New album The Beatific Visions further establishes Brakes as worthy contenders for the Brighton crown of cool. Not that they’d be interested in that kind of thing, down to earth fellows that they are. Displaying a casual indifference to the rickety ziggurat of style, their muscular pop straddles both the political and the personal, diesel punk and tuneful acoustic. SUPERSWEET caught up with singer/guitarist Eamon Hamilton and bassist Marc Beatty after their gig at Camden Barfly.
SS: Tell us about new single Cease and Desist, out on February 26th.
Marc: It’s about a game of Poker between God and Satan, inspired by the Book of Job. Rather than God making a bet with Satan and winning, what would happen if Satan won? We’re not religious, but it kind of feels like evil, or what we perceive as evil, is winning in the world at the moment.
SS: You’ve said before that you want to make songs that people still listen to in forty years’ time. Do you think we’ve got that long left?
Eamon: I think every generation wants to believe they’ll be the last. It’s that egotism of being alive – you know, ‘we’re going to be the last ones to see everything’. But no, four hundred, four thousand years, we’ll still be here.
Marc: I think about it every day. If I read papers and watch the television I start thinking ‘Fuck, I might die from something going on in the world' – some political crisis. That might happen to me. But then people in the forties and fifties, during the Cold War… they were shitting themselves to the extent that they were building shelters and had on the television what to do in a nuclear strike.
SS: ‘Porcupine or Pineapple’ is the fastest, hardest track on your new album. Could you explain the metaphor?
Eamon: It’s onomatopoeic.
Marc: That’s not a metaphor.
Eamon: Oh yeah.
Marc: I guess it’s a metaphor for the Christian faith and the Islamic faith. They’re both as bad as each other, battling against each other, doing wrong. Which one’s worse? Which one would you rather not touch?
SS: You guys are pretty much ‘politics in pop’ straight down the line. Do you think people actually listen? Does it make a difference? Or do you just have a duty to express yourself?
Eamon: I think it’s an expression, I don’t think there’s a duty. I’m sure people can work what they want to believe for themselves. If we’re expressing something other people think, good.
SS: Eamon, how much did being in Brakes have to do with you leaving British Sea Power?
Eamon: There were a lot of gigs in a year, and Brakes got booked to do a three month tour and I thought I wouldn’t be able to add my services to British Sea Power in that time. So I thought the best thing was to go, you know…
Marc: ‘Deal or no deal’.
Eamon: Yeah (laughs). They’re in Montreal at the moment mixing their third record. The demo’s I heard sound brilliant. So they’re doing well.
SS: I understand Brakes are supporting The Kaiser Chiefs in Germany soon.
Eamon: We’re going to Germany to take on the Kaiser!
Marc: It was going to be our German album launch.
Eamon: At Club Bastard.
Marc: And then we found out the Kaiser Chiefs had booked their album launch for the same day, so our manager rang up their management company and asked if we could support them because otherwise none of the press in Germany would come to see us. It’s good because they’ve obviously heard of us and they’re happy to have us support them.
SS: Do you often get people meeting you and saying ‘I Heard About Your Band’?
Eamon: The people in the newspaper shop I go to know that I’m in Brakes.
Marc: That’s because you went in and told them. For the video.
Eamon: No, that’s the booze place opposite. For ‘Hold Me In The River’ we did our own video, which we’re quite proud of.
SS: Do you ever get off on the recognition when people latch on to you as members of a band?
Eamon: It doesn’t happen to me.
Marc: Occasionally it happens. A couple of nutbars came up to me tonight. In terms of recognition... yes, if you’re aware of it without people invading your personal space. The internet’s good for that. If someone’s said something nice on the website, that makes me happy.
SS: How do you react to negative reviews?
Marc: Reviewers can pick up on something you didn’t realise was a problem. Especially with reviews for gigs. They might say something and you’ll be like, ‘Yeah, maybe we should do that differently.’ Although if people haven’t done their research, or if they read the press release, decide they don’t like us and start the review with a bad impression, that’s annoying, because they haven’t formed an objective opinion. We’re a band like any other band at the end of the day, People should see the band and say what they think.
SS: Eamon, do you agree with that?
Eamon: Are we a band like any other band? We play music and we play it live. We make our own decisions though. Our decisions aren’t made by dice or by a marketing plan.
SS: You’re with Rough Trade.
Marc: That’s right, they’re brilliant. They let us do what we want.
Eamon: Sometimes I’d like some advice though. We did a few dodgy mixes of our last album. We went to 811 Studios just outside Brighton in early January. We had free run of Jimmy Page’s old mixing desk. We mixed it and the acoustic guitar was too loud. Sometimes you want your boss to say ‘That’s wrong. Remix it’. But they didn’t.
Marc: They’re a bit too relaxed sometimes.
SS: And finally, a message for the fans?
Eamon: (Adopts E.T. voice) Be good.
Marc: Drink beer.
Eamon: Be good. Drink beer.