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Music

The Maccabees: "If There’s One Thing We’ve Learned it’s Sticking to Our Guns"

Over a decade later and the London quintet are set to release their biggest LP yet. We catch up with them on their current US tour.

Formed in London back in 2004, The Maccabees achieved early acclaim thanks to singles like “First Love” and “Latchmere” which managed to blend spry indie-pop nous with jagged guitar lines. They were quickly anointed indie darlings in the UK—a reputation solidified with the release of their 2007 debut record album Colour It In. Currently on tour here in the US with fellow Londoners Mumford & Sons, last week they played a rather more intimate headline gig at Manhattan’s Le Poisson Rouge. Blasting through a set of songs spanning all four albums to a largely, but not exclusively English crowd, the band was visibly overjoyed and overwhelmed at the response to what they do on this side of the Atlantic—both old favorites like “X-Ray” and “Precious Time,” and new songs from forthcoming fourth full-length, Marks to Prove It—went down a storm, and transformed, for a an hour and a bit, this one part of New York into a part of London. We talked to guitarist Felix White about the experience, the new record, and whether supporting their fellow countrymen in giant venues inspires any kind of jealousy…

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Noisey: So Marks to Prove It is coming out next month. It’ll be your fourth record, so what significance does that hold for you?
Felix White: It’s of huge significance for a number of reasons. I think firstly because it took longer than we thought it was going to, and there were a few palpable moments when we weren’t sure if this record was even going to work. So that makes it hugely significant for us. Looking back on it now that it’s done and playing some of it live, the thing I most like about the record actually is that it brings a nice frame of context to all the records that have come before. It kind of sums up The Maccabees in a way that we haven’t been able to do and there’s something quite concrete about that, like it just sounds like The Maccabees, and I really like that.

The new songs went down really well at the gig. But there’s definitely a sense of evolution from Colour It In
Yeah. I don’t mean that it sounds the same as any of the records that have come previously, but I think it’s taken certain elements of things we’ve done in the past. It’s got some of the energy and the dynamics we used to play with on Colour It In, but it’s also retained some of the soundscapes we’ve stumbled across since. I think it’s the case that we’ve been brave in the past and done things we wanted to do and it’s paid off.

There’s definitely a new sense of ambition on this record in terms of your sound. It seems more layered and anthemic.
That’s not something that was even necessarily that conscious. We wanted it to sound like the studio that we recorded it in, which is in [London area] Elephant & Castle, which we spent two or three years there. We felt very embedded in that community, and we wanted it to sound like a place. The anthemic nature didn’t really strike us until we started playing the songs live, but you’re right—I think they contain this ease of melody and they feel quite straightforward in a good way. But no-one ever said “Let’s write an anthem!”

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What about the album title? Marks to Prove It sounds like you’ve got all these bruises and scars from the decade you’ve been doing this. Is that what it means, or is there something else to that?
Well, like most good album titles it can mean a few things. I think when you do anything worthwhile, you come out with it, but you also come out having lost something, don’t you? It costs something to do something good. So I suppose it could suggest that. But also, the specific lyric it comes from is more referencing how these days, people used to get tattoos to prove that they loved someone or they’d been somewhere, and that was a mark to prove it. But now in these modern days you take photos of everything and put them on whatever, and that’s become a mark to prove it. So it’s also an observation of how people document stuff.

You can’t go to a gig nowadays without a hundred camera phones blocking your view. It was like that at your show.
I find that actually quite heartbreaking. I’ve been to see bands that I really love in London the last couple of years and got myself right to the front and there’s people right at the front just staring at their phone and watching it through that. It’s quite weird. Like, when I’ve gone to see bands like Television, who have older audiences, the really interesting thing is no one’s watching it through their phones and it makes the experience so much more intimate and brilliant. But that’s just a rant!

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Speaking of shows, though, how have the gigs with Mumford & Sons gone? It must be quite a different experience playing the arena shows with them and then your own gig at, say, Le Poisson Rouge. Does your mindset change when you’re playing to their crowd?
We’ve got to that point now where we can play any type of gig literally across the world. We can play in a tiny club, or at home to the thousands of people who come to see us. So you start to understand that you’ve got to localize the experience a little bit more and play with and for each other. I’ve always felt one of the great things about us, actually, is that our attitude never changes whoever we’re playing for.

