Felix and Hugo White on their surprise set return, The Maccabees' history with the festival and what comes next.
Category
đ”
MusicTranscript
00:00 (audience cheering)
00:03 - Hi, you're watching NME, we're at Reading Festival,
00:07 and we're with Felix and Hugo from 86TVs.
00:10 How's it going, boys?
00:11 - Hello, good, thank you.
00:12 - Great, yeah.
00:13 - You've just played a secret, sort of low-key,
00:16 unannounced set over on the BBC Music
00:18 introducing stage, how'd it go?
00:19 - It's, yeah, it was very secret.
00:23 Took like about an hour before, wasn't it?
00:25 So, and the introducing stage is right in the middle
00:28 of the festival, and the one thing we didn't realise
00:31 is that to get the gear to the stage,
00:36 you have to drag that across the actual festival.
00:40 So, as you know, in our past lives of doing the main stage
00:44 at Reading, you don't actually have to carry the amps
00:47 in cardboard boxes to the back of the main stage yourselves.
00:50 So we had to go through that experience,
00:52 but that's kind of where we're at now,
00:54 and it's kind of really, like, that thing of getting
00:57 your amps on stage and playing is actually liberating.
00:58 - That's quite old school, yeah.
00:59 - It's incredibly old school.
01:00 - That's the thing, I think the whole thing
01:02 with this band at the moment is embracing
01:04 that early stage of a band, and I think,
01:06 because there is that thing of you look back on life
01:12 in a band, and actually the best time of being in a band
01:15 is the start of it, and usually you could never,
01:17 it's kind of gone, you know?
01:18 So this time around, all these things,
01:22 we're kind of just like, we just got to, like,
01:24 these are amazing things to be doing again, you know?
01:27 - Yeah, I remember speaking to Phoenix,
01:29 and they were talking about that they love, like,
01:31 the highs and the lows, like, one time you're playing
01:33 a big stadium, the next time you're dragging your amps
01:35 across a festival site, and it doesn't matter, you know?
01:38 It's fun, and that's what Sincatron was for.
01:40 - And it was fun, it was fun.
01:41 - Sorry, I just got out of points, mate.
01:43 The thing that it reminds us of is, like,
01:47 when you're in the early days of a band,
01:48 like, you're always very close to each other,
01:51 and that sort of weirdly, like, creates its own energy,
01:54 so it sort of vibrates with momentum, in fact,
01:56 does that make sense?
01:57 - The proximity of, like--
01:58 - Yeah, so as you get bigger, you sort of are literally
02:01 in wider spaces, further apart from each other,
02:04 and it leads to people sort of thinking differently,
02:06 and space sort of developing between people,
02:10 so it's really nostalgic to be back in that zone
02:12 where it just develops its own momentum
02:15 because you're so close to each other,
02:16 if that makes sense?
02:17 - So is this the first set that you've played
02:19 since the song came out earlier this week?
02:22 - I think it might be, did we do,
02:24 have we done one since it's been out?
02:25 I think this might be the first time,
02:26 yeah, first time we've played.
02:27 - Have you done many shows beforehand,
02:29 like, tried just testing it out?
02:29 - We've been doing it for a year,
02:31 'cause Hugo was making Jamie T's album,
02:34 and just at that point, we'd finished 20 songs
02:38 that we were doing completely in secret,
02:40 there was no one involved in it other than us four
02:42 just coming back in and out of our lives
02:44 to go and make this sort of private record,
02:47 and Jamie heard some of the music,
02:49 said, "Oh, come on tour with us,"
02:50 which was, again, really nostalgic,
02:52 'cause the Maccabees' first tour,
02:55 when Jamie's first album came out,
02:56 was supporting Jamie, one of our first tours,
02:59 so we went and did that last year,
03:01 and then since then, it's sort of,
03:02 we've had that mentality of, like, back in the day,
03:05 if you wanna be a real band, go and play those shows,
03:08 so we've been doing festivals,
03:10 been amazing seeing people turn out
03:12 to see a band that have no music out.
03:14 Actually led me to the point that I thought,
03:16 maybe we should never release any music,
03:18 'cause it's so fun, and it's always a free hit,
03:20 there's no judgment,
03:22 but yeah, it's good,
03:23 and Worn Out Buildings feels like a good start, doesn't it?
