Andrew Falkous' reputation precedes him. In his last interview with Noisey, just before the release of 2013's How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident, he was roughly as gloriously bitter and sardonic as he is on Future Of The Left's records, jumping between left-field British pop culture references and less-than-glowing reviews of Smashing Pumpkins records. Like the voices he assumes in Future Of The Left's skewed, sardonic tracks, he's funny but pointed. The main difference between him and the characters he writes is that Falkous truly, genuinely loves his work.If his career were borne out of anything besides pure love and compulsion, he wouldn't have kept this up for two decades. He spent almost ten years in Mclusky and made two essential records, but the British rock media ignored him for all but their last couple of years. In Future of the Left, he's grappled with labels, had his equipment stolen, and watched as the independent venues that provide his band's lifeblood struggle.No bother. In the space between now and How To…, Falkous released two albums and a handful of tracks under his side project, Christian Fitness ("a one 'man' band. NOT a solo artist.") And now Future of the Left are gearing up for the release of The Peace and Truce of Future of the Left, an irreverent, heavy record that will stand alongside their most gloriously entertaining.We spoke to Falkous about the new record and, in keeping with its less-than-fully-focused nature, just about anything else that came to his head. He brought up the Smashing Pumpkins again, too, completely unprompted.Noisey: Hey Andrew, how's it going?
Andrew Falkous: Yeah, I'm OK. You just caught me in the middle of exercising. I've got an unexpectedly busy day. It makes me sound like I have this hectic life whereas in fact my entire life is based around it never being hectic. I'm essentially a lazy man, but I do everything in my power to never rush around, so when I do rush around my brain doesn't have time to acknowledge itself. I'm married to a human woman who is brilliant at being really busy all the time, to the point where the only way you get her to read a book is by initiating some kind of lockdown. "Read The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt or I will burn you." And she read it and she enjoyed it. So in a way, kidnapping and false imprisonment works.I've always said that and nobody seems to believe me.
Yeah it's weird. Well, people have conflicting views on liberty.It's political correctness gone mad, that's what it is.
That is exactly what it is.You wrote a blog post when you got together and played some Mclusky songs a while back, talking about music being a compulsion for you. You say you consider yourself a lazy man, but you've got this drive to get stuff done with music. Has that pulled you through the new record?
Yeah, to a degree. For anybody doing something there's an element of choice about, sooner or later you have that conversation about whether you want to continue doing it. I've never been in the position of even having that doubt, I suppose. But that's no judgement on anybody else. I've seen a lot of people over my 610 years playing music who genuinely love music and gave everything to it, but sooner or later they give it up, they move on to other things. Because I suppose if you're not making your favorite music in the world or you think that other bands are outstripping you or you don't quite have the hunger or the passion anymore, it probably is best just to give it up. Yeah, what takes us through the new record is just the idea that not making a new record would be horrific. I can't imagine that scenario.You got it done incredibly quickly, too. You were posting updates from the studio a week or two ago and now it's good to go.
Well, I think, a little bit like with writing, sometimes bands spend months making a record simply because they can. But if you're a rock band and you know your songs… I mean, we don't have that much time to rehearse because of people's lives. We're lucky to rehearse once a week for four hours. It is a little bit disturbing when you see bands taking a couple of months, but I suppose if somebody gives you the money to hang out in a country house somewhere and bother the locals with your big city cocks then I suppose I understand why mostly young men take that opportunity. But yeah, just make a record. Maybe it's something I suffered from myself early on: sometimes you make records as a means to an end, a means to tour the States or to give the next record a higher profile whatever the fuck that means. But it's a question of really engaging with the process and just enjoying making music. And that might sound ridiculous but there's lots of bands for whom, in effect, the music's just their business card and the essential service they provide is avoiding work in all of its proper forms.
