John Goodridge chats to Dominic Philips of Irish band Bell X1 about their sixth album Chop Chop and their upcoming trip to Australia.
Hi Dominic, it’s John calling from the AU Review.
John, how you doing?
Good thanks, how are you?
Not too bad, thanks very much.
Excellent. Now you’re touring your album Chop Chop to Australia soon. Can you run through the recording process on how that came about?
Sure. Well we made the decision early on to pare back and do a more basic recording – more fundamental really – not spending ages layering stuff. So we’d done a series of acoustic gigs with just three of us playing, so it would be piano, bass and guitar for the most part with a little bit of drums and that sort of formed how we did it.
So we wrote in one of the guy’s garage and we wrote the record in that sort of format almost. We got to a point where we would start layering and we kind of halted it a bit there. Then we got connected with the guys that produced us, Peter and Thomas and they were really into us. One of the factors for them was doing it as it was too, so it sort of suited us all round. As it happens, they only had a two-week window between the two of them and ourselves. A two week window to record seems really impossible to be honest, to our usual standards. We went to Peter’s studio for two weeks and I didn’t think we’d get it finished, but we did.
Obviously there would have been a lot of preparation beforehand for that.
We’d done a lot of work obviously on the material up to then in terms of writing it and getting it roughly right. We sent copies to them to have a listen to so they sort of knew where we were going or where we were at, but there’s still the unknown when you go to the studio and in the mix what’s gonna happen, you know. But we did get it done. We got a brass layer in but we didn’t spend days on every song adding loads of stuff. We sort of stayed basic so it was a great experience for us.
Does that give it a different dimension – having that time limit?
Yeah. It means you sort of have to just go with it. Sometimes you end up filling up the space for no reason, but when the time constraint’s there, you’re sort of forced to work fast and that’s a good thing I think. It also means if you do spend months working on a record you get tired and it sort of exaggerates the problem. If you feel like it’s taking days then it does. You don’t go down dead ends. Quite often, that will happen. At least one of the songs you’ll end up realising is not working and you go to a different song and you never go back to it or reworking it.
Obviously with the creative process, if it was easy to follow then everyone would do it. It’s an individual thing. From what I’ve been reading you write and record each album in a different place.
We do. That’s really just to keep it fresh for ourselves. I think if you go back to the same place and the same mode of working, by a couple of days in it feels like old ground. It increases the risk of getting stuck in a rut maybe, whereas to do something new it’s kind of fresh and you’re finding your feet almost. Like this record we went to America to record and we always wanted to do that. It doesn’t make a huge amount of difference when you’re stuck in a room with little or no windows. It doesn’t really matter where you are, arguably, But it’s the emotion of actually going there and even just getting up in the morning being in a new environment and then you go to work.
Yeah I’ve done that myself, you do the same job in a different city and suddenly it’s more interesting.
Yeah, exactly. Just because of the extra factors, I guess. The emotion of getting on a plane to record a record gives it that little extra bit.
Your music – I love this description: “A combination of rich and robust and fragile and intimate”. Where would you say your influences come from?
I guess that they’ve always been pretty wide and varied. We all have different slants on where we’re coming from. Anything from retro rock; Thin Lizzy, that kind of thing, I guess Radiohead would have been a big influence when we started and as they developed they sort of changed so the spectrum of their stuff we were very interested in. Even country music, Johnny Cash style of country music as opposed to, you know, the awful style of country music, I’m a big fan of everything really. Over the years your interests change. Early on there used to be pretty disparate stuff, not really a body of work but songs that varied wildly, whereas this particular record is the most cohesive record that we have.
Does the environment have an influence as well? Listening to the record I get an image of Ireland almost.
I guess everyone makes a connection or an image for themselves and I’m not sure that even with the most specific descriptions of our last record when someone says that it puts it in your mind. I’m not sure. Whatever is evocative in your own head is a good thing.
What I really like are the videos. I’ve seen a couple of videos that go with it. The black and white one of the two people being dripped in paint for “Careful What You Wish For” is such an amazing video clip and goes perfectly with the song. Who came up with that idea?
