Altsounds - Altsounds.com Q&A Interview

We’re at the Green Man festival, we’re all a bit merry, the sun is shining and I’m lucky enough to be in the company of the lovely Wave Machines that have just played an awesome set, I might add, on the main Stage! Everybody was dancing...I was dancing! Ok guys, let’s get down to business, introduce yourselves to all the nice people out there!

Vidar Norheim: I’m Vidar and I’m the drummer.
Tim Bruzon: I’m Tim I sing some stuff and play guitar.
James Walsh: I’m James I play bass guitar and synth and hit a few things and blow into a pipe!
Carl Brown: I’m Carl, I stand behind the keyboards and play guitar as well and sing a little bit.
Tim: He jumped up and down today as well!

Altsounds: Yeah you were really going for it Carl!

Carl: I don’t know where that came from!

Altsounds: Haha, It’s the weather I think, you’re in Wales and the fact that you’re at Green Man of course, how do you feel to be here?!

Tim: It’s lovely actually, it’s very, very peaceful, I know it’s very noisy with all the bands playing but coming into the site it’s very calming and beautiful and surrounded by green hills!
Carl: Feels very special actually!

James: And we’re here for the whole weekend, we’ve done our gig now and we’ve got two and a half days to party!

Altsounds: Party! And get through more whisky and coke (a cola) I hope! How do you think it went today?

Tim: You hope the sound you have on stage sounds like you’re playing well! Sometimes you don’t know what’s going on but it all seemed to come together today. There were a lot of people dancing, a lot of people seemed to know the words which is brilliant. A lot of people were coming down from the hill to watch so we’re really happy!

Altsounds: For those who haven’t been to Green Man, there is a massive hill overlooking the main stage! You’re from Liverpool which is quite close to Rhyl in North Wales. Have you ever experienced the Wave Machine at the Rhyl Sun Centre?

Carl: I have!

Altsounds: How did that feel?

Carl: It was quite some time ago actually, I think it was one of the first jaunts out of Liverpool with some mates and a couple of girls, I remember coming out of there looking for some action
Tim: What kind of action?

Carl: Any kind of action! There wasn’t any action, [sorry Rhyl] outside of the Sun Centre. Inside the Sun Centre...stunning!

Altsounds: But don’t you think for you Carl, subconsciously that’s where the idea for the name Wave Machines came from?

Carl: Well I think our second album is going to be a concept album all about the Rhyl Sun Centre and they’ll play it permanently while everyone swims round avoiding plasters floating on the water!

Altsounds: Hahaha...Anyway...where did the name really come from, obviously my theory is wrong but, I still believe subconsciously for Carl it has something to do with the Rhyl Sun Centre!

James: It was an idea that we had of how people sort of intercommunicate themselves with each other and that how all your actions have an effect on others. It’s like a wave that pulls it upon them, everyone’s affected by it and we want to try and have that affect in a positive fashion.

Tim: And we’re gonna go and sweep up all the plasters in all the swimming pools in all the countries around the world!

Altsounds: I think you’re quite obsessed with Rhyl really!

Carl: Um..I think you’re obsessed with Rhyl!

Altsounds: It’s just because I’m dying to go there on Holiday! Were there any other names in the pipeline?

Carl: Timothy And The SizeMcgenius (everyone laughs)

Altsounds: Now I’m sure you get asked this a lot but can you tell me about the masks! Why do you wear masks during your performances?

Tim: The idea originally was to kinda try and conceal our faces because I was singing and I’m very nervous about singing, I wanted to try and not have to look at the audience so we came up with this idea of wearing masks and then we developed that idea into masks of our faces, we hadn’t seen it done before. We saw pictures of us wearing the masks at a gig we played and it looked quite weird and cool so we decided to run with it.

Altsounds: It must get very hot under the masks! You must have more than one set?!

Tim: They get pretty sweaty. Yeah we have more than one set, they tend to get stolen as well!

Carl: Tim and I both lost our faces in Norway!

Altsounds: With your reasons behind the name and the use of masks it seems to me that there is an art influence behind your music, tell me about the art work of the album, who designed the cover?

Tim: A guy called Scott Spencer, we’ve worked with him for quite a few years and he made our logo which is made of triangle shapes, then he started integrating those shapes into bits of animals, he did that for the first single we released and then we just carried on with that theme for all the other singles on the album, we just really like the graphics and the naturalness of it and he’s just a bit nuts and that seems to suite our music!

Altsounds: So you like hanging out with nuts people...I’ve seen a few nuts people here...

