Wave Machines : Interview

Photo: By John Walton

Where: o2 Islington Academy

“It’s Liverpool. Just picture yourself in Liverpool and that’s it really” jokes Wave Machines Tim Bruzon as we discuss the origins of the band in the tight confines of the “backstage area”, while they nervously await their first headline London show.  But despite being referred to by the Guardian as Liverpool’s third best band right now (we could not deduce 1 & 2), it is more than their home City that has moulded their hybrid of sounds, that has had even Radio 1’s Annie "house, bass and beats" Mac, pontificating Wave Machines as the next big thing.

Art-pop, art-disco or art-inspired-indie, Wave Machines are difficult to define in sound and aesthetic. It is obvious that this is the result of gleaning inspiration from an all-encompassing palette of influences, genres and ideas that have fashioned their individual sound. But instead of creating what could have been a messy stab at trying everything once, the Scouse foursome have self-penned and self-produced a brave and cohesive debut that will keep their critics guessing, and their fans getting their groove on.

Bruzon’s falsetto vocal, not too dissimilar from a certain Barry Gibb, leads the way over dominant white funk basslines, polished beats and animated electronic keys, and all played out from behind the “theatrical” masks they adorn for all live appearances. It’s an absurd musical theatre of sorts that has intrigued some, and caused others to question their pretention levels.  Nevertheless, with a long player crammed full of playful pop masterpiece’s and a live show that goes far beyond the visuals, their existence on the fringes of mainstream success will soon be exchanged for widespread approbation.

So this summer as the sounds of the infectious electronic tour de force ‘Keep The Light’s On’ continues to play a starring role on play lists everywhere, so will the band who created it. Wave Machines could be the surprise hit of 2009 and rightly so, but in the meantime just to wet your whistle the rest of our interview went a little something like this..

4TR: So Liverpool is where it all began for Wave Machines, but give us the background story surrounding the early days.
Tim: Well each of us had been working living and playing music in Liverpool for a long time, and were involved in different projects and generally part of a little scene there of artists and musicians.  But none of us had nailed something as exciting as we wanted really, so the band started as a result of all those experiences.  Wave Machines was the chance for us to something that was a bit more energised and up-tempo than the stuff that we would normally be doing.  So we have basically been in a room on the Dock Road for a year and half just throwing sounds around and trying to make something good.  It took quite a while to get to where we are now sound-wise and we rejected a load of stuff until we had a set that we were happy to gig.
Carl: The idea was to take the songs on the road for a year before thinking about recording and to let that inform us about what people liked about what we do.  That was one of the best ideas we had because so many songs were better than we thought they were going to be live and other songs we thought would work didn’t; so things changed according to the different responses we got and so we ended up here with something that makes people dance. 

4TR: So your music was not contrived or even intended, it just arose out of a trial and error process?
Tim: Basically yeah, the set was a bit of a mixed bag really and songs just kind of deselected themselves at gigs, people booed them sometimes [laughing] nah it wasn’t that bad. Why did I say that? Sometimes I do that and say things that really are the wrong thing to say.

4TR: Is there a story behind the name Wave Machines?
Tim: There’s no story other than Carl came up with it as the idea of another take on a wave machine because it seemed like a multi-layered phrase that you can relate to sound and music as well. 

4TR: Last year you released ‘I Go I Go I Go’ as a limited edition on Chess Club which sold out even before they had pressed the copies right?
Tim: Yeah, there was a lot of pre-ordering going on, but we didn’t even know so it was a nice surprise to see how well it did as it was the first!

4TR: Did Chess Club approach you to put out the release?
Carl: It was great actually because first they came to us and asked us to play their night at the Social in London and then when we decided that we wanted to release a single ourselves, they found out said we would like to put it out for you.  So obviously we were more than happy for that to happen because they are great guys, they have had amazing releases and it's a great label.

4TR: How was the feedback in the early days?
Carl: It was good and there was a nice response from radio people.  Rob Da Bank and Huw Stevens played it quite a bit and from that we ended up playing at Latitude on the In New Music We Trust stage which at that point was our biggest gig.

4TR: Do you write collaboratively as a group or is each Wave Machines song approached differently?
Tim: It happens a number of different ways really; some of the stuff is just made up at home where we all record little demos and bring those in or we bring bits of songs into the rehearsal room and sort of jam them out as a band. 
Carl: Yeah a lot of the time Tim brings in stuff he has worked on at home and we play it pretty much verbatim or sometimes something comes in and we just jam around and it ends up sounding completely different.
Tim: There’s quite a bit of experience of song-writing throughout the band so I suppose little bits of arrangement and fairly subtle production things get done by us in the rehearsal room.  There’s a lot of musical heads which is a useful thing to have!
4TR: So in that case you must all have an opinion on how a song ends up.
Tim: [Laughs] yeah which is not always ideal but on the whole it’s a good thing.

4TR: Loads of different words have been thrown at you to describe your sound, but where do you feel you are personally coming from?
Tim: Well it is a mixed bag, there are a few tunes that are quite guitar based and quite indie but on the whole it goes into that electro or pop space.  But it always sort of feels like it sits on the bandy side of things to me personally.

4TR: Do you think because your album is such a mixed bag it will make it hard for people to define your music or ultimately pigeonhole you?
Carl: I think it probably is hard to define us but that’s good.  Part of that has come from the fact that we have seen so many bands over the years where you hear a couple of songs live and you have basically heard the whole set because they use the same sort of palette of sounds and the same structure.  We are all individually into a wide range of music, so we wanted to keep ourselves amused and entertained and we wanted the same for the audience, because it's easy to get bored unless you have a massive album that everyone has bought and knows all the songs.  I think its very easy to fall into that trap of sounding the same so we wanted to mix it up and so that might make it hard to define, but we are cool with that.

