“I don’t think we’ve ever got nervous before new releases, we’re not that kind of band. We just have this kind of delicious sadism from thinking ‘it would be quite funny if things went really badly. We could just shout at everyone and wallow in it,’” explains White Lies bassist Charles Cave.
Only a band as secure in themselves as White Lies could afford to laugh at possible doomsday scenarios for their new records. But since 2008, White Lies have gone about growing a fan base to rival almost any of their peers. Debut album To Lose My Life shot them instantly to stardom by topping the charts and they’ve never looked back.
Ritual, released in 2011, and third album Big TV both broke the top five in the charts, defying the downward trajectory that many bands suffer after debuting with such a huge record. And all the signs point to Friends hitting the same heights. This confidence, built over almost a decade, flows through the new music.
With that confidence comes a willingness to strip away some of the layered sounds of their earlier recordings and let the melodies speak for themselves, according to Cave.
“As time’s gone on I think we’ve all become more and more attracted to the idea of restraint and simplifying things as much as possible,” he explains. “We all get a kick out of that now, whereas with the first record it was just piling stuff up with layer upon layer. Now in the studio sometimes we’ll take a guitar or synth track off and it’s a relief to realise that it sounds great without it. So I think that’s the main difference with this record.”
Reaction to lead single ‘Take It Out On Me’ has been positive. But inevitably there are some long-time fans who are calling to a return to the style of the earlier material. Endearingly, drummer Jack Lawrence-Brown admits he still checks the comments under the band’s YouTube videos to gauge fans’ reaction.
“It’s the most direct way to get feedback,” he says. “With the new video you can see straight away there’s two camps. One, which is in the minority thank god, is saying ‘go back to the To Lose My Life style, where’s all the dark music?’. But then there are loads of replies of people saying ‘but why would they do that? They’ve already made that record’. And that does fill me with some joy that at least people get what we’re trying to do.”
And even if they wanted to return to the youthful naïveté of their debut, whether it would be possible to recapture that style convincingly is doubtful. It’s certainly something that Cave doesn’t believe can be done.
“I’d be deeply concerned about a band of 28-year-olds who put out a record like our first,” he says. “We’re all very fond of it and we’re not going to slate it in any way. We’re very proud of achieving what we did at that age. But it’s an extremely 18-year-old or 19-year-old album. It’s about as subtle as a kick in the face, it’s got very post-high school lyrics. And that’s great; it’s as it should be. That kind of innocence is extremely attractive and we all get drawn into it.
“There are loads of first records by bands that we all love and you get drawn into the naïveté, even though they’re feigning competence. But innocence is something that you just can’t blag, you can’t fake it. Trying to write an album like that again for us now, it would be like trying to write an email in the style of your 15-year-old self. It’s just not going to be the same.”
The band has just headed to Europe to kick off the tour that will promote their new record. Their first show was in Amsterdam, which is just one of the many European cities that has taken White Lies to its heart. The band are certainly aware of their popularity on the continent and put it partly down to musical history.
Singer Harry McVeigh explains: “Northern Europe is somewhere we do really well. I was talking to a Belgian journalist the other day and he was talking about the history of new wave in Europe, but especially Belgium and the Netherlands, which I found really interesting. He was saying that quite a few new wave bands from America and the UK ended up living there and recording there in the 80s. I think a lot of people in those countries respond well to our music because it reminds them of that era.”
On the road is where the band’s aforementioned ‘delicious sadism’ of doom-laden predictions is most indulged, according to McVeigh. And the combination of the boredom of endless travelling and cabin fever can lead to some ill-judged communications being fired off.
“I remember one time I was sending an email to my manager, so this 45-year-old man,” says McVeigh. “It was fairly well worded and there was no accusation of anything, but for some reason as the end I just signed it off with ‘for fuck’s sake grow up’. It really had nothing to do with the content of the email. They took it really badly. So that’s the kind of thing that can happen. I think we were probably legitimately frustrated about something but mainly it manifested itself through boredom.”
But the fury of aggrieved managers aside, White Lies don’t seem to have too much to worry about at the moment. They are a band so sure of themselves that you wonder what it would take to knock them off their stride. Whatever that turns out to be, it’s safe to say it won’t happen for some time. Long may they reign.
