Such nice guys are Athlete. They were clearly thrilled to be releasing a new album and I admire their spirit. After parting ways with their major record label they had gone it alone despite the obvious lack of financial backing they'd had in the past - luckily they still pull in the fans. This was the second time I'd interviewed keyboardist Tim - did it once before at Parlophone headquarters. Guessing I'll be back in another couple of years to haunt him with the same question cards. Credit to Tom Cope for the 'gorilla vs bear' question, one which is now a regular addition to the question pack.
Previously published on mINtSOUTH.com in September 2009
Words: Suzy Sims
Editor: Rob Ball
(c)
mINtSOUTH.comINTERVIEW - ATHLETEUp, Close & Personal is certainly the correct term for Athlete’s show in Southampton. More used to playing venues for a thousand-plus people, the band are playing as part of Wave 105’s series of intimate concerts at the Soul Cellar – and it was certainly a tight squeeze to fit crowd and band into the venue.
Upstairs after the show, Joel Pott (lead vocals, guitar) and Tim Wanstall (keyboards) relax on a sofa as the rest of the band make a quick escape. Switch on the dictaphone, hand out the question cards, and here we go.
“Oh, coloured cards,” notes Joel. Yes, I’ve got a GCSE in Art. Tim is giving me a strange look. He’s suffering minor déjà vu but hasn’t realised this yet....
How are you enjoying Southampton? Joel: “We turned out and we soundchecked and went out for dinner. I went to Buffalo Bill’s and that was really good, was it not?” Tim: “I love coming here. Last time we were here we were at the Guildhall which was memorable because it is such a beautiful venue.” They must enjoy their time here, as they’ll be back in November for a gig at the university student union.
Last CD you bought? “No-one buys CDs anymore!” laughs Joel. “Last CD I bought was Moderat which is a combo of an artist called Apparat and a guy called Modeselektor. I do recommend it if you like electronica.”
Tim: “I think the last CD I bought was the best of Yazoo.” Joel laughs wickedly. “Love it!” Do you want me to edit that out, Tim? “No way, go for it! I’m working through Depeche Mode and I just thought this is part of the story so I checked it out, but I don’t like it as much as Depeche Mode.”
Athlete are lucky to have their own studio. Mintsouth’s wordsmith interviewed Tim a few years back in which he was explaining about the band’s newly built studio. Tim vaguely remembers us from his hazy past. “In Parlophone’s offices? Did we do this?” he keeps asking. Yes we did do this, we’ve practically recycled the same question cards. How has the recent recording gone?
Joel: “We recorded most of the record out in LA but then we came back to London. We also did some where we were in our studio in London and our producer Tom was in LA - but we had some weird voodoo thing going through the computer to link us up real-time so he could be recording us in LA.”
Tim: “As in he would press space bar, and then our computer would start playing.” Joel nods in affirmation. “It is weird.”
Has it been helpful having your own studio? Tim: “It is great, so whenever we fancy doing anything we can just go. I think it’s the way it’s going now; there’s not the money around that there used to be. Loads of studios are shutting down because people can’t afford to go into them so I think every band will have their own studio in the future.” You haven’t been renting yours out to people? “To mates at mates’ rates,” says Joel.
Didn’t you play V Festival this year? “We did.” How was it? “It was amazing,” says Tim. A little bit bigger than the Soul Cellar, one would presume. “It’s so much bigger than the last time we went as well. We had a nice little slot at about 5’o’clock in the afternoon, and it was just like everything aligned and it was perfect. There was a massive crowd and the sun was out.”
Joel agrees. “We were on top of Alisha Dixon and underneath Katy Perry. A good place to be…!” Did you do both or just one of them? asks mintsouth, before realising what we’ve said. We meant the festivals. Athlete knew what we meant but still explode in snorts of laughter, “We did do both of them, yeah,” said Joel after he’s calmed down slightly. “But one was better than the other.”
Tim considers the situation. “At festivals you play slightly shorter sets. It’s great playing festivals on four records because it’s beginning to feel like how Chelsea have to leave a substitute on the bench who’s a little bit too good to be a substitute, and it’s quite nice choosing songs.”
Joel is impressed. “That’s a really nice analogy, I like that.” “It’s like we can’t even play all our singles any more in one go,” says Tim.
Fiction Records is their “new home” since Athlete parted with their previous record label, Parlophone. Joel: “To give you the story, we released our record about two weeks after the stockmarket crash, and then two weeks after that EMI froze all their budgets.” After a bit of consideration, the band and the label went separate ways “so we just got on with making a new record and it was brilliant.”
“Fiction’s great, to be honest I can’t believe we ended up being on a label like that at this moment in time. It’s hard for bands to get signed and a label like Fiction, you’ve got Snow Patrol, Elbow and White Lies, so a really good roster and a really good history as well, like the Cure.”
