Following
recent performances at Dot To Dot & Live At Leeds; AFFAIRS are back,
rejecting mundane routines with their synth laden new single Gracious World.
Last
year’s Fierce Panda single Life of Leisure spawned a John Kennedy Radio X
session, plays from BBC 6Music’s Steve Lamacq & Chris Hawkins, BT Music
& Amazing Radio playlists and more.
Previous
support has come from BBC 6 Music, Radio 2, Radio X, Clash Mag, BT Music and
more.
We spoke to Liam from the
band and asked him to describe their new single.
I’d
say it is a bit of a change of pace from what we’ve done previously. Most of
our previous singles have had a dark element to them, maybe in the subject
matter or the synth sound we play with, whereas with this single we wanted to
come out with a bit more of a positive message. The whole themes behind the
track itself is to do with basically sticking up your middle finger to having
too much responsibility, being stuck in jobs that you don’t want to do, and
kind of seeing what else there is on offer. We’ve tried to make it more upbeat
and more dance-worthy, and without throwing around the term of selling-out we
tried to do something more reachable to a vaster audience.
Was there a conscious
decision for the sound of ‘Gracious World’?
Yeah,
something more upbeat. The percussion tracks on it are a bit more groove-based
so hopefully you can get more of a dance vibe to it, and everything’s a bit
brighter really, so nice big sparkly synths, things like that!
Will future singles continue
in this style, or will it be like your older tracks, or maybe a mixture?
I
think it’s something we enjoy doing, so instead of being tarred with the same
brush all the time and people expecting what Affairs will do next, we kind of
like that we’re stuck into this one sound. Currently the new material weaves in
and out a bit so back to the old stuff, new stuff, to keep people guessing.
What was it like to record
the video?
We
wanted to try and keep things as close to home as possible with the entire
single. With the track we recorded parts of it in Manchester in some make-shift
studios and then we got our producer, who did our previous record ‘Life of
Leisure’ back on board as he did such a good job on that and we were really
pleased with it, and we were like ‘why not return to what we know’.
Basically
we wanted to keep the video with that kind of vibe as well. With Manchester
having such an industrial heritage we wanted to go down that route as that
juxtaposed with the track a little bit. Where we used to rehearse there was a
big warehouse which we managed to get our hands on, amongst a lot of old
artefacts that we found in there. Clearly it hadn’t been touched in a while! I believe
there was a crisp bag there from 1984! It was truly abandoned.
We
just wanted to go back to the industrial, dark vibe, but juxtapose it against
the track.
How’s your summer been
going?
Things
kicked off for us back in April and May when we played ‘Live in Leeds’ and we
did ‘Dot To Dot’ for the Manchester dates and then we’ve just been busy with
the promotions company we’re working with who are doing some great things
around the city and nationally. We went on tour throughout July and August and
it was great to get back out there and get the new tracks to people.
You have live gigs coming
up; how are preparations going?
Good!
We recently started re-jigging the set a bit after the tour we did over the summer,
so there will be new things for those who come to see us again. There’s a bit
of a new flow in there with quite a few new tracks in there, so we can keep
people guessing and keep them on their toes!
How would you describe your
live performance?
I
would say that our singer James is very unexpected! In his own words to me, in
fact last week, ‘I like to be a bit of a show off!’ He’s got some shapes, let’s
put it like that! It’s that thing where if we look like we’re having fun then
hopefully other people will get on board with it; it’s as much our gig as
everyone else’s. We’re more than keen for people to get involved with us; it
usually involves us climbing on stuff! But I’m not advocating that to everyone
else!
What’s coming next
musically?
We’re
working towards our next single release which is coming out over the next
couple of months. We’re currently putting together the solid material for our
album which will be coming out next year at some point. I think at the minute
we’ve been sitting on a lot of material so it’s drilling down and making sure
that every track that goes on there is 100% what we want. We’re the kind of
people who, if there was one niggly bit on a track, it would beat us up
forever!
We’ve
also started curating our own Spotify playlists which we add to every week. It’s
a mixed bag of other band’s tunes and our own songs, the kind of thing we’re
listening to in our tour van as we’re heading around the country, which will
give people an insight into the sort of things that we’re into.
What’s your song of the
moment that you’re really enjoying listening to?
I’m
really digging the new ‘Everything Everything’ album; everything off that is
fantastic!
Finally what are your
ambitions for the next six months?
One
of the things we’re looking at is developing our live show, with a bit more of
a spectacle. I know we’ve got some plans in the pipeline for our next headline
show in Manchester, which is at the start of November. We’re just trying to
work towards that and make it so people step back and go ‘wow, what have I just
seen? That was amazing!’. Something that takes it to the next level, but I can’t
say much at the moment but it’s very much in the pipeline!
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