So, how are you guys feeling today?
Michael: Yeah, a bit rough
Alex: We went out late and watched some terrible music,
Michael: Don’t know why we did that but oh well.
Are you excited to be playing a festival abroad?
Michael: We’ve done loads of them but we’ve never done Benicassim before. It’s nice to be somewhere warm and by the seaside. We’ve done Poland, Netherlands – just in the last couple of weeks. It’s been busy, but it’s good to be busy.
Where are you going after this?
Alex: We’re going to Latitude on Saturday and Germany on Sunday.
What would be your ideal festival to play at?
Michael: The one in Germany is good. It’s called Melt.
Alex: It’s really good – the scenery there is incredible. We enjoyed playing Latitude; we had a really good show there.
Michael: Glastonbury is Glastonbury.
Alex: Yeah that’s always good to play but I prefer the smaller ones
Michael: Glastonbury is kind of overwhelming.
Alex: It’s like a city.
So, at this festival for example do you like going to the other music?
Michael: Yeah we tried to. We wanted to see Queens of the Stone Age but we clashed with them.
Ugh yeah we saw that… clashes are the worst.
Michael: Mmm; we wanted to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at latitude but clashed with them. And loads of stuff at Glastonbury that clashed.
Alex: We managed to see Phoenix and Nick Cave – that was good
Okay so I’m going to attempt to get more technical – one of the big things about you guys is that you have this whole new genre which is really interesting. I’m sure this topic comes up in every interviews but I’ve once heard you described as ‘math rock’, what is that?
Michael: Well, I think there’s a bit of that in what we do
Alex: It’s complex intertwining rhythms between sheets but I wouldn’t say we’re that much at all anymore.
Michael: We started off a bit like that
Michael: People say that we’ve never played in four/four (which is the normal time signature) but all of the songs are in four/four?
Alex: I think it’s just Mikey’s verse and that’s about as Math as it gets, but even that’s four/four.
Michael: But yes, we are very twisty and turny so I can see why people might say that.
Could you put one word to your genre, not a name but a word?
Michael: Urm… colourful
Haha very sweet!
Okay so yes I did some nerdy research but I’ve read that Paul Lester, a critic, said that you sound like ‘a riot in a melody factory’ and I thought that was quite appropriate?
Michael: Yeah I think that was after the second album and melody was something that we talked about a lot. I think a lot of bands shy away from melody because it could be quite cheesy if you have a big, strong melody but we wanted it.
So you guys use a lot of laptops and synthesised noises right? When you make your songs, do you generally have an idea of what you want the song to sound like or do you start on something small and then build on that?
Alex: It usually comes in different forms. It can either be a very unfinished idea or Jon [Jonathon Higgs] could appear with something that’s entirely done really and just needs a lot of work. But the majority of the time, we have a melody and a harmony and we just pull it apart and rebuild it, pull it apart and rebuild it.
Michael: Sometimes Jon tries to write something in a particular style; Radiant on the new album was meant to be a bit like Streets of Philadelphia by Bruce Springsteen which it doesn’t sound anything like but that’s what he was trying to go for- tempo wise and all that lot. He thinks about tempo quite a lot. So what you actually end up is normally quite different from what you aim for but yeah, sometimes the idea in that way.
So it sounds like Jon is the main one who drives the music? I know he went to university to study music but what did you guys do?
Michael: He met Jeremy at Salford, I went to Leeds college of music which is part of Leeds University.
Alex: I went to art college and studied fine art.
Michael: He’s a good painter
Alex: Not sounding like a d**k, I just didn’t really feel the need to go to a music course when I’d studied classical music all my life.
Michael: I did jazz; there was no way I was going to do a popular degree but they did haha. In fairness they did more about recording which is quite useful.
Did you form the band because you like music and just wanted to form a band or did you form because you were aiming for a career?
Michael: Bit of both. I suppose that you always want to do as much as you can with something but you can tell a mile off with some bands if they’re like ‘we are going to make this work no matter what’, but it wasn’t like that for us. We wanted to do it because we wanted to do it so our intentions were pure but of course, as it gets bigger- you want more people to hear about you and stuff.
Well it’s working!
Michael: Slowly but surely haha!
And where does the name Everything Everything come from?
Alex: Umm.
Michael: Not sure really…
Alex: I think that was Jon.
