matt hales has just spent a week at real world studios starting work on the second aqualung album. We sent karlsen to find out more.
As a kind of experiment, really. I thought it would be nice to record with a load of other musicians all at once - sixties-style, I suppose, or like The Band. So many of the albums I like were recorded like that and I've never actually done it. I've talked about it loads of times but whenever you try it everyone goes "ooh it's so difficult, it's much easier if you just put a good solid click track down and get the drummer in for a couple of days on his own".
So I thought I would finally do that, and the only way to do it in the time that we had was to go to a big shiny studio that had all the gear we needed. Real World, as studios go, is a very interesting environment, and didn't really feel like any studio I'd been to before. It felt sufficiently novel to be creative.
(laughs) Yeah, once it became clear how tedious it was going to be I went off the whole idea... There were five of us in the big wooden room, playing our instruments all at once - my brother Ben, Dan Tuite, Dave Price and Jim Copperthwaite, all fine and multi-talented musicians.
What we were trying to get was some sort of atmosphere, and you can't necessarily feel that in the control room in quite the same way as you can in the recording room. It was good to be with everybody, to hear all the nuances and get it working. I think it worked quicker that way.
The idea has always been to have some elements recorded like that and then do some work on my own at home and then find a way to combine them. The ideal is to make something that relates to the first album but sounds new and interesting.
Yes, I suppose it has. It turns out that you can't write songs when you're on tour, but what you can do is store up a lot of creative energy which pours out when you get home. So I've written a lot of new stuff since I came back which has been mostly really good, which has changed the nature of the new collection a bit. And I think there will probably be more still.
It's quite inspiring, the whole process, so I'd expect to be adding and tweaking and writing whole new things as we go along. It's quite nice because I still couldn't tell you what it's going to be like in the end. I like to avoid knowing what it's going to be like - that would be boring.
I don't know. I think that kind of decision is someone else's. There's so much emphasis on the first single, the position we're in. Which is a product of success. I can't moan, it's great that we've got the opportunity to get major radio support and all that stuff and maybe do really well with the new single. But it obviously has to be the right song.
If it were down to me, there are a few contenders in the songs we've done already, but then I'm writing all the time, so it may be that something pops out which as got that special something. I'm open to the idea, so I guess we'll see.
Only if they get played on the radio. I think it's a shame to be defined by one single if you're someone who applies themselves to all the songs. It's not like I go "well I've got my hit single now, all the rest can be shit", but if you can get support from the media, they remain a very effective way of alerting people to the existence of a new album. It would be a shame for noone to realise there was a new Aqualung album.
That is the classic pop music conflict. If you're trying to write high-quality music without the agenda of making money or selling units, you're just trying to do something honest, that moves you in whatever way, it's just something you have to consider if you want it to carry on working.
I'm lucky that my disposition as a musician is such that the kind of music I write naturally is quite pop - single-y or radio-y. Most of my songs have got choruses, after all. I think if you aren't that kind of writer, it could be a real struggle.
Really good, I think. We went to New York, which was pretty cool, and Ben and I did a gig in Manhattan, and the record companies who'd been interested came along and said all the right things. There were lots of meetings and so on, which have resulted in a deal which we are hopefully going to sign in the next few weeks. That should mean that the first album is released there this year, which means that we may go and tour in America some time this year as well, which will be very interesting.
It makes it clear how important it is to concentrate on the new album. It's quite focussing. I'm lucky that, generally speaking, I respond to a challenge rather than just wanting to run away and cry... mostly.
I'm feeling quite positive about it. I like the songs and I feel like that somewhere in there is just the right record that I could be really proud of, could be a great follow-up to the first one and also move the whole thing on to another level. It's weird - I have a funny feeling that the time might be right, and if I'm not careful - or if I am careful - we might find we can repeat the success that we've had in the UK with the first album elsewhere with the second one.
None taken.
(Photos taken by Tony Perretta)