It simply is what it is. We've never sat down and had a meeting or planned something out or got a manifesto in the traditional way that bands appeal to certainly the British music press—to have a fucking manifesto or a tragic relationship breakup which immediately precedes the record in order to give it a narrative. There's no policy in the same way that the lyrics are, for the most part, just written at the last minute. We record a song and then I ask everybody to at least, if not leave the studio, then make themselves at least non-distracting while I just sit there and write the lyrics in 20 or 30 minutes.Is that seriously what it takes?
Yeah. If it's not finished then, it probably doesn't work as a part of rock and roll. I can think of three times where I wrote a lyric and then a piece of music came along which it ended up being ported onto. It just doesn't happen in my experience, and when it does happen it sounds like you've done it. But like with the band, there's no explicit manifesto, there's no official lyric writing incubation period. Both of those things just happen on the basis of the personalities in the band. And even on those days where you don't end up writing that song which makes everybody in the room smile, then you're still doing work. You just don't necessarily realize it.There was an interview I saw on some sports magazine program with some ice hockey player who was retiring. I don't think he was a particularly famous one, but somebody who was certainly considered to be a stalwart of a particular club or team of franchise or whatever the fuck they're called. And the interviewer asked him if he had any regrets and he said, "Yes, I do. It's the fact that people only ever see the highlights reels, they don't see all the work and the love that goes into the everyday practices." And the presenter looked at him and said, "oh yeah" and then showed a highlights reel. Because of the way that television presents sports—and we all know they love a fucking montage—that's how it works. It's particularly entertaining, I think, that somebody could make that point and then immediately be followed by that highlights reel.But then to some degree you get to make your own highlight reel—isn't that what an album is?
I don't think people should be ashamed of saying this: an album is a work of art. It's a work of art that is particular to the people involved in it. And sure, it's a lot of fun and at times it's sweat-inducing, both in and out of the studio. But fun shouldn't be completely removed from art. I don't think art needs to be po-faced to be real. Kurt Vonnegut is art as much as Salman Rushdie is art. For me a live show is a different thing. People have paid their $15 to see a show, and at that point you're a light entertainer as far as I'm concerned. You get up on stage, you play the songs, you make people happy and hopefully they leave and say, "That was one of the best rock shows I ever saw." I'd say a highlights reel, that would more be memories of particular shows. Although, when we do particularly big shows—which doesn't happen particularly often with our band—I always try to stay sober for those shows in an attempt to remember more of them. But I'm afraid the remembering doesn't work. As you probably know, working in rock and roll, there is something of an intersection between alcohol and playing live.It's a fine balance to strike.
It is a fine balance. And if you want to do it for any length of time, you have to strike that balance. And ultimately if you are just there for the booze, fair play to you. But don't go bothering the rest of us with your fucking music.
It's a distillation. And that applies, hopefully, to the humor that underlines it all without coming across as cartoonish. I became aware of this at quite an early stage, when having been in a band which was totally ignored for five years until maybe 2002, doing some interviews in Germany, these German journalists were genuinely petrified of me.Why?
Because I was a bigger guy then, I had a skinhead—or rather a shaved head, it wasn't a skinhead in that traditional racist kind of way—and I guess because maybe the delivery of that record, you could just tell people were nervous talking to me. And ultimately they were disappointed when I simply drank whiskey and answered their questions politely. It wasn't what they wanted. It wasn't the story. I've definitely done interviews before with people where—I won't name the publication—but I know for a fact that a particular journalist, this was a few years ago, was told by his editor to get something controversial out of us because we just kept talking about songs.How dare you.
How dare you! I mean, we always used to say that we're probably the only band in the world who'd sleep with supermodels so we could sell more records. It's sincere, because if just sleeping around is the goal of being in a band, there's nothing wrong with it. Fun is available with other people's bits on a consenting basis. But it appears to me to be a very long-winded way of getting laid, being in a band. It's really long-winded. A much quicker way is just to go to the gym for three or four months…And not be a bell-end…
…not be a bell-end and have a weird combination of showing respect for people whilst at the same time obeying the laws of sexual opportunism that a lot of doggish guys seem to follow. But being in a band, you've got to persuade your parents or your roommate or your sugardaddy to buy you an instrument; you've got to practice it—I mean even getting up to a remedial, menswear level of playing that's going to take you six to nine months. Then you've got to meet like-minded fans of casual sex; you've got to rehearse for a bit; you've got to book a show; you've got to hire a van. Just go out and listen to people and nod in the right places. And have a shave. And sooner or later you'll get your nuts nibbled or whatever it is you need nibbled. I don't know how this thing works out.That's the most romantic thing I've heard leading up to Valentine's Day.
