Weekly > Interviews
The Wave Pictures
The Wave Pictures new album ‘If You Leave It Alone’ is out on the 4th May through Moshi Moshi and proceeded by the title track as a single which is out now on 7” and download.
As well as catching them live in Cambridge on their recent tour, we managed to grab lead singer David Tattersall for a quick chat to find out how things were going for The Wave Pictures in 2009.
Your last album was critically acclaimed, how confident were you about it before it’s release?
We were perfectly happy with it. You have to just put these things behind you to some extent and move on, or else you get bogged down. It’s always necessary to just keep going. That said, we had absolutely no idea whether it would get good or bad reviews in the press or whether any people would like it. I have no idea what people are going to think of anything I’ve done.
I try not to dwell too much on their responses. If you believe a good review, you have to then believe a bad review, and that could make you very sad. So I try to keep some sense of perspective. The main thing is to make sure that Franic and Jonny and I like the recordings we have made. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. You hear so many differing opinions about your music when you play publicly that it would become hard to carry on playing if you got stuck thinking too much about them. You would be confused!
Did the reaction to it put you in a stronger position when it came to recording your new album?
No, I don’t think so. Our record label, Moshi Moshi, has always been supportive of us.
How do you feel you have progressed sound wise from your first album?
It’s an acoustic album, recorded in a weekend in Berlin. It has a very nice, soft sound. Stanley Brinks plays the horns on it. I think it has some of the best songs I have ever written on it. I am very satisfied with this particular album. It is my favourite Wave Pictures album so far.
You’ve just been on a UK tour, how did the dates go?
They went really well. We had so much fun.
Who have you had playing with you and do you get any say in support acts?
We had the band Planet Earth supporting us on this tour. It was a pleasure to play with them every night. They have strong songs. Planet Earth are a very good band.
Weblinks
Add to favouritesYou took part in a low carbon recording session recently, how did that come about?
We were asked by our record label, Moshi Moshi, if we would like to record an ep that would be available only by download. We got a free day in a studio to record it. So we agreed. It seemed like a fun idea. I like the resulting recordings.
Music is continuing to change at a rapid rate, especially online etc, what are you doing to keep pace with it and embracing the changes?
I have no interest in embracing any changes. I just care about writing songs and playing the guitar, playing shows for people and recording. I don’t use the internet to discover music. I go to gigs and I go in record shops and I talk to people. So, as a musician, I never think about the internet either. I don’t really like the way that the internet isolates people from each other. Everybody is at home, staring at their screens, all alone. It’s better to go out and meet people. I like to play gigs myself. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything and I don’t feel obliged to keep pace with anything.
That said, I’m completely happy for my music to be downloaded. I think that’s completely fine. I know lots of people download music now and if they are going to be downloading anyway, why not enable them to download The Wave Pictures? But somebody else, not me, thinks about that kind of thing. Somebody else uploads the music.
Have you started to think about album number three at all?
We’re way past that stage. We’ve already recorded another full album and demoed several songs for album number four. We have a lot of songs. We work fast. We just keep going. We are relentless.
It’s getting towards the start of the festival season, are you playing many of them this year and if you are who are you looking forward to seeing yourselves?
I’m not sure. Nothing springs to mind.
The Wave Pictures are touring twice in Spain in the coming months and play a couple of one off UK shows on the following dates:
30 Apr 2009 Hinterland Festival, Glasgow
7 May 2009 Album launch @ The Lexington plus support from Bonne Idee, London
16 May 2009 DJ Set @ The Phoenix, London, 8pm onwards
19 Jun 2009 The Deaf Institute, Manchester
20 Jun 2009 Winterwell Festivall, Somewhere in Gloucestershire
11 Jul 2009 Lounge On The Farm, Canterbury
26 Jul 2009 Midi Festival, Hyeres
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