03:25 - Great start, yeah, I think,
03:27 yeah, it's all been brilliant,
03:28 and all that time that we've done,
03:30 like the last year of kind of investing
03:33 in those live shows,
03:34 and has actually turned the band in,
03:37 you know, something we spent years on
03:39 in recording studio, rehearsal room, just by ourselves,
03:43 and actually just going through that process
03:46 as what we thought we had a band,
03:49 and now we're kind of starting to learn,
03:51 like, oh, no, we've got proper band,
03:54 and unity to it, you know.
03:56 - And you've been, yeah, like you said,
03:57 been playing for about a year,
03:59 you recorded the album sort of over a long period,
04:02 why did now just sort of feel right for you guys
04:04 to be like, look, we want to put this out,
04:06 we want to get out there and really,
04:08 let's do this. - I don't know why,
04:10 I don't know why.
04:11 I think we had finished it,
04:12 but I think we got to a point,
04:13 I think the Jamie tour was,
04:16 it kind of forced us to go out and play,
04:19 and so where we were in a situation
04:21 where we could have carried on,
04:23 we'd already been through a few cycles of songs
04:25 and like developing to get to a point where we're like,
04:28 'cause I think there was a lot of in-built pressure,
04:31 even though we tried hard not to feel it,
04:34 but for us, it was like,
04:35 we knew we had to have something,
04:37 it needed to feel strong enough
04:39 for us to stand behind and start again on,
04:42 so we just reached that point, really, I think,
04:46 and the Jamie tour cemented that,
04:48 and then everything just started rolling, really.
04:52 - So when you were getting into the studio,
04:53 what was that experience like, playing together,
04:56 and just sort of like you say,
04:57 no expectations, no real schedule,
05:00 you know, with the Maccabees,
05:01 you sort of feel, oh, we need to get an album sorted
05:03 to go on tour, what was it like having that freedom?
05:06 - Well, we developed it, we started,
05:08 but like as soon as the last Maccabee shows happened,
05:10 we started playing together.
05:12 We were pretty much in immediately after that,
05:15 and we were just writing instrumental music
05:18 at that moment with Will, younger brother,
05:21 and then the three of us were kind of developing something,
05:24 we didn't know what it was,
05:26 and we didn't, and Jamie,
05:29 we were playing with different people,
05:30 Jamie Morrison came along,
05:33 and things started to change in terms of it
05:35 just started to feel like a group and a band,
05:39 and that developed into feeling like we needed songs,
05:43 and that developed into writing songs,
05:46 and building up, but I think the main thing with it
05:50 is we've tried to make sure it's just like
05:54 placed the importance on the enjoyment of it,
05:58 try not to carry the traits of like the difficulty
06:02 of being in a band, and just really accentuate
06:05 the like joy of it, you know.
06:07 - Had that how it felt towards the end of the Maccabees
06:09 when you're thinking about like the pressures,
06:11 and maybe, you know.
06:14 - Oh, so yeah, I mean, well I can tell you,
06:16 it does get a bit like that,
06:20 but the main problem really coming out
06:23 the back of the Maccabees was that
06:25 the way we did it, those last shows,
06:27 the Ali Pallies, the ones we did across the UK,
06:31 and because we'd sort of signed it off right
06:33 as it felt like we were there,
06:35 there was such a sort of like emotional responsibility
06:38 to that because it felt like as the band said goodbye,
06:42 all those people that had been with us
06:43 said goodbye to a certain part of their lives as well,
06:46 so it was real, in all those rooms,
06:47 it was such a powerful feeling
06:49 that it felt almost impossible to feel like,
06:52 I wanna, you know, how are we gonna turn up again
06:54 in a year and go like, got a new piece of music,
06:58 type thing, so in both of our minds,
07:01 it didn't feel like it was an actual,
07:04 it was probable that we might not do it again
07:07 in that way because we didn't feel like
07:08 we could ever match it, but having Jamie Morrison
07:11 who came in with Will, who wasn't one of our siblings,
07:15 and he just was so committed to it
07:18 with no financial incentive, no pension involved in it,
07:23 no reason to be involved, he was playing
07:25 for the Stereophonics at that time,
07:26 and he just sort of thought there was a magic in it,
07:29 so all of his spare moments were coming back into the band,
07:32 and then we realised, oh, as the three brothers,
07:35 if we sing together, it has a magic to it,
07:39 and even though, you know, I'm 38 now,
07:43 it literally took until a couple of years ago
07:45 to realise, oh, if we all sing together,
07:48 it sounds like one voice and loads of voices,
07:51 and then that sort of developed its own instrument
07:54 and superpower, and then once we got that together,
07:57 it felt like, oh, this is a real entity,
08:01 and it feels like it's up there with the music
08:04 we made in the past and felt confident
08:06 that we can walk onto stages,
08:08 the three of us up front, like three,
08:11 you're like lining the front of the stage
08:12 sort of attack formation, and be like
08:14 a really outreaching, positive guitar band,
08:17 and it felt, it just took seven years
08:19 to get to that point, you know?
