So… This is my first post-Easter interview… I must say that Easter Bunny was very generous to me this year by giving me a variety of chocolate eggs (verdict: they all taste the same) and a new band to obsess about.
Talk In Colour are simply great! Don’t believe me? Have a read and a listen and you won’t know what hit ya! Their new single “The Cell” has been blasting through my speakers on repeat (apologies to my poor neighbours) and I just can’t get tired of it! I was lucky enough to steal them for a few minutes to do a little interview for you to enjoy… (verdict: just keep reading, you impatient thing, and you’ll be able to make up your own mind!)
Hey everyone, thanks for doing this. Let’s start with the first question. How did you all get into music and why?
Chris: Because we didn’t have a piano at home, I really got into music playing on the school piano during break or whenever I went round a friend’s house who had a piano. I remember being about three, ‘playing’ the sound of rain, whilst my little buddy looked on really bored. Then I used to dream about those cheap keyboards they sell in Argos…
Mary: I was too young to really know what I was doing, but thanks to my Mum thinking it was a good idea (yet not playing an instrument herself), I actually started playing the piano at the age of four. I was pretty hooked from then on, and took up the cello soon after. Music just wriggled its way into my everyday existence and has stayed there ever since…
Kat: Playing, writing and performing has always been part of my life, since I was very little. I come from a very musical family – my dad is a music teacher – and we were all encouraged to take up instruments from a young age. I’ve been playing in bands since I was a teenager, and before that I was in various choirs and orchestras.
Wow, you all seem so musical! I was gonna show off with my guitar skills, but forget it… Maybe next year… What’s the meaning behind the band’s name Talk In Colour?
Mary: Ohhh if you’d been there for the hours we spent trying to come up with a name. Hours and hours, spread over a few months. One day, Nick just texted round saying “What about Talk in Colour?” and everyone just went “…. Yeah, alright”. It just seemed to fit.
Chris: Days more like it. Came up with some pretty cool names, they just didn’t suit us. Still got the piles of paper with the various rejected names in the studio somewhere…
Kat: I can still remember some of them. I’m glad we didn’t go for “Fox Penis” in the end.
Haha, catchy name. So how did you all meet and decide to form Talk In Colour aka Fox Penis then?
Kat: I met Chris through a mutual friend, as I was looking for a new band to join and loved his music. Together with Dave and a couple of other musicians we worked as The Shadow Orchestra for a while, then when Nick and Mary joined we had a change of direction and vibe, so we changed the name to Talk in Colour.
Chris: I wrote an album under the name Shadow Orchestra and was looking for musicians to perform the tracks live, that’s how I met Kat and Dave… Then we decided we wanted to develop in a more song based format (Shadow Orchestra was a pretty much purely instrumental project). Met Mary, and Nick through an ad on Gumtree I think…
Oh, lucky you guys! I usually try to stay away from Gumtree after having bought a broken and dirty sofa-bed ages ago thinking I was getting an awesome deal… For those who don’t know you, can you just introduce all the band members and what they do in the band?
Chris Bangs (electronics, cello, vocals, production); Kat Arney (harp); Mary Erskine (keyboards, vocals), Nick Siddall (guitar, production) and Dave Oliver (drums).
Every band has their writing formula going on… What does your writing process look like?
Kat: It usually starts with a jam – Dave will set up a beat and we all just pile on, throwing ideas into the ring. Then we go away and listen to the recordings to figure out which bits we like, cut them up, and start to arrange them into songs. Mary writes the lyrics and vocal melodies, but we all contribute to the arrangements.
Sounds like a proper team effort! How would you describe your sound in three adjectives?
Kat: Cinematic, shiny, lush.
Mary: Hopeful, outward-looking
Chris: Multi-layered, widescreen, pop.
What’s the most memorable experience in your music career and why?
Kat: With Talk in Colour, probably playing an amazing gig at 3am at the Secret Garden Party. It was running two hours late, we were all really tired and grumpy, but the energy from the crowd was incredible.
Mary: I was lucky enough to play the Royal Albert Hall at the end of last year (I play cello for Al Lewis, who was supporting Jools Holland). It was 30 minutes of absolutely surreal but strangely calm wonder… hearing us echoing round in that incredible acoustic is a memory that will never leave me.
