More on: Electric Soft Parade

Electric Soft Parade recently released their third album 'No Need To Be Downhearted' on Truck Records - their first after parting ways with a major label. We spoke to one half of the creative pair of brothers, Alex White, about the side project of Brakes, his newfound skills as a record producer, and what they got up to on the US tour as both bands.

How did you approach 'No Need To Be Downhearted' when it came to writing it?
A lot of the tunes we had kicking around for a bit. Songwriting's a weird one - I don't know how it's done! It's kind of sappy, but Bob Dylan said all the songs that will ever be written are 'up there' somewhere, and they just fall down on you. I do get that feeling a bit - I've never really sat down and gone "I'm writing this song, it's about this, and I'm making this statement."

How did you come to be on Truck Records?
We did a gig with them in Belfast, years ago, with Goldrush, who were on their label, and we did the Truck Festival. We basically between labels after being dropped by BMG, and we were trying to get our music out there, and couldn't. Basically, no-one wanted it! Truck were like, if you wanna do something, let's do it. Let's make a little EP, and chuck it out, super cheap. So that was 'The Human Body' EP in 2005. They're the opposite of what we were used to in the past with BMG - they're just like "oh you've got a record". They don't get involved, they don't tell you what to do, they just get it out there. It's like four or five people, and I've go their mobile numbers, know what I mean? It's like mates instead. It's definitely a smaller vibe, and it's really good.

Was it challenging to produce the album yourself?
I guess it was challenging, but it was more liberating really, as it was something we always wanted to do, but were never allowed to. If you're in some massive, expensive studio with some big label budget, they don't trust anyone! They'll get someone they know in to do it. It was also out of necessity. as we couldn't afford to pay some guy to come and produce it. It happened quite naturally really. It was up and down though, as one day you're like "oh this is brilliant, it's a piece of piss", then you're slaving over a computer crying "how does this work, I've never been trained!" But then you just learn, like speaking a language, where you can have all the lessons you want, but if you go and just live, say, in China, and just get involved, you just pick it up.

Now you've been so hands-on, can you imagine handing your work over to anyone else again?
I think so eventually. It depends on the guy, as there are some producers whose job it is to come in and go about the songs, going "the structure is WRONG, you put the chords at the front, the speed's wrong, blah blah", and mess with the whole feel of the song. Whereas there are some producers who'll go "I totally respect what you're doing", and just go through the songs. I don't like being told what to do, but at the same time, I don't mind being shown a different way. The guy who produced our first album, Chris Hughes, was extremely intelligent, and knowledgeable about music, and had amazing things to say - we learnt loads from him. He had amazing ideas we would never have come up with, and you have to balance it out, and think about it like that. It's more the 'suit' guy telling you what to do. A lot of people who work behind desks in the music industry, at a label, have tried being in a band, and have given up, or failed... they basically wanna get a look-in again and get involved. I don't enjoy being told what to do by people like that, it pisses me off frankly!

What can you do with Brakes that you can't do in Electric Soft Parade?
Brakes started when Electric Soft Parade were still kind of big, as a side project, and then took over when Soft Parade wasn't going on. Brakes consciously and deliberately wanted to spend no money, whereas most bands take massive budgets off labels, and have big tour buses and stay in expensive hotels. Brakes always from the start wanted to do everything for nothing. That taught Electric Soft Parade a lot, as we realised we could make this thing for nothing. Soft Parade is very precise parts, where they are written as they are, and there's no debate. We have our guys that play live with us, and I have to demonstrate exactly how a drum fill will go to Matt. With Brakes, Eamon will write the bare bones of it, and we make up our own parts. His instructions on how to play a drum are "a sexy kind of beat"! Brakes is very free - I've never played the same gig twice with them. For me, the reason I wanted to be in Brakes was to be a dedicated drummer in a band, as I hadn't done that before.

You've just been on tour in the US - was that as both bands?
Yeah, Brakes headlining, Electric Soft Parade on first, and a band called Pela from New York in the middle.