08:20 - Yeah, 'cause, you know, I was looking back
08:22 at some of the lineups the Maccabees were playing
08:24 at Reading Festival in the tents,
08:26 getting higher and up on the stages,
08:27 did you feel like at some point
08:29 we could probably headline this?
08:30 Did it feel like you were hitting that trajectory?
08:31 - Yeah, man, that is so heartbreaking to even say that,
08:34 because I definitely had that,
08:36 I used to keep all those yellow posters,
08:38 and the first one the Maccabees did,
08:41 we were the first on the new band's tent,
08:44 I don't know when that would have been,
08:45 but I would have been 19 or 20,
08:47 and we had, 2007 maybe, and we had this relationship
08:51 with Reading and Leeds where,
08:52 it's like a montage, like a montage of two perfect,
08:56 every two years, we'd see ourselves
08:59 going further up the bill until we were
09:01 near the top of the main stage,
09:03 so I think from my, yeah, so from my personal perspective,
09:08 I was thinking, REM, RK5, all those groups,
09:12 we were going to be that band,
09:14 but that's kind of part of the perfect heartbreak
09:16 of the end of the Maccabees,
09:17 is we didn't quite get there,
09:18 so it sort of lasted with people,
09:20 but anyway, we're back now, Dan,
09:22 doing a BBC Introducing stage,
09:24 so, all stories.
09:26 - So maybe, what, 20 years or so?
09:28 - We were close to it, we were so close to it, man,
09:31 'cause we just did, we headlined Latitude,
09:34 and it was kind of like, that was our first step
09:37 into that thing, and then, yeah,
09:39 Reading was always on the list,
09:40 but BBC Introducing, it is.
09:43 - We're back, baby!
09:44 - But you know what, it's fucking great, it's great, man.
09:48 - That's what life's a bit like, though, isn't it?
09:52 Life, I don't know why I've brought this analogy
09:53 for the first time, life is a bit like snakes and ladders,
09:56 where you put all the work in,
09:57 you feel like you get to the top,
09:58 and then you roll the dice,
10:00 and you're suddenly at the bottom,
10:01 but there's something kind of beautiful about that,
10:03 because you have to, we just re-engage with,
10:06 oh, we just love playing music,
10:07 we're brothers that can sing together really well,
10:10 and we're just sort of enjoying the moment,
10:11 and that's the other amazing thing,
10:13 is that when we're playing now,
10:16 I can feel, I remember the feeling of time slowing,
10:20 feeling like you can sense everything that's going around,
10:23 feeling like you belong there in that moment,
10:26 and that's such a rare thing to experience these days,
10:29 especially 'cause we're all like phones,
10:31 da-da-da-da-da-da, so enjoying it for that.
10:34 But we would also like to headline, really.
10:36 - Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, we won't rule it out,
10:37 but you've got the single out now,
10:39 you're playing Moth Club, which has sold out,
10:42 what else can people expect from you
10:43 over the next sort of year or so?
10:45 - We record, I mean, yeah, we recorded,
10:48 what we thought initially was a 20-track album,
10:51 so we recorded essentially a double album.
10:53 There's not gonna be a double album anymore,
10:56 but there's all of that music is ready to go, basically,
10:59 so there's, everything's there, so now it's okay.
11:03 And I think that was another thing about starting it now,
11:05 is we wanted to make sure we had everything,
11:07 so it wasn't like, here's a band,
11:09 and then it disappears, you know?
11:11 - Yeah, you have to go back and--
11:12 - So it's all ready, so yeah,
11:14 there's the first UK headline tour,
11:16 then there'll be another tour starting next year, I imagine,
11:19 and there's gonna be songs coming out,
11:23 and hopefully record next summer.
11:26 - Oh, nice. - So, yeah.
11:27 - Well, best of luck with it.
11:29 - Oh, thank you. - Congratulations on the set,
11:30 congratulations to be back,
11:31 performing together as the brothers,
11:33 and yeah, have a great weekend,
11:35 thank you very much for watching.
11:36 - Lovely, thank you.
11:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]