More about: The Wombats

They are the undisputed kings of indie-pop, and even though they're 15 years in, The Wombats are brighter than ever. Their brand new album Fix Yourself, Not The World was released last Friday and it plays on addictive chorus lines and bold sonic waves.

We had the pleasure of chatting to Wombats drummer Dan Haggis all about the new album, the importance of small venues and lyrical honesty when it comes to mental health.  

Gigwise: Firstly, how are you?

Dan Haggis: Good thanks. It’s so nice to be back on the road with the band, playing shows and visiting service stations. It’s been a long couple of years with no tours for us so this vessel that carries me around is very happy with the adrenaline surges each night.

GW: Currently you're out doing a string of shows in small venues unveiling your brand new album Fix Yourself, Not The World to crowds of fans. How important have these shows been for you and why did you decide to do an exclusive album tour before release?

DH: We’d never done album launch shows where we've played the whole new album from start to finish and with this album, given that we hadn’t been able to be in the same room when we recorded the album, we felt it was important for us for ourselves to show fans the new album played fully live. It’s been so fun to hear the songs come to life and see people’s reactions to the songs when they hear them for the first time. Initially, our album was to be released on the 7 January but due to Covid issues at the vinyl pressing plant, we had to push it back by a week. We decided to keep the shows the way they were though!

GW: For the Southsea show for example, you collaborated with Pie & Vinyl record store. How important was it for you as a band to support small venues and record stores with these shows?

Dan: Yeah 100%! We started off playing small venues and often sleeping on promoters' floors and couches so we know how important these grassroots places are for musicians and fans around the country. For our last album we teamed up with the amazing Music Venue Trust to do our album launch shows so it’s always been a concern of ours to make sure these venues and record stores thrive! Also, small venues and intimate record shop performances are so unique and special for artists, the vibe is always incredible.

GW: Sonically the new album feels much brighter and ‘grown up’ then the rest. Was it a conscious decision to push yourselves more as artists on this album?

Dan: We always try to challenge ourselves in some way and on this album we definitely pushed the boat out even further. The first couple of songs we made were 'Ready For The High' and 'Method To The Madness' and for both, we were aiming to make a sound that was completely new for us, to have unexpected rhythmic and tonal shifts throughout the songs. As a musician you’re always evolving, finding inspiration in new places and searching for new sounds, and this album really does feel like a sonic journey unlike any we’ve done thus far.

GW: Fix Yourself, Not The World immediately jumped out at me as a title. My interpretation is that it's about working on yourself and how you feel inside rather than trying to fix things out of your control but is there a specific meaning for the title or a reason why you chose it?

Dan: That’s great to hear! We felt it was a title that everyone will interpret in their own way, and hopefully, it might start some conversations.

GW: Many of your songs touch on mental health in some way such as ‘Worry’ which appears on your new album, or ‘Headspace’ on Glitterbug. Is it important for you to be open up about mental health in some way to your fans? 

Dan: Many of The Wombats' songs touch upon mental health: 'Anti-D' on the second album was a very honest voicing of being on medication for depression. Murph’s lyrics always come from a very honest place and it’s such an important topic to talk about. Making music for us has such a therapeutic side to it, a way to figure out how you’re feeling and we hope that other people out there struggling may take some comfort and relate to what we sing about.

GW: You’ve all released solo projects: Murph with Love Fame Tragedy, you and Tord with ‘Sunship Balloon’ amongst others. Do you have any plans for more solo work outside of The Wombats?

Dan: Yes. It’s been so good for us to all have side projects where we can explore a slightly different side of our brains and pour any excess creative juice. During the lockdowns, it was so good to have multiple projects going on to keep some variation going. If you hit a brick wall with one project, you can bounce to another and get inspired all over again. Also, I feel like all three of us have learnt so much from doing the side projects. It makes us better all round and we’ve brought some of what we’ve learnt and some extra energy back into The Wombats. There’s a lot of material floating around but we’ll have to see when we get time to finish and release any of it as the next year is going to be full on BATS!

GW: Covid permitting, you'll be playing The O2 Arena in April. How excited are you to step out on that stage? I imagine it feels pretty special to be headlining an arena? 

Dan: Yeah it’s pretty surreal to think we’ll be playing there. Last time I was there, I saw Neil Young and Crazy Horse (which was AMAZING!) and I said to my Dad, one day we’ll be up there (kinda joking) but here we are!

GW: Considering you’ve been playing for 15 years now, what does it feel like to see so many young people at your shows that have found your music along the way?

Dan: It’s amazing! We joke that the front of fans at our shows are actually vampires who never age! The energy they bring to the shows is so infectious and it’s so cool to know that some of the music we’ve made over the years is still resonating with young people today.

GW: When recording the new album, Murph was in L.A. whilst you and Tord were in London due to Covid restrictions. How was this experience? Did it allow you to push yourself at all in terms of how you record tracks?

Dan: We’ve lived in different countries for the last six years so we are used to sharing files and ideas but we’d never done an album this way! We knew we had to be really organised going into the process and fortunately we had really good demos we’d made with lots of the production ideas and arrangements very close so our producer Mark (Crew) made an excel spreadsheet and we all made notes on what we wanted to achieve: improvements, changes we wanted to make, and so on day one we had a pretty good plan of action.

One of the positives from this was that I could spend hours getting my drum parts sounding just right and Murph and Tord didn’t need to sit through hours of me whacking different snares! I think it also made the album sonically richer because we were in different spaces with different microphones and instruments.

GW: Is there a particular overall message you want fans to take from Fix Yourself, Not The World?

Dan: The main theme is letting go. The understanding that you can’t control the uncontrollable. The realisation that there’s much more utility in positivity than in negativity and cynicism. Putting your arms around your demons and giving them a big hug.

GW: And finally how would you describe Fix Yourself, Not The World in three words?

Dan: Boundary-less, bold, boss.

Fix Yourself, Not The World is out now.

Grab your copy of the Gigwise print magazine here.

More about: The Wombats