Interview: Idlewild by Chris Spillane - 5th August 2005

Author: Chris Spillane

In the depths of London's West End, Chris Spillane has a drink with Roddy Woomble, the front man of Scottish Indie rockers Idlewild. They discuss the band's flirtations with the charts, the student lifestyle, the Big Apple and why Green Day sound like Nickleback.

The recent crop of chart hits and pop success can be delegated to one of three main categories caused by various musical infections (barring the crazy frog which can be accredited to someone who should be extradited for hate crimes against humanity). The first of these is a seasonal problem known as Rip-offus Maximus: Whereby victims strap on their Fender Telecasters and play angular riffs until another new trend sets in. Acquired Overproduced Pop syndrome is second in the deadly trio of infections: Sufferers are subjected to a change in lifestyle, which requires them to collaborate with Guy Chambers (of Robbie Williams fame) and write songs about the pressures of fame and being misunderstood. Symptoms often include a sceptical addiction to something ridiculous like gardening and a flair for meaningless tattoos. The third and most serious is commonly known as Torchsongitis: this plagues victims an overbearing sense of sentimentality, usually with a string quartet harping along in the background. Symptoms include looking intently into the camera with teary eyes in your latest music video, while yet another girl walks out of your life and adds a few million to your bank balance in album sales.

The music industry is a fickle business. Some artists, like James Blunt can rise from obscurity and embrace the spotlight effortlessly. Whereas others can tour for years, putting their hearts and souls into their profession with little or no commercial success. Hopefully in the growing world of music downloads and MP3's the talents of harder working, possibly more deserving acts will be recognised. Please welcome on stage Caledonian folk-rock outfit, Idlewild. Front man Roddy Woomble, lead guitarist Rod Jones and drummer Colin Newton who form the backbone of Idlewild met on a window sill during a party in their halls at Edinburgh University in 1995 where Roddy was studying Photography. Within hours of meeting each other they decided to start a band from their collective appreciation of REM, Sonic Youth and Bob Dylan records. One E.P, four albums and a few hit singles later Idlewild are headlining one of several Grolsch Summerset gigs at the opulent outdoor venue Somerset House, London.

Backstage at Somerset house is just as impressive as the architecture surrounding it. Whilst following the tour manager to Idlewild's dressing room, a slim and softly spoken man appears with a red toothbrush and toothpaste in hand mumbling something about his teeth and walks off for a few minutes, baffled, the tour manager walks off as well and I’m left in the dressing room with Rod and Colin. Colin recently became a father and is in high spirits "Roddy's brushing his teeth, it must be a big interview! Are you ready to hear all about his philosophies and thoughts on life? Where you from?" "Yeah, York Uni." I reply, "Ah well, you're in the wrong business, you want a beer?" as he points to bands rider. I oblige by taking the biggest bottle of Grolsch on offer and talk about drumming until Roddy returns. On Roddy's return, personal hygiene restored, we take a seat by a window overlooking the Thames and in his rich Scottish accent, he opens the conversion "Chris, can you confirm, are there flies flying over there or am I seeing dots?" Behind me there several flies moving in a haphazard manner, dryly I confirm that they are in fact, flies.

Slightly to the left of the mainstream with skirmishes on the charts with singles Modern Way of Letting Go and American English, Idlewild have been moving slowly, but surely into one of Britain's most accomplished and matured bands. The group's fourth studio album entitled Warnings/Promises, sets the premise of the album with Roddy quoting "It summed up what the record is about with it's contradictions." Idlewild seem eager to leave their roots, in particular Roddy who appears to be defensive when talking about their previous records "We're interested in different kinds of music now, we're not interested in the punk rock as we did that as well as we could do and I'd think it be really boring if we did the same thing over and over again." Hearing this may be a disappointment to those who are fans of Idlewild's earlier records, including the quintessential 100 Broken Windows, yet the newer albums still contain the Idlewild of yore "We always reference our past records, there are moments which harp back to what came before and that will probably continue on the next record." Confidence is high in the Idlewild camp as he talks about his aspirations on their next record "We can really do anything now, we can make a really folky record or a really rocky record." Nonetheless anything should encompass slightly more eclectic tastes, maybe some funky house or a dash of eighties romantic-pop. Maybe not.

