Music, Style & Culture

Klaxons: Not That Weird

"What is too weird? Definitely none of the music we've ever made."

Simon Taylor-Davis is attempting to give up the Internet. It's "too negative". "I'm not in to being negative, so I'm trying to stay away from it. I'm just trying to not be around anything negative at the moment". He's also keen to point out that Klaxons - on the cusp of releasing second full-length album, 'Surfing The Void' (23 August, Polydor) - aren't that weird. "What is too weird? Definitely none of the music we've ever made. We think of ourselves as a pop band, and always have done. Hence keeping to verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge structures, we've always had those pop boundaries. And certainly towards the end of the last record, we definitely crossed over to that world, the Brit Awards [performance with Rihanna] was the pinnacle of absurd".

For a long while, rumour suggested that the London-based now quartet (drummer Steffan Halperin didn't feature on 'Myths of the Near Future') had an album rejected by label Polydor. "There's a lot about that, isn't there?", this not being the first, or last time the band have had to clarify what happened. "James was being interviewed by someone he knew, and they asked what was going on with the record. He said 'yeah, we've handed Polydor loads of stuff but they're gonna reject it'. They hadn't got back to us because it was Christmas, but of course his tone didn't come across on paper that well. And then it's like, what do we do? Do we start releasing press releases saying it's not true? You just leave these things to go on..."

The story is less sensational, but ultimately more fruitful. Two groups of sessions exist, one recorded in Milan, the other in France. Both are likely to be released as EPs in the next year, neither fit together to create a full album the band would be happy with. "We didn't finish touring until the beginning of last year, we were touring endlessly, everywhere. In between touring, we went and recorded some stuff with James Ford, which is an amazing batch of music, we recorded hours of music, but we just didn't have a record in there. They're very much sessions that are all-encompassing to where we recorded them, it's very important to the session and the kind of music that we were making, very specific to each session. In Milan we recorded a lot of quite instrumental, prog stuff, and then in France we made a lot of quite slow, acoustic music. We didn't feel any of these works referenced each other enough to have a cohesive record, there are amazing flashes of great stuff in each session, but we didn't have a record, and we didn't want to botch all these things together to make an album, so there's a record from France which is an EP, and an EP from Milan, but they just aren't albums, and at that time we needed to sit down and write a collected body of work that we wanted to be a Klaxons record".

None of it's that weird, either. There's nothing hiding away, there's nothing we're embarrassed of, we love all of it and people are going to be surprised by its sound, it's quite different. Not in a 'weird' way, the instrumentation's just slightly different, it's not distorted keyboards and bass, it's quite clean, very vocal-heavy. I'm excited for people to hear it and to start playing it, which we're going to do soon".

Much has also been said of the break between the release of 'Myths...' and its follow-up, the band eschewing what appears to be a two year standard gap between records. Simon's already had time to come up with a theory. "I do think it's been beneficial, it certainly seems like the gap's been the right amount of time. It's like Formula One, I'm a really big fan, and I keep thinking of it in terms of pit stops, where you re-enter the track, and I think we've entered in clear air at the moment" (for the record, his team is McLaren, driver Lewis Hamilton, and view on Schumacher's recent 'nudging' of Barrichello "absolutely dirty behaviour"). There was also "never ever ever" any pressure from label Polydor to come up with a second album more quickly. "We have such a phenomenal relationship with them, that's why we signed to them, we love them".

'Surfing The Void' was recorded in LA with producer Ross Robinson, someone who's best known for his work with heavy rock bands - At The Drive-In, Korn, Slipknot - and has the moniker 'The Godfather of Nu-Metal'. Does working with someone so accustomed to loud, thrashing guitars differ greatly from recording with James Ford, who is arguably far more entrenched in the dance music mould? "When we were recording the first record, a lot of it was in time to a click, and that's a very dance thing, it's very robotic in its rhythm, and while I don't think the album would've sounded different, but James Ford perhaps drags us slightly in to that world because of the rhythm being on time, and I think Ross is very much about it being 'live' and 'pure', passionate. There's no grid, nothing set to a specific metronome or anything.

I think the drums are very violent sounding, but we didn't have a drummer before, Steffan didn't play drums on the first record, and I think there's an intensity to the drums I think he brings out, but there were no references to try and get us to sound like Slipknot or anything!"

If it's not his hands-on production making a difference to Klaxons, then its his mind tricks. "We've always done it where you just go in and play in one room, and someone's in another room and then you edit it. We've never had that really passionate, honest approach. He gets what's inside of you and gets that on record, which sounds simple, but it's not what everybody does."

"We were talking about it the other day, and I guess perhaps the reason he's worked with so many metal bands is because that kind of music is the real pinnacle of emotion, essentially. You get that amount of passion from that kind of music, and I think that's why he's always stuck to that. When we met him we didn't ever talk to him about music, we just instantly fell in love with him as a person, had this amazing connection with him, and he talked to us about what it means to make music, what it means to give, honestly, whenever you're doing anything. It's a lesson which you can take through your whole life, to do everything with passion, do it honestly and be true to it. All these things which sound so blatantly obvious were just so amazing and inspirational for us to hear, and be a part of".

The band moved in to Ross's LA home for the duration, the studio in his basement. "We lived on the balcony, we'd lay there in sleeping bags like soldiers for three months. It was absolutely incredible, we could work whenever we wanted to, we could take time out - instead of being at The Premises on Hackney Road and going to get a sausage roll, we could go and get carrot, orange and ginger juice and have a walk on the beach".

Was the distance from London important in the recording process? "We've never actually recorded in London, ever. We recorded the first album in Battle, which is near Brighton. But I guess that's the difference, after we finished recording every day, we just went and hung out, went to sports bars and watched basketball and stuff, whereas, even if Ross was in London, there'd have been that element of us going home to our friends. We became a part of Ross's life, we succumbed to his existence while we were recording, we were there to be part of his experience and have that experience together. It influenced us in a positive way, because it was very calming, a good headspace to be at".

There's been talk that Ross wasn't just a mental taskmaster, but a physical one - a training regime?! "No! We actually lived on the beach, Ross's house is on the beach front, and when you live on the beach, you take advantage of living on the beach; we went swimming every day, had a little run sometimes, but it wasn't like Ross with a whistle and a hat on and big boots, it was just part of the environment". We're back to his mind games. "I think his methods are very psychological, he really preps you up for giving the best performance you can, and that's what he's renowned for. If you listen to Korn, Blood Brothers, At The Drive-In, The Cure, they all have that fire, passion and intensity, and that comes from the way he peps you up, you have this big chat before every take, he gets down to the essence of what you're trying to give, the meaning of the song. It's a very spiritual approach which we've never experienced before when recording".

For touring 'Surfing...', a fifth member has been recruited in the form of ex-Dirty Pretty Thing and fill-in Libertine, Anthony Rossomando. How does his addition help live Klaxons? "He's very handsome, that's how it helps."

"It's just one of those things, where it's such a gang on tour and Anthony, who we've known for a couple of years, is such a phenomenal guy, he's so much fun to have around. It helps because we can actually play everything now, James doesn't have to play two keyboard lines. He plays extra sub bass, he plays extra keys, he fills the sound out. It helps having another really nice person around, it's just like having a new member in the Big Brother house, everyone's really excited to have him around, asking him questions. Not that he's going to get evicted! Like Big Brother but without the ending!"

"There are parts on the record which we can't physically all play, so it just means we're able to enhance it all. And going back to the first record, when we listened to it there was loads of stuff there which we were like 'hang on a minute, we never played that line or that extra bit before', so when we revisited all that, it was good to beef it all up".

Does it also keep old songs interesting - some of the tracks on 'Myths...' were already relatively old by the time the album was released. "We managed to cut a couple of songs from the first record that we don't play live any more, every one we do play, I love. Genuinely, all of them are my favourite, I think that's why we play all of them, because we love them all. Like 'Atlantis', I absolutely love playing it every night again, and I didn't for a long time. You just fall in and out of being excited by different stuff. Playing that at the moment is my favourite one to play, more so than the new stuff". Why? "It's just a stupid song, such a really dumb, stupid, stupid song, it's just really funny to play it, and funny to listen to it".

And next for Klaxons, with or without Anthony? "We go to Australia the day after Reading. Australia, Japan, France, America, Europe, UK, Australia, Europe, America, UK..." When is their diary booked up until? "Next May, at the moment".