Music interview: British Sea Power

The band with ‘the best name in history’, according to Guy Garvey, are hitting their stride. Duncan Seaman talks to British Sea Power.
British Sea PowerBritish Sea Power
British Sea Power

If the new British Sea Power album has a spring in its step, it’s entirely intentional, says the band’s lead guitarist Martin Noble.

Recorded in the Berwyn mountain range in North Wales, the indie rock group’s fifth studio album, Machineries of Joy, is a move away from their gloomier sound of the past decade.

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“At the start of last year we did six club nights – to connect with each one we released an EP of five demos,” says Noble. “We wrote five tracks a month. By the end of June we had 30 tracks. We took those to Wales with us and worked on them. Any that sounded like old British Sea Power treading water we avoided those.

“We wanted something more positive, not in a glib way, but more joyous, with a bit of freshness and a hint of spring about it.”

The Brighton-based six-piece were inspired to branch out after working on the soundtracks of documentaries for the CERN Large Hadron Collider and the BBC4 film From the Sea to the Land Beyond.

“Anything that sounded new to us, things that reminded us of the soundtrack stuff, we kept those and ditched the others,” says Noble. “It was hard – we ditched some tracks that would have been on previous albums. We had to be tough on ourselves.”

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The landscape itself may also have helped shape the record. “When you are in any environment you are a product of the environment you are in,” Noble says. “(In North Wales) there’s that peace, that space that you have, you don’t feel pressured and you can play at any time. You’re not constrained by the fact that it’s lunchtime or you’ve got to be somewhere.

“Our phones didn’t really work. There was a payphone that people could get us on. It alarmed our manager. We were trying to finish off From The Sea to the Land Beyond. We had to finalise that but all we had to use was this payphone. It was pretty old school. We were staying in a converted barn. The farmer and his wife were living nearby. We’d bring a bucket of leftovers for their sheepdogs at the end of the day.”

The songwriting crux of British Sea Power is brothers Yan and Hamilton (real names Scott and Neil Wilkinson). “Hamilton lives on the Isle of Skye,” says Noble. “A lot of his songs come from personal experience of being there. One of the demos, Baby Grey, was based on his cat – that will be on a bonus EP.

“Yan reads a lot and he keeps notes. He listens to a lot of Radio 4. He’s always interested. I don’t think he can keep still, he’s always doing something.

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“This time he did not want to be finger-wagging, telling the world off. He’s still aware of things but he decided to give across a more positive, feelgood vibe.

“It did not work all the time,” Noble chuckles, “but in Machineries of Joy and Monsters of Sunderland there’s a bit of levity.”

What makes BSP tick, it would seem, is avoiding the obvious. “I think definitely for Yan and Hamilton,” Noble agrees. “They could not write any old stuff. They want to explore things – experiences, things they have read, passing things on.

“All my favourite bands have had something in the lyrics, different ways of saying things. When I was young and getting into bands it was The Smiths and Pavement, anyone clever with words. It’s like when you hand a book to a friend.”

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Looking back on the 10 years since the release of their debut album, The Decline of British Sea Power, Noble says. “The memories are great when I cast my mind back. I remember when we were a four-piece, Eamon (Hamilton) joined then left. It does seem like ages but it has been really good to us.”

As for a high point, Noble points to experiences such as visiting Japan. “We played the Man of Aran soundtrack (to a documentary film they made) on a little archipelago near the Arctic Circle when there was no night time. It was like the Russian white nights. We played in the church in an old fishing village. You could only fit about 200 people in there, crammed in.

“It’s times like that you think, ‘Wow, how have I ended up here?’”

BSP themselves were partially the subject of a memoir by their former manager Roy Wilkinson – brother of Yan and Hamilton – which traced their octogenarian father’s obsession with the band. “I really enjoyed it,” says Noble. “He’s a great writer. It’s pretty out there and funny.

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“His dad has written books, but nothing ever happened to them. It’s really good to see Roy has done it, though I can’t say his description of me is wholly accurate,” he laughs.

“He’s cherry-picked some things. My mum read it and said, ‘When did you set a car on fire?’ It was a long time ago and it was pretty much burnt out anyway.”

Riding the wave of popularity

The six-piece British Sea Power really can claim to be the most British of bands, being made up of members from Cumbria, Ealing, Shropshire – and, of course, Yorkshire – and are currently based in both East Sussex and on the Isle of Skye.

The band is Yan Scott Wilkinson, Neil Hamilton, Martin Noble, Matthew Wood, Abi Fry and Phil Sumner.

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The band’s debut came in 2003 and a recent poll of BBC6 listeners of the most important 100 tracks of the station’s lifetime played their track Remember Me at number nine, between Radiohead and Johnny Cash.

Over the years BSP have gained a reputation for their stage sets which often featured stuffed animals; their forthcoming tour should see more of the same.

“We have always been interested in putting on a bit of a show,” says Noble. “We have a few plans – one is to support ourselves. We’d be the opening band and play some of the film stuff or an acoustic set. There would be another band then we do a rocky set later on.

“There’s a (stuffed) polar bear on the front cover of the album,” he adds. “We’re trying to find one of those. Put the word out – if anyone has one, get in touch.”

British Sea Power play Leeds Metropolitan University, April 9, 7pm, £13.50. Tickets on www.lunatickets.co.uk

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