Lord Auch : Interview

Not content with merely exploring the intricacies of their philosophical and historical influences including Georges Bastille, (from whom the band’s moniker stems from) musically, Lord Auch is a band with a vision, a new EP and intriguingly a screenplay in the making.  

Championed and signed by independent London label Young and Lost Club for the release of their limited edition singles ‘The Dig Inn/grassfingers’ and ‘Maredo’ and the forthcoming ‘To The Shithouse' EP, Lord Auch have received critical plaudit ever since their first live show.  Labelled ‘paranoid pop’, perhaps because of the macabre-esque and gloomy soundscapes which litter their 50’s rock and roll inspired music, the band pay great attention to the melodic textures and rhythms beautifully at the root of every track.

Lyrically, like Bastille before them, Lord Auch explore the art of observation, relationships, love and sex, not forgetting the more macabre sides of life brings a shroud of malaise to proceedings.  No wonder comparisons to Nick Cave and The Birthday Party have been laid on thick, yet Lord Auch should not be mistaken for a band resting on the laurels of bands gone before them, as that would be to belittle the craft of which frontman and founder, Simon McCabe has worked so hard to establish.  

Now with a line-up that has grown from 3 to 5 to accomplish the ever expanding depths of their sound, Lord Auch are ready to begin studio sessions towards what could be one of the most anticipated debut albums set for 2010.  And let us not forget that short film, written by McCabe to fit a narrative soundtracked by the EP and remarkably being backed by Academy Award winning screenwriter and director Michel Gondry’s production company Partizan.  An achievement which already post-production has been penciled in for entry into next years film festival season.  

Undoubtedly highly ambitious with an absorbing musical consciousness, Lord Auch are: Simon McCabe (Voice); Danny Prescott (Drums); Liam Wade (Guitar); Stelios Kurunis (Bass); Nicholas Jones (Guitar). 

4TR: Lord Auch has gone from a three piece to a quartet in the last year – why change what was already seemingly going very well?

Simon McCabe: Well with Lord Auch as me, Danny and Liam we had released 2 singles with Young and Lost but I kind of felt we had gone as far as we could with that set up and I wanted to make a bigger sound with the band and extend the line up.  So I got my brother Nicky in on guitar and Stelios in on bass and now we are at a point where its right you know.  I'd always wanted to make the band and our sound bigger and get in trumpeters and violinists for example but it’s difficult to do that.  We are sounding great at the moment and I am really happy with how everything has gone and the changes that have been made.

4TR: Your sound has been dubbed ‘paranoid pop’, is that a label you have given yourself or something someone invented and do you agree?

Simon: [Laughs] yeah I think somebody mentioned it once and then the press just went with it. I always have a massive struggle with describing our sound; it’s the hardest questions in the world to answer.  We sound like all our influences messed up with all our experiences; you cant really put a name on that.

4TR: How do you feel the sound has evolved, if at all, since the beginning?

Si: It has definitely evolved yes, particularly with the kind of feeling behind it and because I’ve tried to approach song writing differently.  I’m fascinated by the way people write soundtracks for films and the way they write music to the visual, so I started writing my music to books and films and tried to come up with my own musical versions of that.  I think you come up with something more original because you don’t have any starter points for what instruments to use, so you have to start from scratch and use your feelings and imagination.  Its different because you don’t end up sounding as contrived if you haven’t got any direct music influences from that point.  Obviously all your previous music influences are there in the back of your mind, but you have to try and forget them.

4TR: So are you the main songwriter for the band?

Simon: Yeah, but we are writing a lot more music together than we used to.  I used to write it all but now that we have got a bigger band its good to get in the studio and play around with ideas, so we're doing that a lot more now, but I write 100% of the lyrical content and will continue to.

4TR: Your lyrics touch on different subjects, but do you write autobiographically?

Simon: Yeah it kind of is autobiographical; but I like to create characters to kind of thinly veil my personal experiences in that sense because if it’s too personal no one can relate to it.  My favourite thing about lyrics and the lyrics I enjoy from other artists are those that are vague at times, so allowing people to make their own kind of assumptions on them without being too specific.  I always like to guess what a track is about rather than being told what it’s about in the first line of the song, its still personal but you kind of leave a little opening for people put their own name in there.

4TR: You are about to release an EP ‘To The Shithouse…’ – does that contain the first recordings with the new line-up?

Simon: Well it’s the first one with the full line up in mind, but actually the songs were recorded before.

4TR: Young & Lost have been involved with Lord Auch from the beginning, releasing your singles and now the EP.  How did the relationship come about?

Simon: They actually came to our very first gig and signed us to a couple of singles off the back of that show at Bardens Boudoir. I had played a few gigs for them in the past with my former band Black Wire so knew them and Liam invited them down to the show.  It was a really nerve-wracking gig because it was the first time I’d ever played as frontman plus it was packed out, but it went really well and afterwards they came up to us and said we want to put a single out.  It happened so quickly after that and we were in the studio within a week of our first show.

4TR: You have turned the EP into a screenplay for a short film entitled ‘To The Shithouse’ which is being directed by up and coming director James Willis.  Where did the idea to do a film stem from?

Simon: Yeah, I’m working with James who is a new director from Partizan, which is Michel Gondry’s production company.  Basically I didn’t want to go straight into an album after we did the 2 singles because we weren’t ready and there was a lot more to explore before that. But I didn’t just want to put out another single because how far can you go with just putting singles out, so an EP was the obvious step. I’ve always been a big fan of records that are complete records and not just a bunch of singles on an album, so I wanted to create something that had a running narrative through it.  I'd actually written something a few years ago which had a strong narrative and adapted it so all the songs on the EP are related to the film, have the same narrative, and focus on it. It’s at that point now where we’ve got a really great production company involved and it will be made by Christmas, then hopefully it will be put in for the film festival season starting at the end of January.

4TR: What is the screenplay about?

Simon: Basically the main character ‘Drunk’ is troubled by an ex-relationship and a miscarried child and because of his drinking and drug intake he starts to hallucinate and is haunted by this giant fetus which follows him round.  It's a dark comedy but it is also really sad.  The whole thing has been a lot of work; I’ve been working on it for like 6 months now with the director and we are really happy with how it’s going.

4TR: Have you started writing towards a full-length record?

Simon: Yeah well actually the album is already written, but we are going to do what we did with the EP which was a brilliant way of working for us. Basically we had never played any of the songs off the EP live before we recorded them because once you play it live the song starts to change depending on peoples reactions and if you play something too long its not your song anymore because you’ve changed it and it loses what it was in the first place.  So with the EP we went in with a bunch of ideas and then wrote the songs in the moment and deleted what we didn’t like without going in with a fixed song.  You can’t be too precious with tracks and the studio is another part of song writing.  So with the album we have hundreds of little bits of music and lyrics and the plan is to go in and see what happens again because as far as I am concerned the EP is the best thing I’ve ever recorded; its got a nice feel to it, it's very natural and every track seems to run with each other and so I would like to do a bigger version of that for the album.

4TR: So we can expect the debut album from Lord Auch some time next year?

Simon: Yeah definitely, the idea is to get it ready for festival season, and ideally get a single out in the New Year.  We will be in the studio with the December, then mixing album in January and looking to tour again after that.  

‘To The Shithouse’ the ep is out NOW on Young & Lost Club Records.

Words: Francesca Strange

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