Photo:
It’s pretty safe to say that The Rakes’ debut LP ‘Capture/Release’ will soon be hailed as one of the landmark albums of 2005. Imbued with intelligent, grounded and bloody funny lyrics it’s the soundtrack to post-millennial lives of tedious 9 to 5 existences, getting lashed with your mates at the weekend at the local boozer and waking up the following morning bleary eyed and lying next to a female Geoff Capes. Christ, within its 34 minutes, the album even delves in to potent topics such as German spies and Darwinian Theory. Add to this a healthy smattering of searing and energetic tunes that perfectly compliment the subject matter and you’re really on to a winner.
Gigwise duly caught up with the genial, unfeasibly soft-voiced frontman Alan Donohue to discuss drink, drugs, crazy dance moves and Beyonce Knowles, well, naturally…
Clearly flattered by all the hype ‘Capture/Release’ has been receiving, refreshingly Alan hints the album is worthy of such plaudits. Without any trace of gloating, he ponders warmly: “I love the praise, we’ve been given this opportunity to make the perfect album and we tried our best to do that.” He adds, “The lyrics are bold, direct, cool and we’re great musicians, I suppose we set a high criteria and did our best.” In fact, Donohue is a man who went to extraordinary lengths to gather depictions of everyday life on the album, “I wrote things down as they were happening on the nearest thing to me, whether it be a word document, I even wrote lyrics in my phone. It’s an old battered one but it’s got an option to make a new folder where I stored them all.” May well be worth something on eBay in a few years, then.
For anyone uninitiated with the brilliant ways of The Rakes, Alan describes the music as “cerebral, fun, honest and bold,” that’s “a reflection on our hectic stressful lives in London.” Very contemporary and witty, there’s an abundance of lines on ‘Capture/Release’ that anyone who’s lived even a moderately debauched life could relate to. It’s somewhat surprising then, that for a work positively oozing with lyrical dexterity and brilliant one-liners that Alan picks the following bit as his proudest moment, “I’m really proud that we managed to work Wetherspoons pub in (‘Work, Work, Work…’). That was pretty hard to do! I guess it featured quite a lot when I had a regular job, just going to the pub after work, socialising and meeting up with the lads.”
As lines like “I just woke up, everything was fucked!” suggest, the trimmings of alcohol are a recurring theme throughout The Rakes’ album. Yet, Alan is keen to point out both that the band are not alcoholics and they didn’t go out their way to write about the demon drink, as he elucidates: “We don’t drink any more than other young people really, it’s just a part of our lives. We’re not massive boozers; I’m Not Shane McGowan or anything! It’s not a massive deal, drinking is a normal thing and just part of every day life really… So yeah, drinking is a part of the album, but it wasn’t a conscious effort to write about being leery, it just came natural.”
Fortunately, it seems that Alan is going to live out the rock n’ roll cliché and die at the age of 27-and-a-half in a drug den with a heroin needle stuck in his arm. He explains drugs just don’t float his boat: “I don’t really do other drugs. I haven’t really tried anything much, when I’ve had weed it just made me fall asleep in the corner… I suppose I ought to be doing loads of drugs as a rock n’ roll frontman but it’s just not my thing.” Instead, somewhat romantically he extols the virtues of the social side of drinking at your local, something he misses with permanently being on the road, “In a 9 to 5 job there’s things you take for granted that I miss, like being able to go to the pub with your mates. Yeah I miss the Friday night piss up.” Bless.
Back to the album then, and Alan seems genuinely enthralled by the input man-of-the-moment producer Paul Epworth - a man with The Futureheads, Maximo Park, Goldfrapp and The Streets on his roster to name just a few. He enthuses: “Paul’s a cool guy. A lot of the songs we were recording were two years old and it was easy to feel jaded with them. But he was really excitable which really rubbed off and got us going. At times he got a bit over excited we had to pull him back and calm him down and say sit down Paul! I’d say ‘Open Book’ was changed for the better – the version that we play live now is Paul’s, and the slower ones, by our standards anyway, like ‘T Bone’ and ‘Binary Love’ were full of his ideas.”
Away from the lyrical content, Alan sees The Rakes’ music as having quite a simplistic aim “We try to make music with a decent beat for people to dance to. I mean our music is not just about lyrics, we try to write each song as a vehicle for the lyrics. There’s some brilliant R n’ B songs out there like Beyonce’s ‘Crazy in Love’ (did we hear you right Alan?) which are amazing musically, but have got crap lyrics. Maybe if we write a song as good as ‘Crazy In Love’ with good lyrics, that would be great.” Okay…
In fact, these R n’ B references seem to run deep. Anyone who’s bore witness to a Rakes live show, will no doubt be acquainted with Alan’s slightly off-kilter, arm-flailing dance moves. His body-shaking idol is quite unexpected: “I’d like to do some of the moves on reggae videos, people like Shaun Paul - he does some cool moves. I’d like to do some of them but I’m just a skinny white man so I probably couldn’t pull it off.” Ahem. Thankfully the origins of Alan’s dance moves have much more innocent beginnings, he explains: “I remember the first gig we did, I had no instrument to hold on to so I wasn’t sure what to do. I just went by instincts and started dancing. Now I’ve got this reputation for mad dancing and I think shit I’ve got to do this at every gig now!” We wouldn’t expect anything less, Alan.
Naturally, considering The Rakes’ angular indie/rock sound, their occasional flirtations with ska (e.g. ‘Violent’) and their incredible deft lyrics, music journalists are keen to draw parallels to an amalgam of other artists. It’s something that both baffles and pleases Alan: “We never consciously try to be like other bands. We’re sometimes pleased with the comparisons like Bloc Party or Mike Skinner. I mean, Mike Skinner I don’t like all his music, but the lyrics are great, they’re unpretentious and direct, so yeah it’s okay when people call us the indie/rock Mike Skinner. When people compare us to Joy Division or The Libertines, I’m just not sure where they’re coming from.” Us neither.
As for kindred spirits and Alan sees a definite affiliation with Bloc Party – a band The Rakes recently toured Japan and Europe with, praising them he says: “They’re really intelligent and put a lot of thought into their lyrics, we’re more direct and are less cryptic, but I think their songs – especially the faster ones – are really powerful.” Alan also sees the specials as a major influence in their sound, “We all like the Specials’ ‘Do Nothing’ which has the same sentiment as ‘Work, Work, Work…’, so yeah there’s a ska sound on some parts of the album.”
Looking to the future, first there’s toppling Chris Martin from the title of the ‘World’s Sexiest Vegetarian’ – something the very vegan Alan feels strongly about, “The guy who won it the year before, Andre 3000, he just oozes sex appeal, I’m not gay by the way. I don’t think that Chris Martin should have knocked him off… I’ll have to work at it!” Better still, Alan confirms they’re pretty adamant on topping their debut album, he enthuses: “We’ve got some ideas for quite a few new songs, but we need to get together and plan things... We’re ambitious, hungry people. I suppose we want to move up a level, do an album that’s even bolder and keep it coming.” We can’t wait already Alan.
