Stateless
1:32 pm in Music, News by Bartolomy | Text: Bartolomy | Photography: Bartolomy |
All photos: copyright Bartolomy, all rights reserved.
Stateless
I saw Stateless when they just had released their debut and did a gig at 93 Ft East in 2007, I was completely blown away by their multi layered tunes and shot them quite a few times that year only for them to go quiet for a few years. This year their follow up Matilda was released in April and for them to commence on a tour starting at the Jazz café and that would take them through Europe as well.
I think Matilda is a great album, and it was definitely worth the wait.
For starters I wanted to know about the beginning of Stateless and whether they began as a rock outfit.
C.J.: No, the band I was having before was rock. I had gotten to the stage where I was not listening to rock music any more, instead I listed to electronic music all the time. So I started the band with Jimmy and John and we decided to use synths more. We were listening to DJ Shadow a lot at that time.
‘’Entroducing’’ left quite a mark on you as a band, I would say?
C.J.:Yeah, I would say on the first album you can hear a lot of ‘’Entroducing’s” influences.
I only know you from the shows you did in 2007 supporting your debut, but there were quite a few happenings before that. You were with Sony before all this?
C.J.: We entered an unsigned competition on Radio 1, gave them two tracks and one of them won the contest and got playlisted on Radio 1. We had three weeks of radio c-list play and things just kicked off. We got loads of interest of managers, labels, everybody. We went down to London and met up with all these people, and we hooked up with Martin Hall and he took it round to all the people and got us to sign to Sony.
By being with a big label, did you get in any way pressurised into doing things you did not want to do?
C.J.: It was quite an exciting period, at that time. We were young and I did not quite realise how many bands get dropped from major labels. So I wasn’t as cynical as I am now. So we went into it thinking….
Being a bit naïve….
C.J.: Yeah bit naïve, also we were having the same manager as The Manic Street Preachers; they had been signed to Sony for like 10/15 years. So he told us he knew the people for a long time etc., so we thought things would work out well for us by being with Sony. It didn’t work out as we thought it would.
Was it the merger that got you dropped?
C.J.: It was that and our A&R guy got sacked, so we got dropped practically the same day.
Just from one day on to another?
C.J.: yeah, even though things working out very well, it still was a surprise. We thought we had a strong album so they would at least release that, but you know.
In a way things work out for a reason, and I am happy we are with Ninja Tunes now, I much rather be with them now than with Sony. I just think this was part of a process that has made us arrive to where we are today.
Ok, in between Sony and Ninja Tunes you got the debut released on K7.
C.J.: Yes they loved the album; they could not believe nobody had released it so they were more than happy to do that. The best thing with K7 is that they had worldwide distribution, so fans came to us from all parts of the world which was great, but obviously they were a much smaller label.
So did you decide to move to a bigger label before doing the second album then?
C.J.: Well yeah, we had a few difficulties with K7, (pauses)…, which is a shame because we made some good friends there, but we felt Ninja Tunes was a better option for us.
I remember hearing the demos you did for the second album more than two years ago in Bethnal Green, and I find that the character of the demoed songs lies a lot closer to the debut than they actually ended up sounding on Matilda, what made you go through that change.
C.J. : That is actually a creative decision made by us and Ninja Tunes, that we should be more electronic. Ninja Tunes supported us with that as that is how we wanted to sound. When the idea came to work with Björk’s programmer Damian Taylor; and he really wanted to do it. Ninja Tunes thought it was a great idea and they set it up. We sent him all our files and he would go through it all and add his electronic sounds and send it back and we give our feedback and from there on we sent files back and forth. And when it was 60/70% finished I flew over to Vancouver and worked in the studio with Damian and we finished it together, then he mixed it and it was mastered in New York.
Is there any particular reason for changing to a more electronic approach?
C.J.: Well we always liked electronic music, so it was quite natural to move into that direction, plus when we had the offer to work with Damian Taylor, it was not something we could refuse. Also we did not want to create a ‘Stateless’ part 2, we wanted the second album to be a big step from the first one, I don’t see any point in repeating the first album, so I guess we have evolved.
Which brings me to the vocal input of Justin, over the years he has started to sing more and more….
C.J.: Well yeah, Justin is an amazing singer. I have known that for many years since he and I went to the same school together.
My g/f says he should go solo.
C.J.: (laughs), Yes I am sure he will at some point, he has his own material.
But when we were kids we used to play together and write songs, and when Johnny and Jimmy left, I more or less knew he was going to become part of the band, and yeah since he has joined……..why wouldn’t we let him sing, he has a brilliant voice.
Then there is the departure of Rod?
C.J.: Yes, we still work with him, but it’s more of a backseat role now, he has a full time job. He mixes KidKanevil’s solo stuff and he is also mixing my solo stuff. He is probably going to help us with some stuff for the next album.
Ok, let’s talk about the live shows that I have seen so far this year, why is your debut barely featured in your set?
C.J.: The reason for that is that we don’t have it working technically. We don’t have the samples running in Ableton, more a technical reason than a creative one. We are going to try and put a few, ‘Prism’ and ‘Exit’, of the debut in the set. It is not that we don’t want to play them, it’s purely for technical reasons.
Let’s talk a bit about ‘’Matilda’’.
C.J.: She is one of the characters on the album.
So it’s a concept album?
C.J.: It didn’t start out as a concept album, but it turned into……..eh I don’t know.
Well the start of the album its first track, ‘’Curtain Call’’, is quite a dramatic start, theatrical, a heavy cabaret vibe.
C.J.: Yes, the album itself is a complete mash up of complete different influences, but we did not actually sit down and write a concept album as such, we wrote the songs over the course of a year and when we came close to finishing them. I was looking at the lyrics that I had written, what seemed to be the key themes running throughout, what ties it all together, what are the core ideas, themes that keep coming up and there was some fairly central kind of things to it all.
The idea that we called the album Matilda was because she was one of the characters on the album, she was quite mysterious, elusive. You don’t know that much about her, from listening to the album, which is cool as this is drawing you into this…..almost like watching a film. Which is why we like the name, it sounds like a film, more than a record.
Working with Damian was quite a big step, how are you going to surpass that?
C.J.: It will be a big mission, but just working in different ways, probably working with different people, we will have to evolve, it’s pretty certain that the next album wont sound like ‘’Matilda’’ at all, gotta work out how it is going to sound (laughs) but you know. I am working on the next one already and for me I am working in different ways, to previous. ‘’Matilda’’ I wrote a lot of songs on guitar and the piano. On the next one it won’t feature as much guitar or piano, it is going to be synthesisers. It will still be electronic but an evolutionary step away from ‘’Matilda’’. So it’s just a process we have to work through.
by Bartolomy
