We caught up with incredible Maybeshewill ahead of their headline set at ArcTanGent Festival, during the release of their remarkable album Fair Youth and ahead of their broad album tour. Find out out about silent DJ sets, album art and the unfortunates of Fair Youth getting leaked below.
HTF: Fair Youth was released this week, how has it been received?
John: Generally, pretty good. It’s kind of polarizing our older fans, some of them are really into it and some of them wish it had more riffs.
Matt: It’s been a fairy positive thing, it’s kind of hard because you spend so long creating something and then you put it out into the world.
John: “The Internet”
Matt: How do you gauge that? I don’t know, just by individual comments and press reviews, I guess it is hard to sum it up.
John: We like it!
Matt: Yeah, we’re proud of it.
John: We’ve had some really really nice press reviews.
Matt: There have been some press reviews where they have really just got the step onwards that we have taken.
HTF: Didn’t Fair Youth get leaked, how was that?
John: We knew it was going to get leaked, it’s happened with all of our records. But whoever leaked it first ripped it and wrongly labeled all the tracks and put them in a random order.
Matt: The last track on the album is a track that you wouldn’t put anywhere else on a record it doesn’t matter what type of record it is – it’s just that the type of song. It has to go at the end, and they put it third, it’s just ridiculous.
John: It didn’t make any sense, that was the only thing that made us cross I guess and now it is sort of being overwhelmed with people uploading the right version but people are still going to hear that version of the album rather than the real one.
HTF: Your previous albums have been a complete journey to listen to, how did you approach writing Fair Youth?
Matt: We put off writing it a couple of times and then we set aside a couple of months where we said look were going to do the album and we were going to get on with it but we just kept getting offered support slots that we really wanted to do. So we went away with a couple of wicked bands and kind of delayed the whole process but we were still writing. So there was still writing happening on the tours as well as when we were at home, and I think that probably changed the sonics of it a bit. It’s about the experiences we were having at the time which were all pretty good and positive.
John: It was kind of a reaction in Robs words to dealing with negative things in life through positive music. So that’s like the other side of the comic, so half the side is dealing with the good things and the other side is dealing with the negative.
HTF: The album art is incredible, how did it come about?
John: It is isn’t it! We can say that because we didn’t do it. We’ve got a really good friend called Frazier who has done pretty much all of our videos bar a few exceptions as well as a couple of t shirt designs and other things. He is phenomenally talented and when we started doing the record we decided relatively early on that we wanted him to do it. We wanted it to be a photograph and we had this very vague idea of what we wanted it to look like and told him that. He came back with a number of ideas and one of the first ones that he came up with became the sleeve with some minor alterations. Because he did that he was able to tie it in with the videos and the t shirt designs so like everything clicks together which is nice.
HTF: So you are headlining the Yohkai stage at ArcTanGent Festival this evening. How does it feel to be headlining at such an incredible festival?
John: We played the Thursday night last year, actually we played twice last year and one of those was headlining the Yohkai stage, which was amazing.
Matt: This perhaps feels like more of an event for us as it’s the first show since the record has come out and it’s kind of the end of festival season. So this is our last festival but also the start of the album tour. Also watching all the bands last night was such a buzz it was great.
John: I was in the pit for And So I Watch You From Afar – I was just taking all my clothes off.
Jim: I think I was just clinging on to one of the tent poles.
John: One of the nicest things abouot ArcTanGent is that there are so many people from our band life like promoters from Bordeux, Barcelona and even some guys from Germany.
HTF: It’s almost pilgrimage?
John: Yeah I guess it’s kind of the people who are the most enthusiastic about this type of music making their way here.
Matt: I left my laptop charger on stage in Germany and some of the guys from New Noise Festival in Germany are bringing it back to ArcTanGent which is incredible. And then we are playing after Terra Melos and that’s just mental.
HTF: Is there anyone in particular you are looking forward to seeing?
Matt: Playing after Terra Melos is weird and hopefully after we are done we can head over for Russian Circles.
Jim: I’m going to get everyone to pack down as soon as possible and the run over to the Arc stage.
John: I’m djing the silent disco straight after Russian Circles as well. But there are so many bands we need to check out Lite! Howard James Kenny! Jamie Lenman, the entire line up is incredible!
HTF: What can we expect from your silent disco set this evening?
John: I’m open to suggestions, what would you like?
HTF: Milk Lizard.
John: Milk Lizard?
Matt: Yeah, Dillinger
John: I’m a bit more of a rubbish hip hop kind of person.
Matt: Sometimes the bands take DJ sets seriously and we just play Beyonce.
HTF: Can you play Bump N Grind?
John: Yes! I’ve got Bump n Grind!
Jim: Tall Ships are really good at it
John: Yeah Tall Ships killed it this year, are they doing it this year?
HTF: Yep!
HTF: What’s left for 2014?
John: Tour starts Tuesday and finishes on the 20th of December with a few gaps .
I’m hoping I can check the internet pretty soon, the tour starts in Kiev and I think Russia have basically invaded Kiev so we’ll see how that goes.
