Electric Soft Parade

I Dream Of Black reviews

Q Mag August 2008 p145: Thomas White is another busy man. Besides leading Brighton-based “prog-pop” outfit The Electric Soft Parade with brother Alex, he also runs a side project, Brakes. On top of all that, he’s also completed his first solo album I Dream Of Black (Drift, **** Q Recommends) which recalls the psychedelic-rock splendour of Spiritualized at their peak.

culturedeluxe.com 8/10

White dreams of black? Ok! Virtually part of the indie establishment now, Thomas White should be known to many as guitarist in Electric Soft Parade and Brakes and, having reverted to his Sunday name, is now a solo artist in his own right.

‘I Dream Of Black’ is chameleonic from start to finish. ‘Starry Nite #2’ recalls psychedelic McCartney, ‘Will The Moon Ever Rise Again’ is My Bloody Valentine minus the wall of noise and the title track is one of many instrumentals employing atmospheric string swirls colliding malevolently with crisp, slithering analogue noise. Conveniently at the midpoint, ‘This is Just a Little Interlude’ is exactly that, a jolly, shuffling surf guitar workout which should just give you enough time to secure one of those tiny ice cream pots from a hostess.

Largely experimental, slighly mental, ‘I Dream Of Black’ may very well be the best thing Thomas White has ever produced, just what brother Alex thinks of that is another matter!

sweepingthenation.blogspot.com Click link for full review.

“...factor in his drumming for Restlesslist and his sideline/stand-in work with a phalanx of other bands and he seems to be in possession of some sort of magic quality music elixir, one that’s capable of stretching out genre boundaries while never losing sight of the qualities of a good tune. That’s as much the case with his debut solo album, I Dream Of Black, another high quality product from the fast becoming completely reliable Drift label. Recorded by himself on a four-track it plays better than many a patchwork release produced in far less reduced circumstances, delving further into the psychedelic elements ESP often hint at – his Myspace suggests Broadcast as a major influence, which we can very much see – levered with the kind of Tim Buckleyesque songwriting he’s exhibited playing acoustically. Chalk another one up in his credit column”

Neo-Psychedelic, home-crafted debut from Electric Soft Parade alumni

subba-cultcha.com 4 stars. Click link for full review.

‘I Dream Of Black’ represents a singularly visioned home-crafted, personal affair. Something essentially oxymoronic is present throughout the songs of Thomas White, for while at once the songs can appear uplifting or playful, concurrently there is always something intangibly sinister or unsettling, afoot in the distance. In this sense the mood as opposed to the actual sound of the record, shares similarities with artists such as Portishead or even Angelo Badalamenti, in that effect of lightness contrasted with something somewhat murkier.

However that’s not to say the record isn’t a catchy or enjoyable affair, more that it’s at times unsure character, helps to create a more intriguing template. Psychedelica and that decade of the 1960’s stamps a strong presence on proceedings throughout, indicative in the treated drone vocals and layered, inventive guitars.

Soundtracks and the whole genre of film music also stamps an influence over instrumentals such as ‘Starry Nite #3’ and the title track. ‘Will The Moon Ever Rise Again’ meanwhile opens with a Jeff Buckley snake-like guitar pattern reminiscence of ‘Dream Brother’ before drum machines and spooky keyboard noises enter to mutate and take the track somewhere else entirely.

As previously mentioned overall proceedings are versatile, essentially original and engaging. Moreover ‘I Dream Of Black’ is a somewhat unusual album, in that it is as much of itself while simultaneously sounding like some distant album soundtracking a lost, forgotten 60’s film.

In essence then, ‘I Dream Of Black’ represents a record where for once, the oft used ‘solo album’ terminology is wholly appropriate.

Is This Music? 4 stars.

Thomas White ventures out on his own for the first time whilst on a very rare break from Electric Soft Parade and Brakes commitments and the results are, in a word, brilliant. If you’re wondering what the point of this record is being that White pens most of the ESP songs and has more than a hand in the Brakes material then I suggest you just get a copy, sit back and soak it up.

