Photo: Press
The Horrors' Faris Badwan is fresh off stage at Festival Number 6 after playing a fifteen track set with the simply captivating group, Cat's Eyes. The stage (named the Estuary Stage) is facing the estuary of the river Dwyryd where the steep mountains of Snowdonia rise staggeringly tall above the shore, piercing the misty silver clouds.
There aren't many more beautiful places in the world to be playing a gig and the crowd have adored every last bit. It's also where the Prisoner was set.
"I've never played here before and having been really into the TV show, it’s kind of odd walking through the thing," says Badwan, who is pretty calm and collected considering he's just mesmerised the Welsh crowd.
It is indeed odd, even for someone who hasn’t seen it in fiction. There's something quite baffling about this meticulously well preserved Mediterranean style village in Wales designed by genius architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis. Most towns have grey pebble dashed houses, a few chippy's, and a few Chinese restaurants. This is out of place compared to anywhere around.
Unfortunately, Badwan doesn't have much time to explore here. The rest of the band are packing to go straight to End Of The Road festival, and this interview in a gazebo backstage has to be brief.
The immediately striking thing about watching Cat’s Eyes is the quality of Rachel Zeffira's classical, celestial voice next to Faris Badwan's reverb-y, anthemic tone. Coming from different musical appraoch has resulted in a terrific meeting of minds that's infinitely productive.
“We started writing songs together six years ago after meeting in Camden (we were living on the same street). We were just writing songs for fun. She didn't really know what bands did. She was always acoustic and I was into effects, I guess. Then we had an album by accident we weren’t planning on being a band, " says Badwan, coolly.
What was the approach at the beginning? "Originally the idea was to be like '60s girl group, updated. Then it went away from there. So how has it changed? "Well the structures are a bit looser on the new record," he says, referring to Treasure House that was put out in June.
One notable change just from hearing them today is the Kraut influence on 'Standoff' that creates a ruckus on the dancefloor at Number 6. The mood turns from awe, to loose, and feral. The addition of heavier tracks to their set since this second album makes them a more phenomenal live act for a festival than they would be otherwise.
But albums aren't the main way Badwan intends to spend time with Cat's Eyes going forward: “We’re almost treating like writing songs like writing a film soundtrack, making them cinematic. We did a soundtrack for Peter Strickland’s film, The Duke of Burgundy. That was really cool. The films really good and we did all the score. I guess I’d like to do something like that. I’m more interested in that than us even doing another proper album. I think in some ways it’s a bit more liberating."
This soundtrack he's talking about has been a huge success. They received the European Film Award for best score and it was nominated in the Ivor Novello's. These aren't rockers toying around with symphonies at all.
“She’s an orchestral arranger you know, that’s her thing. She’s really good at it," affirms Badwan. "She’s more talented than anyone else I’ve ever met I think. She used to be an opera singer and she just has insane technique. She's taught me so much about writing songs as well. She’s the person I’ve learned the most from, out of everyone I’ve met in music. To get to work with someone like that where I can take those parts and manipulate them is fun." .
Given Zeffira's classical background this helped them play some pretty spectacular shows so far. Their first gig was at the Vatican in front of several Cardinals. They also played with 30-piece orchestra in London.
It's remarkable therefore that I'm here after watching Zeffira, Badwan, and the rest of the band, which is pretty big line up by normal standards, with a couple hundred people at Festival Number 6. They're clearly not used to roughing it on small stages: "I couldn't hear anything through me monitor" says Zeffira, who has is collecting her things. She's slightly worried she didn't get her best performance and the backing vocalists agree they struggled with on stage sound too.
Obviously they were all pitch perfect and had the audience wrapped around their finger. But striving for perfection does result in some self loathing borne out of frustration of things out of their control. Festival 6 is lucky to have had them do this small stage. Even if it's a frustration for the band, it's priveledge for the fans to see them in such an intimate space.
As for Faris Badwan's other work, I saw him in Camden's Lock Tavern a few days prior to this festival. He was watching hotly-tipped London bans Happy Meal Ltd, who were literally killing it. “I like them, I've produced their first single," he tells me. "I'm also producing a song for Let’s See Grandma. It’s not finished yet. I mean, I like doing that stuff." Both tracks are certain to leave a lasting impression once they drop with both band looking well on course for success. Afterall, Badwan is a top producer in his own right. He’s not had anyone from outside the band interfere with each of their last three albums and they sound classic.
Honing such great songs to the level they have done has been helped by the fact they bought their own studio and have been pressured by time to get things down. The studio they've used was next to The Shacklewell Arms in Dalston.
“We wrote the new album in that studio” he says,” But we’ve moved out to Leyton now but we're not recording there yet. We're recording with Paul Epworth (Adele, U2, Paul McCartney) at his studio in Crouch End at a studio called The Church", he says, referring to the same studio Stone Roses have been working at.
I’m surprised to hear the admission that they’re welcoming an outside figure to toy with the sound but someone of his ilk is only likely to make things soar.
How finished is it? "We've written all the songs but I haven't finished some of the lyrics, the art work isn't done, we don't we don't know what songs are going to get picked." I ask if it'll take up to a year before we see it. “No, I think it will be quite soon.”
I get the sense that the amount of time and creativity put into this record is going to result in something quite special from the band, who've written some of the best songs since Echo and the Bunnymen. With the no compromises approach to getting the sound to the best they can, this could well end up being their masterpiece and push The Horrors to being a big festival headlining band.
