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00:00 Good afternoon, young fathers.
00:01 All right. How you doing?
00:02 How are we doing today?
00:04 Good.
00:05 Heavy, heavy, amazing album.
00:07 And now the Mercury Prize says so, too.
00:10 How's it feel?
00:11 Good to be here.
00:13 It's positive.
00:15 It's positive. It's good.
00:17 Amazing.
00:18 So all...
00:19 I wanted a nice one.
00:20 You wanted something different.
00:22 You wanted something different, didn't you?
00:23 No, no, no, that was great.
00:24 What did you want? Delighted?
00:25 Delighted. Is that good?
00:26 Delighted is even better.
00:27 Sweet.
00:29 Well, I love the record.
00:30 And all the records on the shortlist
00:33 tend to say something about kind of life over the last year.
00:35 What do you...
00:36 How would you describe the character of this record?
00:38 What it tells us about life in 2023?
00:40 I think there's a definite communal aspect to the record that,
00:43 you know, when we were making the songs, we were...
00:46 We recorded a lot of music.
00:48 And the kind of thread that brought this album together
00:52 with all the songs that we had made was this communal aspect and...
00:56 Sense of togetherness.
00:58 Yeah, I think, strangely, you know, we recorded this in a studio
01:02 with no windows in a basement, just the three of us, no one else there.
01:05 And I think that helped us kind of punch out the way,
01:08 you know what I mean, and try to make a record that sounded like
01:11 a bunch of people being together
01:14 and kind of reacting in moments.
01:16 And rather than the kind of typical songwriting avenue,
01:21 we really leaned into our
01:24 kind of comfortability with each other.
01:27 And the years that we've been together, you know, we've known each other
01:29 over 21 years now, so like it's...
01:32 We're all very comfortable in telling each other
01:34 something's good or something's bad, but also we're not shy
01:37 and we can all be spontaneous.
01:40 And that's all we wanted to lean into with this album.
01:42 It wasn't a thing that we didn't really talk that much, you know,
01:45 and we always usually leave it up to the...
01:48 I think if we talked, maybe the album wouldn't have been made,
01:52 you know what I mean?
01:53 So all the talking kind of comes out of the music.
01:55 And so that's how we wanted it to be.
01:58 And it wasn't like a planned thing.
02:00 We just wanted to see what would happen.
02:02 And this is what happened.
02:04 Well, the live show has been amazing.
02:07 The atmosphere of those gigs has been next level.
02:09 I mean, do you feel as if kind of the community around Young Fathers
02:11 has kind of gone up a level on this record?
02:13 Yeah, more people are on board.
02:16 I think translating the music into live, it's like you hear the music,
02:22 but it actually has life when you see it live.
02:26 And as much as we can see through in the recording process
02:30 of being together and having a bond and this telepathic communication
02:33 that we don't have to speak in the studio
02:35 is what translates when we're on stage as well.
02:37 Are you telepathic off stage?
02:39 Can you be like, make me a cup of tea with your eyebrows?
02:41 Well, look at us, look at us.
02:43 We never planned this.
02:45 We never even spoke to each other before coming.
02:47 I was just in bed last night, just told the guys.
02:50 Just all ended up in the same Uber.
02:51 We're all going brown.
02:53 We're all going brown today.
02:54 And one amazing show in particular was you guys supporting Depeche Mode.
02:58 Yes.
02:59 That must have been pretty sweet, pretty surreal.
03:01 Aye, it was an experience playing in front of a stadium full of people.
03:06 Some of them not really wanting you to be there, but it was all right.
03:09 It was like, nah, it's good.
03:12 It's like our first time playing to crowds like that.
03:14 And for us, it was just another notch where you go through something
03:21 and you realize the good and the bad of it, you know, and how to work it.
03:25 And we're always kind of,
03:29 we always leave the live show to be open
03:31 for the spontaneity and for things to happen.
03:34 And so when you go into a different environment like a stadium,
03:37 it's the same kind of attitude.
03:39 It's a different, it's a different beast.
03:40 And it really is, especially when you're the support in a stadium
03:43 and no one's really there for you.
03:45 So you, it kind of took us back to how we always operated before,
03:49 where you're always playing to an awake crowd.
03:52 And how do you, how do you make an impact in 30 minutes
03:56 with people who don't know you?
03:57 And that's so for us, that's always good.
04:00 It's always healthy.
04:01 Well, we interviewed Depeche Mode earlier this year,
04:03 and Martin Gore said that he really, really rated you guys.
04:05 Did you get to meet him?
04:06 I think I met a bunch of them, I met them all.
04:09 Yeah, nice. Nice guys.
04:11 Yeah, chilled. Very welcoming.
04:13 And they caught us a couple of times and stuff.
04:16 And yeah, so it was good.
04:17 Future collab. Well, you remixed him, right?
04:19 So, um, no, no.
04:22 All right.
04:23 No, Martin said he wanted you to remix him.
04:25 Ah, sorry.
04:27 Never got that request.
04:28 Yeah.
04:29 Yeah, it's just, it's another, it's another tick for the industry side
04:32 where everyone is working on validation and stuff like that.
04:35 And it's another tick for us that, like, you know, a great band
04:39 enjoys what we do as well.
04:41 Amazing.
04:42 And back to the Mercury's, I mean, what do you make of your competition?
04:46 I don't know.
04:47 No, no, no.
04:48 We just go here, mate.
04:50 I can see.
04:53 And supposedly, supposedly it's like it's actually an award for everyone.
04:57 Everyone's 12.
04:57 Oh, yeah.
04:59 Yeah.
04:59 So it's not, it's no competition.
05:01 It's just, it's our peers.
05:03 So I was going to say, if you were betting, man, who would your money be on?
05:05 But you're not thinking about it like that.
05:07 Um, we're definitely not.
05:10 Always bet on yourself.
05:11 What he said.
05:12 Sweet.
05:14 And what does the rest of 2023 have in store for Young Fathers?
05:16 What does your year look like?
05:17 Yeah, just more.
05:18 Yeah.
05:19 There you go.
05:19 Yeah. More children.
05:21 That's it.
05:22 Like, um, yeah, hopefully have a chance to, like, enter the studio again
05:27 and, like, get these ideas that we've been formulating and grabbing from the air
05:32 while we've been on the road and make something out of it.
05:35 We've been living this record for a bit.
05:36 I mean, what's what's next?
05:38 I mean, have you got a thought about the next album?
05:41 I think I think we all have multiple thoughts all the time about the next album.
05:45 I think we have a lot of songs to play with that we recorded
05:48 and during the process of Heavy Heavy that, like, we still think are great.
05:53 So maybe working with those as well is abundance.
05:56 Yeah. Abundance of ideas.
05:58 Been enjoying working with the live band
06:01 and, like, enjoying working with more people in the band, enjoying kind of
06:05 that sense of communality that we wanted to bring in.
06:09 And it feels quite infectious.
06:11 So it could be something like that or it could be
06:13 the complete opposite.
06:15 So I don't know. We'll see.
06:17 I think we just always leave.
06:20 Whatever it'll be, it'll be.
06:22 That's what happened with this record.
06:23 You know, there was no real overarching concept that we thought about.
06:27 We just we needed to just get back together in the studio
06:29 and see if we could still do it.
06:31 And after like two minutes, we realized that we could.
06:34 So we kept going.
06:36 Sweet. Young Fathers, congratulations, guys.
06:38 Thank you.
06:39 Thank you.
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