Behind the futuristic sound of East India Youth, electronic musician William Doyle has been a very busy man with a tight schedule. Having just finished a round of shows for SXSW and releasing his new album, Culture of Volume this month, he talks to us about the new record’s reception, what he enjoys about tour life and his plans for the rest of the year. Read on for the full interview…
It’s been a pretty crazy month for you. Between touring and the release of the record… how has it been for you? Looking at SXSW and that crazy week.
It’s been a lot of fun, you know. I’ve had a really fun time over there. SXSW was definitely a good start. I mean I had some shows before in Tokyo for a bit and then I had some European shows and that really felt like the start of touring this album. I’ve very much gotten into the mode of it then. It’s been a crazy ride and mostly reception to the record has been really encouraging and good. People seem to have gotten on board with it all and I’m excited to start the next block of touring.
You’re going all over the place in going back to the States and getting back to Europe. You’re traveling around the UK and you’ve got friends like Hannah Peel for some of the shows as well.
Yeah I know. I’m really enjoying my touring life. It’s just me, my manager and then the three of us and we have a really great time on the road. I have a better quality of life and it’s quite a lot of fun. It’s cool because every show is different than the last. I don’t get much sleep when it comes to tour life, really.
I’m actually exactly the same. I’m like an insomniac when I’m at home and when I’m traveling to festivals and doing events. I sleep only for a bit. I guess you push yourself to exhaustion – maybe it’s something to do with that.
Yeah, you expel yourself that amount of energy during the day and when you’re at home, you’re probably a little more lazier and you don’t really get up to much. It’s really weird – when I’m touring the UK, and when we’ve got like a London show before the tour is over and I stay at home. I can’t sleep and I have all these events left to do.
With the music you make, you do make a lot of it at home so you kind of can’t be all that lazy. Do you have some sort of structure in terms of the way you work on your music? Do you have that sort of structure in your life when you make your music or does it happen spontaneously?
Compared to a lot of artists and musicians, they say they work through the night, you know and they work through midnight until the end – I can’t do that. When I’m working on a new record, I definitely structure it all myself like a 9 to 5 job. It was kind of an arbitrary choice to do that but it just gave me some kind of timeframe to work in and the more you do it, the more your brain get’s wired into working in those moments. I find that the most inspiring bit of time for me is early in the morning, from 6-9am and it’s the most fertile period for me. It’s quite exciting doing that; the world isn’t awake yet and things haven’t been going yet and I’m excited to work on something in that time space. You’re making things happen and it’s yours and that’s quite a cool thing to do.
You seem to be the opposite of any other musician if that’s the time of day you’re creating this music.
I mean, it doesn’t mean I don’t play hard as well [laughs].
Does that mean perhaps between 6-9am is the best time to listen to your music?
Yeah, I would say so. I think a lot of people think musicians work in their craft at night time. I guess maybe not with this album but for the first record I did – it’s definitely kind of like an early retrospective on things because the time I made it in was during those hours and I associate with that time. But I’m happy to be able to listen to it to whatever time of the day I feel like and I guess there’s a lot of different flavours in both records in terms of the different times of the day.
There is something very dusk or dantesque to your music so I guess it goes either way.
The records aren’t like a clear time of day, you know. There’s so many different flavours and styles going on that there can only be the midpoint between doing it. This is definitely a full on, sunshine thing or like a you know, this is the middle of the night sort of thing. There has to be some sort of gravy in there, kind of what you see in the sky and dusk or whatever. I think that definitely fits on something what we might do.
Let’s talk about your live show. You’ve mentioned that it’s a pretty small team that travels with you. How has the show developed though for this record compared to what you were doing when you were playing shows for the last one?
The last show was a very basic setup, I had a laptop and keyboard and a bass guitar and that was kind of it. With me, I’ve got the laptop and the keyboard still going and now I’ve got like a drum set and drumsticks. I’ve started to incorporate some electric guitar onto one thing as well. I definitely don’t really look at the laptop anymore but I’ve got a pad that controls the laptop now.
It’s just good to not have the laptop right in front of my face; I can kind of engage with the audience a bit more and be more physical with things – that can only be a good thing. I really enjoy playing and I think it took me a while to get into this year after doing SXSW and doing so many shows there, I felt very much in good rehearsal. It’s really an interesting challenge now to try and get some of the new songs to work live. I’m really finding that out and it all really depends on the audience and their interactions to things.
When you were making the record, did you keep kind of the live version in mind about how you might tackle that or did you just worry about that later?
It was something that went through consideration. Obviously, you don’t want to limit yourself when you’re making and producing tracks, thinking you can’t possibly put that on record because there’s no way you can reproduce it live – I think that’s a silly thing to do. Especially when you’re touring when it’s so relaxed as well, I can’t possibly do everything that I have made on record so you kind of work around in the studio, then also there’s those instances of problems you need to work around when you’re constructing a live show.
And with this one, I think I utilised my voice more, compared to the first record. It’s definitely a strength that I try and develop. I like singing and when I was playing live, I thought my voice was growing strong and I wanted to incorporate that more in this album and that’s basically the whole angle of this record.
When I first listened to Culture of Volume, I felt like I was in a Terry Gilliam movie. There was something very 80s / 90s cinematic about it. And then of course, you have references all over the place. Everyone is going to take something different from the record… what does that mean to you?
Yeah I mean, you leave everything up to interpretation. I think that’s not a new idea really with musicians and artists because you can’t really strive to get your point across all the time – you have to have enough of time in there when working through important emotions that are up to you. It really hinges on the interpretations of the lyrics and you have to make the work sort of that to be done that way. You don’t wanna ask too much for the reading and you just have to dissect it immediately. It needs to be personal enough for you but open enough to someone else.
Like I guess I’ve taken it to the extreme by having so many different types of styles and genres but I’ve never really thought of that as a conscious thing in terms of incorporating those styles and genres – it’s been very much a natural process thing since I’ve started recording on the computer. Every song that I’ve done sounds different from the last one and it’s been carrying on for the last ten years.
I guess given that people get really used to listening a lot of different styles of music now rather than having one particular genre carved down themselves – I think it’s a good thing, which means I get to do things like putting electric style, pop song mixes, industrial techno mixes to sort of ambient pieces and that kind of sets me up to do it and it’s quite empowering.
Well, the record is just fantastic. I haven’t been able to stop listening to it, I didn’t get to see you at SXSW but I’m gonna get to see you in a couple of weeks in Toronto, Canada of all places for Canadian Music Week (CMW) so looking forward to that. It’s a great festival by the way – it’s always a good vibe over there and I think you’re playing at Drake which is one of the greater venues of Toronto so that should be a fun one.
Absolutely. I’ve not been to Canada before so it’s exciting. I’m really looking forward to my North American trip and it’s generally good fun to play out in the States. I can only imagine, you know, from what I heard of Canadian experiences so it’s good. I’m very much excited for that.
And then you’re going to Montreal right after and you’re playing the area that has all the best food of Montreal. So make sure you get yourself some bagels and some poutine while you’re there and you’ll be very, very happy that you did.
Oh yeah, definitely. On tour, good food can sometimes be a luxury, you know. You’re always stopping at gas stations and I’ve heard you have to deal with the time difference or whatever but if there’s ever some good food in town, we’ll definitely take up on it. I’m a bit big, I like to indulge in that sort of thing wherever I am so it’ll be good.
Indeed it is. Well, mate – I really appreciate your time and we’ll see you in a couple of weeks in Canada.
Thank you very much. I’ll see you there. Have a good day.
—–
Culture of Volume is available now. Interview by Larry Heath.
