Atmospheric Indie rock trio Band of Skulls first started
their musical career as ‘Fleeing New York’ but a name change along with a more
focused attitude led them to receive critical acclaim for their debut album,
Baby Darling Doll Face Honey. Hoping to echo that success with their follow up,
Sweet Sour, we chat to bassist and vocalist Emma Richardson about dealing with
doubters and their eye-catching album artwork.
Do you approach song
writing as trio?
Yeah all three of us write and with this record especially
its been easier to work together. We trust each other a little more, we are
able to show each other ideas and back down when someone says, “this might not
fit here” or “this verse won’t work so lets scrap it”. You have to take it on
the chin and get used to taking opinions from the other members. It ended up
with the songs being the best they can be. It’s a good way to do it as we push
each other; it’s almost a competition to write something better than you did
before, better than someone else.
Do you have a musical
hero you would like to work with in the future?
If dreams can come true Tom Waits would be an amazing person
to collaborate with. I would quite like to meet Jenny Saville the painter. I
went to Wimbledon school of art a while back, I still draw a lot and I have got
an exhibition in London coming. I did four large oil paintings for this album
cover and they are going on show with some of the work from the first record as
well. I never thought I would get a show of my own.
You get involved in all
aspects of the album artwork?
Yeah pretty much, we are lucky to have quite a lot of
creative control over what we put out. The first album cover was one of my
paintings reflected. This album cover has been great; we got some glass artists
to come in and make a sculpture and worked with the design team at the label.
That was the front cover and on the inside it’s a painting. It’s a really great
process to keep that creative side running alongside the music. It’s really
important to have your own identity.
When you started out
did you ever have anybody say you wouldn’t make it in music?
Yeah, there are always the doubters. I think after a few
years our families were a bit like “what are you still doing that for, go and
get a proper job”. After a while we got a new manager and he kind of kicked us
about a bit and told us to write better songs. We stuck with it, we all really
wanted to do it and luckily we got a bit of a break. We love playing live and
making records, no one was going to stop us doing that.
How do you feel
before you go on stage?
Really nervous, some gigs are worse than others though. We
played a show supporting Muse at Manchester Old Trafford and there were fifty
thousand people there. We were in our dressing room and you could see it filling
up and I think that’s the most petrified I have ever been. Sometimes with the
smaller shows where people are eyeballing you a bit, they can be pretty
terrifying, after the first song you usually get your confidence back and enjoy
it.
Do you think we will
ever get to the stage when physical copies of CD’s die out?
I think there will always be a need for physical copies of
albums, maybe not singles these days but definitely albums. The vinyl market is
still roaring, just because of the artwork, it’s more a collector’s item now
rather than anything else. MP3’s just because of the ease of being able to get
hold of something quickly, when you are travelling around a bit, it’s amazing
to have that.
Where would you like
to be at the end of this year?
Doing as much as we can, playing as many shows as possible,
just for as many people as possible to hear our music.
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