It must be more of a challenge playing to room full of Mumford fans though! Although I guess you’re both British, so maybe there’s some solidarity there?
I mean, obviously not all those people know who we are, so the gigs normally begin with a bit of sizing each other up, between us and the crowd, but for the most part they’ve been really good experiences, to be honest. Mumford have gone out of their way to be good to us on this tour, because Ben [Lovett]’s label Communion is going to put out our record. And Marcus [Mumford] has been coming onstage with us and doing “Pelican” at the end, and a new song. So they actually want to be quite involved, so they’re putting us in some kind of perspective for people too. One thing I will say is that I’ve never felt more English. I feel like I’m constantly overdressed and my accent sounds so exaggerated compared to the American crowds! I feel very stiff!

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Moving on, what are your aims for Marks to Prove It? Given To The Wild [2012’s third record] went to number four in the UK charts, so are you hoping to beat that, or are you not even thinking about commercial success?
Obviously, you’d be foolish to think about chart positions when you’re making a record, because if there’s one thing we’ve learned it’s sticking to our guns and doing what feels right instinctively to you is the right way to do it. It’s the only way to be proud about what you make. But I feel like this record is the peak of the band so far. I don’t know if that means it’s going to be commercially, if we’re going to play the biggest shows we’ve played, but it’s certainly the creative peak of the band, so whatever that brings with it. I think it’s going to bring some really great moments, so I feel confident enough in that, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a number 1 record or win a whatever prize. I just feel we’re due a few really proper moments in the next year or two that this record is going to carry us towards.

Is it hard to keep it fresh and fun and relevant after ten years?
That’s a constant shifting thing and it’s hard because we’ve known each other… my brother’s in the band and a lot of us have known each other since we were 12 or whatever. Try spending more than ten years with anyone every day in small spaces and then try to make creative decisions with them and then spend eight hours a day with them and then sleep in the same room. It’s a pretty insane and intense way of life, but we’ve learned that The Maccabees can change what it is. We don’t all want the same things out of it that we did when we were 20, and it can work for everyone in different ways. We still love each other, and that’s a feat in itself.

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You mention being 20, and obviously you’re all older now. When you play songs from, say, Colour It In, how do they sound to you now? The energy and youthful exuberance really came through when you played them.

Yeah. I mean, listening back to those songs in a cold context, I think we all kind of find it slightly embarrassing, but when we’re actually playing them there’s something about them. Like you say, there’s youthful exuberance, but there’s also deep sentiment in there. Those songs have lasted ten years and still stand up now and people still care about them and they’re a little part of us, so there is something quite emotional about playing them. I do wish we’d recorded some of them in a slightly different way and made some different decisions when we made, but I think all the ideas packed into those songs is really unique. It’s music that only a young band can make.

Well, you’ll have the 10 year anniversary soon enough, so you can re-record them for a bonus disc or something.
We’ll just re-record them much slower and less enthusiastic.

Did you ever think you’d reach this stage when you recorded it though, that you’d be playing them all these years later?
The honest answer for me, actually, is yes. I actually did feel like we could do that. I’ve always just really loved our band. I’d have never said it out loud, but I really felt like we had something that was too good to let go of, really. I think some of the other boys would give you a different answer, but I did imagine that this was a possibility, because this is what I wanted to do with my life.

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And bringing it back to now, what’s been the highlight of the tour with Mumford & Sons so far?
You know what—seeing how well they’ve done out here, it’s difficult to really fathom what they’ve achieved. It’s really something else. Like getting The Flaming Lips to support you at your own festival in America?! They supported us about five years ago at one of our UK shows, and the way it’s gone since then is just unthinkable. Seeing friends do that is a beautiful thing.

It doesn’t inspire thoughts of jealous revenge or anything?
Only jokingly between ourselves! We do say that. But it’s another world, isn’t it? I don’t think we’re the kind of band that mainstream America is going to take to their hearts in their droves, but they’ve been good to us in helping us try and find some kind of place here.

Maccabees Tour Dates

06/19 - Thalia Hall – Chicago, IL
06/20 - Gentlemen of the Road Stopover Festival - Waverly, IA***
10/2-4 – Austin City Limits Music Festival – Austin, TX
10/9-11 – Austin City Limits Music Festival – Austin, TX **Supporting Mumford & Sons

Marks to Prove It is out on 7.31.