Carl: Have you seen a few nuts?!(everyone laughs)

Random person: Haven’t you got a bag of nuts in your bag?!

Altsounds: Yes and I have three bags of Tesco nuts in my tent! The food is nice here but expensive! Right...let’s discuss the album... When I was listening to the album I felt there was a variation of sounds but you have a distinct sound, did you plan what kind of sound you wanted to create or did it come naturally?

Tim: We made loads and loads of different tunes and ended up filtering out the ones that weren’t working and that was quite a gradual process, we played a lot of gigs which also helped us filter out some songs, a lot of good songs got side lined because they weren’t working as good live as they were on record.

James: We found a bunch of sounds that we could all make on the various different instruments that we played and they seemed to suit us and the music and we thought, let’s go with that sort of group of sounds which like Tim said, took a while, it took the best part of a year really but we were happy with the result.

Altsounds: So what is your process of making music? Could the variation of sounds come from using different composing processes while writing the songs?

Tim: Yeah that’s right, that’s absolutely bang on, we all felt that we’d watched a bunch of bands and we found that having 10 songs with the same kind of arrangement if you like, was a bit kind of tiresome so we wanted to make it a bit more colourful, more interesting, change things around from song to song so that’s why.

James: It was largely about keeping ourselves amused really, making sure that we had a good time over that 40 minutes by having those different sounds and we all like lots of different kinds of music so there was a lot of different influences to drawn upon when creating songs, there’s no sort of set strategy.

Altsounds: Tell me about the production process of the album, where was it produced?

James: Vidar!!

Vidar: We produced the album ourselves. We’ve got this amazing rehearsal room which is an old church and we managed to get the best room in this church, the church space sounds great and we’ve managed to sort of use the whole building really in creating the sounds we wanted. We’ve had some help from old friends along the way and at the mixing stage we felt we were too close to this now, be good to get someone into do the final mix and a guy called Lexx came in and helped us mix the album and he was brilliant, all done in about 10 days.

Carl: He was very creative and brought the perspective we needed and changed the songs in a really good way. There were parts that Tim had written and because of our closeness to it they were buried deep in the sound, Lexx brought them out and put them right to the front which made a big difference.

Altsounds: One of my favourite songs is ‘I go, I go, I go’ and I think I speak for a lot of the audience today because as soon as you started playing that song a lot more people were up on their feet making their way to the front to dance! You’ve re-released that track haven’t you? In regards to the charts, is it important to you to have a song in the charts?

Tim: I’m not surprised that we don’t fit into the commercial radio and the mainstream even though that song is one of our most poppiest moments. I think if you’re sort of going for the middle ground these days you’re playing a dangerous game because there’s so many big companies and big money sort of ploughing funds into developing really mainstream acts and we’re not the kind of people, we’re not the kind of age, or the demographic that we could compete with any of that. Like I said, we’ve got one tune that kinda goes near that area but that’s about it really we’re not that interested in getting stuck in there and you know, it might take us a bit longer to reach more people but that’s fine.

Altsounds: What gig has given you the biggest buzz or which is the best gig you’ve ever played?!

Tim: Well today was pretty good really because I think we had the most people singing along to most of the tunes. The album hasn’t been out long and it’s starting to filter out now and we’re getting the pleasure of playing to people that know the songs so, today was the best gig we’ve ever played!

Altsounds: Wow at Green Man and in Wales, and it’s sunny!

James: We spent like two hours driving through the rain and the clouds thinking that it was gonna be a wash out but, the second we got through the gates the sun appeared.

Altsounds: The last couple of years it’s been a mud bath! We could actually get a tan in this weather! So as we are in Green Man and as it has already been established, it is party time! What are your plans for this weekend? Any bands you wanna check out?

James: Blue Roses, Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective.
Carl: We’ll be watching them later on tonight!

Altsounds: Will you be watching Animal Collective from the side of the stage or are you going to join me at the front?!

Tim: No gotto get down the front for that! We’ve watched a few bands from the side of the stage. Vidar fell off the side of the stage at a festival in Norway a couple of weeks ago so, it’s a dangerous place to be! Down the front is much better!

Altsounds: I’ll see you at the front later then! What’s your earliest musical memory?

Carl: Shaba! Mr fantastic very bombastic!

James: I’m gonna say Neil Diamond, my granddad gave me one of those, what they called, eight track machines. We had this old big weird cassette that you’d shove into the machine and I used to go to sleep to that every night when I was about four years old.

Altsounds: Awwww how cute. You got so excited about that story you dropped your whisky! Haha

James: There’s plenty more where that came from!

Carl: Shaba!

