TRACK REVIEW: CHVRCHES - He Said She Said

TRACK REVIEW:

CHVRCHES

PHOTO CREDIT: Sebastian Mlynarski and Kevin J Thomson

He Said She Said

9.4/10

The track, He Said She Said, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyyiJc0Wk2M

GENRE:

Synth-Pop

ORIGIN:

Glasgow, Scotland

RELEASE DATE:

19th April, 2021

LABEL:

Virgin Records Limited

PRODUCER:

Kyle Porter

__________

THIS will be another busy review…

so I better get down to things! Today, I am charged with reviewing the new single from CHVRCHES, He Said She Said. The band hail from Glasgow and formed in September 2011. CHVRCHES comprise Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook, Martin Doherty and, unofficially since 2018, Jonny Scott. It is amazing that CHVRCHES celebrate a decade together later this year! I remember when their debut, The Bones of What You Believe, was released in 2013. Led by the extraordinary and inspiring Lauren Mayberry – who I shall discuss more of in depth later -, CHVRCHES have released some stunning music through their career. I know they are releasing their fourth studio album, CHV4 (that is a title I have seen on Wikipedia; not certain that is the official album title), soon. I am not sure if there is a set date or tracklisting yet. I want to start by discussing CHVRCHES’ start. In this Sound on Sound feature from 2015, we find out how the Scottish band shot onto the scene and what the musical landscape around them was like:

“Emerging in 2012 from Glasgow’s post-rock indie landscape, synth-based trio Chvrches were a very different musical proposition from the shoegazey scene which spawned them. The propulsive, smart electronic pop of Lauren Mayberry (vocals, synths), Martin Doherty (synths, vocals) and Iain Cook (synths, guitars, bass, vocals) quickly proved to be highly successful, with their 2013 debut album The Bones Of What You Believe becoming a Top 10 hit in the UK and reaching number 12 in the States.

It was a remarkable turn of events considering that the members of Chvrches had for some years been operating in relative obscurity in a variety of Glaswegian indie bands. In addition to film and TV scoring work, Cook was a member of both Aerogramme and the Unwinding Hours, while Doherty was the live keyboard player for the Twilight Sad. Both had known each other since university and had worked together in the studio on and off.

“We’ve been friends for 10 years,” says Doherty. “We’d always worked on different projects, but never really done anything that we could both put our names to. And then I guess it was 2012 when we eventually got in the studio and just thought, ‘Let’s throw some ideas around.’”

“When we were working together on other projects, we knew that there was a good sort of dynamic between us creatively,” Cook adds. “But we never got to really properly explore that until we eventually just sat in the studio”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mike Massaro

I want to mention their second album in a bit. First, there is a section from an article in The Skinny. Published in 2012, it is interesting to read about a particular photoshoot and how Lauren Mayberry handled a photographer’s request:

“But Lauren’s mission is to write her own narrative. During the shoot, arranged on a flight of stairs, the photographer asks her to stand forward, the boys lurking fuzzily in the background. Straight away, politely but firmly, she’s having to explain that they’re not about “that.” For all their innocent desire to “make music that people can dance to,” they all know what “that” is, and it’s certainly not in the plan. When asked if she worries about how she’ll be perceived, she replies immediately, her large eyes, now cleansed of make-up, wide and insistent: “Intensely. On a nerdy note, I did my Masters dissertation on the idea of femininity in women’s magazines. I know to a point I probably overcompensate because I’m aware of these things, but I’ve been through the looking glass, and I’m afraid. In this industry, if you don’t have your wits about you then you’ll probably end up doing something that you didn’t sign up for. If we did get successful at any level at all I want it to be on the merit of the music we’ve produced.

“What makes it fun for me is having a certain idea of how I want to come across to young women. At the end of the day I want to go home and be able to look friends and colleagues in the eye and be like, ‘this is exactly how you would have wanted me to do it”.

