A week after the release of their new album Get Better and just before their taster, acoustic gig at Bristol record shop Rough Trade, we had the opportunity to have a chat with indie-funk brothers Ewan and Callum Merrett from the genre-blending 5-piece band from Bath, Bad Sounds. We chat about mixing musical influences, the arguments of song-writing, and zip-lining through the crowd.
Hi guys, congratulations on the album! How has the acoustic tour been so far?
E: Most of the shows have been in record stores surrounded by CDs so it would have been a bit weird to do a normal electronic gig as we’d be knocking stuff over. We don’t write the songs with acoustic guitars, so it’s been nice to perform them this way because they start to feel more like songs. But I wouldn’t want to do this all the time.
C: It’s been quite different. Normally I’m triggering the sound board and shaking the tambourine whereas this time I actually get to play an instrument, so I feel more like a musician which I’m enjoying. Not coming off stage drenched in sweat is nice too.
What do you think is the best gig you’ve done?
E: We did a tour earlier in the year and we went the night before the Newcastle show, so I was really hungover and probably did the worst show we’ve ever done. I felt so guilty that the next day we were in Manchester and I made a real point of trying to make up for it. So that Manchester show was one of my favourites.
C: Yeah that was a really good show. We also played at Thekla in Bristol during our last tour which was a special one.
Are there certain songs on your album that you prefer to perform live?
E: We haven’t performed live all the songs on the album yet, but I am really looking forward to the fact that we’re going to have lots of different kinds of songs that we’ve not done before. On the album there’s a few slightly darker songs so I’m looking forward to finding new ways to perform those.
C: You’re just looking forward to shredding it on Thomas is a Killer!
Do you have songs on the album that are your favourites?
E: I really like Another Man
C: And I really like Thomas is a Killer, but I remember when we finished recording Evil Sounds in the studio and on the way back home we were listening to it over, and over again.
E: We were both so happy with it.
You have very eclectic music tastes so did you find it difficult to combine influences?
E: I think it works in our favour because I don’t think people ever expect the same song to come out twice. I never really feel restricted like we have to do a certain thing. Honesty is quite a straight-up hip-hop song and I didn’t feel like that felt out of place on the track next to Wages or How you Gonna Lose which has a bit more soul.
How do you work together in the song writing?
C: Ewan is more prolific and writes a lot of material, but he’s really good at coming out with a cool groove and coming up with the framework for a song. I get more hung up on whether a hook is good and whether the lyrics sit in that hook and sound like they should. If there’s a really good melody but the words don’t sit quite right it really bothers me and that’s where we sort of meet in the middle.
E: I tend to send a load of lyrics to Cal and he’ll be going through the words that don’t sit right with him, and then we have an argument about it.
C: Half the time I’m like “that’s not even a word”. I think as a musician you always feel like you’re ready to put out an album but I’m glad it’s taken us this long because I don’t think we’d have been as happy with it if we released it 4 years ago when we started. We’ve learnt a lot over those 4 years as musicians and song writers.
Do you think you have any defining moments in your music development?
E: I’d say doing Avalanche because before that the lyrics were only there to go with the vocal melody. We didn’t aim to do lyrics differently at that time, but Avalanche was the first song we wrote about our friends, so I think it just felt a lot more real to us. It steered the way for a lot of lyrical content that came afterwards and gave us more confidence to something that isn’t just generic words to a melody. That’s why we wanted it to be on the album because it felt like it was a real moment where we found our sound and lyrical content.
Where do you get most of your lyric ideas from?
E: I never write about anything I haven’t experienced, or someone’s told me they’ve experienced because I feel it always comes off as really cliché. I always try and have a starting point from something said in conversation.
C: We’re opposite to that traditional Oasis-style way of writing lyrics where it applies to everyone as what we talk about is so specific. But people still seem to relate. For instance, Hothead Chippenham is one of our previous tracks. Not many people live in Chippenham but people from other small towns have said they totally relate to that song because although they didn’t grow up in Chippenham, they grew up in a town very similar.
How has feedback from the new album made you feel about the future?
E: The reaction to it so far has just further made me want to focus on the band and not be copying what other people do. It’s given me confidence in that we can keep going and improving.
C: I don’t even see it as improving. I feel like album 2 won’t sound at all like album 1. It won’t be “Get Better – part 2”, I hope anyway.
E: I think it’s made us feel like we can carve out our own way and don’t have to fit a box. In this industry you do feel like you have to be pulling yourself back towards the crowd, but I really feel less and less like that which is an encouraging feeling. It’s obviously harder and a bit slower for us that way but it feels more rewarding.
If you could collaborate with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?
C: Obviously Michael Jackson would be up there, and I would have liked to work with the Neptunes in the early 2000s or the Dust Brothers in early 90s.
E: I’d loved to have worked with Quinten Jones in the Michael Jackson era because I feel you’d learn so much off him. Rick Rubin in the early 2000s too. It’s hard because you need to find someone who’s having their moment now and you never really know that until the moment is over.
Who would you choose right now, for instance for your next album?
E: The people who I think are doing exciting stuff right are Chance the Rapper, and Kaytranada. They are probably the two for me.
C: I think their thing is so specifically them, that I almost wouldn’t want to work with them because we would end up sounding like them. I feel like the best producers and the biggest talents are the people that, like Rick Rubin, take a band and allow them to be the best band that THEY are. I’d want to find someone like that, to egg us on a bit really.
What can fans expect from your live shows?
E: I’ve always said I don’t really like live gigs because I think they’re normally really boring with a band stood there looking moody.
C: People don’t want to just come and hear the music loud, they want an experience and entertainment. It’s inclusive. It’s not just us dancing and playing music and jumping about the stage, but we want everyone to be part of it.
E: It’s frustrating doing festivals sometimes where you don’t get to do that. It’s still fun and we still try and put on as much of a show as possible, but it’s only 70% of what the band is. On our last tour we had the massive heads made of me and Callum and they shot lasers out of the mouth and loads of confetti and things like that. Once we were even pushed into the audience in cardboard boxes. We’re always trying to up what we did last time. I really like the idea of coming down on a zipwire, that’s where I’m headed next.
Is there anything that not many people know about you as a band?
E: I guess one thing is that because we co-produce everything, a lot of the gear we use is the cheap stuff we’ve found on our own musical journey. Most of what we record still goes through our dad’s old 4-track cassette player and there’s also our friend’s old echo thing that was like £40. These random small things have really become part of our sound and we really like that and like finding ways to abuse bits of gear to make them do things they shouldn’t. Working to your limitations, especially budget, can encourage a lot more creativity.
Well thank you very much for coming, congratulations again on the album and good luck with the rest of your shows!
E + C: Amazing, thanks for having us!
