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We’re sitting at the halfway point of 2009, and already we are drowning in a sea of fantastic new albums – Future of the Left, Phoenix, Sonic Youth, White Denim etc etc etc. But of all the leading contenders so far for Album of the Year, none came as a bigger – or nicer – surprise than Primary Colours, the second album from Southend’s spookiest, The Horrors. We got on the phone to frontman Faris Badwan to try to make sense of the most startling comeback of the year.

Interview by Chris Jones

Hi Faris, all things well with you?

Yes, I’m just drawing a very harsh caricature of Rhys ['Spider' Webb, bass].

Is that something you do often? Is it always harsh?

[laughs] Varying degrees.

‘Sea Within A Sea’ was a big shock to a lot of people when they first heard it, because of how different it is to the first album. There’s obviously a big Krautrock influence on it, amongst other things, but had you been listening to a lot of that stuff over the last couple of years?

To be honest I think all that stuff was an influence on the last record but maybe it wasn’t as evident. We’ve always listened to all that kind of music, but I think with every record, a different set of influences should come to the forefront. But yeah, all the Neu! related bands like La Düsseldorf, Cluster and obviously all the Can stuff as well, yeah, totally brilliant.

Is that stuff you’ve been listening to for a long time?

Yeah, at the minute I’m really into that Holger Czukay album, Canaxis. I’m listening to that non-stop, it’s incredible. I actually got Tom [Cowan, synth] another Holger Czukay album, Movies, for his recent birthday. I’m into a lot of the experimental stuff as well.

Krautrock isn’t homogenous – all sorts of things get put under that bracket – but what is it about that kind of thing that you’re drawn to?

I think it’s just how free it is. It’s free but it can also be monotonous, if that makes sense. It’s a weird thing to say. I like music that feels like it has no limitations. But also that sense of melody. In Neu! 75, that whole lot of songs is so melodic. It’s maybe not something many people would associate with melody – half the singing is really flat, but it’s just perfect; it’s got so much feeling in it. I’m really interested in the way bands can be evocative without using conventional routes.

The thing about that sort of stuff is that the more you listen to it, the more it opens up. Whenever you first listen to it, the repetitive drum beat is the thing that stays with you-

Yeah, you get it suddenly, and that moment of getting it is so rewarding.

You’re saying that that sort of stuff was an influence on your first album, but it definitely comes through a lot more this time round. Do you agree?

Yeah, definitely, but on our next record there’ll be a whole load of other influences that’ll come through.

Is that something that you always intended to do – the fact that there’s a big difference in sound between the first album and this one? It seems to be such a big change as to be a big surprise for a lot of people.

It’s weird, that because it’s been two years since our last record, and in my opinion that’s a long enough time for there to have been a big change. There’s a whole load of demos that maybe people will never hear – maybe that would make the change more understandable.

I suppose journalists and your fans aren’t party to the spectrum that you’re going through between the last album and this one.

That’s the way it should be, you know. You cannot have people being aware of everything. You want the start and the end – you don’t want all the stuff in between. I think you need mystery and you need a step back. That’s why I don’t really want to release a demos album or something – it demystifies it all.

So the appeal is to come out as a fully-formed entity at two or three-year intervals, like a snapshot?

I think what tends to be the case is that bands tend to release the same album four times, and I’m just not really interested in doing that. Each release should try and break new ground.

Do you think the name of the band and the visual image that you had around the first album are part of the reason for people having response that they have? It’s had some really good reviews, but there has been a lot of shock and surprise.

I think it’s probably more people’s conceptions. The impressions they’ve got from seeing pictures of us are actually quite inaccurate. If we didn’t intend those judgements to be made in the first place, then to prove them wrong just seems to make perfect sense, if they were never accurate in the first place. But I think whatever you release there will be a set of judgements formed based on that, and I think that every release should challenge the judgements formed on the last record.

In what sense do you think they were inaccurate? People are going on promo pics, which is something that you presumably have control over.

Yeah but it’s a way of reading into them. Like, the idea we were manufactured is something that totally just don’t understand. I mean, for me, the idea that a record label would put together a band that have no chance of making any money seems laughable.

Does that rankle with you? Do you feel you were unfairly treated or dismissed?

In my opinion, I don’t mind being dismissed, because I’m not really in it for the short-term. If you’re dismissed at first glance now, it really is irrelevant, because longevity is what we’re aiming for. When people look back on things, for example listening to this record in ten years’ time, it’ll have a totally different set of things attached to it. That’s why it doesn’t matter what people think now.

Maybe the people that were a bit dismissive of you two years ago are the people that are now sitting up and taking notice.

I think that if you’re in people faces all the time, and as I said there are certain things that people want to grab onto in the media, I hate that. I don’t want to be in a magazine every week. I don’t want to see other bands in a magazine every week – you get bored of it, no matter who they are. If I saw pictures of the Velvet Underground every week I’d probably get sick of them. And I think that when you’re removed from that in a few years, when hysteria about someone has died down, like for example Depeche Mode – when that first album came out it was big and really poppy and people dismissed them as almost a kids’ band; a throwaway band. But when you look back at that record and the way it’s made and the way the instruments are used, everything about it is brilliant. And maybe at the time people were dismissive of it, but it’s really substantial music.

So it’s all about not taking it to heart and having faith in what you’re doing and that you’ll be proved right in the end?

I think you only search for validation when you’re unsure of something. If you’re really certain about what you’re doing then you don’t really mind.

Can I ask about the fact you worked with [Portishead's] Geoff Barrow on Primary Colours? How did that come about?

Well Geoff curated ATP which we played at along with Silver Apples and Sunn O))) and Thurston Moore, and we went to see them and they were amazing. That new album [Third]… Because I’d never really been into Portishead at the time.

Yeah, same here.

And when you heard that, were you converted?

Yeah, absolutely, and then I went back. Because Dummy had kind of passed me by at the time. I heard Third and absolutely loved it and then went back and got into Dummy last year.

When was Dummy from?

‘94, I think. So I would have been 11.

Oh yeah, and I would have been eight. So we were both too young at the time. But I did exactly the same thing – I went back to it and it’s so otherworldly, and for it to have been so successful as well, it kind of restores your faith in music a bit. It’s pretty unconventional, and it’s got all these little ideas, like pressing the album onto acetate and then re-recording it – stuff like that. It was so innovative and there weren’t too many people doing that. So when we heard Third, we felt he could bring Portishead to The Horrors. In the end, that wasn’t what actually happened – he insisted that we remain The Horrors and basically just tried to capture our demos. He recorded us really, rather than produced.

Although, you can tell the influence of it on Primary Colours.

Yeah we were influenced by them, but the songs were written before he came on board.

Did you see the Spotify playlist that The Quietus put up on their website?

What was that?

They did an article on their website and made a playlist on Spotify with a whole load of bands that they thought had influenced your new album.

What bands were on it?

It included Neu!, Can, a song off 154 by Wire – do you know that album?

Yeah, I love that album.

…Kitchens of Distinction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Spiritualized, the Velvet Underground…

Kitchens of Distinction?! That’s a weird one to choose. I mean, it’s a brilliant one to choose, but I’m surprised. I’m not surprised they know about it, but you know how everyone’s always saying the same influences.

…The Psychedelic Furs, the Jesus and Mary Chain, ‘NYC’ by Interpol and a few others. Do you think that was accurate?

Erm…yeah. I suppose so, but there’s loads of influences they missed, like the Kinks and the Pretty Things. I dunno, they got most of the main ones, but everyone hears different things.

PRIMARY COLOURS IS OUT NOW ON XL RECORDS

Posted on: 27th January 2010

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