Oh, Valentines Day. Yeah, that's coming up soon. I don't tend to remember dates like that unless there's a particularly big cricket match on. So yeah. I have no idea what I was talking about. See, I think if there's going to be an issue with this album, it'll rather work in the same way that my brain does. As in, there's a lot of songs that end and you can't remember how they started.Is that a bad thing?
I think, as much as it's a cliché, it's not a first listen record because it's very intense and there's not really a moment to take stock in it. But hopefully it's a credit to the people who like the band that they're willing to give it one or two listens before passing judgement on it. And if they don't like it, it's simple: they're wrong. It's just that they're wrong in a different way.I wanted to ask you about the Christian Fitness track about Donald Trump, “A Terrible Shame.”
Yeah, he's a character isn't he? A character in the old school sense: "Oh he's a character" as in "he's an unreconstructed racist, I think that there may be bodies underneath his floorboards." I don't think Donald Trump is the problem inasmuch as there are people out there who would vote for Donald Trump in the same way that you can't really blame bad stadium rock bands for being bad stadium rock bands. I mean, they don't know anything else, do they? They just churn out whatever barely literate platitude occurs to them. But people out there, it turns out, will vote for Donald Trump. But I think somebody said the other day, somewhere on the internet and I'm not going to cite this precisely, but watching Trump's speeches, it is like some of the footage in the original Robocop, isn't it? It's armageddon levels of stupidity. I mean, his speech last night where he wheeled out… I'm not even sure which one is his wife and which one is his daughter.I'm not sure he is.
Yeah, that's my conjecture. I think their roles are porous. Not only their roles. I've been following the recent activity, but trying to even rationalize when the elections over there take place is mental, because the campaigning basically starts the day after the election, doesn't it? Sanders is right about—well, many things—definitely reform of campaign finance, that should be the very beginning of it. It's absolutely crazy the amount of money which is spent on it which could easily just be going to the Smashing Pumpkins, you know? Give that money directly to the Smashing Pumpkins.What would be your endgame there? Would you be looking for an even more lavish Smashing Pumpkins album?
Even more lavish. Maybe one where they just got an adult in to mix it. Sorry, that's really just a horrible, bitchy thing to say and it's borne a large part out of jealousy. And a large part of it, a genuine righteous bitterness.
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Andrew Falkous: Yeah, I'm OK. You just caught me in the middle of exercising. I've got an unexpectedly busy day. It makes me sound like I have this hectic life whereas in fact my entire life is based around it never being hectic. I'm essentially a lazy man, but I do everything in my power to never rush around, so when I do rush around my brain doesn't have time to acknowledge itself. I'm married to a human woman who is brilliant at being really busy all the time, to the point where the only way you get her to read a book is by initiating some kind of lockdown. "Read The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt or I will burn you." And she read it and she enjoyed it. So in a way, kidnapping and false imprisonment works.
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Yeah it's weird. Well, people have conflicting views on liberty.It's political correctness gone mad, that's what it is.
That is exactly what it is.You wrote a blog post when you got together and played some Mclusky songs a while back, talking about music being a compulsion for you. You say you consider yourself a lazy man, but you've got this drive to get stuff done with music. Has that pulled you through the new record?