Tim: ”One of the things I like is that at the point of arriving at Fiction, some of those bands like Snow Patrol and Elbow were a bit like us really, they’d had a few records under their belt. It feels like it’s the kind of label where it’s not about what’s trendy right now, it’s about believing that a good artist can make good records for a long period of time and I think in some ways because money’s tight that’s rarer and rarer these days, so we were really fortunate to find a home like that.”
Athlete has a European tour on the near horizon and will be travelling to all the exciting places like Vienna, Cologne, and… Southampton. Joel: “Copenhagen as well. There’s something really nice about touring Europe at that time of the year, you can still sit outside a bar or a café and have a beer and maybe have some good weather. Nice cities to wander around and sample good alcohol!”
Tim “It always feels like we go to Germany during Christmas time which is always quite magical – they do it a lot better than we do – and this year it’s October, so it’s going to be Oktoberfest – slap your thighs, do all of the German Morris dancing and all that. And then the beer.”
Athlete – make up your own question, we order. Joel puzzles for about two seconds before settling on what is your favourite beer? “It’s getting a bit boring now, but for about a year Sierra Nevada’s been top of the list,” says Tim. “Mine would be a pale ale as well but it would be Farmer’s,” says Joel.
The band have recently put their support behind Save The Children’s Make Your Mark campaign. Joel explains. “There’s just millions and millions of kids who don’t get clean water, something we take for granted, so it’s raising awareness about that and about other things that children around the world have to deal with and the poverty that they live in, and getting people to go ‘I want to voice my concerns about that’. There’s petitions to the government to get them to stick to stuff that they’d promised to do, by putting your thumbprint as part of the petition.”
The band’s latest press release gives a few reasons why such a charity would mean a lot to them. Both Joel and Tim’s partners miscarried around the time of the Wires release (2005) and such major shocks mean they’ve had a rollercoaster few years.
Black Swan moments are the significant lows – and highs - which can quite literally alter your life. Black Swan is also the title of the band’s fourth album. Tim visibly brightens when we ask him about it. “It came out a couple of days ago. It’s really, really exciting because you know, it might not have happened. It’s the fourth record and we made it without a record deal, and you can’t take these things for granted. I’m as excited as I was about putting our first record out.”
“And I read a good article about [a music journalist] where he was saying that melody isn’t really important to the rock critic, which I found quite disappointing because I really like melody in my music! So yeah it’s a record full of melody and it’s got the most amazing artwork ever. I don’t think there’s any way if you went into a record shop right now you would find a cover that looked as good as ours. There’s a special version with a fold out poster, and it’ll be worth buying the vinyl because then the poster is six times bigger.”
We heard it was Ken Bruce’s album of the week on Radio 2 recently. “What a lovely man,” twinkles Joel.
Are there any particular tracks which are standout ones for yourselves? “Black Swan Song. It’s a song about my granddad and his various battles throughout life and triumphs, and I think that is a special song,” says Joel.“ ‘The Getaway’ which is going to be a single, that’s going down really well live which is great. I think one of my favourite little moments is an acoustic song called Love Come Rescue, because it’s just me on my own.” He laughs loudly. Don’t take it personally Tim, but… “Only joking!”
Inspired by all the one-liners floating around the media after the Edinburgh Festival, we ask Joel and Tim to tell us a joke. Joel is not a fan of this question, and Tim picks the first ever joke he learnt: “There are two bowls of sick and they’re leaving a town, off to somewhere else. One of the bowls of sick is crying and the other one says, ‘Why are you crying?’ And he goes ‘I’m really upset.’ ‘Why is that?’ ‘Because we’ve left that town. That’s where I was brought up.’” Groans. “That was terrible!” “But if I was five, you would think it’s quite funny,” says Tim defensively.
“My daughter‘s six now, but when she was about five she went through a stage of Knock Knock jokes but she was just getting the grasp of it. She learnt one which was: Knock Knock - Who’s there? - Big Ish - Big Is-who? and then you go ‘No it’s all right mate, I’ve already got one’.” Tim: “Did she know why it was funny?” “I don’t know,” says Joel. “Because the one after that was: Knock Knock - Who’s there? - Knock Knock – Who’s there?” It’s a classic. It’s the joke that never ends.
Mintsouth tells its only clean joke: Why does Snoop Dogg carry an umbrella? Fo’ drizzle. There is a tumbleweed moment, and we hurriedly move on.
The final question is that perennial puzzler - gorilla versus bear. Who would win in a fight? “Bear every time! Because Steve is our drummer and we refer to him as the bear because he’s a big, cuddly bear,” says Joel instantly.
“What if it was gorilla vs grizzly bear? Then you might go gorilla,” muses Tim. Joel: “Probably. But it depends on my mood. But I’m going for bear because of our bear. Sweet.”
http://www.athlete.mu
