Photo: Tom Pullen/Gigwise
When I meet The Maccabees' frontman Orlando Weeks in a quaint cafe near Elephant and Castle station (very appropriate), he wheels his bike up against the wall and greets me with a smile - offering to top up my glass of water before explaining he’s feeling a little worse for wear. "I’ve been on more planes than ever and I think that’s why I’m just a bit frazzled."
Touring extensively across the US in support of their rousing new album Marks To Prove It, he’s left the rest of his band in Texas, flying back into London for the BFI London Film Festival premiere of Elephant Days before slumping back onto a plane heading to Philadelphia. “But it was so worth it and I loved being there last night. It was really important that someone from the band was representing the film, and I got the golden ticket. I felt really lucky.”
Directed by James Caddick and James Cronin, Elephant Days follows six fascinating stories of people in the area surrounding The Maccabees’ studio in Elephant and Castle, the sanctuary in which their fourth album was crafted during a painstaking two and half year period.
Photo: Gigwise/Tom Pullen
From youth basketball team The Peckham Prides and the local institution of Arments Pie & Mash, to a local tailors, faith healer Mama BB and and community gardeners Richard and Lyla, a beautiful community spirit is delicately revealed amidst the band’s soundtrack - as well as insightful peeks into the process of the album’s recording.
In an amusing studio moment, Orlando lays down vocals for ‘Something Like Happiness’ before the drive crashes and brings the moment to a screeching halt, band member and album producer Hugo White screaming “fuck” in frustration. “That’s alright”, Orlando tentatively replies, “I sung it terribly anyway.”
"The seventh character is the place", James Cronin explains. "We wanted the viewer to watch the landscape and ponder on it, and I think the music really helps to give an idea of the area and the people occupying it."
Far more than just a music documentary, Elephant Days lifts the lid on a culturally rich and forgotten area currently experiencing drastic changes both structurally and socially. It captures the spirit of community, drive and belief that permeates throughout the area in a delicate and respectful way - its wonderful characters staying with you long after the last frame fades away.
Watch the trailer for Elephant Days below
I sat down with Orlando to discuss the documentary, the album and beyond.
You battled with Marks To Prove It for a long time. How did it feel to finally finish the record?
Orlando: "It was a massive relief, but you have to live with it afterwards when you start playing it. It makes even more sense when I think about it in the context of [Elephant Days]. One of the strengths of the film is how it talks about people trying to make something and caring about what they’re creating. To anyone else it might seem like a frivolous thing or a waste of your energy, but as long as you love it and care about it, then you’ll be alright. I feel more and more buoyed by that slant on the film.”
What was it like inviting the two directors into that private, recording space?
Orlando: “James Cronin had made the video with James Caddick for ‘Can You Give It’, and we just feel that they shared our sensibilities and that they’d be easy to have around. They were very good at being there and just settling comfortably into a corner.”
Elephant Days Director, James Caddick says of spending time with the band during the recording progress, “They’re real crafts people and really think about what they do, to the point where it takes them two and a half years to record on album on this occasion. They really cared about the music.”
Was it difficult to expose yourselves during more trying times of recording?
Orlando: “We had to make a deal with ourselves that we were going to show the nuts and bolts of it all. For the most part, recording is very boring and takes a very long time. Of course it’s not the whole story, but it’s a pretty good representation of how claustrophobic and seemingly never ending some of that [process] can feel.”
Ironically, directors Caddick and Cronin's experience editing Elephant Days mirrored the band's battle with the record. "It was filming, editing, filming, editing throughout the whole project", James Cronin explains, before Caddick bluntly interjects, "It was Hell. It felt impossible to get to the core of the stories. We were far too close to it by the end."
With the help of a team of editors, though, they established the film's narrative language and ended up creating a rhythm that is inviting and, most importantly, incredibly moving throughout.
Was there a particular strand of the film that resonated with you the most?
Orlando: “I don’t feel that any one story supersedes the other. I love the way that Arments Pie and Mash shop’s slightly aging clientele is the antithesis of the other end of the scale, with Richard and Leila having their baby.” “With the Peckham Prides, I think the coach says ‘this is bigger than basketball’, and it’s a testament to his sincerity as a coach that it doesn’t seem corny. He means it. And when you’re in a band, you’re also the sum of your parts.”
With the arduous process that was Marks To Prove It, where do you all stand on heading back into the studio?
Orlando: “Whatever happens, we’ll take a bit of a pause. We went too quickly into making this record and that set us back some time. We should’ve given ourselves some headspace, but we were just enthusiastic after the touring of the last record. Fi and I had lots of material, Hugo was going to be producing, and we kind of felt like we had all our ducks in a row.”
“We had this sense of momentum, but it was a touring momentum, not a recording and writing momentum, and we confused those I think. After eight or nine months months, we scrapped a lot of it.”
Has your attitude to touring changed over the years?
Orlando: “Massively. I used to be fine with the fact that we’d arrive somewhere, we’d play for an hour and a half and that was my job done for the day. But actually, the older I’ve got the more I’ve thought that’s not good enough, in terms of just making. Just trying to find some [time] to draw or write...”
After an intense conversation about an important documentary and a life affirming album, we dart off on a tangent about Louis Theroux, Scientology and Paul Thomas Andersoon films. But that's a story for another time.
Seek out Elephant Days immediately and catch The Maccabees when they tour the UK in November.