"I don't really pay attention to them" is Roddy's response to the topical rise of bands such as Razorlight and Kaiser Chiefs, dismissing them for bands he does like. "Malcolm Middleton's record is great and lot of American stuff like The Arcade Fire, but as far as Razorlight is concerned (hesitates) I like the Bloc Party record." Surprisingly Roddy is a fan of stoner rock especially AC/DC and the earlier Queens of the Stone Age records, which from listening to Warnings/Promises isn't clear, yet it's a topic he talks of at great length "Collectively we didn't want to play music like that, but we are capable of it...We do a lot of covers and jamming in our practice space. At the time last year when we were writing and recording the record, what we were interested in was kinda like vocal harmonies and a rootsy sound with acoustic guitars and that's just what Warnings/Promises is about. It was a year of our life and that's the kinda of sounds we wanted to make...It's not pigeon holed as the sound we will always make, but that's what a band is, they go through stages."

Another topic that Roddy talks of with great fondness is folk music, he speaks affectionately of Jackson C. Frank and a whole reel of other folk acts from 60's and 70's who I've never heard of or can decipher from his accent. His folk roots were something that he tried to deny growing up as can be seen on Hope is Important and 100 Broken Windows, yet on the last two records Idlewild have moved and matured into a band not dissimilar to REM. Their sound has become more rounded, more harmonious, maybe more suited for the stadium environment that they've recently been subjected to on recent tours with REM, U2 and Coldplay. It would be easy to assume that Idlewild have compromised their sound for popularity, however Roddy coolly denies these accusations "We're not a complicated band, we're not doing jazz chords as the song writing is like rock music. We do make very melodic music, but we certainly don't sit around tables thinking 'lets get this [record] as radio-friendly as possible', we want to make music like that...Obviously because the vocals are very clear and there's lots of harmonies, it does sound whatever you want to call it, radio friendly. "I suggest that they sound 'big', which Roddy counteracts angrily "No it's not big. It's not like Matchbox Twenty or something. That to me is really radio friendly. There's still a roughness to the way we approach song writing...You don't see much slickness in Warnings/Promises what with all the dirt between the songs."

"We write the songs and we put them out on records and we can't control anything beyond that, but some songs become what they mean to people. We just hope that they've made a connection." says Roddy as he explains how the song writing process operates in Idlewild and that no one aims to write songs hoping for an anthemic quality. Roddy explains that the cover to Warnings/Promises was cryptically "finding your own truth" and represented by a light shining beside a book, which could be the reason why Idlewild aren't more popular. In all probability the single buying public don't understand them or are put off by their intelligence, Roddy continues "Our songs are about things, but there not psuedo-intellectual or anything, they are rock songs." "Are they autobiographical?" I interject, he responds readily "Anything you do is going to be autobiographical, your interview will be autobiographical as you will put some of yourself into it. So, of course they are pretty self-intimate, but not about specific people. They are more kind of ideas about things rather than like 'she was my girlfriend, she was a bitch!' I've never really been interested in that kind of stuff...It's more suggestions about things I've thought that people can take onboard or ignore." The subtleties that lie within the band's lyrics could prove to be a stumbling block in their popularity as I discovered when talking about potential single Not just sometimes, but always "It's a song about the life cycle" stresses Roddy rather ambiguously.

Speaking of his home life Roddy is happy to discuss his love of art, particularly photography which his parents helped develop by building a dark room in their house, yet he reflects on his University days with a sense of melancholy. He dropped out in the second year of his Photography course due Idlewild's hectic tour schedule "You can't really go on tour and study, but I was happy to drop out to be honest...I didn't like being a student, I found it really like school. It was really depressing, it was like the guys at school who had gone and left home for the first time, they thought it was hilarious to puke in the sink. Luckily my course was full of a lot of older people and foreign students, which was quite interesting." He continues at length, identifying the problems he faced at university "I've never really been a student-pub kind of guy, even when I was there I was thinking I don't like this, there's something about this I don’t like." I suggest that this is part of growing up, causing Roddy to act and respond nervously "Yeah, well, erm, I think that is a generalisation because you can choose not to be part of that. I'm not saying I criticise people who do that, far from it and when you ask me about student life, I have to say I couldn't wait to get away from it."