I guess with the videos we are the least involved because they’re a sort of afterthought – well afterthought is the wrong word – but they’re certainly done after the fact and when we’re prepared to release control in terms of working with someone who has an idea for a video and you let them really guide us and you say “Oh that sounds like a really good idea.” Videos are always a bit hit and miss – they can be a great idea but if you have half a million to spend – it could be great but these days of record company videos are gone so that’s a good thing but it means you have to make more interesting stuff .
As an artist, how do you feel about that “letting go” process? Once music disappears out into the world, there’s gonna be people covering it, copying it, stealing it, interpreting it. Is that something you just have to learn to let go and let it have a life of it’s own?
Absolutely, yeah. Because it’s a thing too with other people’s music. It’s a good thing. You sort of make your record in a bubble and when you release the record there’s a bit of nervousness at the start how it’s going to be received I guess, because it’s kind of letting it out for the first time beyond a small handful of people, but then once you do, the pressure’s off. I guess once we’re happy with it, then you can tell yourself it doesn’t matter, but then of course it does matter because you care if people actually enjoy it. But beyond that you just have to let it go wherever.
Being a musical artist must be a very satisfying career so to speak, in that you would get to see your work enjoyed by so many people.
Yeah I mean that is lovely. Even playing a show and people are there, singing along. They’re there not for your satisfaction but because they’re enjoying it and it’s a good way to be.
Now Bell X1 seems to tour extensively – you’ve just returned from the States. As a group, do you find that difficult or do you find that draws you together as a group?
Um, a bit of both really. We enjoy the act of touring, the act of traveling and particularly going to new places and playing in front of new crowds who don’t necessarily know you and there is an element of going back to basics and you’re playing a gig to get something across to people. As opposed to when you play a home town show and some people are there for just one or two songs and they’re just there for the live acts and they’re already converted, you know what I mean. But the actual act of touring you have to get along on buses and planes and whatever and being in each other’s pockets. You just learn the signs you know when people need space and you figure that one out. If you don’t you wouldn’t do that for too long.
So this is the first time to Australia. Do you have any preconceived ideas about what it might be like? Are you planning to see any of the sights?
I’d love to. We’re hopping from city to city and as is normal with touring you get sort of postcard glimpses of places. You can see the inside of a bus or the inside of a venue and that can be it really. Again that’s part of the travel, even though you only spend an afternoon in a city and you do a sound check and a gig, you get up the next morning and have breakfast and move on to another city. It’s a really nice way to tick a lot of boxes. When you’re on holiday you end up spending a week here or there but in terms of ticking a lot of boxes and postcard views as I say it is great. But you actually get to go back to places. There’s places where we’ve been back half a dozen times and there’s a feeling that you know the place.
So what can the Australian audiences expect from the shows?
The usual I guess. Sometimes we change the configuration a bit in terms of line-up. For our last record we had a brass player and for us it’s nice to be able to produce the album sound.
Are you bringing any special packaging like the chopping boards for the Chop Chop record?
No, they’re all gone. The chopping boards were sort of a one off at the start and they were sold on our website so they sort of flew out the door. It’s kind of a novelty. It’s a bit silly, Chop Chop, a chopping board but people were ringing up and it’s actually a beautiful thing. But when we decided to do them it could be really daft or really nice.
I saw a photo of them and I wonder how many people use them and how many keep them in a bookshelf.
Yeah because there’s a cut in the middle where the CD sits in and if you use it all the food’s gonna get stuck in there but we were hoping that people do use it so it becomes part of the kitchen and part of the home as opposed to a little ornament but either way frankly works fine.
That’s what made me think about Bell X1 as more organic, it’s not just the music but there’s a physical side to the band as well. The music is there but it’s more to it than that.
We’ve always tried to do something in the line of that. Just a little, but something. We’ve always had merch like t-shirts but we’ve had other things like teapots for example.
Well, looking forward to seeing you in Australia and thanks for the chat today and good luck with the tour.
Thanks so much.
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BELL x1 AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES
Thursday 3rd July 2014
Melbourne, The Hifi – VIC
Friday 4th July 2014
Brisbane, The Zoo – QLD
Saturday 5th July 2014
Sydney, The Hifi – NSW
Sunday 6th July 2014
Perth, Capitol Theatre – WA
