“The songs on the album are from a long period of time…the oldest song on the album’s about 5 years old so to us it’s not any zeitgeist-surfing thing. It’s what we’ve been doing for quite a while.”
“The songs on the album are from a long period of time…the oldest song on the album’s about 5 years old so to us it’s not any zeitgeist-surfing thing. It’s what we’ve been doing for quite a while.”
Incendiary sit down with Luxembourg
It’s the end of October in Islington and Halloween celebrations are in full flow. Dodging the groups out for a night of pumpkin-related revelry we find Luxembourg‘s Alex and David huddled around a table in the distinctly un-Luxembourg surroundings of Starbucks, replete with piped music and anonymous backdrops. Over a mug of tea these two unassuming characters talk about their role in the year’s best British pop album and the intricacies of the pop world…
IN: You cast yourselves as arch-miserablists with lyrics such as “my 17th birthday was melancholy…my 5th birthday was melancholy…”. Has everything gone wrong for you in life?
David: I don’t if misery has to be the result of things going wrong. I do have moments of joy. The songs just reflect the fact that life is a mixture of ups and down – feeling happy or feeling sad. I think that some reviewers pick up on the downside because they’re not used to hearing this presented in pop songs in such a genuine way.
Alex: You do get this sort of formulaic depression song which is about as far as most pop bands will with misery
D: You don’t get many songs saying ‘I’m a bit fed up with my job’ and ‘There’s a pile of washing up at home’
IN: The album seems to capture real life right now far better than supposedly ‘gritty’ bands but, having captured the zeitgeist, do you think you can hold onto it? Are these long held views or a reaction to the current situation?
D: The songs on the album are from a long period of time…the oldest song on the album’s about 5 years old so to us it’s not any zeitgeist-surfing thing. It’s what we’ve been doing for quite a while.
A: I suppose your position on things evolves all the time – different experiences make you more jaded or less jaded. It’s just the way you look at life.
IN: But despite a lengthy back catalogue a lot of the album seems to have been written fairly recently. Did you go with the new stuff on purpose?
A: There was quite a lot we had to take into account when we were doing the album. It was as much about what worked together as a whole piece. When you’ve been doing stuff for a while and you’re not being put out by a major label so you don’t know if you’re suddenly going to reach this massive new bunch of people you have to think in terms of the people who have been supporting you, who have been coming to the gigs and who have been buying the singles. If we just sat there and worked out the ten ‘best’ Luxembourg songs it would have sounded like a greatest hits thing which wasn’t what we were trying to achieve.
IN: It’s an awful question to ask but where next… if this is the do or die performance then where can you move?
D: Well we haven’t actually written it yet so until we start writing…
A: It will be a different scenario because we’ve finally got a proper studio debut album out and now we can actually move on in some sense. We’ve been consistently writing over five years but that’s always been slightly more short term goals – deciding to put out another single, looking for more tracks that people can sing along to…
D: …whatever we do next I know it will be different. One or two of the tropes that we’ve used so far are in danger of becoming cliches so we’re going to replace them with some new songs.
IN: You wear your hearts on your sleeves as a pop band very proudly. Given the blurred definition of the term and its bad name Front is a real pop album – about now. What does pop mean for you?
D: We’re a pop group and we love pop music – it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Some of our peers may see pop sensibilities as an issue but we clearly don’t.
A: It does leave in a slightly difficult position because some people may not be used to what we’re doing and it may be more difficult for them to work out what to do with it. People either get it, love it and appreciate it for what it is or they just don’t know how to process it, which you see in the bad reviews we get. A lot of them just say “it’s really 80s” and you get ones which say “it’s really Britpop” and they don’t really see the line that runs throughout. There’s some moments when there’s a lot of intelligent, varied pop music around which happened at those times – but it has been there all along. The influences we have and what we’re trying to do is based on the whole thing. We’re not trying to copy any particular sound – what you do is a product of everything you’ve been exposed to!
IN: Is too much emphasis put on credibility and image? A lot of guitar bands wouldn’t admit to being pop – they’d claim to be ‘alternative’.
A: I just wonder what they’re the ‘alternative’ to – it’s like indie meaning ‘generic guitar’ music. I think that image is important but you’ve got to have the substance to back it up – we like our style and it’s important but the aesthetic has come from what we do.
D: The visual image is a way of communicating a couple of key ideas and getting them across very quickly. It’s a shortcut.
IN: Your tracks often seem to show certain disenchantment with the nation… but you’re still living here.
D: We’re still here because I don’t suppose that there’s a utopia anywhere else. I do sometimes half-jest about throwing myself at the mercy of New Zealand as an asylum seeker.
A: There’s always that thing against people who complain – “well go somewhere else”. But you have to be able to criticise things or else nothing will ever get better. It’s still where I’m from and although there’s lots I hate about it I’d like to think they can be changed.