I wanted to drop that in because, even at the start of their career, there was this confidence there. Maybe it was more a knowledge of how they wanted to project themselves and what CHVRCHES was about. One of the most remarkable things about them is how they have developed and shifted their sound between albums.

After the success of their debut, The Bones of What You Believe, CHVRCHES found themselves in huge demand regarding live gigs. Going back to that Sound on Sound interview, and the band were asked about touring and what that was like. They were also posed the question of how they are going to progress musically onto their third album (they were promoting their second album, Every Open Eye):

“A large part of the success that Chvrches have enjoyed can be put down to their relentless touring, which in the wake of The Bones Of What You Believe included seven tours of the US within the space of two years. With the release of Every Open Eye, they will be returning to the road with a similarly tireless schedule, and at the same time working up ideas for their third album with their portable recording rigs.

“The back end of the last campaign, I kind of threw myself into that stuff,” says Doherty. “Iain and I both have mobile rigs. I’m just running Cubase on a Mac with all the soft synths. No hardware on the road really. Iain’s got a Prophet 12 module that he uses, but I’m not so bothered, ’cause I’m not thinking about sounds all the time, I’m just thinking about getting as many ideas worked up as possible. I’ll go with an interesting drum beat, one element and then a vocal, like a verse/chorus, draw the line under it and onto the next thing.

“I use it as a means of therapy over anything else. When you’ve been on tour for two years and you haven’t flexed a creative muscle for months, then you just feel like a promo machine that plays gigs. I’d go in in the morning, say my hellos and then just retreat to the corner of a venue and write and mess around and try things. When you’re on tour for as long as we are, you have to evolve to an extent. Otherwise you won’t write for two years.”

Which begs the question: how do Chvrches imagine themselves developing musically from this point? Given their post-rock background, might that experimental genre begin to creep more into their sound? “You mean, are we gonna chuck out all the synths and get back to the guitars?” asks Doherty. “I dunno. By the time we get there, it might feel right for the proper departure.”

“So,” Cook grins, “it’ll be banjos on album three”.

I need to spend a large chunk of time with their previous album, Love Is Dead. Released in 2018, it is one that saw a lot of sonic and physical change for the Glasgow group. Recoding in Los Angeles and New York (in addition to London), the group brought in producers such as Greg Kurstin, Ice Mike and Steve Mac. Given their success and ambition, this was the group expanding their music and geographical horizons. Despite the fact that they relocated to New York and worked with producers who could add a certain lustre and shine to their work, there was not too much glamour to be found in Love Is Dead. This interview from Classic Pop provides some further explanation:

“It’s 11.30am on a Friday in New York. Spring has started in earnest – but Chvrches, the three-headed pop phenomenon from Glasgow, are here and it’s tipping it down… “This is classic Scottish weather, there’s no denying that,” announces the baseball-capped keyboardist/sampler Martin Doherty as Lauren Mayberry, the band’s upbeat singer, surveys the grey skies. Immediately lightening the mood she beams: “I’m feeling very efficient and productive. I’ve already done my recycling, gone shopping and been to the gym.”

The pair are joined by the perma-enthusiastic keyboardist/guitarist Iain Cook and, despite the rain following them from Scotland, the trio are in a cheery mood… and they have ample reason to be. After two albums made at their own studio on a Glasgow industrial estate, Chvrches now all live in New York – and the change of scenery has made for their most adventurous and defiant pop album yet.

You can take Love Is Dead at face value and luxuriate in an album stuffed with anthemic bangers if you want. But that would be to ignore Mayberry’s progression as one of pop’s smartest lyricists, fitting wise advice and yearning restlessness around a succession of infectious hooks.

Cook’s description of the epic Graves as being: “So triumphant and so defeated at the same time,” is a fine summary of the album as a whole. “That is kinda how I feel at the moment,” nods Mayberry.

With production and writing input from Greg Kurstin (hitmaker for Adele, Foo Fighters and Lily Allen) and pop behemoth Steve Mac, whose credits include Leona Lewis, The Wanted and JLS, Love Is Dead is a record that expands the band’s world, but retains the crackling energy that has made Chvrches a byword for uncompromising intensity.

This is no surprise, considering the trio seemed determined to make their new working life in New York as unglamorous as possible.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

I am not sure how many bands like CHVRCHES – in terms of their sound and where they are from – have moved to New York for an album and undergone such a shift. I guess it seemed like a natural move. Always looking to move forward and search for a particular sound, it is interesting that CHVRCHES wound up in The Big Apple. Coming back to that Classic Pop interview. Whilst Mayberry was fairly eager to get over there, there was one member of the band who needed a bit more persuasion:

“Mayberry was the first Chvrch to move to New York, at the start of 2016, determined to see if the city lived up to the romantic vision of musical inspirations such as Debbie Harry and Karen O. She also needed new vistas to write about.

“I’d written as much as I could at my kitchen table in Glasgow,” she smiles. “I just didn’t want to write the same songs over again. Whenever we start a record I get a psychological block. Even though that block is just psychological, it’s there. And putting myself in a different place gave me a different mindset. Coming here took me outside of my comfort zone.”

The singer was soon joined in New York by Cook, whose American girlfriend lived there. “I had loved the city whenever I’d visited, and I soon fell in love with the place once I was living here,” he says.

And the relationship? “That didn’t go so well,” he grimaces. “I lost a girl but gained a city.”

If it started to seem natural for Chvrches to make album three in New York, their final member needed persuading. Doherty, a self-confessed homebody, was happy in Glasgow with his young family. “Martin did complain about the idea,” admits Cook. But he was eventually won over by the idea of fresh inspiration, however lonely it got being so far away from his family. “It was fraught,” he states simply. “Those first six months were pretty difficult.”

At least the music owed soon enough, helped by some familiar home comforts. Doherty takes up the story: “We went from working in an industrial estate in Glasgow to working in an industrial estate in New York. We transported as much gear over as we could, but New York is ludicrously expensive, so we were working in an industrial unit a quarter of the size of ours back in Glasgow. We were recording during the summer, so it was really hot and sweaty. The mood was pretty intense, which brought a different energy to the songs”.

One might assume that a city like New York would be quite intense for CHVRCHES. Not to suggest they are fishes out of water. More that it is a pretty big scenery alteration from that of Glasgow. I want to source from a 2018 interview from The Guardian. Being in a country who, at the time, had Donald Trump as President must have been alarming and angering for Mayberry. There is a particular (political) section of the interview that intrigued me:

“Apart from the pollen count twice that of Glasgow, New York has been good to Mayberry, who enjoys the anonymity, being able to “mind my own business and be off-grid a bit”. Her boyfriend, the actor Justin Long, has just told her about the Chappaquiddick incident, when Teddy Kennedy drove his car off a bridge in Massachusetts in 1969, swam free but left his 28-year-old female passenger inside. For Mayberry, the key point is: he was still allowed to continue in politics. Whether she likes it or not, she is always “on”. She talks about the rebrand of Playboy magazine: “I know women who are saying it’s really empowering. You can’t reclaim the concept of Playboy: you’ve all got fucking Stockholm syndrome!”

She suspected Trump would get in when she watched the presidential debate that aired after the pussygrabbing incident. “The approval ratings were still up, and people were still listening. They’re talking about illegitimate babies and affairs now, but people didn’t care at the time that he bragged about assaulting women, so…” She still gets a shock when she sees signs saying “no concealed weapons in this movie theater”. She spoke out against Florida senator Marco Rubio’s gun control policy recently in the wake of the Parkland school shooting, and got a tweet from someone who threatened to come to a Chvrches show with an AK47. “Rubio is a weasel,” Mayberry says. She grew up 10 miles away from Dunblane, and was eight at the time of the school shooting there”.

PHOTO CREDIT: DIY

I think that it is important looking at a previous album when it comes to an artist’s new work. You get that sense of background and build up that can add texture and weight to what they are doing now. Circling back to the Classic Pop interview, Mayberry discussed turning thirty during the making of Love Is Dead - and how she is channelling her anger more now:

“During the making of Love Is Dead, Mayberry turned 30. She didn’t think it would be a big deal – “Being in a band is an extended adolescence, so I don’t know if I’ve reached the level of maturity I should have by now” – but it was perhaps inevitable that such a considered writer began to take stock. “I’m more careful about how I treat people,” Mayberry explains. “I can’t tell if I’m more sensitive to life’s insensitivities, or if they’ve always been there and I just haven’t noticed.”

At the same time, Mayberry says the best thing about starting a new decade is being less concerned how others view her. “A lot of people have a lot of opinions about Chvrches,” she laughs. “And I honestly couldn’t give a fuck anymore.”

As is writ large in pulsing new songs such as Graffiti and Heaven/Hell, Mayberry is learning how to channel her anger. “It’s important to realise certain things are fucked and get really upset about them, while trying to find a different way of manifesting that than anger,” she reasons. “Sitting screaming at each other isn’t going to achieve anything and it’ll rot you from the inside. I’m trying to be manageably angry and productive! Nobody is meant to be happy all the time. If I was cheerful all the time, I’d write crap songs”.

I think that one reason why Love Is Dead is very different-sounding compared to CHVRCHES’ previous two albums is the producers they worked with and the studios they were based out of. It makes me wonder about the personnel and possible producers for the band’s fourth album.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mike Massaro

Coming back to the interview in The Guardian. Among others, CHVRCHES got to work with the legendary Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) on a particular Love Is Dead track:

“On their very first day working with Dave Stewart, one of the band’s electro-pop gods, a strange thing happened. When the time came for Stewart’s customary martini (6pm), he held Mayberry back and fired up a video clip of Milla Jovovich giving a rousing speech in the 1999 film Joan of Arc. Stewart said something to the effect of: “You could be that, but you don’t want to be. I can see it in the interviews, I can see it in the performances, you want to be this thing... but you’re not doing it.”

Mayberry was miffed. “He was making me wax on and wax off!” she says, thinking of Karate Kid. “I was like, what do you mean, Mr Miyagi? Have I not tried hard enough? But he was right. As a frontperson you are the first point of contact for the band. Are you really connecting with people? Maybe you’re just a little downtrodden, and you’re trying 75%. Does 100% feel too vulnerable?”

Stewart taught the band a lot, but they found the sessions felt old when they came to make the record. With Greg Kurstin, there was a particular naturalness in their personal chemistry. They wrote the first single, Get Out, on the first day and then cancelled the rest of the speed dates. Kurstin “felt easy and safe – safe to try out new things,” says Mayberry. “There was a lot of talk about what people were going to have for lunch. It wasn’t someone trying to pull us into their world, or make a pastiche. The people we ended up connecting with most were the British people – Dave, Steve Mac [who produced the track Miracle, widely described as a banger] – and Greg has worked with a ton of British acts. Maybe there was an understanding of that sense of humour, and that sense of melancholy. We never wanted to be the Scottish band that went to LA”.

Aside from the production team, I feel Love Is Dead is the album where CHVRCHES had a definite plan regarding altering their sound and making that leap. I think, compared to their first two albums, Love Is Dead sounds more stripped and rawer; perhaps closer to how they would sound performing the songs on the stage. This is no coincidence. As they told Classic Pop, getting that particular sound down was very important to them:

“When Chvrches began Love Is Dead, they only had one definite plan. “We wanted to sound more like a live band,” recalls Iain Cook. “We’ve always felt like a rock band and all three of us have long histories in rock, so it was inevitable we’d eventually turn in that direction. We’ve stripped it back for this record.

