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Guillemots

'I saw some YouTube stuff of Jean-Michel Jarre recently, and - I mean, he's the man - but I don't want to go that way onstage.'

Guillemots are due to follow their Mercury-nominated debut album, 'Through The Windowpane', with 'Red' on 24th March, preceded by single 'Get Over It' on 17th March. DIY asked some questions to Fyfe about the record, and he answered them.

What can we expect from 'Red'?
A big pop record that you don't want to flick tracks on, hopefully. One that you can put on before a night out and have on in the background but one that you can also listen to on big headphones and get lost in. I'm using the word 'big' far too much. There are no guitar solos or 80s drums, there's no cause for concern. But basically, we all felt annoyed at ourselves at how infrequently we listen to full albums these days because we all have short attention spans, so I suppose it was us trying to make a pop record that people with ADD wouldn't get bored listening to.

Why the name, 'Red'?
It just sounded right. We wanted one word, and we'd often talked about the record sounding red, so it seemed right. You can analyse it and find loads of meanings - red has a lot of connotations - but it was more just an instinctive thing.

Did you feel a great pressure after 'Through The Windowpane' was nominated for the Mercury Prize?
Not really, the pressure was more on ourselves to make something we'd be proud of. And that all four of us would like. Believe me, that's difficult! That's where the pressure came in.

You co-produced the album - could you ever work fully with an outside influence?
We all love the idea of it. But we sort of act like one of those weird plants that contracts as soon as it's touched. We take a long time to trust any outsiders, too long probably, but that's just how we are. I think we will one day, but we're all too stubborn at the moment.

Tell us about your 'percussion bird'.
He doesn't do interviews. He's never got over the fact that he was supposed to be a guillemot but looks more like a godwit.

You feature bats on the album...?
Well this won't do much for the conception that we're 'quirky!'... but, yeah. It's on 'Big Dog'. There was this one bit that sounded like it needed rhythm but it had to be something really little, and I have a bat detector that I'd made some recordings on at my Mum and Dad's house. It basically turns the noises a bat makes into something we can hear. And I remembered that there'd been this one bit on the recording that was in a perfect little rhythm, and it fitted exactly with the song, so it went in. I mean, it gets boring just recording snare drums or finding snare drum samples all the time. I'm all for bats making R 'n B beats.

What can we expect from your forthcoming live dates? How do you think will the album transfer to the live arena?
Um... well ask us that after we've played some gigs! We're all a bit panicked at the moment because we haven't played live in ages. We can't remember how to play at the moment. But we're working on it. I think we seem to be starting to really strip things down live actually. I don't want us to go to the other extreme and just have every song sound the same live, but I think we're all starting to get annoyed with running around the stage trying to fit twenty instruments into one song. We've been doing a lot of stuff where two or three of us are all just playing the same riff on guitar and bass, and it's just that, vocals and drums, and it's great. The only way we could play some of the record accurately would be to use backing tracks, and there's no way we're doing that. It's better to just play it completely differently. I'm going to be playing more guitar live too. I saw some YouTube stuff of Jean-Michel Jarre recently, and - I mean, he's the man - but I don't want to go that way onstage. Ultimately it's about making people feel exhilerated at a gig and it's hard to do that if you're hidden behind a bank of keyboards.

You've stated you aimed to make a pop album: who are your favourite pop artists?
Well, I mean, start with The Beatles. That's not a bad place to start.