IN: So would you consider your songs political?
D: There’s always some tension…everything’s political!
IN: But does outright politics have a place in music?
A: It depends on what the cause is. There’s no particular problem with particular issues such as Rock against Racism but there’s that slight cringe factor that comes with supporting particular parties. Maybe doing that sort of thing stops people questioning and making up their own minds. It’s perhaps a bit of an abuse of the medium. Explicitly getting involved in a larger issue may trivialise everything about it.
D: All the artists that I like have their own vision and stick to it. I can’t see how you can do that and ally yourselves to a particular political cause.
IN: There’s a distinctly London tinge to the album but the artwork has you heading out into the hills…
A: …we’ve all been drawn from peripheral places; suburban, small town backgrounds to the centre.
D: We had a gig in Sheffield and headed up into the Pennines then saw this beautiful photo. There are some of us in the photo, but not all of us, and you don’t know what’s over that horizon.
IN: Are there any ideals left to fight for or are we a little too apathetic nowadays?
D: It’s very easy to over-simplify when you’ve only got a few lines to play with…but I think there is an extent to which we’re inoculated from certain realities by some quite empty things. I was watching Jarvis Cocker talk to Kirsty Wark the other night and he said it’s sad that instead of fighting over ideals we now fight over sofas at the opening of a new Ikea…
IN: But is it possible to rebel without being slotted into some demographic?
A: I think there’s always been those bands on the margins for those who aren’t comfortable fitting in with the standard rebellion – Suede, Pulp, Smiths.
D: But for these marginalised acts to get anywhere they do tend to get consumed and neutered by what’s not marginalised.
A: It’s the nature of the beast; they’ll always be those singing along who don’t get it but you have to hope that one day it’ll click.
IN: Your press release boats of being a ground up movement rather than an internet phenomenon – why does this matter?
A: We all use the internet – it’s the way of reaching real fans in the way that fanzines used to.
D: What we’re trying to say is that for a band without major backing we’ve got an incredibly big and loyal following. I remember going to see Clor when they were on Parlophone, having thousands spent on them…and there were about 20 people there. Instead we’ll play to 100 fans who never word, put the shows in their diary and it makes their week.
A: There’s no substitute for actually playing in front of people and getting into their minds.
IN: Has taking this much time over the debut been an advantage?
D: There’s more we could have done if we had more money but it wouldn’t be the record that it is if we’d done it three years ago.
IN: Who’s responsible for your ‘manifestos and texts’?
A: That’s mainly me…they’re a lot more complex and draw on ideas and imagery within the releases, turning into prose rather than poetry. You can explore certain ideas a bit more freely – I can’t write lyrics because I find the structure hard to work.
IN: They give people something to believe in…
A: A great pop band is about slightly more than just the songs. It’s about the way that you do these things and putting a bit of effort into it.
IN: Has the press response been disheartening?
D: I don’t think without our webzines we’d still be here – without that support we’d have given up.
IN: Who were your ‘windows’ into the music scene?
D: My earliest memory was listening to Mike Read in the mornings on my Bush alarm clock radio from Woolworths. I’d love it when he played The Bell Stars’ Sign of the Times.
D: The press is more and more fragmented which has its positive sides but it’s harder and harder to break in. I think it’s great for the end user as these websites grow and people can alternative view from the established outlets.
A: That’s true but I’m not sure if it benefits the bands – there’s some websites that I’ll read cover to cover but generally you won’t read about band you don’t know. The nature of the NME means you’ll pass over everything.
IN: Slow burning album then?
D: Hopefully it’ll grow slowly.
A: The problem is that we’re too pop for the indie scene and not commercial enough for the mainstream audience…
Later on the band takes to the stage for their album launch. The club’s packed but there’s a sense that not everyone is getting it – many of those in Halloween garb seem to be more concerned with the state of their costumes than the heroics occurring onstage. And then you look around; up at the front are a group singing back every word, spitting every syllable at the stage. These aren’t scenesters, they’re the underdogs who don’t get the relevance of any other band. They’ve come from nowhere and will, quite probably, return to that anonymity tonight. Because they don’t care for any hype, they can live for the music and Luxembourg are their heroes – they may be the outsiders but they know that, really, they’re a cut above. Knowing glances and smiles are exchanged to enjoy the fact that, yes, there’s others who feel this way about music while the passion just keeps on spreading. There’s a deliciously bitter irony when David intones that “the talent spotters are at work round here / If you have got it, they will spot it”. Why is Britain‘s best new pop band still struggling to get their voice heard? You hope that they realise exactly how much they’ve achieved and take solace in those that do understand it – after tonight’s performance a small part of them will be forever Luxembourg…
Words: James Waterson