“We want to be less reliant on backing tracks and computers, so that eventually everything on stage could be played live. That’s not unrealistic, especially with Love Is Dead, which was written with a live set-up in mind.”

Conscious of that, Chvrches’ live line-up has been expanded with the addition of Jonny Scott, session drummer for The Kills. There are plans for a bassist to join the touring band, too. Scott played drums on Gun and Night Sky on debut album The Bones Of What You Believe and was at university with Martin Doherty. “We passed each other in the hall in our first term,” laughs Doherty. “We both had Radiohead t-shirts on, so we nodded at each other. We’ve kept in touch and he is a great keyboardist as well as a drummer”.

Before moving to discuss the new track from CHVRCHES, it is important to talk about quite a dark and upsetting topic. The band’s lead has had to deal with a lot of online abuse and threats through her career. It is something many women (sadly) have to face in the music industry. Whilst I hope things are less intense now, there was a period where Mayberry was encountering a lot of disturbing comments. She discussed with The Guardian (in 2018) why she was not on the Internet much:

“She says that being “short” automatically makes her the cute, infantilised little girl, but her outspokenness results in the “angry” tag and confuses people. “Do you make yourself unpalatable and find yourself out at sea?”, she says to me. “Or do you take internet breaks, when too many people Photoshop cum on your face?”

This last example happened recently, for which reason she is currently “not on the internet”. When Chvrches started out, she used to read all the comments from fans because she managed the band’s Facebook page. When the rape threats started, she screen-grabbed and retweeted them. She got immediate responses: “This isn’t rape culture. You’ll know rape culture when I’m raping you, bitch,” said one. She wrote a piece for the Guardian, in 2013, about online sexism, years before #MeToo made the discussion commonplace: “My hopes are that if anything good comes out of this, it will start a conversation… encouraging others to reject an acceptance of the status quo,” she said. To anyone who asks whether she makes things worse for herself by responding to the trolls, she replies that such questions are part of the problem”.

It got to a point where Mayberry was receiving so much abuse online, the band had to have a list of names and photos at their live gigs to ensure that various people were not allowed entry. In the time of #MeToo, and keeping on that Guardian interview, one has to sympathise hugely with Mayberry and the band:

“I don’t want to sound negative here but I don’t know any lady that was surprised by #MeToo. But I do feel that if you’re lucky enough to already be successful in the industry, you must put your money where your mouth is. If you continue to work with certain directors, or certain producers, then you’re saying a thing, but not being the thing. You can’t turn around and make money from exactly the same system that’s oppressing everybody else.” She pauses, looking a bit melancholic. “See, this is why I can’t have a nice time…”

The unsavoury individuals have not altogether disappeared, and the band now has a list of the names, photos and locations of certain people (“the ones who are the most aggressive and delusional”), which is handed to a security company on tour for due diligence. Venues can’t exclude paying customers unless they’ve actually done something – so, surreally, these chaps come in to watch the show, flanked by security guards. “It’s just someone on the internet till it’s not,” Mayberry says.

“You can’t come to our shows and not be aware of this stuff now. We made this a thing that we talked about. You’re always getting ‘girl in a band’ questions, so at least have a constructive conversation about it. It doesn’t take that long, you know? It only takes two seconds of your life to say: ‘I don’t agree with white supremacy. I don’t agree with homophobia.’ I think about politics, so it would be inauthentic not to talk about it”.

I just want to stick on #MeToo and Mayberry before coming to the review itself. Pitchfork asked about the #MeToo movement in 2018 and whether she has noticed a change in how women are treated at this time:

LM: It’s great that people are speaking up, but I want to see what happens in the next couple of years–if people actually put their money where their mouth is. So many people are being fully genuine about it, but there are some people who are definitely using it as a way of finding some kind of branding niche and that’s kind of fucked up.