Yeah, to a degree. For anybody doing something there's an element of choice about, sooner or later you have that conversation about whether you want to continue doing it. I've never been in the position of even having that doubt, I suppose. But that's no judgement on anybody else. I've seen a lot of people over my 610 years playing music who genuinely love music and gave everything to it, but sooner or later they give it up, they move on to other things. Because I suppose if you're not making your favorite music in the world or you think that other bands are outstripping you or you don't quite have the hunger or the passion anymore, it probably is best just to give it up. Yeah, what takes us through the new record is just the idea that not making a new record would be horrific. I can't imagine that scenario.You got it done incredibly quickly, too. You were posting updates from the studio a week or two ago and now it's good to go.
Well, I think, a little bit like with writing, sometimes bands spend months making a record simply because they can. But if you're a rock band and you know your songs… I mean, we don't have that much time to rehearse because of people's lives. We're lucky to rehearse once a week for four hours. It is a little bit disturbing when you see bands taking a couple of months, but I suppose if somebody gives you the money to hang out in a country house somewhere and bother the locals with your big city cocks then I suppose I understand why mostly young men take that opportunity. But yeah, just make a record. Maybe it's something I suffered from myself early on: sometimes you make records as a means to an end, a means to tour the States or to give the next record a higher profile whatever the fuck that means. But it's a question of really engaging with the process and just enjoying making music. And that might sound ridiculous but there's lots of bands for whom, in effect, the music's just their business card and the essential service they provide is avoiding work in all of its proper forms.
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You say some see it as a means to an end. In so much of your music—particularly on this record—you've got so many voices at work. I wouldn't say your records are schizophrenic, but if you've got 12 tracks on a record, you're going to put 12 different voices on there of 12 people you've dreamed up. Is there a sense of just trying to get that shit out of your head?
It simply is what it is. We've never sat down and had a meeting or planned something out or got a manifesto in the traditional way that bands appeal to certainly the British music press—to have a fucking manifesto or a tragic relationship breakup which immediately precedes the record in order to give it a narrative. There's no policy in the same way that the lyrics are, for the most part, just written at the last minute. We record a song and then I ask everybody to at least, if not leave the studio, then make themselves at least non-distracting while I just sit there and write the lyrics in 20 or 30 minutes.Is that seriously what it takes?
Yeah. If it's not finished then, it probably doesn't work as a part of rock and roll. I can think of three times where I wrote a lyric and then a piece of music came along which it ended up being ported onto. It just doesn't happen in my experience, and when it does happen it sounds like you've done it. But like with the band, there's no explicit manifesto, there's no official lyric writing incubation period. Both of those things just happen on the basis of the personalities in the band. And even on those days where you don't end up writing that song which makes everybody in the room smile, then you're still doing work. You just don't necessarily realize it.
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I don't think people should be ashamed of saying this: an album is a work of art. It's a work of art that is particular to the people involved in it. And sure, it's a lot of fun and at times it's sweat-inducing, both in and out of the studio. But fun shouldn't be completely removed from art. I don't think art needs to be po-faced to be real. Kurt Vonnegut is art as much as Salman Rushdie is art. For me a live show is a different thing. People have paid their $15 to see a show, and at that point you're a light entertainer as far as I'm concerned. You get up on stage, you play the songs, you make people happy and hopefully they leave and say, "That was one of the best rock shows I ever saw." I'd say a highlights reel, that would more be memories of particular shows. Although, when we do particularly big shows—which doesn't happen particularly often with our band—I always try to stay sober for those shows in an attempt to remember more of them. But I'm afraid the remembering doesn't work. As you probably know, working in rock and roll, there is something of an intersection between alcohol and playing live.
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It is a fine balance. And if you want to do it for any length of time, you have to strike that balance. And ultimately if you are just there for the booze, fair play to you. But don't go bothering the rest of us with your fucking music.
In terms of that process, you've been clear about the influence of stand-up on your music in the past. Particularly if you're saying your lyrics come out in 20 or 30 minutes, how much is the process of stand-up involved in that?
It's a distillation. And that applies, hopefully, to the humor that underlines it all without coming across as cartoonish. I became aware of this at quite an early stage, when having been in a band which was totally ignored for five years until maybe 2002, doing some interviews in Germany, these German journalists were genuinely petrified of me.Why?
