Colour Coordinated: The Maccabees

Taking the past year The Maccabees have enjoyed into account, you’d forgive them if they fancied a little break. The London by way of Brighton quintet saw their profile skyrocket in 2007, going from 'the best new band in Britain', to a group capable of filling mid sized venues up and down the country. Their helter skelter three minute bursts of guitar pop have been eagerly lapped up by fans, both live and on debut album 'Colour It In'. However, meeting with guitarist Felix White and drummer Robert Dylan Thomas in the Glasgow QMU’s dressing rooms, one thing that immediately became apparent was the band’s desire to move onwards and not dwell on their recent success.

Felix, known for his wild eyed on stage look and manic energy, was quick to explain the band’s plans: “We admire bands that make records, that’s what bands do. We don’t want to be touring the same songs for three years or flogging something because you’ll end up feeling like circus performers and going through the motions. We can all play much better now, so we wanna get in and make a record, a better record. There will certainly be more diversity to the next record, I wouldn’t say it’s going to be as soft as 'Toothpaste...', [Kisses, the band’s most recent single] we could even go the other way and go darker and more aggressive, you know? It’s just a nice thing for us to know that we’re capable of doing other things." 

On a roll, he continues: "We’ve got about 8 songs in various stages of completion that we’re working on, the idea is, we’ve been working really hard a it is for a month just getting ready and we demoed a few things. By the end of the year we’ll have 20 songs, hopefully we’ll finish  it in January. Dylan made 'Highway 61' and 'Blonde On Blonde' in a year. How ridiculous is that? And now you’ve got bands who make two records in five years or something.  It’s just like, it’s not of benefit to take more time on records, we want to keep progressing, it’s like The Coral, The Coral made loads of records and they’re a special band because of that. There’s no bullshit to it because of that , they’re not trying to sell you anything, they’re a genuine band constantly moving forward, constantly making music, which is what they should be doing.”

That impression is confirmed by the more leisurely Robert, who, after admitting to being half asleep (always a blow to a journalist’s confidence, that) adds: “We’ve also been playing the songs off the first record for two years now, so it’s nice to have fresh songs to play, as it keeps everyone’s brains from exploding.”

While the band are looking forward, they’re also proud of the success they’ve enjoyed this year and feel that this current jaunt is a fitting way of wrapping up debut album 'Colour It In'. Felix comments: “We’ve been touring for two years, a bit longer than that and going from coming to Glasgow and playing to 15 people, all the way to up to this, this is basically capping off what has been two years of seeing our band grow and more and more people coming to the shows, you know,  it’s like a thanks very much to everyone that’s supported us and for helping us have the best two years of our lives so far… We genuinely are delighted [to be in a band], we’d rather be doing this job now than playing for England or any of those sort of things, so we ain’t going to be grumpy about it.”

He continues: “We exist as a live band. If you can’t play songs live to people then you shouldn’t be in a band, you know?  That’s the best part of being in with love with music, is seeing it in front of you. And I’m happy that we can do that.”