Turns out White is a wee psychedelic kid at heart, over the course of these ten fuzzy, lo-fi-reaching-for-the-sky numbers, White displays song writing maturity way beyond his years and some delightful chord changes to boot. ‘The Runaround’ is rightfully chosen as the lead single, it’s undeniably ripped straight from ‘Come Down’ era Dandy Warhols but who cares when it’s this damn good, a slacker-rock anthem and easily the most accessible track on here. The not so snappily titled, ‘Is It Wrong to Lose Faith in the Person You Used to Love?’ and ‘The Silence Stops Tonight’ are more intimate affairs but showcase Whites beautiful voice and twisting melodies wonderfully, the latter breaking into an epic wig-out.

Elsewhere the quirky instrumental aptly named, ‘This Is Just A Little Interlude’ is a sheer delight, in a similar vein to ‘Coffee in the Pot’ by Supergrass you’re guaranteed to have the surf-guitar line in your head for days, it’s so infectious I ended up learning the guitar line myself, anything to impress a lady. The songs weave in and out charmingly with ambient-electro passages and some avant-garde numbers, not my usual cup of tea at all but they work a treat especially on ‘Starry Nite #3’ which plays like some sort of early Gershwin recording before breaking into spits and spats of drum machines and electro pulses.

Apparently this was all recorded on a Tascam 4-track although I’m pretty dubious of that claim, it’s certainly a striking slab of old-school lo-fi indie, if you like early Domino or Drag City stuff then you’ll lap this up. It’s out on Drift Records who are fast becoming one of the best UK indie’s ever.

CMU Daily: As if Thomas White didn’t have enough going on with Electric Soft Parade, Brakes, Restlesslist and the rest of the Brighton scene, he has now joined the Devon-based Drift Collective and is set to release this, his debut solo album. Recorded at home on a four track tape machine, with White playing all the instruments himself, this is a lo-fi record described by the man himself as an idea of what ESP’s demos might sound like. ‘I Dream Of Black’ contains several snippets, slightly unformed songs which befit the scratchy home recording style of the whole. It’s rewarding in parts, not least the incendiary, swirling My Bloody Valentine-esque ‘The Runaround’, which is possibly the most impressive and innovative thing on offer and makes you wonder how White would get on with the kind of time and money Kevin Shields had to record ‘Loveless’. As it is we can enjoy another album from a prolific artist showing an admirable do-it-yourself ethos.

Thomas on Tinternet Radio Transcript

Here’s what Thomas had to say from the Tinternet Radio interview on 5th June – the full transcript and audio is at Brothers Electric

Who are you, where are you, and what are you doing here?

Thomas.

Hi Thomas, how you doing?

Yeah good, I’m a bit hot now I’ve sat down in my jacket. Just sat on the floor in Roy’s little radio studio where I slept last night along with various other people.

Did you have a good kip?

Yeah I did actually. I kind of overslept a bit, I woke up and everyone had already had breakfast.

Thomas White from Electric Soft Parade and Brakes Brakes Brakes and any other band you could care to think of that he’s been involved in…

Brakes Brakes Brakes – I forgot we were were supposed to be called that in certain parts of the world.

It can confuse some people, because there is a Brakes the bakers.

The caterers, yeah. They actually use exactly the same font as we did on our first record. It’s good, it’s like we were advertising for them and they were advertising for us. Spreading the word.

It’s great to see you guys here, Tom obviously welcome to Tinternet Radio towers, it’s our humble little studio here.

It’s brilliant, it’s a good little place.

So you’re on a bit of a solo tour at the moment although you’ve got back up with Chris T-T and the band. How’s it going for you?

I’m supporting him really, or I’m meant to be supporting him. I wangled some headlines out of it.

How did you and Chrissy T hook up?