What was your favourite gig out there?
Most of it was sleep, drive, play - 12 hours driving, two gigs, do it all again for a month basically. It's weird, as in the UK you know Glasgow is going to be a good gig, as is Manchester, and then you get somewhere like Stoke, and you know it's not going to be that great, and it isn't. It was the other way around in America! I was really looking forward to Boston, as I'm a massive Pixies fan, and there's a bunch of hip-hop I love from there, but it was just rubbish! It was just a rotten night and a bad gig. Good turn-up though. Then we had a gig in Omaha, Nebraska. Bright Eyes is from there, and the whole Saddle Creek lot, and they were opening a super-club down the road, and they'd spent millions on it, and loads was going on that night. So there were literally fifteen people at our gig, at a 400 capacity venue! But all three bands played amazing gigs, and it was a real vibe. The bar staff were buying us rounds and bringing them to the stage! It was an amazing night, but on paper it was rubbish! Commercially it was hopeless, but it was one of the best gigs. It was the ones you didn't expect to be great that were. Vancouver was another great one - I'd never been to Canada, and it's such a pleasure to get so far away from where you're from, where you wrote your tunes, where you thought it means something to people, and then to get to Vancouver and you play to a full venue, and people are saying they've waited five years to see us. It was amazing - mental to see people singing along.

Your latest album is the first to be released in the US - how come your first two were not, with them being on a major label?
It's still a mystery to me! You'd think a label like BMG, with their influence and power, would be able to chuck a couple of records out across the States, but I guess they couldn't. We were supposed to go and tour there, and they pulled it at the last minute - literally with a couple of days notice. It ain't my job to sell records, that's their fucking job, and they couldn't do it - or didn't want to. That's the big laugh for me - Truck is a tiny little family-run business, and they've got us to South By Southwest, they've got us tours, and everyone's asked us why we haven't been there before. We dunno! We were on a label that put our records out in Japan, Australia, everywhere inbetween, but not America.

Was it always your aim to be in a band from childhood, or did you have any other ambitions?
I've played music since I was three, so I've always wanted to do it. When I was in my teens, and certainly now, I loved films - I've got every Hitchcock film, and I love film, and I study methods on my own, you know, not at film school or anything. I've made a couple of videos for Brakes, and I love the atmosphere of a film set. That's what I've always wanted to do.

Which festivals are you looking forward the most to this summer?
There's one in Austria that we're randomly headlining, so that should be good. Reading and Leeds of course. Everyone romanticises about Glastonbury, but my first festival was Reading in 1999. This year's Truck will be good. End Of The Road in Dorset is on, we played last year. It's run by these people who gave us a mission statement on a piece of paper, which basically said "we hate festivals". You know, they love the idea of festivals, but they don't like shitty soundsystems, bands playing for half an hour, warm corporate beer, no choice of good food. They locally source their food, and get local ales, and every band is the headliner, and plays for the same amount of time. It's really chilled, so I'm looking forward to that again. Oh, and I missed Super Furry Animals at Glastonbury this year! We'd just got back from America and I was exhausted, so I had a sleep, and I thought I told my girlfriend to wake me up, but she didn't wake me up! So I was gutted. I have seen them twenty times though! So they're headlining End Of The Road, so I'm looking forward to that.

Having done so much at such a young age, do you still have any unfulfilled ambitions?
Yeah, I guess the film thing - I just really want to make a film. Matt Priest our drummer, is from Dodgy, and they're getting back together for a reunion tour. I've known Matt for a few years, so I've known about the bad blood - it's not for me to say, but they say it. It's going to be an interesting reunion. I've said to Matt that I'm coming along, I'm gonna be there at the first rehearsal, I'm gonna film it all, and try and make an hour-long documentary. Someone's got to do it, and it'll be some other idiot if it's not me! I'd love for it to be my first project, as I'd love to make a film, but how the fuck do you make a film! You need funding, you need a specific idea. A documentary could get me into that world. That's my plan! I just love film - I get it, like I get music. I can prove I'm good at music - I feel like I could be really good at making films, but I can't prove it. I need to have a chance.

Becky Reed

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