WHITE NOISE
Oh, how deep the waters of post-rock run! 65daysofstatic should know, for they’ve been mining it for their set of pensive and ponderous instrumentals. The Sheffield four’s harmonic edge can now be evidenced over three original and well-loved albums (The Destruction Of Small Ideas being the latest), and soon enough, at next month’s Heineken Music Club at the Mosaic Music Festival. Before that, we get them talking…

What have you been up to since we last heard from you?
We have just finished our fourth album. It feels like a big departure from our previous output. It should be out before the summer starts and we’re very, very excited about it. It’s been a long time coming, this one but hopefully it’ll be worth the wait. If it’s not, then we’ll probably have to split up.

Your music is often described as post-rock. Would you dispute that?
We would, but only because to us, post rock has become a bit like shorthand for “not as good as Mogwai or Godspeed You Black Emperor!”. In the wake of those two incredible bands, there has been a whole lot of mediocrity. And we would rather be writing our own instructions than following other people’s. But if by being called post-rock helps point people in our direction, then that’s fine by us. We’re confident enough to not get dismissed as another genre band.

How do you intend to evolve the band’s sound over the next few albums?
The record we’ve just written feels like a big departure for us from our previous output. We need to keep moving, as a band, because we’d only get bored otherwise. And if we’re bored, then we shouldn’t really expect anybody else to be interested. There are lots of bands that we are fans of whose musical course has changed significantly as they progress, and even if it is in directions that don’t move us as much, it doesn’t invalidate the records that came before. They’ll always be there. Some bands excel at returning to the same idea again and again, refining it until the point is so sharp that it cannot be ignore or misinterpreted and they become masters at what they do - I’d say Godspeed… are a great example of this. But I think we’re too restless a band to ever achieve that kind of elegance. We’re like irritating sharks compared to Godspeed’s blue whale.

Do you think coming from the milieu of Sheffield aided in your sound at all?
Probably, but only in ways that we haven’t really noticed. We were certainly out on our own when we were still playing local gigs and learning how to be a live band. The music communities were largely indebted to Pulp and then, a little later, Arctic Monkeys, and as such, not really anything we really connected with. (We are fans of both of those bands though). There was an amazing promoter who, for ten years, ran a well-respected indie night in Sheffield called Fuzz Club. She helped us out loads by letting us play deafening sets of instrumental noise to rooms full of drunk students expecting Blondie. That was always a lot of fun.

What has your time with 65daysofstatic taught you so far?
How to sew. How to pack vans. Basic first aid. Tolerance. A new respect for sound engineers. A new language, built entirely from in-jokes. New chords. Old chords. Old new chords. New orders for tried and tested old chord combinations. How to not kill each other. How to drink. How not to drink… How music is more important than most things…

You can read more of the interview in the February issue of JUICE.

Don’t miss the local debut of 65daysofstatic at the Heineken Music Club, on 13 March. Tickets to the gig are now available at the Esplanade Box Office, and at all SISTIC outlets.

www.65daysofstatic.com

Text: Min Chen
Interview courtesy of: The Esplanade

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