Chrissy T? That’s brilliant, adlibbing names. Well we know eachother from Brighton.

Chris T-T: We’re having a good time I think, one of the interesting things is like Thomas is playing very varied sets, like sometimes he’ll be really quiet and acoustic with a twelve string guitar, other times he’ll be with a laptop playing almost electro dance music, and other times when I’m trying to be interviewed, he’ll sit playing on a pink toy piano and play some cute tunes. That is the best piano I’ve ever seen, I have to say.

Tom, are you soundchecking right now?

I’m just having a go, pretty good. It’s only duo-phonic poly…

Little pink piano we’ve got going on in the studio here.

It only does 2 notes at once.

That’s brilliant, we could remix that and make that the next record release maybe, sample it and chuck it on a track.

Do your worst…

So you’re going to be at Wolverhampton then at the Little Civic.

It’s rotten tour planning really on the part of somebody.

As in scaling one end of the country and then going back to the Midlands…

Going York, Glasgow, Hull and then Birmingham, Wolverhampton, kind of defeats the point of doing a show in either because it’s like 2 minutes away, you know. A gig’s a gig, even if it is in the worst venue in the world.

Am I right Tom, your parents are both teachers?

Yeah.

So obviously your upbringing must have been quite outstanding. Did you duck out of school for a bit and probably get taught by Mum and Dad, musically, or…

No no… well my Dad’s kinda musical, he plays a bit of piano, infact he can read music and me and my brother can’t. Well my brother kinda can. My Dad plays clarinet and a bit of piano. Me and my Mum keep trying to persuade him to be a writer because he writes fiction, short stories and stuff and they’re really good.

Going back to the tour, obviously The Glee Club was the show last night.

Nice place, I hear the guy at the venue was saying a lot of comic’s try out new material there which is why they had the full on sign on the wall saying no cameras or anything, no youtubing people. Lee Evans basically did try outs for his new world tour, did like a week or a month of residency. And they’ve got Dylan Moran there and stuff. And good shows as well, good little place.

You performed a track called Blue It Is by Billy MacKenzie, tell us about that, it was just beautiful.

Yeah it’s just a tune he wrote on Beyond The Sun, I haven’t actually heard the album it’s off, just got recommended it as a tune to cover.

Oh wow it’s just too gorgeous. For listeners on Tinternet Radio who don’t know who Billy MacKenzie is, Tom White’s gonna tell us all about that.

He was the singer in The Associates, seminal 80’s band. They’re a brilliant band.

And their classic anthem was…

Club Country or Party Fears Two.

Very nice, festival season’s upon us. The Truck Festival, are you back at the Truck festival? It’s always a good weekender isn’t it.

I’ve been roped into it, I turned down my offer and somehow I’m still doing it. I got offered a slot and I said I didn’t want to do it and I’m now doing it which is really annoying. I wanted to not do it.

It’s a fairly new festival isn’t it, in Oxford.

It’s been going 10 years, if I play this year it’ll be my sixth year running which is just too much. It’s too disgusting.

Describe the idea behind the Truck festival. The whole thing is set up on a big truck?

It’s on a flatbed Truck and there’s a stage and a bar. It’s really good and the Rotary Club make real stingy portions of pasta with a little bit of pesto mixed in and some cherry tomatoes.

You’re quite a chef, aren’t you really, Tom? A secret chef?

And banana milkshakes, smoothies. A little wine stall. And a bar where all the barmen are cross dressers. The main bar, they always cross dress. There’s always that guy dressed as Madonna…

What’s all that about?

You see the same people each year and every year they just get a bit more knackered looking, just a bit more disgusting. It’s a great festival but it’s very debauched in a kind of middle class Oxford way. You know what I mean, lots of naughty things happening.

And other festivals, obviously you’re at Beautiful Days this year with The Levellers celebrating 20 years in the music induustry.

Don’t they look it, every day.