Michael: Yeah well he asked us to be in the band – it was his idea so… It’s meant to be about hopefulness and the idea that anything can happen. But it was a long time ago.
Alex: Stuck with it now
Michael: Haha yep
Are you guys all really close, do you live together?
Michael: We don’t live together no, but we see a hell of a lot of each other.
Alex: I see more of these guys than I do my own friends, family, girlfriends.
Yeah I’m not surprised. Okay so you’ve just released Arc, but do you have anything new coming up?
Alex: We’re writing at the moment yeah. Hopefully try to get some new stuff done, start thinking about next year.
I look forward to it! And about tonight – do you ever get drunk before you go onstage?
Michael: Haha not drunk- but it’s sometimes good just to have one drink. Although we definitely have been drunk, but that’s not really a good idea, especially if you’re the drummer.
Do you ever make mistakes on stage?
Michael: Mistakes? Yeah, all the time. We just bamboozle everyone with stupid music so they never really realise.
Alex: We went on stage with snow patrol once…
Michael: [Laughs] yeah this is a good one…
Alex: It was a homecoming gig for Michael so all his family were there, a completely full arena. We all had our in-ears (our monitors) on. Everything we need to play is sent to these ears by these paddles and it gets transmitted by radio frequency. And uh, our sound engineer forgot to plug the paddles in.
Michael: So we just heard ‘cccchhhhhhh’. Walked on stage, were like ‘uhhhh’
Alex: There were 50,000 people there waiting and Mike was there behind his drum kit going ‘It’s not fucking working!”
Michael: [Laughing] Hopefully there’s not too many mistakes like that tonight.
Hopefully – I’m sure it’ll be good
Michael: Are you going to watch it?
Definitely!
Both Michael and Alex: Go watch Queens of the Stone Age.
Alex: You can see us any old time hahah
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THIS year, Pillow Magazine was offered the exciting opportunity to join the crowd at Festival International Benicassim (FIB) 2013 in Spain.
We’ve already mentioned this amazing festival and the brilliant line up that it offers but we were not truly prepared for how incredible it really was.Now that we’re home, we can’t help but sulk at the numerous ‘Beni Blues’ statuses that abound our Facebooks.
Arriving in Barcelona on the Monday, we caught the train down to Benicassim and set up our tent.
Note number one: check that you brought the right tent, not your brother’s one man cocoon which most definitely will not fit two people.
We then began to wander round and introduce ourselves to our neighbours. Note number two: hopefully you’ll be lucky enough to land a spot next to the big group with the boombox; they’re going be insanely fun.
The music doesn’t start till the Thursday but we spend three nights just as we would the others. We’re either smashed, falling asleep on the beach, or enjoying rounds of ring of fire in the lead up to getting smashed. The other 80 percent of the time we’re ogling the eye candy because, ladies, Benicassim is very much a lads’ holiday festival and the ratio of girls to boy is a lovely number indeed. It has to be said.
The walk into town/ beach/ the cheap supermarket (bottles of vodka for €4.60, restocked in mass quantities by the hour) may seem daunting but it’s honestly not too bad and we liked to take every opportunity for tanning that there was.
Then comes the music although the inevitable problem with festivals is the clash list. We had to choose Everything Everything over Rudimental, although the band themselves told us to head to Queen of the Stone Ages instead! [Pillow Magazine also had the opportunity to interview Everything Everything which is one of our favourite bands; see here]. Knife Party was also chosen over Benny Benassi, but this too was a difficult decision.
One of our best nights was spent at the Arctic Monkeys at the main stage where the incredible atmosphere of the crowd, united by their love of Benicassim, was insane. This was followed by Kaiser Chiefs who truly blew our minds; we have never sung along so hard in our lives and the mosh pit was brilliant.
Following standard festival procedures, we then headed back to the tent to top up on our alcohol intake and grab some more friends to head to Knife Party where we finished the night, jumping and raving away ‘til the early hours of the morning like a bunch of fools.
Lets clear this up however; the vibe at Benicassim is just so good that whether you’re too worse for wear to stand up or lounging on the beach, you feel upbeat, happy and simply awesome. I personally managed to dance to the Killers and ‘skank’ to Toddla T with a huge grin on my face and a bundle of energy without the encouragement of the €1.50 rosé…
So, see you there next year?
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