My Passion Speaks To Stereoboard About New Album 'Inside This Machine' (Interview)
Friday, 01 April 2011
Written by Heather McDaid
Having recorded their second studio album “Inside This Machine” almost a year ago, it’s been a long road to release for My Passion. With the date imminent and touring set to follow, it looks like an exciting road ahead for both My Passion and the fans who have been eagerly waiting.
Laurence Rene took a little call time to talk about life in the My Passion camp right now and about hearing via Kerrang! that he’d accidentally painted himself permanently gold. Conveniently, this revelation took place on April Fools Day...
How was the Kerrang! photoshoot?
Laurence: The photoshoot yesterday? Yeah, it was really good. It’s always really good fun. I really enjoy the photoshoot and interview side of things, so that’s kind of one of my roles in the band. So yeah, I really enjoyed it. It was with Paul Harries, who is probably one of my favourite rock photographers in the world and we’ve worked a lot with him so we’re really relaxed with him. It kind of helps with that sort of thing, in fact I think it’s really important when taking photos and stuff. They look great as well.
Did you ever expect that kind of support from Kerrang!? They support you a lot. I saw they included you in their April Fools this morning.
Laurence: Oh yeah! They did this stupid April Fools thing. I actually believed the one about Young Guns and Gus getting on Hollyoaks as well. I didn’t even realise it was April the 1st and thought “Oh, wow... the jammy git. He better invite me along!” But yeah, it’s lovely that Kerrang! have sort of got on board with the band quite early on. I mean it did take quite a while and took a lot of hassle from our fans back when we hadn’t even appeared in the magazine. We put a lot of work in and then finally appeared on the pages of ‘Introduced’ and it started snowballing from there. Once Kerrang! knew about us, they got really behind us and have been supporting us ever since. Hopefully that will continue with the new album! If they like it, that is...
How did you find recording the new album? You recorded it almost a year ago already...
Laurence: It’s been a long time. I can’t actually remember what it was like! It was really good and it was really enjoyable. I think the recording process – as a musician – is one of the most enjoyable parts of being in a band. All that stuff you have created, it’s kind of like capturing it so that you have it captured forever like a single moment in time. It’s one of the best parts of being a musician.
We recorded the album at Outhouse studios where we also did the first album, but since that time we’ve progressed as people, as musicians and as song-writers. So we feel a lot more experienced and, I guess, far better than we were when we went in there the first time around. And also, Outhouse studios has also improved and grown with us so it was a brilliant combination of things and we were really happy about it all. They really pushed us as well and got the best out of us as well as being really good friends with us.
It was a good balance of enjoyment and actually getting down to hard work. I think that’s important when you’re in the studio; you’ve got to enjoy your time there but also have to work really hard for the time you’re in there because obviously it costs quite a lot of money to go there and record and album, so you can’t be there for a whole year. You’ve really got a limited amount of time to make the best of your music and everything else. It was really enjoyable. Very enjoyable. It’s just a nightmare that it’s taken this long to release it but sometimes it just happens this way in the music industry.
Do you have any personal favourites on the album?
Laurence: Um... Yeah, I do. They’re all sort of standout tracks to me but obviously, because of the nature of the album, it’s obviously different to others. The album has a lot of dynamics and emotions in there and a lot of different styles, so hopefully that other people who have a listen take something different each time they listen and appreciate that the songs aren’t all the same. It’s like in life – you don’t always feel the same when you wake up every day. Sometimes you want something that’s an easy listen, sometimes you want something more fun, sometimes something more intimate and emotional.
There are all those moments within the album, so it does take you on a journey. It’s sort of an insight into our world and where we are with life right now. So it does change a lot, I like them all but I think the new single is my favourite just now, which is coming out. We just did a cool video for it and that’s “The Mess We Made Of Our Lives” and I think that’s one of my favourites. I think our next single is looking like it will be a song called “The Girl Who Lost Her Smile”, which is probably one of the most accessible tracks. It’s got a heavy side to it and it’s also got a really catchy, cracking chorus, so I think that works really well. That’s a good one to sing along to. I like that side to our songs. They’re two of my favourites, definitely.
Are you excited to finally be releasing it after so long? It’s only a week or two away from release.
Laurence: Yeah, it’s really exciting now that it’s almost upon us and we can finally get it out there and prove to people what we’re made of and what we’re capable of. It’s been that long and we’ve been in limbo for so long that it’s almost a relief to finally have the album going out there.
Also, having all the album artwork finished and knowing that so much work has gone into it behind it, the whole promotion of it – we feel very much a big part of that. The cover and all the artwork inside was actually created by me and my dad and we worked really hard at that. It all feels very like it’s still within the family.
We just signed a licensing record deal to a part of Universal, but that’s just extra on top of what we already do. All the merchandising and the artwork, the whole idea behind in the band is still very much in our control and something that we have to work very hard at. It is a very long time coming, so it’s a big relief to finally be putting this new music out there and getting to prove to people what we’re really doing musically. It’s quite an important time for us.