Obviously you’re good mates with Mark Chadwick, lead singer of The Levellers. How are they celebrating this year.

Same as every other year I think, every day with Chadders isn’t it.

And other festivals, you’re going to be hooking up with Brakes and ESP later this year?

Yeah we’re doing Doctor Loft Festival in Spain.

What’s that?!

Some festival on a beach in Spain, sounds good.

Here we are at Tinternet Radio camp, Tamworth-on-Sea, we’re in the studio.

Where’s the sea? I’m from Brighton, I don’t see a sea. I don’t smell the sea.

Well we’re based in the Midlands, we’re a bit closer to the coast than you actually realise. Tamworth has got a silent sea, it’s inbetween the M and the W. I’m just making it up as I go along. Here we are at Tinternet Radio towers with Tom and the posse. He’s on tour, he’s got a brand new record release out at the moment called I Dream Of Black. Tell us all about that Tom.

It’s not out just yet, it’s out in a couple of weeks.

I read a blog that the album was produced in a basement of a townhouse somewhere deep in the suburbs of Brighton, reading inbetween the lines it sounded like it was an awkward place to record an album but listening to the album – brilliant.

It was really cold, it was in a garage in the basement of my girlfriends house and it was just freezing. There was no heating in there, they wouldn’t let me put the heater on because it cost so much. So I’d kind of go down there in bursts of 45 minutes until I couldn’t feel my feet and then go back upstairs and warm up and then go back down and do a bit of recording. It was alright when you’re drumming but trying to do vocals you’re just stood there for hours on end it was quite painful. I like the idea that a record sounds wintry or summery depending on the time of year it was made.

So you must be really proud of the end result then?

Yes and No. Every record, as you’re finishing it you’re like yeah this is just right and with hindsight you could always go back and improve things forever. But I kind of had to just get it out as it was because I hadn’t done that before you know. Every record I’ve ever been involved in has been a democratic process involving loads and loads of people and record labels and A & R people so it was really nice to just do a record and not have to worry about any of that.

Greets Chris, what are you messing around with?

I’m in the process of trying to film your interview with Thomas in order to put it on youtube and humiliate him. Unfortunately my phone camera had not very much memory so I only managed to get a little excerpt of the interview.

Bullet Train/Tour/Sparks/Brakes

31/05/08

Firstly, some lush footage my Dad took on a recent business trip to Tokyo. Check it out here ...and here

Secondly, thanks to all the folk who’ve been at the shows so far. It’s been pretty quiet, but it’s early days (my album’s not out for a few weeks yet) and it’s exam time. Anyway, we’ve had a great time so far, I feel like my singing’s really going somewhere exciting, and we’ve still shows in Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Leicester, Guildford and Portsmouth…. so come along!!! More info here

Thirdly, I believe there are still tickets for the ‘Hello Young Lovers’ show at Islington Academy on June 11th. Sadly, ESP won’t be getting any time for proper rehearsals before the show as I’m on tour till the 10th, so any ideas of a full run through of one of our records is kinda out of the question. Sorry, peeps! Anyway, it’ll be a lush night, and from what I’ve heard, the rest of them have been ace so far, so be there!! Tickets here

Also, on the cards is an imminent re-grouping of the popular punktry-funk-disco combo, Brakes. We shall be reconvening to begin work on our magnificent octopus. More nooz when it comes. New Brakes dates

TW
X

Thomas White on Tour

Chris T-T Blog, 10 June blognostic.wordpress.com Click link to read…

TinternetRadio, 5 June Read TW’s quotes here

The full transcript and audio is at Brothers Electric

Chris T-T: We’re having a good time I think, one of the interesting things is like Thomas is playing very varied sets, like sometimes he’ll be really quiet and acoustic with a twelve string guitar, other times he’ll be with a laptop playing almost electro dance music, and other times when I’m trying to be interviewed, he’ll sit playing on a pink toy piano and play some cute tunes.

tinternetradio.com (click link for photos)

We had the great pleasure of seeing Thomas White perform in the Glee Club (Studio Room) Birmingham on Wednesday night (4th June) with near glass shattering vocals. Tom performed tracks from his eclectic new album ‘I Dream of Black’ and also some eccentric cover songs.

