Stereoboard Talks To The Boxer Rebellion At 2010's Relentless Energy Sessions Festival (Interview)
Monday, 25 October 2010
Written by Ben Bland
Stereoboard.com were at the first day (Thursday October 21st) of 2010's Relentless Energy Session Festival to talk to Boxer Rebellion’s Nathan Nicholson (Lead Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards) and Piers Hewitt (Drums) ahead of the ever-growing succesful alternative rock band's first London show in a year.
You guys had some problems early on in your career with labels and suchlike. Do you think you’d be surprised then if you knew how the band would grow and develop as they have done now?
Nathan Nicholson: It was never that we were upset or anything about leaving our label. For a while we didn’t really know what we were gonna do, where we were gonna go. We always thought we’d eventually be bringing out a new album and stuff and then with ‘Union’ charting in the US and selling so well. Yeah, we were surprised it happened as well as it did I suppose, but not that it happened.
Piers Hewitt: I was surprised how well it did in terms of the impact it made despite not being on a label. I always knew our music would crossover to people. I knew we weren’t crap. That’s how we stayed together in that time. We all knew we were good at what we do. We weren’t upset especially to be off that label, but apprehensive to be without a label for a time.
So would you consider signing to a label again now or are you quite happy being independent?
PH: Everyone asks us that now!
NN: We’ve talked to labels and people make us offers. It’s not something we’re against. We run ourselves like an indie label anyway. It’s not like something we have to have. It’s all about working with the right people and being able to do what we wanna do. It’s something we’d always entertain.
PH: Great deals only exist after the event anyway. We could sign to some label and have X amount of money thrown into promotion and stuff and then sell 10,000 records but then be in stupid amounts of debt. It’s all relative to how well the band is doing anyway. Deals like that don’t really mean anything to me.
With regard to the release of the new album, are you planning to release it in a similar way to ‘Union’? (through iTunes first and then physical later)
NN: I think we didn’t really know how ‘Union’ was going to go. Digital release was the only way we could release ‘Union’ at the time. We didn’t have the people and the money in place. Now, with a better understanding of how things work and with our management, we’ve learnt and so we’ll do it in a similar way but we’ll do it physically and worldwide rather than in patches like ‘Union’ was and it won’t just be digital.
What’s the new record, ‘The Cold Still’, going to sound like?
PH: There’s only one decent song on it! No, it definitely sounds like us. We’re very aware I think of our size and how much our fanbase has stuck by what we’re doing. We were never going to take a leftfield direction. We wrote in a similar way but just recorded it in a very different way. It sounds like us but a little bit different.
NN: We didn’t make our ‘Kid A’ record! It’s just a little more grown up. I know that sounds like a cliché but we wrote ‘Union’ back in 2007 and then we didn’t release it for two years. A lot of those songs are five years old. We wrote this new album and finished it within six or seven months. It’s very fresh and very representative of us now. We worked with Ethan Jones, who’s a really fun guy and the guy we wanted to work with. We’re very excited. We’ve been playing new stuff here and in the US and the fun bits of the set now are those two or three new songs. It’s exciting to us to get the reaction.
How’s the reaction been to the new songs live?
PH: Yeah good. The US is a bit different because we were playing to whole audiences who wanted to hear all of ‘Union’ basically. It was very ‘Union’ heavy. We’ve been itching a little to get the new stuff out and the new songs seemed to go down just as well. It was never where I was thinking “Oh we shouldn’t have played that”, ‘cause that does happen with new songs sometimes but it didn’t, so that was good.
NN: We made it easier for people by playing the more up-tempo new tracks live. The rest of the album is a bit more epic.
You recently appeared in the film ‘Going the Distance’. Have there been any noticeable effects on the band because of this yet?
NN: We’ve noticed quite an effect, especially in the States. We never toured the States before but we had great audiences everywhere. We’d always have people coming up to us saying they’d discovered us through the movie and our record sales went up a bit and all that. But it’s not been a massive deal which is good in a way because we didn’t want to become “that band out of that movie”. It’s very important for us to be thinking in terms of films and TV because it’s like the new radio you know.
PH: Not just physically in movies!
NN: No, not just physically in movies but on soundtracks in the background. It helps bands more than it used to I think. It’s about gaining relationships and meeting new people and helping them become more aware of our band. It’s great to have such opportunities and write songs for movies and knowing we can do that again.
Would you ever consider writing a whole soundtrack to a film? You’ve got a widescreen, epic side to your music.
NN: We’ve talked about that a few times. It’d be a lot of fun. It could just be instrumental. There are great soundtrack records.
PH: It’s just the time. It’s very hard to fit that extent of musical contribution to fit both the artist and the film. It’s kinda throwing a lot of chemicals up in the air and seeing what happens. We’re in the fun part of being in a band now, with the anticipation of the new record and touring it and stuff.
NN: We’ve never had that before. First record, we knew we were getting dropped and that the label had no money. Second record was so protracted so this is all new for us and it’s very exciting.
If you could choose one Boxer Rebellion song to sum up everything you love about the band then which one would it be?
NN: You choose Piers!
PH: If I had to pick a song...the one song we could play again or listen to again; the qualities of those two being combined. I’d probably say ‘Flashing Red Light Means Go’. It’s got a lot of everything in there. It’s got some beautiful moments in it; what we’re best at I suppose.
NN: I concur, sure! There’s stuff off the new album as well as ‘We Have This Place Surrounded’ and songs like that.
What are your long-term aims for The Boxer Rebellion now, after all that’s happened to you, where can this band go?
PH: From a minimal perspective it’s to just carry on doing what we’re doing now. We’ve seen bands explode and implode within a much shorter time than we’ve been doing this. I almost can’t believe we’ve got this far.
NN: Bands like Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party have almost had whole careers already. I mean, they could release greatest hits now if they wanted!
PH: Everything for us has been a real privilege. Lots of bands take things for granted cause they happen so quickly. To keep going and slowly develop and grow is the bare minimum of what we want.
NN: We’re not getting any younger. We have families. It’s not all fun and games.
PH: To get into my thirties and have the consideration that we could still be doing this comfortably in ten years time is great. When they want to turn the lights off, then that’s what I want to be aiming for. It’s the best job in the world behind professional golfer after all but I’ve missed the boat on that! I’m loathe to say that we’ll be so big in five years times.
NN: Our goals are minimal. We want to maintain where we’re at whilst not taking the piss.
PH: If you’re going to say, “Oh we’ll be playing Wembley in five years” then you’re not taking into account how many variables there are in that which might lead to making crap music. I’m not prepared to risk that. I want to make records that we’ll be proud of and that I can show my kids in twenty years time and say “Look, these are really cool records and you know what, they’re still cool now”. That’s very possible I think.
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Would you ever consider writing a whole soundtrack to a film? You’ve got a widescreen, epic side to your music.
