1:13pm Friday 12th March 2010
By Dan Bean
TEN years on from their Mercury Prize-nominated debut, Turin Brakes have gone back to their roots for their latest album, Outbursts.
The timing couldn’t be better, as folk-infused tunes dominate the airwaves once more in the lead-up to the duo’s appearance in York at The Duchess on Sunday.
“We’ve never been a fashionable band,” says Olly Knights. “It is always around, that kind of music, but fashion just works in cycles. We were the resurgence when The Optimist LP was released, and now it has come around again.”
It may be nearly a decade since Knights and band partner Gale Paridjanian had their biggest hits, Underdog (Save Me) and Pain Killer, but Olly believes experience has given them confidence to get back to basics.
“With the big labels you can go out and get the best drummer or guitarist but it might not have soul. It’s an easy trap to people fall into, getting shiny and over-produced.”
Outbursts is the band’s first release on indie label Cooking Vinyl, and was self-funded by Olly and Gale, so production was a no-frills experience.
“Some 95 per cent of what you hear on Outbursts is just Gale and me, layered together on a laptop,” says Olly.
“We got Rob Allen in on drums because we couldn’t get them right, and the most money we spent was getting it mixed.”
The album has taken two years from writing to release, but Olly reckons it may never have been finished, if not for celebrity fans.
“Take That got in touch and asked if we would write a song for them, which we did,” he says. The track, Here, ended up closing the multi-million selling The Circus album.
“The money made from royalties on that allowed us to finish our record,” says a laughing Olly. “We don’t really want to be ‘professional songwriters’ though; our main focus is Turin Brakes.”
Another change introduced on Outbursts sees the band reflect on current affairs.
“We always used to avoid politics, because we like to view music as escapism, but in the past few years we’ve seen the tsunami and earthquakes in China and Haiti reported in this relentless 24-hour style,” says Olly.
“It feels like they’re bunching up and it is hard to ignore, so the single Sea Change is in the style of a ticking bomb, counting down to a natural disaster, and the title track is about people not being in control of their environment, this feeling of helplessness. I think what we’ve done is just reflect the world around us.”
The world around Turin Brakes has grown massively since their 2001 debut album, The Optimist LP, perhaps most significantly with the rise of the internet, but the duo are wary about venturing too far down the information super-highway.
“It has become painfully easy to give negative criticism over the internet,” says Olly.
“The anonymity it gives you means there is going to be a bunch of people who are waiting to mouth off.
“But I’ve finally got involved with Twitter, and there are a couple of great fan-sites out there, so we’re communicating all the time with our fan-base.
“I don’t know where it is going to lead but it’s great fun. The fewer middlemen there are between the band and the fans the better.”
• Turin Brakes play The Duchess, York, on Sunday; expect to hear old favourites rubbing shoulders with new material. Tickets: £16.50 in advance on 08444 771000 or £18.50 on the door from 7.30pm.
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