Tom’s friend and fellow musician Chris t-t was also impressive to watch and well worth seeing again with his full band.

After their show we all drove back to TinternetRadio camp and had an aftershow party in the miniscule of sound Studio. It was a pleasure to have them stay over and an even greater pleasure to interview them the next morning before they headed off back on tour.

Louisiana, 2 June crackerjack.co.uk Crackerjack rating: 7 / 10.

Tom White’s songwriting credentials are certainly not in doubt – the precocious Brightonian wasn’t even old enough to vote when he and his brother Alex released their excellent first album as Electric Soft Parade. He’s also a reliable gun-for-hire (guitarist for Brakes, drummer for Restlesslist) but this co-headlining tour is his first outing as a solo performer.

The first half of his set consisted of some fairly straightforward acoustic tracks, but Tom had added a visual element with a series of grainy film clips that were projected over him and the entire stage – intriguing but not so distracting that it took away from the songs and his gorgeous voice. He added some whistling in too, not something you hear a lot of in modern pop music.

Then Tom switched from guitar to keyboard and laptop, and things took a very different turn. Long, experimental, and mainly lyric-less tracks like I Dream Of Black were hypnotic, with Tom holding notes like a choirboy along with synth-generated strings.

He finished with a version of the Irving Berlin song You Can Have Him that was nothing less than startling.

Chris T-T Blog, 29 May blognostic.wordpress.com (click link to read in full)

Having a fun time on tour, to the extent that me and Thomas have vaguely talked about taking it to the USA in autumn – now that would be wicked… During our day off, I catch up on laundry and watch some films. Across town, Thomas makes a gourmet meat paté from a Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall book. Thomas White is a meat freak, people… he’s got a dream and it involves a whole pig’s head. I suggest (how good an idea is this!?) that we cut the paté into manageable slices, clingfilm it up, put a sticker on it saying “Thomas White Paté” and sell it on the merch. That would SO rule, at least for the few days before it went off in the van.

Interview with TW and Chris T-T, 28 May yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk

Unlike Chris, Thomas, a few years younger, has only ever been a musician. “I did work at Deep Pan Pizza for two weeks when I was 16,” he laughs. “But I did acid for the first time the night before I was due to start work, and trying to knead dough and grease pizza pans was never going to work!”

Thomas releases debut solo record I Dream Of Black on June 14. He describes it as “underwater folk music – no, that’s nonsense isn’t it? Like something the NME would write. It sounds like it was recorded underground – and it was, in my girlfriend’s basement. It cost about 10p to make. It’s got a grimy, dark, wintry feel. I think it makes a difference what the weather’s like when you’re making music – I was freezing, no heating down there. Recording in half an hour bursts until I couldn’t feel my feet. If anyone wonders what ESP songs sound like in their embryonic stage, this is it”

Both musicians have big Leeds connections. “My mum and dad met at the Hyde Park Tavern,” Thomas says. “He was a barman there 30 years ago”

Cambridge Barfly, 25 May I Don’t Want Him (You Can Have Him) VIDEO

Chris T-T Blog, 23 May blognostic.wordpress.com (click link to read in full)

Me and Tom White jump in the Electric Soft Parade van (a well customised and lived-in Merc sprinter that steers like a dream compared to the last one I drove) and head north for the first leg of our co-headline tour… Before leaving town we scoot across to Metway Studio, where Tom’s brother Alex is demoing with The Pipettes, to drop him off a spare guitar… Tom reprises his monumental Nina Simone cover, which took the room apart in south London a couple of days before… Matt Twaites’ band Restlesslist are doing Marc Riley’s show on BBC6 Music this evening and Tom is drumming. Restlesslist are storming, doing complex, instrumental psyche prog-pop (spacerock?). Bloody ace.

Restlesslist on the Radio read the transcript of their interview on 22 May.

Marc Riley: I applaud you literally, Butlin Breaks has got to be one of the records of the year, when it comes through to Christmas and we’re putting that programme together with all the best records, I can guarantee that that will be in there… Tom, I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks with another band I would imagine.

Joogleberry Playhouse, 20 May livemusicreview.co.uk

Tom White played Clearlake’s classic song Jumble Sailing on his own and then launched into The Devil in a Trojan Horse and The Runaround with Mark (Levellers) doing BV’s and guitar and Jason (Clearlake) playing harmonica. Both songs are from Tom’s new upcoming solo album called ‘I Dream of Black’.

Amersham Arms, 19 May sonicdice.com

Thomas White gingerly steps out onto the stage with an essential can of Red Stripe and a projector screen, set up behind him, flashing through a variety of LSD-influenced colours and landscapes. This strikes me as an interesting idea. Given the small scale of the show one might think that it was a bit pretentious to demand a screen set up but once White eventually gets his set started, after a laptop malfunction, the combination of his calm stage presence, beautifully effortless voice and swirly visuals cause the audience to slowly become hypnotised, falling under his spell. And when he isn’t singing, with vocal traits similar to that of Jeff Buckley, he’s talking to the audience as if he was one of the locals, joking about what to do next, and laughing at an interesting start to a Nina Simone cover informing us that he’s got “ideas above my octave station!”. Despite the technical difficulties, White breezes through the set with effortless professionalism, and really puts a smile on everyone’s face.

Visual Music Interview April 2008

Original Interview with Ghostchild

Translated online & made sense of by Min with help from 2pa2 and Ghostchild.

To see a band in concert, that’s fine. To spend a whole day with them when there are two concerts in the evening is better. Visual took advantage of their day with The Electric Soft Parade to ask Tom White some questions. The interview’s chaotic since it began in the dressing rooms of the Bataclan with Tom petrified by the idea of doing a concert as a three piece and finished in a sort of general euphoria in the dressing rooms of the Showcase. Hence a more relaxed ending.

Visual: One year now after the release of No Need To Be Downhearted, are you satisfied with the record?

Tom: Yes, yes of course, I think that is our best record. It is important that your new record is the best. In addition a good half of the songs were ready for a long time, two or three years… “Misunderstanding” was ready for almost four years, not exactly as good as it is known now, but the basic idea, verses and choruses and all that…

Well, tonight we play as a three piece…

Visual: What kind of composer are you? You write all the time or…

Tom: I do not write on tour in any case, you see hotels, the bus, all that… I need a 4 or an 8-track to work all that seriously. Otherwise you cannot reflect and do something good. Writing happens a lot when recording…

Damo: I think you and Alex write a lot with the arrangements already in mind…

Tom: Yeah, I rarely write a song on the acoustic guitar, I think more in terms of chord progressions. Little by little everything takes shape.

Visual: Do you and Alex write together or do you each get in your corner and see what you can do next?

Tom: Yes we write separately, we collaborate for arrangements, but for the words for example, we never wrote together, we never suggested things to eachother. It’s not good to mess with someone’s words. I wouldn’t tell Eamon what to write. When we’re doing the harmonies for example there are no problems but we do not interfere too much in what the other writes.

Visual: Did being brothers save Electric Soft Parade when you’ve had your label worries (Editor’s note: the group was transferred to Sony BMG after the album The American Adventure)?

Tom: Yes, at that time there was no money, no manager, to be brothers has helped. We’ve been through a lot of troubles… It’s a strange relationship. If we have an argument and someone tries to interfere, Alex and I are suddenly together against that person! It’s brother thing, we can hate each other but I would never let anyone worry him. I’m the only one who can talk to my brother the way I do and I would not let anyone else do it!