Because I was a bigger guy then, I had a skinhead—or rather a shaved head, it wasn't a skinhead in that traditional racist kind of way—and I guess because maybe the delivery of that record, you could just tell people were nervous talking to me. And ultimately they were disappointed when I simply drank whiskey and answered their questions politely. It wasn't what they wanted. It wasn't the story. I've definitely done interviews before with people where—I won't name the publication—but I know for a fact that a particular journalist, this was a few years ago, was told by his editor to get something controversial out of us because we just kept talking about songs.
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How dare you! I mean, we always used to say that we're probably the only band in the world who'd sleep with supermodels so we could sell more records. It's sincere, because if just sleeping around is the goal of being in a band, there's nothing wrong with it. Fun is available with other people's bits on a consenting basis. But it appears to me to be a very long-winded way of getting laid, being in a band. It's really long-winded. A much quicker way is just to go to the gym for three or four months…And not be a bell-end…
…not be a bell-end and have a weird combination of showing respect for people whilst at the same time obeying the laws of sexual opportunism that a lot of doggish guys seem to follow. But being in a band, you've got to persuade your parents or your roommate or your sugardaddy to buy you an instrument; you've got to practice it—I mean even getting up to a remedial, menswear level of playing that's going to take you six to nine months. Then you've got to meet like-minded fans of casual sex; you've got to rehearse for a bit; you've got to book a show; you've got to hire a van. Just go out and listen to people and nod in the right places. And have a shave. And sooner or later you'll get your nuts nibbled or whatever it is you need nibbled. I don't know how this thing works out.That's the most romantic thing I've heard leading up to Valentine's Day.
Oh, Valentines Day. Yeah, that's coming up soon. I don't tend to remember dates like that unless there's a particularly big cricket match on. So yeah. I have no idea what I was talking about. See, I think if there's going to be an issue with this album, it'll rather work in the same way that my brain does. As in, there's a lot of songs that end and you can't remember how they started.Is that a bad thing?
I think, as much as it's a cliché, it's not a first listen record because it's very intense and there's not really a moment to take stock in it. But hopefully it's a credit to the people who like the band that they're willing to give it one or two listens before passing judgement on it. And if they don't like it, it's simple: they're wrong. It's just that they're wrong in a different way.I wanted to ask you about the Christian Fitness track about Donald Trump, “A Terrible Shame.”
Yeah, he's a character isn't he? A character in the old school sense: "Oh he's a character" as in "he's an unreconstructed racist, I think that there may be bodies underneath his floorboards." I don't think Donald Trump is the problem inasmuch as there are people out there who would vote for Donald Trump in the same way that you can't really blame bad stadium rock bands for being bad stadium rock bands. I mean, they don't know anything else, do they? They just churn out whatever barely literate platitude occurs to them. But people out there, it turns out, will vote for Donald Trump. But I think somebody said the other day, somewhere on the internet and I'm not going to cite this precisely, but watching Trump's speeches, it is like some of the footage in the original Robocop, isn't it? It's armageddon levels of stupidity. I mean, his speech last night where he wheeled out… I'm not even sure which one is his wife and which one is his daughter.I'm not sure he is.
Yeah, that's my conjecture. I think their roles are porous. Not only their roles. I've been following the recent activity, but trying to even rationalize when the elections over there take place is mental, because the campaigning basically starts the day after the election, doesn't it? Sanders is right about—well, many things—definitely reform of campaign finance, that should be the very beginning of it. It's absolutely crazy the amount of money which is spent on it which could easily just be going to the Smashing Pumpkins, you know? Give that money directly to the Smashing Pumpkins.What would be your endgame there? Would you be looking for an even more lavish Smashing Pumpkins album?
Even more lavish. Maybe one where they just got an adult in to mix it. Sorry, that's really just a horrible, bitchy thing to say and it's borne a large part out of jealousy. And a large part of it, a genuine righteous bitterness.