After mixing Warnings/Promises in New York Roddy relocated to the Big Apple for eight months, the decision to move was fairly simple and was met with no ill-feeling by the rest of the band "We were in New York and I wanted to stay there for a while. Have you ever been to New York?" He asks, "I've never been." My reply is met by a shocked expression and suddenly he becomes a spokesman for New York tourism "It's just a great place, it's unlike any city in the world. It just brings you to life...The thing about New York is that it has elements of London in it, in it's own fashion, it's nicer to look at for a start, architecturally and the way it looks especially the Lower East side where I lived. It's hard to explain, obviously you've been to London then you have to go there and you could see it's so different. It sounds stupid me trying to explain it but it's one of these places you do need to go sometime in your life." Eventually the comforts of home won him over "But ultimately it's one of these cities that you can always go there and I found out that I was missing being surrounded by my friends, so I moved back to Scotland." Roddy compares the UK and USA with a sense of diplomacy "There are places in America that I definitely prefer to the UK, but then there's places in Scotland I infinitely prefer to America. I prefer New York to London, but I prefer the Scottish highlands to the whole of America."

"Everyone in New York is in a band. The area I lived in, everyone is a band or an artist or a writer, is a painter or works in the media. It's one of these places that's quite cool to live in for a while because you're constantly surrounded by creative people, but it can get a bit much as most of my friends in Scotland are school teachers or social workers." laughs Roddy as he describes the environment of New York. I suggest that to an outsider it seems very pretentious, "Not as pretentious as London" retorts Roddy "But I'm from Scotland and I didn't grow up in that environment so I can delve into it for one night and not be like that. I can kinda laugh at it almost...I've been to a few parties certainly where I've walked into and thought 'I'm getting out of there' because they're not the kind of people I want to be surrounded by." However, any air of conceitedness disperses when we discuss Idlewild's third place in the 'Best bands from Scotland ever' poll after Belle and Sebastian and perpetual Indie moaners Travis. "Just a bit of fun really, you can't put music in a competition. I love Belle and Sebastian anyway, I think they deserve it." I suggest that Travis are boring, Roddy agrees yet his diplomacy shines through once again "People like them, competitions are stupid and it's just fun right?"

Towards the end of the interview we talk about Live8 and Idlewild's absence from this event "We are one of these bands that exist on our own and we move at our own pace in our own world. All these new bands that are getting asked to do it are more on the radar and we're not on the radar." Roddy wasn't one of the three billion people believed to have watched Live8 as he doesn't own or watch TV. Surprised by this admission, conversation swiftly moves on and we discuss the merits of the music both on and off the radar with bands such as Wilco, Teenage Fanclub and Smog getting the Roddy Woomble seal of approval, but to add a hint of mystery he adds "There's loads of good stuff." Nonetheless more mainstream talents are met with a slight aversion and confusion by Roddy, as discovered when Allan Stewart (Guitar) and Gavin Fox (Bass) went to see Green Day "I can't offer an opinion because I've only heard that single that sounds like Nickleback!" Looking confused he starts to sing Boulevard of Broken Dreams to the tune of Wake Me Up When September Ends "It's an okay modern rock song but it's not that interesting."

As I leave with Grolsch in hand, Colin chases after me "Here, put your lager in this plastic cup before security confiscate it." Apparently fatherhood brings out the responsible side in someone, albeit alcohol related. About an hour later Idlewild appear on stage and play a storming set, effortlessly mixing old material with new thus elating just about everyone in Somerset House. From here it is easier to notice the transition that Idlewild has partaken, starting out as a shouty Scottish band with aspirations of breaking America to a melody driven five piece moving along at their pace. Idlewild have found their niche and will continue to develop and mature into one of the most respected bands around, maybe even knock Travis off the top of the Scottish music podium. Who knows. Where Warnings/Promises has been their Out Of Time, the next release could be their leap to the big time in the mould of their very own Automatic for the People. Where Warnings/Promises has been their Out Of Time, the next release could be their leap to the big time in the mould of their very own Automatic for the People.