Ultimately, that will bring the message toward a more mainstream audience and that will change the way that people think in the future. We have to hope that symbolic gestures like wearing white roses on red carpets will translate into actual action. Will the Grammys actually look around the room, at the people and companies they represent and how they treat people? I don’t know. It has to be more than lip service. Otherwise, we’re just going to end up in the same situation.

Maybe it will make my job easier. There’s definitely a lot of praise being given out for behavior that five years ago was getting me called a horrendous cunt. Maybe you won’t get called a horrendous bitch anymore for speaking out. I do think that’s progress.

There were definitely times on the last couple records where I thought, “There’s a certain point in time where I think I’ll get tired of doing this.” Not playing in this band or saying those things, but being the person that has to say that obvious thing and then has to take the kicking. That takes a toll because you’re still a person. You’re a performer, but you’re still a person.

The absolute last thing I want to explore before coming onto tackling He Said She Said is the sense of expectation that is placed on Lauren Mayberry. Certainly by 2018, she was being judged and commented on with everything she did. Maybe it is the fact she tackles politics and speaks out when needed. Mayberry discussed this with The Guardian (in the same interview I have quoted from) and the types of abuse she was facing. Band member Martin Doherty also makes a very good (and direct) point:

“Now, Mayberry occupies a unique space whereby even the smallest gesture – putting on a frock – is a political act. “I can look back at pictures of us and trace the mental health issues,” she says. “At first we were having fun – the early press shots are a bit more theatrical and escapist. Then I started wearing baggier and baggier clothing, and less and less makeup, trying to make myself as inoffensive as possible, and it didn’t change anything – if anything, the online abuse increased. A couple of days before the first record came out I was sitting in a hotel room thinking: ‘I am so over this, and yet it is what I have wanted to do since I was 17.’”

In summer 2015, she attracted more trolls because she wore a dress in the video for a song called Leave a Trace. Shorts and T-shirt made sense as a feminist, it seemed, but not a black frock and heels. “Hypocritical... slut... bitch... whore...” they said. “Cavemen,” she retorted.

“I see this across all aspects of culture, especially with a particular type of female artist,” Doherty told me earlier. “I don’t totally understand it. It is very deep and very complex and very fucked-up”.

I love the video for He Said She Said. We see what looks like a waterlogged studio that is brightly light. With red and peach tones, there is this spinning device in the middle of the space. Cutting to images of a darkroom and photos being processed, one already guesses regarding the concept and symbolism. Maybe the photos are to do with consent and truth; a woman who has pictorial evidence of something bad happening. With some 1980s-sounding synths and a punchy beat, you are instantly hooked into the song. I have always liked how Lauren Mayberry sings. There is such force and passion in her voice! In terms of tones, she reminds me more of a U.S. Pop singer than a ‘traditional’ Scottish artist. That might sound vague, though there is a distinct sound that one might associate more with artists across the pond. The first verse puts us more in a domestic scene with two disconnected lovers: “He said, "You bore me to death"/"I know you heard me the first time" and/"Be sad, but don't be depressed"/Just think it over, over and/He said, "It's all in your head"/"But keep an ear to the grapevine" and/"Get drunk, but don't be a mess"/Keep thinkin' over, over/I try”. In the video, Mayberry (sporting blonde hair; as opposed to her usual darker hair) has her image cut, stretched and mutated. We see more photos being developed. It is a nice stylistic choice for the video that I feel gives one a new insight into the song. I am always interested in how a video can alter one’s interpretation of song compared with listening to audio alone. There is a nice mix of the ‘80s and the present in terms of the visuals and the song.

