Athlete are off and running...
ATHLETE frontman Joel Pott is counting down the days until his daughter remembers that he owes her a possibly costly favour.
For it was said offspring's earliest fight for life that inspired his band's biggest hit to date, bagging them a coveted Ivor Norvello Award along the way.
"She does know at this point," he answers when asked whether Myla, now five, knows Wires is about her, "but she's not really established it is my main source of income.
"Probably she will get to 16 and say 'Dad, you have got to at least buy me a car for making a bit of money out of my misfortune'.
"For now, she loves it and always says 'That song is about me and when I was born'.
"Yes, she gets it and loves the fact it documents her arrival. Looking back we didn't know really how big it was and how it connected with people."
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The stirring ballad lit the touchpaper for Tourist, second album from the London band and confirmation their debut, Vehicles & Animals, wasn't a fluke. Their third – the ambitious but expertly delivered Beyond The Neighbourhood – took the brief further and confirmed Joel as a songwriter of not only street-wise charm but huge imagination and clarity of vision, as well as genuinely nice bloke.
"All the experiences we have had since Tourist helped," says Joe, who is also dad to one-year-old Ethan.
"Writing about what is in front of me is something as a lyricist I have been trying to work on. And still am.
"Being honest and writing about stuff you know, things that have happened to you, sounds cheesy really, but you reach into your gut and put it on the page.
"The first record was happy go lucky pop which came out of stories of things happening around us. Wires stepped that up a bit. This album from start to finish stays really strong."
And most potent of the elements emerging in the record was Joel's passion for the environment, notably on the stand-out Airport Disco.
A song about a world where airports have become obsolete or are used as nightclubs because flying is banned, it also highlights Joel's own contradiction of caring about the planet but jetting around it with Athlete.
"It's a bit Blade Runner but that song imagines a world where all of a sudden these amazing airports in Madrid or Oslo are not in use," he confirms, touching on its place in the wider issue of climate change.
"I don't want to be afraid to imagine dark possibilities or afraid to have hope as well. Surely there are some people in this world, a scientist desperate to become a hero who could figure out some way we can sort this out.
"Having kids makes you think a bit differently. Hopefully I'm going to have grandkids as well and I want to leave a world for them they can enjoy and not one we have completely messed up and is a dark place.
"The responsibility is on us to call upon the government to make changes.
That’s where the biggest changes can be made.”
Joel’s part is using a knack for intelligent lyricism that conspires with lush melody to make us ponder.
“A lot of the songs on the record are dealing with that stuff, environment, the conflict within ourselves. How do we deal with these issues personally with integrity and without being hypocritical, though?
“The public are tired of hearing celebrities telling us what to do. Sorry for the pun, but it doesn’t wash telling us to shower for one minute. And people see us flying all over the place... so I think it would be horrible if we made a record that was preaching. But I think we’re all questioning what’s happening on this planet at the moment: Is global warming actually going to take us out? And do we really live in a world where millions march against a war and nobody in charge takes any notice?”
Another prime candidate for self-evaluation is Second Hand Stores. “It is about nature. I don’t want to mess it up, I want to enjoy it, to go to our place in Wales and I want the kids to hear the birds singing and see things happening in season.”
Perhaps another carbon footprint consideration was the band’s decision to self produce Neighbourhood in their own studio. While Joe says it “just happened” the result smacks of experimentation weighed against fresh confidence, not least in taming and moulding new sound techniques but subject, scope and inspiration in a chaotic and confused world, ranging from Englishness to the dilemma experienced by Israeli agents in Spielberg’s Munich film.
“We live in a time where everything is so instant, where new bands are making instant pop music and dressing it up as indie so if it’s not instant you are not going to get anywhere,” he says in conclusion: “Hence, I would rather make something to stand the test of time.”
n Athlete play Plug on Monday. Boy Kill Boy support.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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