Joe Mount of Metronomy: ‘I wanted to forget about reality in a way’

With spring in the air and the Covid pandemic seemingly loosening its grip on daily life, Metronomy’s new record, Small World, strikes an optimistic note.
Metronomy. Picture: Hazel GaskinMetronomy. Picture: Hazel Gaskin
Metronomy. Picture: Hazel Gaskin

“I definitely didn’t want to make a record that was wallowing in all the bad stuff,” says Joe Mount, the Devonian singer, songwriter, keyboard player, guitarist and producer who initially started Metronomy as a solo project in his late teens. Twenty years later they’re a five-piece band, with seven albums under their belt.

Small World’s genesis came seven months into lockdown, with Mount visualing music as “a tool of escapism” from online doom mongering. “People who had reason to wallow are entitled to wallow, but when people were singing sad songs I thought that’s not really the function of music at a time like this, it should be something that transports you,” he says.

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“So when I started making music that’s what I was trying to do. I wanted to forget about reality in a way, and try to be free from that and use the music to get away from it.”

Songs such as Things Will Be Fine and It’s Good To Be Back delight in simple pleasures – a theme reinforced by the album’s bucolic cover of a water lily pond painted by Mount’s father from a photograph taken by his mother. The singer says he wanted to drill down into things that really mattered.

“I’m trying to develop a bit and change as a songwriter,” he says. “I’m trying to be a bit more open and expressive about myself. I’ve always felt the same way when I’ve lived in different places, but now I’m much more appreciative of the natural world and my family.

“To me, it’s a very similar thing. It’s part of what being human is about, your family and your loved ones, and it’s about your natural environment. I feel much more touched by that than maybe I have done before.”

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Now in his late 30s, Mount also finds himself preoccupied by age. He chuckles at the thought that Small World may be about growing up and passing something on to the next generation. “I feel like I’m always having to justify my position,” he says, adding: “I’m not bothered about getting older at all, the only preoccupation is because of the sort of job I have, where being young is quite a valued commodity.

“So it’s almost a relief to reach the point where you are definitely no longer in a young pop-rock group. It feels like when you’re travelling into your mid to late 30s (people start to question) ‘Are they young? Are they old?’ Now it feels you can be more comfortable because you’re on the other side of that. In music business terms you’re old now.”

Nevertheless Mount doesn’t seem ready to settle into being regarded as a heritage act just yet. “We’re lucky because we have been cool – and I would argue we still are,” he says. “We have a credibility which means there are still young people coming and finding out about us. It makes me happy that’s still the case.”

If Small World does not address the pandemic directly, it does explore how our lives can be shaped by significant events. “For me the raw material of the pandemic wasn’t ever going to be enough to be inspired by because obviously it was quite sad and terrifying,” he says. “That in itself wasn’t very good, but the way it changed everything else in terms of your working relationships, and also the way you saw your family and your friends, who you realiised you were really missing, that for me started to become the really interesting song-worthy stuff.

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“It is a pandemic record because it was made during the pandemic but I think it got the best out of a bad situation in terms of the songs.”

Musically there’s an air of nostalgia about the album. “The best way I can describe it is there’s no confusion now, I’m definitely not in a young band,” Mount says, explaining he found himself harking back to memories of his parents’ record collection “and listening to them as a more mature person” as well as more recent favourites. “There’s a whole bunch of things I was listening to, some of it’s from 40 years ago and some of it’s from ten years ago; it’s not exclusively music of my childhood,” he says.

The album ends with the waltz I Have Seen Enough which is Mount’s homage to Gallic chanteurs. “That’s because I’m essentially a Frenchman,” explains Mount. “My fiancee is French and our kids are half French, they were both born in France, and I feel like there’s this connection that I’ve now got to the French. When you get involved with a French person you get involved with their pop history and there’s some really brilliant music that’s been made in France that has now become part of who I am.

“I feel that alongside all these ideas of British songwriting that I’ve got, now these other things start fitting in, and I thought it would be fun to do this song. I originally started writing the song in French but it wasn’t quite good enough, but it’s supposed to have this French touch.”

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The multiple lockdowns meant Small World ended up “ultimately being a solo endeavour” by Mount, despite his best intentions to get the entire band together. “I liked the idea of going to a studio and making it a trip because now Oscar (cash) and Michael (Lovett) are in America, Anna (Prior) lives in Portugal, me and Benga (Adelekan) are in England, but logistically in terms of each country rules for what we could do made it difficut,” he says. “It affected everything and it’s not very helpful when you’ve got a band living around the world.

“There was some file sharing (with the other band members), but Metronomy has always been this thing where I write the songs,” he adds. “I guess it ended up being a much more individual effort than I had hoped.”

Metronomy will, however, be reuniting for a UK tour in April. “I’m looking forward to it,” says Mount. “I’ve missed the connection that you get with fans when you’re out touring.

“I think it will be quite strange because my kids are much older than they were when we were last on tour, so I feel like they’re going to have a different reaction to it and I’m slightly apprehensive about what it will be like to leave the family, but I’m really excited about travelling again and playing for people. I can’t wait.”

Small World is out now. Metronomy play at O2 Academy Leeds on April 23. metronomy.co.uk

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