Words by John Freeman
Delphic are late; when they do arrive they claim that a combination of trying to find Sankeys in the daylight (they usually stumble out of it in the early hours), and having no PR person with them (keyboard player Rick Boardman has taken on the organisational duties) have caused their tardiness. And there are only two of them; Rick is with singer James Cook, while guitarist Matt Cocksedge is nowhere to be seen.
However, the chaps proffer AU with warm smiles and firm handshakes, and we decamp to a nearby organic deli, where the Delphic boys order green tea without success. Rick and James are immaculately dressed in sharp sweater-and-shirt combinations, fitted winter overcoats and expensive-looking shoes. These are not your average scruffy indie types; this year should see Delphic move into the big league.
After releasing acclaimed singles on the achingly cool Kitsuné label (who provided them with the upmarket clobber), finishing third in the BBC’s Sound Of 2010 list, and with a sparkling debut album, Acolyte, already doing brisk business, Delphic are well on their way. They seem especially pleased that the record is finished, as James tells us, “Relieved is probably the word, that it is now out of our hands. Everyone else can have it.”
Rick seems particularly gregarious and hails from the Cheshire hill town of Marple, which to his mind is the “centre of the musical world”, if only because The Smiths’ ‘This Charming Man’ was written there (“behind the Norfolk Arms pub – where Johnny Marr used to have a little flat.”) What quickly becomes apparent is that Delphic are both deeply committed to their music, but also business-savvy enough to have planned their route to success. They set up their own record label, Chimeric, before they had recorded a single track, but ensured it was handled by the commercial clout of Polydor – giving them complete artistic freedom with the weight of a big player behind them.
They also made a conscious decision to live together in a city centre apartment, in order to create the artistic tension necessary to fuel Acolyte. Rick takes up the story. “We started on it [Acolyte] at the end of 2008, when we got a record deal. We then set up Chimeric within Polydor, and we had this big Delphic vision and everything was moving, so all we had to do was record an album.”
Matt, James and Rick had previously been in local indie guitar bands – including the briefly hyped Snowfight In The City Centre – but wanted to jolt themselves into a different sphere. “We thought we had to throw ourselves into an uncomfortable situation to create something unique, or else we’ll churn out the same old rubbish,” Rick says. “We’d written most of the tunes but it was a bit of a struggle, as the three of us lived together and we’ve got this really intense relationship between the three of us.”
AU muses on the pressure-cooker nature of the Delphic living arrangements – what happens if one person just wants to slob in front of the TV and watch the football on an evening? “It was a huge risk, as it was one of the hardest things,” admits Rick. “Because if you say, ‘Tonight, I’m gonna watch the football’ it never works like that. One person might watch the football, but if the other two people are writing it drags that person away from the TV. So, there was no time for anything else, it was absolutely constant.”
A deadpan James tells us, “We tried to expand on it, and try and sell the idea to Channel 4 to put cameras in our flat. But they were a bit bored of the idea of three boring guys making music every minute of the day!”
Creating art via struggle seems to be important to Delphic, “We just see it as necessary to write music; it’s how we do things – this all-consuming process,” states Rick. “We thrive off the idea of change and development, so the next album we’ll probably have to be slightly different so we can challenge ourselves,” says James.
Although based in Manchester, Delphic have rallied against being lumped in with the city’s musical legacy. From their point of view, it’s debatable whether being a ‘Manchester band’ is a blessing or a curse. “It is blessing, because it gives journalists something to talk about, which we’ve noticed,” Rick says. “And it’s a blessing, because people constantly look towards Manchester and the heritage it’s had. Maybe if we’d been from Derby, it would have been more of a struggle to get noticed.”
However, while the band receive recognition, they also get the inevitable barbed comments about their supposed local influences. Rick is quick to point out that their range of influences is not standard Madchester fare. “When we were younger, what got us into music was The Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk and the tail-end of Orbital and Underworld.” James nods in agreement, before adding, “I used to listen to my sister’s collection of Ministry Of Sound records. But then we got more into the indie scene, and, being from Manchester, we did listen to stuff like Oasis and Britpop.”
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Posted on: March 5, 2010
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