I have some sympathy. There was an incident in Britain where a politician got hit with an egg and he just punched the guy in the face. I thought, “What do you expect?”
We had an incident here where a politician was almost hit with a shoe. Anyway, one thing I think that is refreshing about your songs is the lyrics. I’m not a big lyrics guy, but there is a frank sexuality in the lyrics that doesn’t seem to permeate in a lot of indie music these days. I think Nick Cave does it, but he takes it to the extreme with dripping cocks and drooling old men.
HT: Sex is the eternal fascination with art. It’s the eternal human condition. In the very basic sense, where would we be without it? The preoccupation with it is pretty automatic. In general, we’re still dealing with it and it’s constantly shifting. How far have we come since the ’50s and the ’60s? I think for awhile, male-orientated music was in the dark ages. We were behaving like we were still in the ’50s.
TF: Yeah, it’s like priapic Robert Plant-isms. It sort of like read between the lines is what we’re trying to do.
It almost seems more like a throwback to a Byronic hedonism than anything in the last century.
HT: Oh, for sure.
TF: I definitely agree with that but there’s a lot more modern day guilt and awareness to it. I suppose it is romantic, but it is also quite paranoid. There’s always a conflict. It’s never as simple as just one person’s view on it. There’s an effect and that’s what we’re talking about.
We also live in a world where a parent would rather their kid play a video game where someone gets their head blown off than watch people having sex.
HT: There is an inability to deal with it which is good for us because there is a constant source and fascination. As Tom was saying about the guilt, it’s a hugely complex something that music has tried to condense into this pornographic Lady Gaga sort of product. And it’s not. It’s not about tits and fanny and cock it’s about the other things. It’s about the emotion behind it. It goes back to testosterone rock that doesn’t really qualify anymore.
TF: Exactly. It just sounds very old. The stupid thing is we’ve been through this cycle before. There was a time at the end of the ’70s when we had a lot of female punkers going through, like the Slits and stuff. We’ve seem to have found ourselves back there again somehow. Especially in Britain.
Here too.
TF: Of course. I only understand it in Britain, I suppose. The British are really repressed people really and it’s nice to be able to play with that really. There’s a lot more that goes on behind the curtains.
What do you say to someone that’s offended by it?
HT: Offended by it? I don’t know. It’s like someone goes to an art gallery and sees a nude or sees a portrait of a guy with his legs spread and everything hanging out. If you can’t see the beauty in the painting, despite that…We’re not here to preach. We’re here to interpret that in a beautiful sense. I think the best art can do is to take the very humble and normal thing and magnify it a thousand times into something bigger and more beautiful than it was to start with. If you can’t go along with us in that sense then….
TF: Grow up.
(Both laugh)
by David Harris
