Idlewild interview - Fused magazine

After line-up changes and relocations to America, Scottish rockers Idlewild return with their fifth album Warnings/Promises. The first time the band has written as a five piece, Warnings/Promises sees them take a more relaxed direction with a mature sound. Fused caught up with frontman Roddy Woomble before their show in Birmingham. You’ve evolved a lot as a band throughout your career, what stage do you think you are at now with the new album? I think we are more comfortable with our sound, definitely. People were really surprised at the changes we made from 100 Broken Promises and The Remote Part, but this record is a change for us in terms of musically and lyrically, sonically I think people are like “Oh, that is what they sound like now?” People often comment that Idlewild have mellowed out. It’s nothing to do with that really, it’s just to do with there being more space in the songs, and it’s not so frantic. To me it’s not like mellow as in being stoned, that sort of connotation of mellow. It’s just less frantic, less tense, more relaxed I guess. How did your acoustic gigs go? They were brilliant actually. It’s really good because a lot of our songs are written like that, acoustically, they are like folk songs. To present them onstage in front of people was a real challenge for us and for the audience as well. It was fun. We played acoustically in the summer in Los Angeles and we knew the songs leant themselves well to that format. We just thought we haven’t played in Britain for two and a half years, let’s go and play a few acoustic gigs first. It was as simple as that. And then we are playing an electric tour in April. Do you prefer playing acoustic to electric? I do. The rest of the band doesn’t. Although everyone enjoys it, I think they feel more comfortable playing electric. But I much prefer playing acoustically because you can hear yourself. I’m so used to playing with a drum kit banging away behind me, and loads of loud guitars, you get used to trying to make yourself heard over the music. So when it’s all stripped back I can actually hear and get into the singing. I’m just trying to keep up with the band when we play electric. When you were recording in Los Angeles did you do any exploring, and what did you think of the place? Oh yeah, I’m good at exploring. It’s an amazing place. Initial impressions of it can be that it is quite dull, you think it is just sprawling and polluted and it’s a city of extremes, the really rich and really poor. There are a lot of mentally ill people walking the streets. But at the same time, when you get into it, it kind of moves at a different pace to anywhere I’ve ever been to. Idlewild never seemed to be part of any scene; do you think that has worked to your advantage? We never really have been. I think in the long run it has played in our favour. It has worked to our advantage. Since the time we’ve been introduced to people about eight years ago there have been quite a few things that have come and gone. We’ve moved at our own pace, which has been really good in the sense that we are still around and people take us seriously as a band. But it can be frustrating when you see bands like Kaiser Chiefs or whoever suddenly being everywhere and you are just trundling along behind them. We’ve done it the old fashioned way, but sometimes it would be nice to be…..not old fashioned (laughs). It might be nice to have a million people buy your record. Do you want more commercial success? I don’t think in those terms. Yeah, at this stage I’d really like this record to be brought by a lot more people than that brought The Remote Part. I’m not this mad, materialistic capitalist guy. But I also realise that I’m signed to EMI and I’m part of a business structure, you have got to get your head around that. At the same time I really think this record is for everyone, it would be a shame if it was ignored or sold poorly. I really want it to do well, but I don’t have illusions of buying a Ferrari or anything. I’m not really bothered about stuff like that. I wouldn’t buy a Ferrari; I don’t even like cars….I used to have a Nissan Micra. Were you surprised to be voted the third best Scottish band in the recent top 50 poll, beating Primal Scream and Jesus and Mary Chain? It was a very young vote, all these great bands like The Associates and Jesus and Mary Chain were all way low down and obviously deserved much higher places. Because it was young people voting it was Belle and Sebastian, us and Travis that were all really high. It was flattering. The good thing about it is that is resonated around the country, everyone got talking about it. It was even on the news. It is a positive thing. It was a good party too. Warnings/Promises is out now. Idlewild play Birmingham Carling Academy on 24th April.