Visual: How do you perceive your development as a composer? Looking for a move towards more sophisticated things?

Tom: It’s still pop but with a limited budget. After that it depends on a lot of things, if you’re on a big label or not… excuse me I am not in great shape before this concert as a three piece.

Visual: No problem… You will soon release a solo album. How did this happen? This was a longstanding wish?

Tom: Not at all, it’s just that I recorded a lot of stuff between Christmas and New Year… and I wanted to put that out, a record made at home. To go back to your question, I do not write all the time, but when it happens, I try to take advantage of it. For fifteen days I take out all my gear and that happens! Generally that forms the basis of a new record. However my record is a bit sloppy, it’s full of half finished ideas. Maybe I will make a record much more prepared/elaborated in the next few years.

Visual: It seems that ESP are not a typically English pop band, but that your influences are much broader…

Tom : Yes we listen to a lot of rather different groups. Alex listens to Chicago (Editor’s note: 70’s prog group) Hip-hop also. But especially Old Chicago. You see he is really obsessed with them. People do not realize that because this is only the music, it’s not as if he washed his hands all the time or I do not know but now it’s a fact: he listens to Chicago and nobody reacts!

The interview is interrupted because it is time for the group to go on stage at the Bataclan. The rest of the interview takes place a few hours later in the dressing rooms of the Showcase. The dreaded concert as a three piece was a great success, the atmosphere is therefore so much more relaxed…

Visual: At the beginning of the group Alex sang almost everything and now you share more singing, or you complete it. What’s happening? Alex is punished because he listens to Chicago?

Tom (laughing): No, no, it’s just that we sing what we’ve written. Well there are many moments where this is not exactly the case for questions of tone. Generally the idea is this: the one that writes sings. I always thought that when you’re in a group and you write songs, it’s up to you to sing, except for the covers. It is strange to sing the words of another. But for the last album we tried to vary things, for example, I sing the verses and Alex takes care of the choruses as on “Life In The Backseat” or “Come Back Inside” but we love to arrange for that it is difficult to determine whether it’s Alex or me who sings.

Visual: You told me just now that you begin writing when you feel that this is the moment…

Tom: Did I say that?

Visual: This is what I understood!

Tom: Ah yes, I think I expressed myself badly, I write all the time in the sense that I collect small riffs etc. but as long as I have not been able to record and work on it all, it’s only shit. As long as I cannot play it in front of someone, these chords don’t mean anything. Sometimes I have melodies that stay in my head for weeks and finally when I come to record them, I leave them in a corner for a while and I come back to work on them again and have a clearer opinion.

Visual: While working thus that must not be easy for you to know when a song is finished, you could want to rework it forever.

Tom: That’s true. Usually this is finished when someone comes and tells me: “you have a week to do that”. There I do my best to do all that I can in the minimum time. Anyway you can always turn to your old records and there are always a thousand things you want change… In fact this is a kind of discipline to learn. On the last record in particular there are songs where we very quickly knew they were finished… We wanted something that we can reproduce on stage, you saw just now with “Woken By A Kiss” even as a three piece it worked. We try to make songs that do not depend on the studio, songs playable even with a single acoustic guitar.

Visual: You were not even 20 years old during the first two records, you still appreciate them as much?

Tom: Ah… (taking a robotic tone) I like them very much, I think they are good (laughs)

I explain to you, we had a guy at the Vienna concert… he told us that his girlfriend had dropped him the week he saw us in concert in York… in 2002! And he never got over it. He did not like our concert in Vienna because of that. He told us he had to leave the room when we played “Silent To The Dark“… fuck him! I have a lot more attachment to these songs than him and yet I play them every night.

