Photo Credit: Sylas Agtarap (@ShotBySig)
After writing a review for ‘Afraid of tomorrows,’ the opportunity to speak to Lia Metcalfe and Paul Crilly came about which I could not turn down. Coming up with questions is an easy bout even in unfamiliar territory, like a zoom call.
Sitting in the room on zoom, I get in a few minutes early to show my eagerness and because I am an impatient bastard. Paul soon joins and the usual greetings take place before the most important question is asked. “If you owned a pub, what 4 pumps would you have on draught?” which I would happily judge them on. Laughing, Paul replies,” You have to have a Guinness, Ashai (which is the band’s go to and which was also in mine), Tennent’s for me Glaswegian roots and I used to work in the Penny Lane wine bar which don’t judge me on this we used to have Becks on draught (I did judge) I feel like I’m gonna regret half these choices.” My offer of having one cider was quickly battered away which I try and play off as just for my girlfriend. Lia then joins the convo answering my question “Guiness definitely but not the extra cold one, stella (which I heavily disagree with), Estrella, Ashai.”
After the main question is asked, the follow up is “How did the creative experience of ‘Afraid of tomorrows’ differ from ‘Reeling’?” Lia states, “The whole process was different, creatively it was different with me and Paul doing writing trips. It was isolating compared to the process of writing ‘Reeling.’ A lot of it was different. The sound of it was completely different and with being years apart you are a completely different person.” I chime in talking about how they said it was rawer and question if they put more of themselves in this album. “Definitely, it was quite an immersive process, we wanted that because we felt the only way could get the best out of what we wanted to create and dig into what we were at that point was to make it immersive and intense. With the writing trips being so isolated for days and being nonstop, not sleeping became intense. It worked this record putting ourselves into it more.”
An artist must enjoy what they are doing so I ask, “What’s the standout point of the record for you?” Paul replies “There were a lot of moments which led on to other things happening, the first song we wrote together and made it on to the album was ‘Hawkmoon’ which was a good moment for many reasons, with one of them being that it was completely different from ‘Reeling’ which was the idea from the get go, it excited and proved to me and Lia we could do it as a duo and also there was so many possibilities to do for this album it didn’t have to be a rock album and if you listen to ‘Hawkmoon’ its worlds apart from ‘Reeling’.” Great minds must thing alike as ‘Hawkmoon’ is my favourite one of the album. Paul adds “We went to a place called Hexon a month or so before the Arctics which felt like everything feel into place and we ended up doing 4/5 songs up there if not more. It glued everything together. There were loads of boss moments. The last song we done was ‘So long’ which fell out of nowhere and once we written we knew the album was done.”
Choosing the songs to evoke an era must be done carefully so “How did you decide what’s songs were going on ‘Afraid of tomorrows?” Lia replies,” We had a lot of tunes to be honest, after the last writing trip it all fell into place and made sense of what we’re gonna record with John, we did end up recording more tunes than are on the record, but we could naturally feel which ones were gonna be the world of ‘Afraid of tomorrows’ and what was right to tell the story. It revealed itself to us.”
I like to know the struggle behind art, so I asked, “Did use find anything challenging with recording?” Paul says, “The whole process is challenging but I’d be concerned if it hadn’t been because we wanted to change a lot and push ourselves if it felt easy or if it wasn’t a challenge, it would’ve have been us taking the easy way out. There were moments in the writing were it was difficult cause we were going in with just ideas it took a while for it all to piece itself together and then we went to LA to record it, you’re going to place you’re so not familiar with but these songs that you’ve lived with for the past 18 months and to give them to someone else to develop is intimidating and weird.”
Introducing an era must be a challenge so I ask, “How did you decide what the singles were?” Paul states, “All the other ones that aren’t a single are really sad, so we couldn’t have them as singles. The three were fairly obvious they were going to be singles. There was a discussion of throwing a curveball in there, but it was us trying to over complicate things.”
“With it being festival session, what’s the maddest experience at a festival?” Lia states,” Try not to incriminate ourselves here.” Paul claims, “There’s a few in the early days when the album just came out and we were doing things that were way bigger than we were used to do and we were kinda like walking round and seeing The Strokes having their tea. We did a festival called Secret Garden Club and we played at like two in the morning. Its renowned for being a bit fucking weird place. It’s even weirder at two in the morning.” Lia adds,” I think I jumped on stage and sang ‘La Bamba’ acapella before we actually played.” Paul states “There was a fella who played before us who had a harmonica and asked him to introduce us, and he didn’t really think about it and walked on stage an done a five-minute intro.” Lia adds, “He made a poem out of it was mad, he is a poet.” I then tell them about mine which was about getting punched in the face then kissed by a bald ginger man in a Kasabian mosh pit.
It is a pleasure to speak to both Lia and Paul and many thanks to them for taking time to speak to me.
