Athlete Interview

Black Swan is the fourth album by Athlete and its one that is a "musical summary" of everything the band have been through over the last few years. Having gone back to being an unsigned band, experienced suffering and joy, love and loss, the band have come back philosophical, excited and driven for their latest tour. I spoke to singer and guitarist Joel Pott before they hit the road.

How has the music industry changed for better or worse since you started out?

It's a different world now. There's less money being made. People don't buy records in the same way they used to and even those CDs are £8 when they used to be £15. Now you can download an album for £5. The thing is that you don't really hear loads of musicians complain about it (apart from Lars Ulrich) because the artists and bands never got a good deal from the music industry anyway. Cash flow and financial targets have never inspired a great record or your favorite song. 


Do you agree with giving away your music for free?

I think artists should have the choice whether their music is available for free or not. It would be unfair to take anyone's art or creation without paying what that person wants to charge for it. I do like the way that so many people are giving away free downloads though. I've bought whole albums after downloading a free giveaway song from band or artist. 






Your songs have appeared on many TV shows, are there any shows that you would not allow a song to be used for, i.e how would you feel hearing someone on X Factor sing one?

TV shows are one of the ways that we now rely on for people to discover our music so that's a great outlet for us. X Factor? I don't  think there is anything that you can do about that kind of thing anyway. Westlife recently covered one of our songs which was very strange. You don't have to ask permission to do that so we found out after they had recorded it. 


The title for your latest album is taken from the 'black swan theory' about unpredictable events, do you consider yourself to be a philosophical band?

Everybody is philosophical sometimes. I think when we were making Black Swan it was a turning point so, yes, I guess you're right that we were probably at a time when we were asking questions about where we were at and what the future held. 


What do you know now that you wished you knew when you were starting out seven years ago? And what advice would you give to your younger selves if you could?

Beware the NME. 


How did you feel when you parted company with EMI? 

It was a massive weight off of our shoulders. EMI had gone through a massive crisis and it had directly effected our latest album. The second single didn't even have a video as they had frozen the budgets. So many of the people that we had worked with for years had been made redundant so we felt quite alone there. Leaving EMI gave us a new sense of independence and we became more driven than ever. 


You worked with Tom Rothrock on Black Swan, how was that experience?

Generally Tom was great to work with, although we did have our differences at times. We have always been big fans of playing around with synths and drum machines and whatever other little effects we can get our hands on. Tom wasn't quite so keen on this. He wanted to keep things as straightforward and acoustic as possible and ended up coming up with the term YAK which was 'Yet another keyboard'. I think eventually we agreed to disagree on this and hopefully found a balance that worked as far as the record was concerned. Eventually we mixed the record over the internet via some real time playback software. This worked surprisingly well although I would always recommend being in the same room if possible. About two months later Tom phoned us and, rather than being in his house in the Hollywood hills, he was outside our studio in Deptford. So we stopped rehearsing, went to the pub and finally had our album completion celebrations. 


Your songs stem from deeply personal experiences; do you find the act of song writing therapeutic?

I think all songs are therapeutic in some way. Songs work on so many different levels for different people and that's what makes it so special. So many of our songs come from very personal experiences so I guess this makes them quite therapeutic. When Wires was written we had no idea that so many people would connect to that song. We thought that a problematic birth seen from a parent's point of view was a pretty obscure subject for a song and the record company thought it was a real risk releasing that as a first single. When it was released we had the most amazing response and so may people came to us with their deeply personal experiences. 


If you could be in any other band, which one would it be and why?

I would be in The Beastie Boys because they make the best videos, have the most fun and Ill Communication is still in my top 5 albums. 


What advice would you give to bands trying to make it these days?

I have no idea. If you enjoy it then that's a perfect start.

(published in Yorkshire Evening Post and Metro)