Chris: Yeah, the Secret Garden Party rocked! Also we had a great gig at Thekla in Bristol, and I loved our recent single launch at The Finsbury.
What’s the most embarrassing experience in your music career and why?
Kat: Completely screwing up my solo harp performance at the end of term concert at university. Utterly humiliating, especially as my parents were in the audience.
Mary: When I was seven, I was playing piano in a concert and a photographer flash-bulbed half way through my piece. I got completely unstuck, and eventually just ran off stage crying…
Chris: My sister’s wedding was pretty bad. I was supposed to be playing a Bach cello suite whilst my sister walked down the aisle, but totally came unstuck. I knew quite a few of the audience were musicians themselves, but everyone was pretty nice about it though.
If you weren’t a musician, you’d be… ?
Kat: A science writer and broadcaster, which is what I also am – I’m very lucky to be able to do lots of things that I love. Otherwise I’d love to decorate cakes for a living.
Mary: Stockbroker
Chris: Wholefood chef or gardener, bit like Kim Wilde really…
Oh wow, you all seem so grounded, unlike me. If I wasn’t a journalist, I’d definitely be an astronaut despite my chunky frame. I can actually imagine myself looking at Earth from my spaceship’s window whilst listening to your songs. Your music in general does seem quite out of this world to me… You’re actually releasing a new single called The Cell. What’s the song about?
Mary: It’s about illness, and the line between your body obeying you and turning against you.
Oh, maybe I shouldn’t be listening to it in space then. Wouldn’t want to get ill if I was a million miles away from the nearest hospital…
If you could collaborate with any living musician, who would it be and why?
Kat: Tuneyards (aka Merrill Garbus) – she’s amazing. I met her in the toilets at one of her gigs and was reduced to a gibbering wreck.
Mary: Hmm… Today I’m going to say Damon Albarn. We’d craft some lovely melodies.
Chris: Sooo many – Paul Simon, Brian Eno, Aphex Twin…
Ok, I’m kinda stuck on the whole illness topic… Almost every musician has some kind of an unhealthy addiction haunting them and making them feel miserable, so that they turn to their art for help whilst writing and suffering and all that stuff… What’s your addiction if any?
Kat: We’ve all become addicted to Bombay Mix after Nick brought some to rehearsals. That stuff is like crack. We’re slowly moving onto harder snacks now – Japanese chili crackers, Balti mix… It’s a slow, salty spiral downwards.
Mary: Swimming. Or cycling. Or reading books about and watching documentaries about fatalities on Everest.
Chris: Food in general really, but I find Asian food probably the most addictive.
Seriously? You all sound like such healthy people (very un-musician like)… I wish I was addicted to reading or cycling instead of coffee, fags and beer…
There’s two main aspects in every band’s life: recording and performing live. Which one do you guys enjoy more and why?
Kat: I absolutely love performing so that’s my favourite. I find writing fun but recording quite tedious and stressful as I always want it to be perfect.
Mary: Performing! Recording vocals is like an emotional/physical/mental endurance test. I only enjoy it once it’s finished.
Chris: I genuinely enjoy both, but struggle doing them too close together. Being in the studio is one kind of mindset – quite inward, reflective, experimental, and playing live is obviously very outward, extrovert. But I guess both should have an element of risk, creatively speaking. I kind of feel like the studio is my home and playing live is like going out, I need both!
What song that already exists do you wish you’d written and why?
Kat: That’s too hard! Maybe Blackbird by Paul McCartney, or This is a Low by Blur.
Mary: Blue Nile: Downtown Lights. This just makes my heart twist and sing.
Chris: Again way too many to choose from. Both Cherokee Louise by Joni Mitchell and Darling Lorraine by Paul Simon destroy me every time. Likewise, She’s Leaving Home by the Beatles, in fact anything by The Beatles.
Yes, these are all timeless tunes for sure! And now the final question: what’s in store for Talk In Colour in 2014?
Kat:We’re releasing our new single, The Cell, and then have a gig at Ace Hotel in Shoreditch on the 27th April supporting the wonderful Collectress. After that, we’re in the studio writing and recording new material, so watch this space.
Big thanks to Talk In Colour and for those who haven’t hear the single yet, here it comes:
