INTERVIEW

Fightstar

Miloco, Leroy Street complex, Aug 2005

Around a table in Miloco's delectable recreation room and kitchen, MILC sat down with 50% of Fightstar - Alex Westaway (guitar & vocals) and Charlie Simpson (guitar & vocals) - as they took a quick snack-based time out from recording a single and their debut album with none other than Colin Richardson (legendary producer of Napalm Death, The Mission, Funeral For A Friend, Chimaira, et al).

Amidst the munching of pasties they recounted the perils of surviving recording sessions on a diet of takeaways, takeaways and yet more takeaways: "well there's only so many Greggs and Indians you can eat...", recalled gruesome liquid repellent techniques: "one of our guys pissed in a bottle and ran around squirting it everywhere..." and let slip the concept that spookily informs and binds their new project...

MILC: So, starting off, how did you guys get together?

Alex: "My sister moved in with Charlie's girlfriend 2 years or so ago, and I met Charlie through there. I went to school with Dan [Haigh, bass guitar] and did some work with Omar [Abidi, drums] a few years ago. So anyway I ended up moving in with Charlie, and then I rang up the guys, had a few rehearsals and it all went from there."

MILC: And what kind of music did you grow up listening to?

Alex: "The Beatles I think - my first memory is of my Dad always playing it. And Bob Dylan. Those two really defined what music was to me at that time...[then] the first bands [I was in] were the standard sort of school band thing - Nirvana and Rage Against the Machine covers. And after that I went through a singer/songwriter acoustic kind of thing. So [by the time] we started Fightstar it was the first time I'd picked up an electric guitar for a while - and it was great to get back to it. Now I couldn't imagine not having distortion.

MILC: You're working with the legendary Colin Richardson - I read that Dan thought that his work with Carcass on 'Buried Dreams' was the biggest rock guitar sound ever achieved - has he found a similar sound for you?

Charlie: "Yeah, we use an Eddie Van Halen signature Peavey amp and there's this record by Machine Head, 'Burn my eyes', which has, again, this phenomenal tone, so we kinda got Colin to tweak the amp...There's just something about Colin Richardson that he gets these amazing guitar tones...different from any other producer we've ever worked with."

MILC: So have you been recording or mixing here at Miloco?

Charlie: "Recording and mixing."

Alex: "We're actually recording a single now."

Charlie: "But it's for the album. We're coming back...we're doing two songs now and then the rest of the album in October....we really like it here."

Alex: "Yeah, it's kinda vibey."

Charlie: "We demoed the album tracks at the other Miloco studio, at The Garden, and that was cool. But this place [The Neve Room] has a got a great vibe, great equipment...it's cool, man, I really enjoyed being here."

MILC: And does the album have a title or working title yet? Is that kind of thing premeditated, or something that comes about gradually as you realise what it's sounding like?

Alex: "Yeah, it changes."

Charlie: "It develops...it's weird - an album name's gotta suit four people, and so the chances are three of you are gonna like it and the last one won't...

MILC: So was it hard agreeing on the name of the band?

Charlie: "It wasn't easy."

Alex: "Took a couple of months, it's the hardest thing..."

MILC: Well, they're never actually any good are they? They're fine once the band exists and you can equate it directly with them, but when you first hear them they're almost always terrible...

Charlie: "Yeah, yeah - exactly. I mean The Flaming Lips or The Smashing Pumpkins..."

Alex: "The Smashing Pumpkins is so weird..."

Charlie: "Yeah, but it's such a cool name for them. You can call a band anything and if they become successful it's fine."

Alex: "It's getting used to it. It's like giving a name to your kid and you think it's ridiculous until you get to know your kid and then it's fine, it's part of who they are...unless it's Ridonkulous Maximus or something..."

[a small laughter break]

Charlie: "So yeah it's pretty much getting used to it, but it has to be something that everyone's happy with."

MILC: Do you have any release dates in mind yet for the single and album?

Charlie: "The single we're doing now'll be released on the 24th October [2005], and after that we'll be working on the album.

MILC: And a single title?

Charlie: "Again," straight bats Charlie, "it's a working title, so we can't...But the name's probably gonna tie-in with the name of the album. We're thinking of doing a kind of Part 1/Part 2 type thing."

Alex: "We're heading towards a kind of themed album right now, a concept album - well, slightly conceptual, not full-out conceptual...

MILC: With a single theme running from beginning to end?

Charlie: It's all gonna tie-in with the artwork. The whole theme of the album is death and re-birth; the end of everything, then picking up the pieces and starting again.

MILC: So, back to the recording process, do you tend to go in with material fully rehearsed and demoed or do you prefer to get in there and see how it all develops?

Charlie: "It's weird. When we first started it literally was: write a song one week, go in and record it the next. But then with our first single that process kind of back-fired so we decided this time we'd demo it all in advance so we could live with it for at least a week and make sure we liked it."

Alex: "And this material's gone through so many changes. We demoed it once, then we demoed it again, and then we...pretty much rewrote it, and now we've pretty much finished it!"

Charlie: "If you listen to the demo it's pretty much entirely different songs."

Alex: "If you gig a song loads and loads it develops in its own way and it's easier to record. But the new stuff doesn't get a chance to develop naturally so you have to work really hard on it to get it right."

MILC: So do you sneak out and do mini-gigs to try and road-test stuff?

Charlie: "Well we kinda try and slip new songs in here and there to see how they go down. And that's the weird thing with the single we're doing now cos we gigged it for so long we got used to it and that's all for the better cos I really love the song now. But it's always in the back of your mind: Is this good enough? Is this good enough? Which is a pressure I never used to have before; at the beginning everything was on our own terms and we didn't have to impress anyone..."

MILC: But presumably you're still doing it primarily to satisfy yourselves?

Charlie: "Oh, yes, exactly, and that's why I don't like thinking 'is this good enough', I just want the natural progression...

Alex: "There is that beauty of ignorance, like when we first started and it was all just... fresh..."

Charlie: "...and there's just these four guys playing and the music's just for those four guys. But when you start getting fans and labels and management there's so many eyes on you."

MILC: So do [management/labels] get sight of stuff early and say: 'Well we were kind of hoping for something a bit more...'?

Charlie: "We don't want that. We have to fight against that the whole time. The last thing we want is A&R guys coming in and saying: 'We don't want...'"

Alex: "We don't really have that though. There's probably been two suggestions in the past, and we've just been 'Yeah, whatever, mate...'

Charlie: "Exactly. And we've made it very clear to everyone that the band is a very self-contained unit and so when we come into the studio we like to be left alone to get on with it, and if they don't like that..."

Alex: "But I think they respect that though. I think we've got a great relationship with the record company, so it's not a problem."

Charlie: "No, it's not a problem. And then working with someone like Colin Richardson - he's an absolute legend."

MILC: And does he have much influence on the tunes themselves?

Charlie: "Again, it's weird - he does, but only if we want him to. We'll ask him 'What do you think of this?' and he might say, 'Well, why don't you try so-and-so?' And we can say yes or no, but he never gets offended or anything like that - which is exactly how I like it. If a producer tried to force his opinion on you then it just wouldn't work. But Colin's brilliant..."

Alex: "Yeah he's always got ideas."

Charlie: "Yeah we try loads of things out. It's about experimentation really."

MILC: Well it sounds like you're having a ball...

Charlie: "Oh yeah, it's awesome. But it is slightly stressful at times."

Alex: "And I'm looking forward to having some time off..."

Charlie: "We were just talking - after having watched this Guns 'n' Roses thing on Kerrang! - how in the 80's people'd spend a year on their album, where as these days you've got two months. So time pressure does get to you a bit."

MILC: So you don't get to insist on disappearing off to the Caribbean for a lengthy mix session with limitless expenses...

Charlie: "Well the thing is they start mixing and we head off to Japan to play some shows out there...but if there's one person I trust to mix it then it's Colin."

Alex: "And we've been talking about how it's going to be mixed for ages."

MILC: It must be nice to go away, come back and hear it all again with fresh ears; see what it sounds like when you first walk in the room?

Charlie: "Fresh ears is always a good thing. If you work until 12 at night, sometimes your head just gets fried and you can't do anything; you need to come back. Loads of times you can't get stuff done last thing at night, but if you come in first thing: bang, it gets sorted straight away."

MILC: So are you typically 9-5ers in the studio, or do you prefer burning the candle?

Alex: "Usually 11 till 12."

Charlie: "Yeah about 12-hour days. And I think that's good. When we first did our EP ['They liked you better when you were dead', released Feb 2005], and we had such limited time, we'd come in at 10 and not leave till 6 in the morning. But I think the fresher your ears are, the more alert you are to the sound."

MILC: And do you need to have any kind of special atmosphere - you know: dimmed lights, burning incense...

Charlie: "Well with vocals, it has to be later. There's something weird about coming in in the morning and trying to do it - you really have to be in the right head-space to try and do it, so I much prefer to be kind of 7-10 at night when the sun's coming down - you know: twilight..."

MILC: And is that a mood thing, or because your voice has had time to warm up?

Charlie: "I think it's a bit of both. Your voice has definitely had time to warm up, but it's mainly mood - you're more chilled, you can focus better."

MILC: Are you planning to work with any guest artists?

Charlie: "No, we did think about that - there are a couple of people we'd absolutely love to have do guest vocals - but I think, especially for a first album, it'd best if it's just us; maybe for the second album..."

MILC: So it'll just be you guys and all your own material?

Alex: "Yeah, it's all our stuff."

Charlie: "Yeah, yeah. We were toying with the idea of doing a cover of Hurt by Nine Inch Nails, but it's too much of a sacred song and we thought it'd be wrong for us to try and represent that..."

MILC: And also, presumably, you want to keep the focus on you and your material as opposed to any covers you might have done?

Alex: "Absolutely."

Charlie: "It's awesome to do live but, yes, not the right thing for our first record."

MILC: With the increasing availability of quality at-home recording technology, what do see as the modern-day lure of professional studios?

Alex: "We were actually talking about that earlier, and how the big studio thing is probably dying out a little compared to with how it used to be, because equipment's becoming cheap and accessible for everyone. But there's something to be said for a producer who's got many years of experience and [can help with] manipulating a song into something much better than it could have been. So it that sense it should never die, it should never change, but equipment's just gonna get better and better."

MILC: Does having a dedicated environment help?

Alex: "Yeah, yes that helps. It's better, fresher, more professional - it feels better to go elsewhere to do it than to stay at home with all the day-to-day distractions."

MILC: So would you ever consider a solution that meets half way - with you guys having your own studio?

Alex: "Yeah, that'd be good. Omar the drummer is really into production - he's a qualified sound engineer - and I've got my own little setup at home for doing demos and stuff, so I think we've definitely the knowledge to sort that out."

MILC: And have you embraced the whole i-tunes, music download revolution?

Alex: "I haven't personally. I just love going into shops and buying the actual thing - I love the artwork and packaging - the whole product."

MILC: But do you see it affecting the industry as a whole?

Alex: "Oh yeah, definitely, man. It's accounting for more and more of industry sales. One the good thing about them is that you can release different versions of the one tune and it all counts towards the sales - so you can release an acoustic version, or a live version of the same single as well, and all the downloads count towards the single charts."

MILC: So now for a few quick-fire questions. Who is the band or solo artist that has influenced you most over the last 12 months?

Alex: "Jeff Buckley. I discovered him quite late - about 3 or 4 years ago - but he's my greatest influence of all time."

MILC: And if you could have been involved in the recording of one album, which would it be...?

Alex: "Jeff Buckley - Grace, or Nirvana - Nevermind."

MILC: What's the worst behaviour you've ever witnessed at a gig?

Alex: "It'll be with our guitar techs, definitely. One time when we went to Ireland our security guards were getting so pissed off with them running around the ferry that they pissed in a bottle and ran around squirting it everywhere...he's usually a lovely a guy."

MILC: I'm sure his mother's very proud... And the best gig you've been to?

Alex: "Mono at the ICA - an amazing Japanese lo-fi band. It's all instrumental and we were all there - the whole band - and we were kind of, 'What's going on?' We'd never heard of them before. We were taken there by Darren Taylor from Rocksound and were just blown away. There's just four of them and an array of pedals and after the show we were like 'Shit! What pedals are they using?' and rushed to write them all down."

MILC: So what equipment do you guys use?

Alex: "Mesa amps live. Then when we're recording we use whatever sounds right at the time - we try and get hold of as many different types as possible. And that goes for pedals - you can never have enough of them. I use Fender guitars, mainly; Charlie's got a PRS endorsement; Dan uses Warwick bass guitars and Omar's getting into Sonar."

MILC: So to finish up: you got together in December 2003, which means you're almost 2 years old - has it been a good first few years together?

Alex: "Yeah, yeah."

Charlie: "We've been to Dublin and Ireland before but we've got our first big international trip next week, to Japan [for SummerSonic], and so that's the next big step, which'll be awesome, and then it's back to finish the album..."

MILC: And see if Colin's put violins and children's backing vocals all over it...

Charlie: "Yeah! ...But it's like the whole process has been building up to this point where the band's got to make a full-length album. And we're just reveling in the opportunity."

Fightstar were talking to MILC at Miloco recording studios, August 2005.

© Milc@Miloco 2005