The Joy Formidable: ‘We Didn’t See Another Human Being For Three Weeks’

As the Welsh trio release their brand new album today, DIY found out just what environment helped foster 'The Wolf's Law'.

Posted 21st January 2013, 7:31pm

Having only released their debut album back at the start of 2011, things have gone pretty quickly for The Joy Formidable, but it all seems to be working out perfectly.

Spending most of their time on the road writing and demoing new ideas for material, it's not as though this are a band that ever feel unproductive. But there was something about the place which they chose to finally lay down the tracks that would become their second album, 'Wolf's Law', that brought out their natural abilities tenfold.

"It kind of reminded us of home in North Wales,” Rhydian mused, when we asked what drew them to the studio in Portland, Maine where they began their second recording process. “Just having the country, beautiful...”

“While we were out there doing most of the vocals and guitars, it was very very isolated," Ritzy tells us. "We didn't see another human being for three weeks. I did speak to quite a lot of the animals though...”

Of course she did... But anyway, what sort of effect did such an isolated environment have on creating the album itself?

"It was a great place to lose yourself," Ritzy explains. "Night and day blurred into one, and it was a good thing, because we had an awful lot that we wanted to track. We'd written such a lot on the road, it certainly wasn't a difficult second album; quite the opposite really, we had too much material.”

"Until then,” Rhydian adds, “everything had been in a melting pot; the touring and recording, we've always done it on the road. Which is fine, because we do like writing all the time anyway, but you do need that time to get your ideas focussed.”

The Joy Formidable release their brand new album, 'Wolf's Law', today (21st January) through Atlantic Records.

Check out our full interview with the band in the forthcoming March issue of DIY, which hits the street later this week.

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