Altsounds: How’s the scene in Liverpool at the moment?

Carl: It’s brilliant, problem is, the rest of the world hasn’t realised that yet. Every scene is unknown until a few lads or girls pop out of it and everyone recognizes it and they all talk about it. No scene ever existed until the rest of the world talked about it but, what’s actually happening is brilliant, there are some incredible artists but there’s not just music or sound based artists it’s visual artists and performance artists too. All working together and collaborating, genuinely getting together and exchanging ideas.

I’ve been living there for twenty years or something. This is the best time since I’ve been living in the town. The time when ‘Echo And The Bunnymen’ came out of town there were a lot of acts then that were all making creative work and all doing very well commercially at the same time. At the moment that doesn’t exist in Liverpool, you haven’t got ten acts that are all doing well in the charts and recognised but, there are ten artists there that are exceptional though.

Altsounds: Any bands that excite you at the moment?

Tim: Post War Years. They’ve become friends of ours but only because we saw them and thought they were brilliant and hung out with them a lot. They’re a great live band, they have a good album, I think they’re better live than they are on record! And I highly recommend that you listen to them!

James: Yes, everyone that’s listening to this, in the reading format!

Carl: In Liverpool there’s a band called Emily And The Faves, you should check out, there’s also an artist/songwriter kind of and visual artist called Harry Daily, you should check him out as well.

Altsounds: Time to get close and personal with Wave Machines! Tell me what a day in the life of Wave Machines is like!

Tim: Well you got to pick the right day.

Carl: Ben is in the wave machines office, he’s in the centre of it all so ask Ben.

Ben (band manager): You can’t possibly ask me that!

Carl: The band wanna know!

Ben: Well, I generally just rock up around noon (everyone laughs) I’m joking, I’m joking! And you know make myself a cup of tea and that takes me maybe an hour and then check some e-mails, ignore some e-mails and then maybe call Carl or maybe even Tim, James as well and just say "How’s it going" and that takes me three hours and then it’s well, home time. Yeah it’s pretty good, it’s a good existence I’ve got there!

Altsounds: But what do the band do?!

Ben: You better ask them (everyone laughs)

Altsounds: but thanks Ben!

Tim: (laughing) Ask Ben why he hasn’t answered any of our e-mails!

James: I get to the rehearsal room about 20 minutes late.

Carl: 20 minutes?!!!

James: On average (laughs). So I get there late, walk up the stairs, say my catchphrase ‘sorry I’m late.’

Altsounds: What’s the best excuse you’ve ever given to being late James?

James: Well.. I’ve had a problem you see, all my life (laughs) with time keeping. When I was doing my A-levels I’d rock into school generally an hour or two late and the teachers absolutely hated me. I think possibly my best excuse [which was absolutely true at the time]. OK, I’ll tell you the story from my perspective. I woke up, I got dressed, I lived on the same road as the school so it was only like a fifteen minute walk down to the school, so I walked down to the school, I sat...

Tim and Vidar: Just get on with it!!

James: I sat there in school and then the next thing I knew, I woke up so, I dreamed the whole thing (laughs) so I ran down to school.

Carl: Stay with this... it’s good!

James: So I ran down to school, went into the class and he goes, ‘Walsh, you’re late, again, what’s your excuse this time?’ ‘Well, I dreamed...(laughs) that I came into school and sat in your lesson and it was a good lesson!’

Vidar: Rehearsing day...

Carl: This is like a serious question now

Altsounds: Well I’m trying to be serious here!

Vidar: Yeah we rehearse, say we come in at 10:00 and James comes in at 10:56, you know, he’s tuned up by 11:14 and then we have a cup of tea.

James: Piss off Vidar, I’m always in tune! (laughs)

Altsounds: Now now boys! Haha so do you have an interesting or funny story for me?!

Tim: An insect tried to fly into my mouth today, sorry I’m just chewing a biscuit. In the second chorus of 'Dead Houses', I had to, in between words blow it like this (he makes an impression). I won’t say I didn’t swallow it...haha...it was almost a really good story!

James: I’ve got a story, do you remember when all the wind blew, really fast, it de-tuned my guitar! It was very interesting , I was suddenly blown backwards.

Altsounds: Haha! Well I think we should start that party now so let’s wrap up!

Thanks for talking to me guys, it’s been a pleasure! The band are on tour at the moment then will start writing for the next album after the tour!

Tour dates are on their website Wave Machines ++ Keep The Lights On ++ Free Download

This interview was kindly conducted by El Parisa on behalf of Altsounds.com. Check El Parisa's music out here: El Parisa on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads