The Guilty Ones: First Your Stereo, Then The World

It appears that the Guilty Ones are happy to take their time. The London-based band are preparing to drop their debut single, Conquer The World, on July 28 after nearly a year cooped up in a recording studio, and it's a huge, glossy pop song driven on by the idiosyncratic vocals of frontwoman Liv Slania.

During their marathon recording session, the band didn't want for advice. Behind the desk they had a brain trust – including Rupert Hine, Alex Beitzke and Bob Ludwig - with previous experience at the helm of records from Stevie Nicks, Underworld, Paul Weller, Radiohead, Nirvana and Bruce Springsteen. For Slania and her young band, their words proved to be vital.

“It was very, very important,” she said. “Having somebody there with so much experience to guide us, we felt we were in very safe hands. Very often, especially in creative environments, you can doubt yourself because there are so many options. They're practically infinite.

“It's hard to know what the right choice, the right sound, the right part is. Sometimes the brain just freezes and you don't know what to choose. Every day we would learn from them about what to do and the main lesson was not to overthink things. That's kinda hard. Don't think, play instead.”

The record was co-produced by the band's guitarist, Jo Pereira, and they also had to battle with the pressures that a 12-month stint in the studio wrought on their relationships.

“It's not only perspective on what you had to do, it's also the people,” Slania said, “You're with each other 24/7 in such an involved, emotional process, you just want to bite each other's heads off, you know? That was a tough one, a rollercoaster of feelings and opinions.”

The band were keen to take things slow once they hit the studio and were determined to wring new inspiration from their surroundings, whether in the form of new instrumentation or arrangements, despite having a slate of material already written prior to the sessions.

“We're quite a precise band,” Slania said. “If we did it really quickly, in one take, two takes, next, next next, we wouldn't have had time to experiment. That was the great thing, the great luxury. There are some weird instruments and sounds.”

During the recording process, one serendipitous moment also allowed the band to add an extra layer to a couple of tracks. With cash flow issues at the forefront of their mind, they struggled to find a string section to round out their sound. Enter James Dean Bradfield, frontman of Manic Street Preachers. Having heard snatches of the record, he offered the Guilty Ones his north Wales studio and string section to complete the picture.

“He really liked a song called All There Is, and later, while we were recording another song, Heartbeat, we were like, 'shit, we've run out of money to record a string section'," Slania said. "It's quite expensive to have the whole orchestra recording for you, and we're not Madonna. He was like, 'just use my string section, use my string arranger and my studio to record it'. The strings that are on the EP are thanks to him.”

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