There are groups who never listen their old records… I listen to what we’ve done when we’ve finished it but that’s all. You can not listen to your album and hear it as anybody else… This guy in Vienna I do not know what he expected of us! He says “give me your email so I can send you photos of the concert”. I replied “from tonight?”. He said “no no of York in 2002”. Why I would like to see that? This is from the past. If people like our old records, great, they are good but… The first… the second one is really good but Holes In The Wall, this is a nightmare, it’s like a machine you know.

Visual: You often do two concerts on the same day?

Tom: Alex and I actually played two concerts per day for almost a month in the USA with Brakes and ESP. It was really exhausting (Editor’s note: follows a series of jokes we do not retranscribe in order not to upset the sensibilities of our younger readers)

Visual: You played No Need To Be Downhearted in full with the help of projected films on stage. What was the idea for that?

Tom: Yeah we had to do it tonight but it is impossible for logistical reasons. I simply filmed Brighton, it’s just an artistic thing, there is no history. I had a lot of material so I montaged everything. It has cost a lot of money to buy a projector and all that goes with it! The songs on the album are good but I think it works out when you listen to the whole record.

In fact the songs from our EP The Human Body are what represent us best.

Visual: It was not bizarre that the The Human Body has new songs and then No Need To Be Downhearted has titles that were older?

Tom: I wrote “Everybody Wants”, “So Much Love” and “A Beating Heart”, had “Kick In The Teeth” already ready, “Cold World”, this happened naturally. In addition it is good to have an EP of about twenty minutes…

Visual: Talking about “A Beating Heart”, it’s very impressive when you play it, there’s only four on stage and yet the instrumental passage of the middle seems enormous, as played by an orchestra. How do you do that?

Tom: This is a keyboard sound by Alex… an Indian lo-fi orchestra! That’s the point of A Beating Heart, three different parts – a minute of piano, one minute orchestral and one minute purely rock.

Visual: When you were a teenager you dreamed of this life or anything else?

Tom: You see today, this concert at the Bataclan, this is the kind of moment that gives you faith in yourself again, it was terrifying to play as a three piece but at the end it was great. But I have always dreamed of music therefore… If there was no music I will be a chef or artist.

Visual: How do you choose the covers, this is a special craving?

Tom: Yeah, some are old like “Always On My Mind” or “Happiness“…

Alex (who has just arrived): The trick is that we try to the max to make these songs sound like the Electric Soft Parade. When the Pet Shop Boys did “Always On My Mind”, it sounded like a new song.

Visual: This is what’s cool about your version of “Across The Universe“…

Tom: It’s the version by Fiona Apple actually! You hear it at the end of Pleasantville.

Alex: I relistened to Let It Be and I realized that “Across The Universe” is only a demo, there is nothing on it. I said “we will try to imagine what the Beatles would have done“… Lots of people have told us that it resembled the original but they are misled, just go and relisten to realize that is a demo! (Long digression on Phil Spector, McCartney)

Visual: To finish I made a short list of groups, including brothers, you can tell me who you’d like to be. Oasis?

Tom: Liam, he is cool, he does not care about everything.

Alex: I would be Paul, the third brother, the one that is not in the group.

Matt: Liam is a great guitarist…

Visual: Sure he is! Songbird and its two chords.

Tom dies of laughter: It is clear! And the words of “Little James” (He sings: “Live for your toys even though they make noise…”)

Visual: The Jesus and Mary Chain?

Tom: Probably William.

Visual: Radiohead?

Tom: Ah yes there are the Greenwood… I would be… Phil! This is a good drummer. Otherwise Colin is a great bass player, but Johnny has too many effects pedals for me! I am not very keen on Radiohead you know, I have heard the last one which is not too bad, it’s better that Insomniac (Editor’s note: Amnesiac) or Kid A!

Visual: And the Kinks?

Tom: I do not know…

Visual: I will be Ray…

Tom: Yeah, but Dave he has this killer guitar sound on these solos.

Visual: Yeah “All day and all of the night“…

Tom: “Victoria“…