4TR: Does that variation of sound throughout your record make it harder to recreate the record for live shows?
Carl: No I don’t think so because that’s part of the whole process of going out and playing to figure out which songs work and go together.

Tim: We do have to tailor the set quite carefully so there’s a kind of journey between tunes so that things don’t jar against each other.  We basically force ourselves to get it right and play everything live, and some songs take a lot longer than others to gdo that but that’s our job.

4TR: Your debut album ‘Wave if You’re Really There’ is out on the 15th June.  Is it everything you hoped and wanted for the record and was the journey from start to finish what you expected?
Tim: On the whole it’s been what we wanted.  It was hard though as we ended up doing a lot of the recording ourselves and producing it, then we got a someone else to mix it which was the best thing we ever did because he made it sound better than we could have, plus he bought a few different elements out in some of the tunes, like ‘Keep the Lights On’ has changed quite radically from the demo thanks to him.  So really you are always looking for that element of collaboration with someone.  One of the difficult things about making a record yourself is that its hard not to get too caught up in it and therefore too close to it.  We are very happy with the album, but obviously there are things we didn’t have time or money to get exactly right but in the grand scheme of things it’s really good.

4TR: Your first 2 singles, ‘I Go…’ (Re-released this year) and ‘Keep The Lights On’ which preceded the album has been picked up and talked about everywhere as well as being played in clubs, on the radio and by you in the live environment.  Was that kind of hype something you intended when you set out?
Tim: There was some intention behind the crossover side of our songs yeah.  But the fact that people have responded well is beyond our control.  I think whispers going out was what we were always hoping would work for us, so the most important thing was that the people who liked it would tell their friends and word of mouth would build up and the initial stages of that are going well. 
Carl: That again goes back to the thing where we decided to play live for a year before recording because it informs you a lot about what people like as well as what we like to play and how that can cross over.  A lot of the gigs we play are club gigs, especially in that first year as well where we would play and then there would be a disco kind of thing after, so people were in the mood to have a good night.  From that we quickly learnt that giving people something they can dance to is a good thing.
Tim: That said those gigs can be really hard as well because we are not an out and out dance band.  I always think a band like We have Band are perfect for those club nights because they have that balance and its mainly dance orientated music.  We sort of crossover into that during our set, but at points we veer right off again, so we could blow a bit hot and cold as far as audiences are concerned at those nights.  There’s always that thinking of should we be doing more dance music, but we are still into writing the odd moody song and there is definitely a place for it.

4TR: The album is being released on Neopolitan, why did you decide to work with them after Chess Club?
Tim: Well it’s a label that is set up with our management and was a decision that we made around the end of last year.  We had had some offers in which we weren’t really feeling so we thought on the balance of things we would rather try and protect the album and have more control over it.  With the climate at the moment there’s loads of room for real indie outfits and its totally workable really so its so far so good for us.

4TR: And they have allowed you the creative control you were looking for?
Tim: Yeah definitely and we didn’t want to fret about things like getting tunes playlisted on the radio because if it doesn’t happen then you get dropped immediately.   That’s I guess what we were saying about the whole word of mouth thing, we always thought we would be a slow burner and Wave Machines would take longer to get through to a wider audience.

4TR: And with your individual artist backgrounds and association with art collectives in Liverpool, I am assuming you were involved with the whole album package, including the artwork?
Carl: Totally yeah.  Since the band started a friend of ours has done all the artwork for everything we do, so the whole artistic thing has been great and really enjoyable.  We do feel there is a certain hit you get when you’re holding a record whether its cd or vinyl and if it feels and looks great then it helps you know it’s a good thing to own.  There are a lot of very standard things that get released which you could own or just download and it wouldn’t make much of a difference, but we know how good it feels when you are getting into a band to have something that looks and feels amazing, so wanted to give people that feeling because we think its worth it.
Tim: [Laughing] They deserve it, that’s what you were going to say isn’t it.
Carl: [Laughing] Yeah, the people deserve it.

4TR: The Guardian did a ‘New Band of the Day’ piece on you and mentioned that you are the 3rd best band in Liverpool.  Any ideas who  is number 1 or 2?
Tim: [Laughing] It's funny because I was writing something this morning about what bands we were listening to when we were getting together and at the time there was a band called Elle S’appelle who had a single out on Moshi Moshi and were getting tipped for big things.  That was just as we were trying to sort of muscle our way in there and then just for some reason the whole thing fell apart which shocked me because I was convinced those guys were going to go stellar. 
Carl: There's a band called Puzzle who are getting quite a lot of love from people and are an engaging band live but didn’t seem to have that stellar thing going that Elle S’appelle had going.
Tim: Quotes like that are funny, you just think what the hell?
4TR: I suppose it’s one of those quotes you could use on your MySpace.
Tim: [Laughing] Actually you know what we should definitely have that on there.

4TR: Is there still much of a music scene in Liverpool curently or is it quite fractured in terms of the different things going on?
Tim: I think the bands are very fractured at the moment.  We sort of work and hang out with a lot of poets and visual artists so there is a scene there that is not necessarily band led.  There are a few other bands who are just on the cusp, but there’s not like this huge Liverpool movement at the moment really. 
Carl: No I’m drawing a bit of a blank actually.
Tim: Soft Toy Emergency have been having a crack at things lately.
Carl: And our friend a.P.A.t.T who are very experimental, very brave people who have some amazing songs and crazy songs as well.
Tim: They are completely mental and have no regard for their commercial wellbeing [laughing], so they are just into doing what they like doing which is a good thing isn't it!

Wave Machines debut album 'Wave If you're Really There' is available to buy now.

www.myspace.com/mywavemachine

Words & Live Images: Francesca Strange

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