The A Train
Interview
Thursday 8th of October 2009
"Meet me at the Railroad Bar, about 7 o'clock"... It was Paddington station that inspired that song, y'know, and that's where I met James McKean of the A Train to talk of singles, promotions, inspiration, hopes and dreams.
'Black and White Memories' as a single... why that one and why now?
Personally, my image of my music flits between something that's quite populist and something that doesn't really give a fuck [about] what most people think. I think we sat down and thought "why are we trying to be Oasis, when we're just as likely to be listening to Skip Spence?" So I think that was the impetus to release a single. We've got some good equipment, we're doing things ourselves. We're control freaks by nature, Dan and me, and I think we did a good job - the production quality, the video, the cover. With all that and our various shifts in mindset, I quite like the idea of trying to make the catchiest, poppiest, lo-fi album there's ever been. That'd be quite cool.
In the past we always, through some kind of combination of arrogance and complacency, envisaged being snapped up, one of those bands who just breaks big. It was getting to the stage where we hadn't released anything. We'd see lots of bands doing things themselves, but we hadn't done it. We were chasing after this dream, you know, major label - it was just stupid, because major label guitar rock albums are rubbish these days. The aesthetic that goes along with those, more in terms of the mixing, the marketing, the presentation than the songs necessarily, is not something I enjoy even remotely, so it was a question of "why are we chasing after something that we probably don't actually want?" There seems to be lots of good music being made on a smaller scale - I think Yo Zushi is brilliant. Jonquil are really good, the Holy Summoners, James Ewell... all these unsigned or bubbling-under acts, doing things themselves and doing a great job of it.
For a while you stopped playing on other people's bills to concentrate on your own promotions and gigs...
Well, we're doing the Stoked Acoustic thing, which we're definitely going to continue. I think one of the stipulations of that was playing less gigs, but now we're going to try and play as often as we can generally too. The difficulty of playing gigs in London is it's always the bottom line - how many people you can bring. Sometimes I find what they ask for is so unrealistic. There are all sorts of organisational things that it's difficult to keep on top of. Having done this sort of thing - 93 Feet High and Rising especially, and Stoked - I sympathise with promoters to a degree, but at the same time, some venues... say they ask you to bring 50 people? When your 50th person walks through the door you get paid, and paid quite well, but if you're stuck on 49 you don't get paid a penny. If you consider - 4 bands on a bill, each bringing 49 people, the venue's got just under 200 people, at very little cost to themselves, other than booking bands, and when you consider bands are chasing gigs, that's not a difficulty. And they've not had to pay them a penny. 200 people paying, conservatively speaking, a tenner at the bar, 2,000 pounds, and none of those bands have been paid a penny. So yeah, we do want to do more events. We're trying to do more free gigs and small scale, acoustic shows where you can just turn up and play to a few people. And with those sort of gigs, the venues are less arsey about how many people you can bring through the door, and I think audiences listen better at those gigs. And generally the people who come are interested to see all the acts, and I hope they get something out of all the acts. That's the idea, so hopefully it's working on some sort of scale.
What inspires you musically?
That's the sort of question where I find it difficult to start, but once you get me going, I find it difficult to stop...! At the moment I listen to not a lot of music that was recorded after about 1960. You get to the stage where you know most of the greats, the classic albums. Most of the ones I want to hear, I've heard; which is why I'm listening to pre 60s stuff, from before they were making albums - it was just singles - because some of that stuff is as good as Dylan and the Beatles, and frankly nothing after it is! Apart from anything else, you can't beat early rock and roll, especially Little Richard. You can't beat him for energy and just fun, I'm certain of it. I've never heard recorded music that captures that wild enthusiasm like his does. I don't do fun very well with music.
Does Dan do the fun?
Yeah, Dan does fun better!
Did he start playing at the same time as you?
In 1994-1995 I was 13 or 14, and he was 9. I'd stopped playing guitar when I was about 11, but Oasis made me start playing again - 'Live Forever'. Dan followed quite swiftly thereafter, and started taking piano lessons. That's the reason he's a top class musician. Luckily he's on the same side as me! I don't know if Dan would feel the same, but I think I always knew we would be in a band together, though we never spoke about it really. It wasn't like "oh, shall we form a band?" - we just formed a band.
What are your hopes and dreams for the band? Do you allow yourself to...
To hope and dream? I don't think I do any more. I was talking earlier about our change of focus, from trying to be a professional band, a major label band. There's 100 million bands out there all doing the same thing as we're doing, and all trying to pretend that they're really cool. It's a really soul destroying process trying to break in to all that. I do very much envisage that we're gonna be around, but it's probably best for people to be into us here rather than later. I don't know if we'll ever be big, but I think Dan and me both write good songs that people will want to hear. Dan, especially, is such a good musician - world class - and I think sooner or later people will realise that, maybe not in vast numbers, but in numbers. We've done 'Black and White Memories', and we've got another one in the offing, which will probably be download only - it's cheaper - 'Don't Have Far to Go'. For me, it's the best thing we've done. More than any other song, it contains a lot of what we're about, where as 'Black and White Memories', which I think is a great song, patently doesn't.
I think the single does a good job as a whole, but I don't think on its own, it says who we are. I think we're gonna do better, hopefully with the next one. In the next few weeks and months, we'll look and see if a label wants to put out an album. Depending on your perspective, we've got between 5 and 8 songs in a state of being finished, of which 'Black and White Memories' is one, although Dan's thinking of re-recording it slightly slower. I'm hoping we can merge the two recordings, 'Strawberry Fields' style... I think quite a few bands, even bigger ones, seem to have taken the approach we're taking - I think Fleet Foxes recorded their album themselves, before a label was involved, and I'm sure Vampire Weekend did as well, and I think their album's terrific. The songs for the album are basically recorded live, with overdubs: 'Black and White Memories', 'Don't Have Far to Go', 'Why Would He Leave', 'Beginning', and 'The Painter'.
Author: Stuart M
Found in: Interviews