Mayberry’s incredibly strong voice is supported by a huge production sound. There are processed vocals and a sense of polish on the song. That said, as with all CHVRCHES music, there is a gutsiness and rawness that pushes the song forward. Mayberry’s vocal here is one of her very best. When she repeats the line “I feel like I'm losin' my mind”, there is something intoxicating and dizzying about her delivery. The band have crafted a superbly rich and colourful composition with spades of nuance and depth. There is contradiction, coercion and conflict on the next verse. When Mayberry sings “He said, "You need to be fed"/"But keep an eye on your waistline" and/"Look good, but don't be obsessed"/Keep thinkin' over, over/I try”, I wonder if there is malice and abuse from the man or whether the comments are more throwaway. In any case, they are lyrics that many women can relate to. I would be interested to know where the band got inspiration for the song and whether Mayberry is coming from a personal angle. The combination of echoed/processed vocals and a straighter layer creates this sort of dialogue. One gets the impression of a sense of madness and haunt in the mind of the heroine. The lyrics definitely are definitely powerful and moving: “But it's hard to know what's right/When I feel like I'm borrowin' all of my time/And it's hard to hit rewind/When I feel like”. With its incredible video and CHVRCHES summoning something very special, He Said She Said is a tantalising taster of their new album. I think the chorus, despite its heady and evocative mantra (where Mayberry feels as if she is losing her mind), is so catchy and has this kick that will have live crowds bellowing it out before too long! It is another belter from the Glasgow band!

PHOTO CREDIT: Shaun Wootton

A lot of people are going to be looking ahead to the new album. Not too much is known about it at the moment. When speaking with The Guardian last year, we discover more about what direction CHVRCHES are taking:

“What’s the overall vibe for the album?

We sat inside and listened to music that we really loved all year, like Depeche Mode, the Cure and Brian Eno. I wanted the music that was the most comforting to me and that era of tunes was very formative for our band. It’s not the frilliest of Chvrches records, but I don’t think that now is necessarily a time for frilliness.

How have the events of 2020 shaped the music you’ve been working on?

We had a lot of the ideas and the concepts before this year started and got a few weeks of writing in before everything shut down, so we kind of knew what we were getting on with. The theme of it didn’t necessarily change, but it evolved because of the circumstances of 2020. I think it was also helpful for us to be removed from the bullshit of the music industry. Everybody says that you don’t think about that stuff when you’re making a record, but in practice you totally do. You might shut the door, but it’ll sneak in the window. Everyone always has advice and opinions about what you should do; everyone else knows best. But it was nice to go: ‘Fuck it!’

PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Louise Bennett/DORK

What was it like to work within the limits of the pandemic?

You have to fix your communication to such an intense degree, because you don’t get the things that you would normally be able to from somebody just being in a room. You have to be communicating at the highest level of efficiency and openness. That was long overdue. There was eight years of band baggage that needed to be unpacked and fixed, and so it was really beneficial for us to have that time apart. As a result, I think this is the most excited that anybody in the band has been about an album since the first record. With the first album there were no expectations on it. I think expectation and pressure does impact people a lot. I can’t speak for the guys [bandmates Iain Cook and Martin Doherty], but for me this year has been an exercise in being less terrified that everything is going to go away. Because it already went away. With the album, it was actually quite helpful to sit in a room with no one else there and actually write down some of the stuff that you’re most terrified of.

Do you feel a pressure to keep up with how quick pop changes?

Iain and Martin like to be across what is happening for production stuff. The vocal production on the Billie Eilish album is absolutely phenomenal – that is an advancement in pop music. We want to be aware of it because there’s just awesome pop music and you can learn something from it. Learn the production tricks but don’t learn the other parts: I think that was the challenge of this album. We did two albums that existed in a certain space, and by the third record it felt like what we were doing had been popularised by other people. How do you run that race next to other people? Well, we’ve realised that we don’t have to run that race. You’re never going to win in a race that is saturated by people who are bigger, better and more popular, so you might as well pivot and go somewhere else”.

I really love He Said She Said. I am looking ahead to see what comes next from CHVRCHES. They are a band who always deliver incredible music. Keep your eyes peeled for sparkling more new music. Almost a decade since the group formed, they have grown into a huge international act. When it comes to the remarkable CHVRCHES, I think that they are…