Photo:
How many albums do you think Athlete have sold? Go on, have a guess. No ideas? Athlete's first album, Vehicles & Animals sold more than 250,000 copies, that's how many. That's a quarter of a million. That, friends, is a lot, especially for a debut album. And even more so for a band that have seemed to sneak up on us - notching up a Mercury Award nomination on the way - without anyone really seeming to notice. While the Franzes and Snow Patrols of this world have had every minute of their meteoric rise thrust under our begging snouts by the armies of music press spiders, Athlete have rather quietly become one of the biggest bands in Britain.
Catching up with the Deptford foursome, four days into their first proper tour for over a year, and in the lead up to the release of their second album, Tourist, Gigwise finds them pretty relaxed.
Given that a year ago, Snow Patrol were supporting them, and that in between it's been one of the most eventful years for British music in a decade, even this most relaxed of bands must surely have felt the pressure to come up with something special? Not according to bassist and vocalist Carey Willetts.
"I don't think we found it that difficult to write, actually," he says, visibly relaxed. "The first album did quite well but it was quite a slow process, so we never really felt like we were this huge band or anything. We just felt we were this band who enjoyed making music and that's what we do. We actally started writing this new album before the Mercury nomination, even before Glastonbury [in 2003], and a few of the tracks on it we actually played live on a few of the tours back then. If you start writing that quickly after, you don't feel the pressure so much. So on the whole it's just been a really enjoyable experience."
Fair enough. But now, with British acts conquering all before them, they must be a bit nervous, releasing an album while all this stellar talent is shining so bright? Once again, Carey refuses to get flustered.
"You can't help but feel a little bit nervous, because it's just before your album comes out and you can't help but worry if anyone's going to get it," he admits. "You're giving a part of yourself away to people, who then have an opinion on it, which can be hard, or can be fantastic, so there's that degree of nervousness. But I don't think that we could have done any better, and I'm really proud of it."
Drummer Steve Roberts is similarly positive. "I think it's a much better position to be in a band knowing that people are going out and buying records by actual bands. It's much better than if everyone was saying that no bands had sold any records in the last twelve months."
Alright then, what about the music press? Everyone gets shirty when someone has a pop at them, and despite shifting units and winning over the fans, Athlete haven't always been flavour of the month with the critics. Surely this must be a concern?
Heck, no.
"I don't think you can help but care about what people think about you," muses singer and frontman Joel Pott. "But we're quite lucky in that we've sold records on the back of radio, or people just hearing the music and making their own minds up. We've come to realise that if you play the press game, you can sell records off the back of it, but it's never been where we've come from. And if you do go down that route, then you've got to have your story and play this weird game, which isn't something that's ever really appealed to us. We've never really fitted into any particular scene or anything like that, or done anything that means you'd read about us in the news columns every week, which is just the way we like it, really."
And Carey even goes further "To be honest, we quite enjoy some of the abuse, it makes life more interesting.".
It's just pint-half-full with this lot.
So, where is all this confidence and quiet optimism coming from? For a start, the current single, 'Wires', is busily being A-listed by all and sundry, and is a true taster for the rest of the album. With a more expansive and textured feel, the album retains the jaunty pop hooks of Vehicles And Animals, but is more open about the band's fondness for bands like he Flaming Lips.
"I think the new album sounds quite different", says Steve. "It's bit more reflective, even a bit more downbeat. It's just a bit less throwaway than Vehicles & Animals. Soundwise, we looked at the last album and decided we were really happy with it, but we decided that the mood of the first two or three we'd written was a good direction to go in, so we just wanted it to sound really big, really beautiful - without it being cheesy. We'd used tiny keyboards before that cost two pounds fifty, so to move on from that we thought a 26-piece orchestra would be a logical move."
So, aside from grinning in perfect serenity, blissfully unaffected by the normal woes of any other, mortal band, what's the plan for the year?
"The next single [after 'Wires'] will be 'Half-Light'", says Carey, "and we want to do as many festivals as we can get our hands on. Especially Glastonbury. T In The Park was good too - just when we'd got the Mercury nomination, we did one of the tents there, and it was absolutely rammed. That and V were one of the first times when we were getting people singing every word back to you for most of the songs. That was a really special moment for us."
And there's more.
"We're also planning on going over and spending some more time in America, which we're all really looking forward to. We don't really know what to expect though. We've kind of left America alone up until now. The album only came out there in May last year, which was too late for anything, except to hope that five thousand people buy it just so there's a few people who know who we are. As it turned out, it did a bit better than that, but it was always the plan that we'd really go for it with this album. I don't know though, America traditionally is supposed to like British things, maybe that'll help. We'll see."
Whether this is an optimistic leap too far is yet to be seen. But in a year which will see the grimy East London set overshadowed and drowned out by releases from Franz Ferdinand, and more imminently, Coldplay, Athlete may have got their timing just right, and with 'Tourist', they might just be here to stay.
