Entertainment

Tense times as Wild Beasts take on Munster

Cumbrian indie favourites Wild Beasts have been touring non-stop since releasing their brilliant fourth album Present Tense in early 2014. Ahead of their last gig of the year in Cork this weekend, bassist/singer Tom Fleming talks to Brian Campbell

Wild Beasts set sail for Cork on Sunday
Wild Beasts set sail for Cork on Sunday Wild Beasts set sail for Cork on Sunday

THERE was some confusion on Spotify a couple of weeks ago when a song called Life is a Bum by a band called The Wild Beasts emerged.

London-based Cumbrian band Wild Beasts are known for their fine sense of humour, but they had to take to Twitter to confirm that it was not their track, even though “we absolutely love the title”.

They had initially joked that “we seem to have re-released a single called Life Is A Bum from 1978. Best try and remember those chords...”, before clarifying that it was definitively not their work.

After touring their sensationally good 2014 album Present Tense for the past 18 months, the Beasts – Hayden Thorpe, Tom Fleming, Ben Little and Chris Talbot – finish the current live campaign with a gig in Cork on Sunday.

It is part of Sounds From a Safe Harbour, a festival of music, art and talks curated by Bryce Dessner of The National, with other acts on the bill including Lisa Hannigan, My Brightest Diamond, Julianna Barwick and Sam Amidon.

Are you excited to have a big send-off for this album after all your touring?

We are. We’ve done so much touring – it’s been relentless – but it’ll be nice to come back to Cork. We always cite a gig we did at Cyprus Avenue in Cork as one of our favourite ever gigs. So this was one of those offers that was a bit 'un-turn-down-able’, to be honest, because of Bryce Dessner’s involvement and the line-up they have. We just thought, `We have to play this’. After this gig we’ll be getting to work on the new record.

You got to support The National at The O2 in London, so are you a big fan?

We are. We also played the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival they curated in Camber Sands, then supporting them at The O2 was pretty cool. There aren’t many bands that all of us like but The National are one of them. They’re a proper grown-up American rock band now. They’re impressive to watch. I guess their later records are a little less convoluted than the earlier ones, but they’re still not cut-and-dried meat and potatoes rock, are they?

Were you happy that Wild Beasts got an Ivor Novello nomination (for `best album') earlier this year?

That was great news. Going to the event and stuff, it was clear that we were in exalted company. It was proper pop royalty. We were like, 'What the hell are we doing here?’ But it was fun. Halfway through we had to leave to catch a flight to go and do a festival in Germany.

Did you hang out with anyone interesting at the ceremony?

It was all quite brief. We know the Bombay Bicycle Club guys – we made records in the same studio – so we hung out with them and they won the award. The jacket was a better fit for them, to be honest. I did get a bit starstruck by Tony Iommi [of Black Sabbath]. I wanted to say something to him, but I couldn’t. Then when we landed in Dusseldorf, the metal band Venom were there. So it was the most metal day ever. Apart from Ed Sheeran, Bob Geldof and Elton John. It was an interesting day.

So will the next Wild Beasts album be tinged with metal?

Well I’ve always been a metalhead. Metal was my introduction to music that wasn’t pop music when I was 12 or 13. I still listen to it. But you have to have a tolerance for silliness, with all the dragons and corpse paint and all that stuff. Any band will tell you that Spinal Tap is just a documentary. There’s no irony about it; that’s just what happens. But in terms of specific sounds [for the new album], we’re only at the demo stage. There could be a lot of brutal surgery yet.

At the end of last year you put out the band’s first ever instrumental track, the ambient-electro Soft Future. Was that enjoyable to work on?

It was. I suppose we’re known for our voices, so we wanted to do something different. It gives you a bit more freedom. It’s helped us be slightly better musicians. We’ve always been magpies; always lots of stuff in lots of different places.

Hayden has said that the playing on Present Tense was “deliberately a lot slicker and simpler than the more complicated arrangements that we’ve gone for previously”, so has it been fun to perform the album live?

It has been. It was a different sound for us and we had to learn to use new equipment and we approached things slightly differently. It was good for us to step up like that. I think it’s made us a better band. It’s been brilliant touring it and we got to go to a lot of places we haven’t been before.

Did you like Co Armagh-born England-raised Hannah Peel’s cover version of Present Tense track Palace?

It’s wonderful; absolutely fantastic. We’re all fans of hers, so it was a pleasure to hear that. Having one of your songs covered is kind of the highest compliment.

Will you be doing any brand new songs live in Cork?

Well we don’t throw ideas away, so they need to be right before we put them out. So I don’t think we’re ready to do any new stuff just yet. Maybe Life is a Bum!

:: Wild Beasts play Cork Opera House on Sunday, with support from Young Wonder, as part of the Sounds From A Safe Harbour festival (SoundsFromaSafeHarbour.com). Tickets €20.