It was a long wait, but the debut album from Erland and the Carnival was finally released in Australia at the beginning of the month to great critical acclaim – not the least of which from yours truly. Shortly after the release, we chatted to Erland Cooper, the ringleader of the carnival about the album, supporting Wild Beasts, borrowing words from Leonard Cohen, harps, Paul Weller, and a studio known as “13”.
Larry: Hey there Erland, thanks for taking the time to chat with us at the AU review today.
Erland: That’s OK! Are you trying to sort us out with a tour down there?
Oh I wish! I haven’t stopped listening to your album since I received it last week.
Oh fantastic! Well we’d love to come out at some point. The powers that be are working on it.
So where abouts am I speaking to you right now?
I’ve got a wee place in the woods, a tiny little village in Avenger – a little cottage and studio. It’s nice!
It sounds relaxing!
It is!
Not a bad thing to do in advance of a European tour!
Yeah, it’s all kicking off on the 22nd – we’re heading off around Europe: France, Belgium, Germany I think.
Have you toured around those parts before?
It’s our first tour on our own actually! We’ve been out with a few other bands, Wild Beasts – great people and great audiences! You never know as a support band, when the audience aren’t there to see you, but they really seemed to repect what we were doing. I like to think we made each other raise our games a little bit! Healthy competition.
Who was victorious?
Carnival will always reign supreme *laughs*! Nah, they’ve got their audience and very loyal fans, and we respect that. But it was good fun.
And speaking of supporting, you’ve got 4 shows at the Royal Albert Hall with Paul Weller coming up! That’s gotta be something you’re looking forward to.
Do we, really!? I didn’t know about that. You let the cat out of the bag!
Surely not!
*laughs* Ah, no. I’m just trying not to think about that one. Apparently Paul Weller is a fan! Genuinely into the band… and one thing led to another. That will certainly be the biggest gig that I’ve ever done.
And again, I wonder what that will be like, because we’re the support band – and they’re all there to see Paul Weller. So we’re going to do our best to do a really great show. For me, it’s all about being a great live band. But we’ll see how we go!
Of course you’re out there promoting your debut self-titled album. Listening to the album, I couldn’t help but feel like I was embedded in a carnival atmosphere. I just have to ask: I’m not alone in feeling this am I?
I don’t know, it’s certainly Carnival-eqsue – deep rooted in the psychedlia. But I think the Carnival is a well trodden path – it’s kind of cliché isn’t it? We didn’t intend on the album sounding entirely Carnival-esque, if that’s even a word, but there’s a theme to it for sure. A lot of it is traditional music as I’m sure you know, and so putting it together it kind of came out that way.
We started with “My Name is Carnival” – that was the first track we did. And naturally that was going to have that theme to it, the lyrics drive it that way anyway. But it just came out that way I think.
Is it a very British album from your perspective? I’m quite proud of the fact that at least half of it is traditional British songs or lyrics – or where we ripped of elements of it.
It does. I mean take your Leonard Cohen track, “Disturbed This Morning” – you’ve taken the well known lyrics of a Canadian, and distorted it into something that is indeed uniquely British. And that doesn’t even begin to step into the songs that already borrow from the English sensibility.
Oh thank you! The Leonard Cohen thing was funny – I’ve always been into Cohen, from a young age, and I found his recent book, “Book of Longing”, and I just found that every other page, every poem on it, could be quite easily put into song. So that’s only one of about 4 that have ended up in a song. A lot of the B-sides are adaptations of his poems. But the one on the album, I like the way it turned out – it kind of goes dark, psychadelic towards the end, which is interesting.
When you’re using the lyrics of someone like Leonard Cohen, was there ever a concern that the tracks mightn’t get approved for the record, and is there anything that ended up on the recording studio’s floor for the same reason?
I don’t think that ever came into our minds, really. Approval. Maybe not in an arrogant way – but maybe because traditional music, lyrics, there is no copyright on it anymore, it’s out of copyright, and it never comes into your mind about getting things approved. So you just think – oh, we’ll use Leonard Cohen – forgetting completely that you’ve got to go through all those copyright requests and all that. But the song was already done! I think they’ve asked… whether or not they’ve gotten a reply?
If he didn’t like it, I’m sure he or someone would let us know.
I’d like to talk about the process behind recording this album. As with many debut albums, did you road test a lot of the songs before you decided on what was going to go on the album?
It was quite a fun process initially. Simon (Tong) and I started working together, and it started off with a slightly more acoustic approach – and it just got darker and heavier over the year.
It started about two years ago, messing around with short songs, with a great respect for the heritage of British folk music, and that was a great place to start. There weren’t any rules, it was just what we both enjoyed doing. It was quite lively at first, and it got heavier and heavier. But just thinking about it now, a lot of the folk songs have dark stories already. So the process was good, and we did a lot of songs, and spent a year doing that – and then we went in to record it. I think it was only two weekends at (Damon Albarn’s Studio) 13.
We did most of it live, but some of it’s recorded in sheds, and attics and garden studios as well. That’s just the nature of music these days – you can record anywhere!
Exactly! I haven’t heard much about 13 – is it a unique place to record?
Oh man! It is the best. We were in there recently, we’ve started the next record, putting it together. It’s a great place, a great atmosphere. But again, we didn’t spend much time there, we just did as much as we could in the time we were there, and it all kind of came together.
Was it at all frustrating to have to wait so long to release the first album?
It went through a number of processes – I mean we finished it, and then we found who would put it out. And then a couple of different people wanted to put it out, so that delayed it a little bit – so it goes through tweeking processes, getting it mastered and all that. But I just like the creative process of getting in there and putting the songs together, and then taking it live. So I don’t feel like it’s been a long time coming. And it was released back in January in the UK.
And it just was released down here last week!
Well no one told me that! I quite like that you’re the first to let me know it’s out in Australia *laughs*.
Ah, well allow me to be the first to congratulate you!
*laughs* You realise I’ll be calling my manager right after this!
Well we better leave it there then! But before I go, there’s one more question I have for you: Now you’re a man who can play a mean guitar – but are there any other instruments you’d love to be master of? The harp perhaps?
I feel like I’m a lazy musician in that I can play a lot of instruments, but I’m a master of none. I would love to learn the harp! But I think I’d learn a couple of tunes on it and move on. I want to be a better guitar player, so I think I should try and master that. I’ve still got a few years left!
Well I think you’ve got more than that! Thanks for your time and we hope to see you down in Australia sometime soon!
I’ll be making that call now I think – see where they’re at on that tour!
Erland and the Carnival’s debut self-titled album is in stores now!
You can read our review of it here!
