It has been almost been a year since The Horrors released their latest album V. Continuing their knack of being ahead of the curve in terms of exploring revivals of sound, their latest studio offering saw the band team up with Grammy Award-winning producer Paul Epworth and using his expertise to explore a newly added dimension of acid house and post-disco at a time when acts are currently only just discovering psych and shoegaze – genres which the Southend-on-Sea squad have subsequently progressed from during their initial explosion.
Given that their image still stems from their garage-goth debut days, it seems incredibly fitting that Gigwise catch up with them at the hanger stage of the Electric Castle festival which falls under the shadow of the Transylvanian Bonțida Bánffy Castle; a fourteenth century neoclassical ruin rumoured to be haunted having been used by occupying German troops during WWII before being burnt as they retreated. There, we were treated to a masterclass in how to enrapture their spectators in the sweltering heat as The Horrors played a set which drew heavily from their latest offering.
Speaking to frontman Faris Badwan beforehand, I ask how they became so adapt at slaying an audience which may not be specifically theirs: “I dunno man, I don't really think about it like that. I get really bored with the same kind of responses,” he answers with casual abandon, cigarette smouldering in one hand, “It’s so easy to say 'Every gig is amazing' but I think the best bands, or my favourite bands, you never really know what the performance will be like until the step out on the stage. It’s not a case of rehearsal, it's more like within the performance there is a bit of uncertainty or risk or danger that mean the shows are a bit unpredictable. So, I would never want to lose that.”
Having just arrived after playing numerous dates across the States and Canada - plus festivals in the UK before that - I ask how you maintain that sense of danger and spontaneity without becoming too contrived. Badwan is quick to remind me that a certain element of pre-planning will likely always happen, but it should never hinder the giddy thrill of allowing each performance to be unique: “For example, I saw the (Jesus And) Mary Chain maybe a couple of years ago and Jim Reid forgot the words to 'Never Understand' at the beginning of the song. It didn't make me enjoy the gig any less. What I mean is; I'm not interested in seeing a Mary Chain who have the feedback in all the exact same places every gig.” I suggest that this is something akin to the Japanese practice of kintsukuroi, where ceramics smashed by accident are fixed using gold rather than glue and the pot is considered more beautiful for having been broken. Badwan ponders on this and explains how this often doesn't reflect in the music created in the country: “Japanese variations of genres – like say they want to be a punk band, sometimes they miss the element of danger that is so important to some of the best examples of those bands. So, its weird that that is a Japanese thing.”
This warts-and-all approach to their onstage appearances ensures that the band have their sights set on giving an honest performance, rather than a flawless one. I wonder if this is the same mentality that they take into the studio, because the key of The Horrors success seems to be a constant and deliberate development of sound which has seen them excel whilst their contemporaries have fallen by the wayside. “It would be fairly opposite to what I was just saying if it had been deliberate,” he remonstrates, “I'd never want to be in that kind of band. As in the band that plans things out and says, 'we're going to do a trip-hop record next'. It's not what I'm good at, personally. For me, I like things to be a lot more natural and intuitive.”
He presses the point by adding: “The album is dictating where it's going, for us. That's how we've always done it. The album is very much dictating what we're going to be doing over the next few years.” I suggest that there must be some element of conscious decision as to the band's direction as their progress has been so relentless, but he insists the recording process always remains largely organic by explaining it doesn't come from sitting in a room discussing where it’s going to come from. "It is more like it is governing where you're going to go. You write a song and then you write another one and the sum of those two songs makes something else. Then you gather six songs together and you have this whole thing that you never intended,” adding “I'd would be very bored if I knew where things were going to over the next few years.”
But allowing the record to find its own path, setting theirs for the oncoming years does not mean that there isn't an element of editing. V saw the singer and bassist Rhys 'Spider' Webb begin by writing songs on acoustic guitar, something of a first for the band. And while the new approach achieved results, it also inevitably led to the creation of material which just didn't fit. It may have worked for songs like 'Gathering', there were many other tracks which were seen to be finished but remain hidden away in the band's archives. Despite professing a genuine love for some of these unheard songs, he makes it quite obvious it is unlikely they will ever be released: “It’s not worth it. You find a group of songs that complement each other and fit as a whole. But then its quite hard to go back to something you've written three years ago as you've mentally moved on.”
With time becoming more pressing and their slot at Electric Castle fast approaching, I ask if they were tempted to revisit any of the songs found of their album debut Strange House, as it would be very fitting to their current surroundings. He immediately says that the coming set wouldn't have any of their more bone-rattling numbers, but they may finally bring them back at some point.
Before Badwan leaves to rejoin his bandmates to take to the stage, I take the opportunity to ask what it is like working on his other projects including producing for experimental pop group Let's Eat Grandma and working with operatic singer and composer Rachel Zeffira in their band Cat's Eyes. I wonder if the lines blur between his various creative outlets. “No. The only time it did crossover is when Cat's Eyes did a version of a song called 'Sunshine Girls' that was written as a Horrors (song) that was written after Strange House and didn't end up on anything else. It didn't really sound like a Horrors song so we did that. Yeah, they're just different bands, might as well be different people.”
But the lines of separation may not be so clear after all, as he tells me that work has already began on The Horrors next record and his extracurricular experiences may actually hint at where their future lies: “I feel like the writing I've been doing with other people has made the process a lot more exciting and easier writing with The Horrors as there are a lot of ideas that can be twisted another way. I mean, the Let's Eat Grandma stuff is a good example. I'm working with SOPHIE (Sophie Xeon), our producer and there is a lot of ideas that through The Horrors lens, we can translate in another way.”
