We Interview Colin from Idlewild
2002 was an odd year indeed for Idlewild. The release of their third proper album, ‘The Remote Part’ spurned a rash of great tunes including single of the year contender ‘American English’, however, bass player Bob quit the band on the eve of a major support tour to Coldplay, marring what would other have been declared as Idlewild’s year. Back in December we caught up with drummer Colin on the eve of the band’s first proper tour with their new line up.
2002 was a very good year for you - You Held The World In Your Arms went top 10 and The Remote Part was critically acclaimed. What’s been your highlights and lowlights of the last year?
Did you enjoy touring America?
Are you hoping for the same reaction again?
Did they take to you?
Are you apprehensive as to how the fans will react to the new line up and the stuff with Bob?
Were you a fan of Gavin’s (Idlewild’s new bass player who joined in January) old band The Turn?
Do you think the sound might change as there’s a new line up?
How did you cope with big arenas when you supported Coldplay?
Did Coldplay cope?
Do you see yourselves getting to that level and would you want to do the arenas?
As a support band you’ve got to try 3 times as harder as well as the majority have come for Coldplay.
How do you think you’ve developed as a live band as on records you seem to have mellowed compared to the stuff on Captain?
If you could go back and re-record any of you’re early material would you? Is there anything you’d like to change?
What are you’re plans for 2003?
What albums have you been listening to recently?
What about The Star Spangles?
What do you think of all these new American garage/ punky bands around at the moment?
You don’t feel that British indie is being edged out?
Do you feel if you were emerging now do you think it’d be easier than it was then?
Rod’s been DJing at a few places recently - what 3 records does he always play?
And if you’re at a club, what 3 records should every DJ play?
If you could have 3 artists guesting on the next album, who would they be?
December 2002
I think the highlights would be the album coming out coz we finished in January so when we finished it was a good time. I think it’s all been good, all the gigs. I think the low point would probably have been Bob leaving the band which just happened at a weird time as well but nothing else has been awful.
We haven’t been over much the last year. We played a show in New York which was good but we’re going over there in 2003. We were over with the last album in 2001 and that was cool.
I hope so. I hope its better. We were playing clubs of up to a 1000 - in New York it’s a bit bigger.
Yeah they did. I think they’re always nice to Scottish people so Scottish indie rockers were welcome.
I hope not. I'm not apprehensive and I hope they don’t coz I think we’re probably better now that he’s gone. I think he wasn’t that interested and when he played it was kinda obvious. I think if somebody’s in a band and not interested yet they’re still on stage playing then I think the crowd would probably see it and the songs wouldn’t sound so good. Alex is really good too plus we’ve done 2 months of touring with him now so he knows all the songs.
We’d gigged with them a few years back and were good friends with them - meet up when we went to Dublin. He was just the one we’d always imagined that if Bob left. He’s a nice guy.
I think it might change more when we play live. Bob really rocked out when we played live. He may not have been the best bass player when he played live but he looked good and made a racket. Now I think you’ll be able to hear the bass bits. In the studio I'm sure it will change and with Gavin just the whole style of the band will shift slightly as he won’t play exactly the same bass lines Bob would have played. I think it’ll be good whatever happens.
Not very well to start with. I think that was another thing about Bob leaving as it was about 3 nights before. The first gig was in Glasgow which is where Alex is from so he was playing in front of all these people. It was weird. A weird bunch of people at a Coldplay show. I think at any show of that size not everybody is going to get you.
Yeah, they’re a pure stadium band now if you know what I mean. They had the light show and sounded good. A massive band now.
I don't think I’d like to do them. I say that now but if I was on that stage and there was 15 thousand people going mad I might think this is amazing. You’d lose the atmosphere. I wouldn’t go to a show like that so I don’t know if I’d play one.
There was a few people who knew who we were and other had heard some songs on the radio and we’d play them and everyone would go ‘ooh, we know this one’ and the mum’s at the back would start clapping along but I think if you’re the support band in that size of place it’s really hard to get everybody excited.
I think we’re more controlled now. Before, especially around Captain, we couldn’t really play that well so we would just go...we didn't care what it sounded like as long as everybody went mad and was jumping up and down and making a racket. Now we’ve realised you can be more rocking by thinking about what you’re doing and just making sure you’re really rocking and tight and that the sound’s really amazing. I think that’s another thing about playing in different sized venues. In a small venue it doesn’t really matter what it sounds like as long as the atmosphere is amazing whereas in bigger places, the people at the back, if you’re on stage just going mad they're just going to be thinking ‘what’s he doing?’. It’s fine for the people at the front as they’re getting into it.
I don't think there’s anything I'd want to change, anything I regret but if we recorded it now it would sound better but I wouldn’t want to do it. I don’t see a huge amount of point in it really.
More touring. Just practising with Gavin and the going over to Australia for the first time. That’ll be cool. The album comes out in America so we’ll take it over there, then festivals in the summer and then hopefully have the new album ready by the end of next year. We’ve done some writing for it but not huge amounts. Last time we took a few weeks and went up to a house in the country and set up a home studio and worked from there so we’ll probably do that again. We haven’t got a big plan for the album just yet. We’re just getting loads and loads of ideas together and then we’ll listen to a hundred ideas and realise that 98 of them are shit but there are 2 of them that would work out really good. That’s the way it started. As it gets going ideas come more to the front and it’s easier to figure out what’s influencing the whole thing.
I like the Sigor Ros album, Queens Of The Stone Age, Bright Eyes - the one with the weird title. That’s amazing. ‘Lover I Don’t Have To Love’ is my favourite track on the album. We saw them a few weeks ago in Sweden. Really good.
What new artists are you into?
Kinesis are good, we did a gig with them. Coz we’re on tour so much it’s hard to hear stuff but we get sent loads of CDs of bands who want to play with us. I really like the Walkman who are supporting us tonight.
They’re a bit more Ramones, more punk rock, I think they’ll be quite exciting.
I mean I guess some of them are good but some are rubbish but that always happens if there’s a new scene come along. The White Stripes, I quite like them but there’s all these other bands that come along on the back of them that are just shit.
There’s a few things like the NME that have just gone mad for certain things and you think that if say, a band from Scotland came from New York they’d get some much more attention which at times may be a little unfair. I don’t know if they have some sort of duty to report what’s going on in Britain a bit more and support British bands more, but good music’s good music.
I think it's impossible to say. Maybe as they might be more open to shambolic punk rock than they were at the time.
He’ll play AC/DC, he’ll play some 80s stuff and probably ELO.
AC/DC. Everywhere should play AC/DC. I guess Blondie - good to dance to, and some sort of really camp disco song, something like Kylie.
AC/DC, ELO and Kylie!