We’ve actually got our first few reviews out and it’s been getting a good response, which is really encouraging. We got a great review in Rock Sound and the Bring The Noise website, which were the first two I had seen. It’s lovely to get a good response for it. Obviously, it won’t be like that for everyone because of the kind of band we are. We know not everyone is going to love it and we’ve accepted that now. We love what we’re doing and we can only hope that other people understand it and get where we’re coming from and also get something out of it. That’s where I am with it and it is lovely when the media does actually pick up on it and give you credit for doing what you love and the song’s you’ve created. So it is very encouraging and really exciting.
How are you feeling about getting back on tour to promote the album after its release?
Laurence: It seems like quite a while since we last toured. We’ve done a few one-offs here and there and last week we had a great week. We went out with the Red Bull Bedroom Jam thing that they do, which is the music side of Red Bull and we played a lot of house parties. That was a messy week of partying and getting out there and getting to play live again, so it has been quite a while. It was just so enjoyable.
I mean, we have had some tough times behind the scenes trying to get everything together but it was lovely to go out and be able to play our music and be together as friends again. We just got to enjoy the whole thing of being in a band again and playing live. Other than recording that is the real highlight of being a musician. It’s very different to what we usually do, obviously there is a lot more of a theatre element around it with production and stuff. This was more a punky, house party kind of thing. That’s given us a taste for it.
We can’t wait for the April album tour and getting back out there to play on bigger stages. It’s where we feel at home and I think it’s just what I was meant to do, really. I feel so at ease on a stage performing in front of people. Hopefully people will come out and see it because I believe it’s going to be a great tour as we’ve got a lot of things planned. We’ll be playing new songs and putting a lot into the live show with our golden tour rolling into town. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Definitely.
What would you say to expect if they walked into their first My Passion show?
Laurence: I think what a lot of people like about My Passion shows, other than the passion that goes into it, is something that you get from the band. You can see that we love what we’re doing and how much we enjoy what we’re doing on stage. It’s like you should expect the unexpected, I guess.
It’s a bit like the house parties from the past week: at some of the shows people were bouncing off the walls and ceilings were caving in. It was like a beautiful chaos that kept happening. It was really exciting and I think people like to be a part of something like that. It’s definitely exciting to watch. There’s a lot of feeling behind it and a lot of thought that goes into it.
With some bands, they have a good performance but the theatrical side takes over but with us I think we have a good balance between a great live show and the thought behind it. It’s a large part of our own reaction to the music, so it’s a really real reaction and the way you see us on stage is showing what the music does to us. It sounds a bit crazy, I guess. I just hope that it does the same thing for the crowd. I think a lot of the time it does rub off on the crowd; our view on the world, our positivity. It’s just people picking up on all of that and enjoying it and it hopefully snowballs from there. I think it works the best in the live settings as well.
So, I’d definitely say our shows are very exciting, very lively and we look for the crowd to be involved and become part of the show as well. It’s not just us on a stage disconnected from the audience.
Are there any other things you’re looking forward to this year? Festivals?
Laurence: I guess the album is the main thing and we’ll see where we go from there. Festivals are a priority, so hopefully we’ll be announcing some festivals soon because that’s just a really enjoyable time where you get to see a lot of other bands that you’ve become friends with. It’s also a good opportunity to win over new people as well. So hopefully we’ll get to meet new people at festivals this time around. I’m not sure what we’re doing yet but hopefully we’ll be doing as many as we possibly can because we’re really eager to get out there and continue working really hard.
There was talk about possibly going to Australia and back to Japan later in the year, which would be amazing. That’s another highlight of being a musician. You look at your life and you’re just like, “Wow! Look at all these amazing experiences.” You get to see the world and the money side of things really because irrelevant. The fact is that it’s very hard to be a musician these days and actually making a living. You just look at what you’ve got and the experiences you’ve been given and just really appreciate it. It makes it all worthwhile when you get to do these amazing things. It really is a balance that you have to keep.
Hopefully there’ll be a lot more touring, a lot more festivals and a lot more meeting fans, new fans as well. I’d like to think we can win over some new people with the new album. This is the exciting sort of challenge that we relish.
Do you have something that you consider a greatest achievement or best experience through your band?
Laurence: It’s hard! There are a lot of highlights in there. I think the moment that we really sort of sat back, had a look around ourselves and realised what we were achieving and experiencing was a moment when we were in Japan last year.
We were sitting backstage in an arena, about to go onstage and play to thousands of people and it was just the fact that we were in a country that we’d always dreamed of seeing, dreamed of playing and just being in. The fact that we were on the other side of the world after 20 hours of flying out from the UK, we just sat there and had to appreciate that we had arrived in a land that we’d always dreamt of visiting and it was just through making music that we loved and being together as friends. It was just like “Wow, we’ve actually achieved this”. We hadn’t paid thousands of pounds to be there, we were actually being paid to come here to entertain and perform in front of a lot of new people on the other side of the world. It was just such an amazing time... one of those times where you just look at it and it just becomes imprinted and embedded in your mind. I’m still like ‘Wow’ when I think about it. It was just such an amazing experience and amazing time for us.
Hopefully we’ll have a lot more of those moments and a lot more opportunities to visit Japan and other special places.
My Passion’s new album “Inside This Machine” is released on April 18th. You can also catch My Passion on tour around the UK later this month.
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Did you ever expect that kind of support from Kerrang!? They support you a lot. I saw they included you in their April Fools this morning.
