An Interview With: Moreish Idols

I had a sit-down with Moreish Idols ahead of their first time in Newcastle. We chat about their debut album All in the Game, what makes Speedy Wunderground so special and all things Moreish Idols. 

You can check out the recorded audio or read through the transcript(below), if you wish. The choice is yours. Enjoy!

Cheers to the Moreish Idols crew for their time and kindness.

Transcript:

Peter: Moreish Idols, how are you guys doing?

MI: Great thanks! Beautiful day in Newcastle!

Peter: Welcome to Newcastle, first of all. Your debut album All in the Game came out yesterday on Speedy Wunder, March 7th. How has the reaction to it been so far? How have the gigs on the tour been? All of that jazz.

Caspar: Yeah, loads of fun, man. A very good response to the record. Lots of people getting it on the pre-release and pre-order; lots of people buying it from the gigs. Overwhelmingly positive.

Jude: Yeah, it’s been nice. Everyone seems to have been really enjoying it which has been lovely.

Caspar: My mum likes it which is the main thing!

Peter: That’s a telling sign.

Tom: She’s a tough cookie.

Jude: We celebrated yesterday at The Castle in Manchester which was sold out, and that’s not even a home crowd for us, so that was a really nice, wholesome way to release the album.

Peter: Awesome! It’s quite telling that Manchester’s a music city. If that makes sense?

Jude: Yeah, totally!

Peter: So, when you were making All in the Game, what sort of things were you vibing with? What things were you listening to, what books were you reading, what TV shows were you watching, that kind of thing?

Tom: Books.

Peter: What’s the DNA of All in the Game? What were you taking in in order for All in the Game to come out?

Tom: I was reading Jeff Tweedy’s autobiography because I was getting so much into Wilco. So that was good. That was definitely very enlightening because it’s all about him being in a band, figuring out. So that was quite helpful. And it’s just a sick book as well. I think he’s done a few, but I think it was the first one. It’s mainly about Uncle Tupelo and then later about Wilco.

Peter: Have you got a favourite Wilco project?

Tom: Probably just the obvious choice: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot? I can never remember the order. Yankee Foxtrot Hotel?

Peter: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. At the end of the album, you’ve got the woman saying it again and again. I can’t think of the name of it, like when they’ve got the lights?

Jude: Subliminals?

Peter: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: YFH. If you’re reading out letters and somebody doesn’t know it? Morse code, or something like that?

Tom: What’s it called?

Jude: The pilot one, oh whatever.

Peter: Does anyone else have any films or things like that that made up the fabric or tissue of All in the Game?

Jude: There’s a book called Endland. I can’t remember who wrote it, but it came out in the 80’s and it’s basically a bunch of short stories about the UK and it’s so gritty and grim and nostalgic. The way it’s structured, I found it inspiring. To have these tiny, little vignettes that never really had an answer, it was more just like – there was no beginning, middle and end – it was more just like a scene.

Peter: An island rather than a full-on thing.

Jude: Yeah. I remember that really resonated and sparked some interest for the lyrics at least. All these little vignettes that never really concluded.

Caspar: A lot of the album is very reflective and reflects a lot of our time spent being a band: spent trying to make everything work, living in London, Jude dealing with illness, dealing with death, dealing with loss and all that kind of stuff. The Wilco thing was really interesting because we feed a lot on the world around us and those experiences of other bands in the scene.

Tom: You know what’s really interesting about the Uncle Tupelo one, is that they had two lead singers. So, there’s this whole thing, like when we started, our early EPs are quite like ‘Jude song’, ‘Tom song’, ‘Jude song’, ‘Tom song’, but we made an effort to blur that line by always, mostly singing – I might take a chorus or Jude might take a verse – in the other person’s song. We were definitely looking forward to not doing that as much. I mean, that’s what broke uncle Tupelo up, is that line was so rigid – it was like ‘that’s yours and that’s mine, end of.’ – and the egos were insane. They hated each other at the end of the day. We never really spoke about that, but subliminally I was just like ‘fuck’. And then Wilco was nothing like that. Wilco’s very diplomatic and stuff. It’s interesting.

Peter: Have you seen the other Wilco documentary when they kick one of the members out of the band?

Tom: Yeah, a few of them had drug issues, but he had probably the worst one. He was like the genius in the band. He was like the prodigy. Jeff Tweedy always said he was always a bit too good to be in Wilco. *everyone chuckles* Like he would show everyone up, all the time. And it was just like (Tweedy to the member they kicked out) ‘we’re actually kind of a shit band’. *another bout of laughter*

Caspar: It’s a good thing we don’t have that issue.

Tom: I haven’t watched it though. I’d like to watch that.

Peter: The lead single from All in the Game was “Pale Blue Dot” and it was also the 50th single for Speedy Wunder. How did that come about?

Jude: So, we basically finished recording the album by the time we got to Thursday of the second week – we recorded the album over two weeks. So, we had one day left in the studio and the day before we decided to have a listening party – Dan (Carey) likes to with all the bands he has recording, usually at the end. We decided to be tactical and have it the day before so we can get some responses and some reactions. All our partners came round and a couple of friends and we just ate some food and listened to it and “Pale Blue Dot” was this real heavy centrepiece of the record and it was one of the older songs and the showpiece at the end of our set and that’s how we thought it should always exist. But then, when we listened back, Dan had this idea like ‘I think we should re-record it, we’ve got one day left – let’s fucking do it.’

Caspar: He was like ‘Please don’t be angry with me. But I think we need to re-do it.’

Jude: I’m telling the more condensed version. There’s a lot of melted cheese and wine and anger involved. Anger and joy. There was never really that anger. Because it was actually quite an exciting, adrenaline fuelled idea. And the next morning we recorded it in about four hours and before we did the vocal take it was kind of like the penny dropped – this is the Speedy Wunderground manifesto, this is technically a Speedy single, this is allowed, we’ve never had one, we’ve never got to have a 7”. We weren’t sure it was going to be number 50, that was just luck.

Peter: Right. It’s like the 1st and the 50th are usually the big ones, for me.

Tom: Yeah, they’re the ones you want.

Peter: The 1st anniversary of a marriage, then 10, 20, 30, 40, whatever. 50? *’Wooooah’ in unison* So it’s pretty awesome that you got the 50th single. I compare Speedy Wunder to Creation Records for a modern-day kind of version. Maybe a different way to go about things but it’s the same sort of impetus for the majority of what’s going on in the country at the moment.

Peter: When it comes to Dan Carey, how important is he in the recording process?

Tom: Not really.

Jude: Overrated.

Caspar: Just a glorified engineer, really.

*the lads laugh together*

Tom: Nah, he’s just very fun. Mainly he makes everyone feel at ease – that’s the main thing.

Jude: He’s just like super creative and just let’s you have so much fun. It’s like being in a really expensive bedroom, basically. You know what I mean? With no bedding. Just a load of modular and nobs. Metal nobs.

Tom: Soft nobs.

Jude: Nobs to twiddle. He’s just a lovely, lovely, lovely man.

Caspar: What’s amazing about him (Dan) is that he’s got so many ideas and is such a creative powerhouse, he’s such a facilitator. He facilitates all of our ideas. We’ll modulate them and change them, add things to it, but there’s every guitar you could want on the wall and all the best amps ever and he’s so easy in making it such a creative space. It’s just amazing. Obviously, the mixing and everything is just his magic. It’s always a pleasure.

Jude: Because it speeds up the process because it’s not track-by-track - it’s recording in the room – you don’t get bored, at all.

Caspar: There isn’t a moment to lose.

Jude: Apart from Dylan.

*the lads laugh together*

Peter: On All in the Game we don’t hear “Pale Blue Dot”, the lead single, until the fifth track. Was that a conscious decision? Or was it just how the album flowed into it?

Jude: It didn’t fit? What makes you say that?

Peter: It’s the fifth track on the album, so like, usually for a debut album you have to have your single first or second just to pull the listener in.

Tom: I don’t think we really thought about that.

Jude: We put a lot of thought into the order. We wanted the flow of the album to be like – that was really important.

Tom: We knew it was going to get its own campaign in a way, because it came out without the release of the album. So, in a lot of ways it was totally separate in that it was like ‘this is the Speedy single’. That’s why it had to be first in the single running order. It got its own time and its own space to sort of be something with no mention of an album.

Jude: With the “Ambergrin” into “Railway” into “All in the Game” that was really quite important. That was something that quite early on – us and Dan – were like ‘that needs to be the beginning’. It’s funny because “Railway” isn’t even a single and it’s quite a punchy beginning to a record.

Peter: It’s quite immediate.

Caspar: We liked it in that order because we kind of knew it wasn’t going to be a single.

Tom: It was meant to be track 1 but Dan felt quite strongly about “Ambergrin” being track 1.

Caspar: We wanted it to be something people focused on and got straight away, you know what I mean? It made sense to us.

Peter: Speaking of “Ambergrin” and the opening of the album, it’s got a very similar sound palette to the very last track “Time’s Wasting”.

Tom: It’s the same song.

Peter: Like the exact same song?

Tom: It’s exactly what we want, for people to wonder if it is or it’s not.

Peter: Is it supposed to be a cyclical kind of loop back to the beginning?

Tom: It’s just the backend of the song, really. We all decided to just chop it.

Jude: It’s the arsehole of the song. *laughter*

Tom: It’s the anal cavity.

Caspar: “Ambergrin” is the mouth.

Tom: It’s meant to feel like you’re not sure if it’s the same. The original structure of the song was a really long song.

Caspar: Super long.

Tom: We wanted to put it at the end – that was the plan. And then it got moved to the beginning and a bit of a problem arose which was like ‘it’s quite long’. How do you fix that? Well, maybe chop a verse off, I don’t know. We decided to just stop it at a really awkward bit. Like, before, if you notice it’s only one chorus with singing on it – it should be like two or three. So, once we were finished with the other crap, we just finished it off.

Caspar: We put a face-melting solo and washy bassline over the end.

Tom: We made quite an effort to record it completely differently. All the reverbs were turned up and there’s loads of silly stuff going on.

Jude: We played it to Dan and he was like ‘yeah, could you just play that one again.’ *lads laughter* In my head he might have even said ‘could you do it one more time?’. And we were like ‘fuck’s sake, yeah ok.’

Tom: Probably worried if he didn’t like it.

Jude: Yeah, because it is quite different to the rest of the record. He was quite sweet because it reminds him, by splitting it in half and having it bookend the record, it reminds him of what we were trying to do with Float where it goes on an endless, continuous cycle. So, it was kind of like a homage to that.

Caspar: It’s technically a redux. We didn’t want to call attention to it necessarily and we loved the names “Time’s Wasting”.

Peter: I was thinking it was like a reprise?

Caspar: Yeah, that’s the one.

Peter: You were formed in Falmouth, right?

Jude: Yes.

Peter: How did Falmouth shape the band? And you’ve relocated to London, I believe. Has that re-shaped what you started off as in Falmouth?

Jude: Absolutely. With Falmouth it was really laidback, living by the sea and also deep in the Australia kind of Mac Demarco era of music anyway. So, that was reflecting in the sound of everyone that was playing. That was heightened by the really relaxed lifestyle that we had. It was kind of a Dream Pop, Shoegaze-y project, at first. We definitely got more interested in doing the dance-y stuff – LCD Soundsystem, cowbell…..

Tom: We never released much of that though.

Jude: Never released it. And then we got to London and as expected, London’s ahead of everything, and we realised ‘oh shit, we’ve got to catch up.’ And also, I think, mindset-wise, certainly I can speak for myself, I had to catch up as well in terms of what was going on culturally.

Tom: It’s the speed of life as well.

Jude: Its very ignorance is bliss in Falmouth. *chuckles* It naturally influenced our music. I think Tom introduced us to what was going on in Speedy Wunderground and the Windmill scene that was kicking off and it was like ‘fuck, this is really cool.’ and luckily, we just managed to paint in it and wangle our way in there.

Peter: What is it about Speedy Wunderground that makes them so good with up-and-coming bands?

Tom: They go to gigs.

Jude: Bro, amazing answer!

Tom: Dan (Carey) just actually goes to gigs. I guess he doesn’t have that much time to do it. But he always goes to gigs.

Jude: He knows what bands he can work with. You know what I mean? There are bands that are amazing that he will see but he wouldn’t necessarily show an interest in because he’s like ‘I don’t know what I can bring to this’, but he’s obviously got a good eye and knows what he can provide. The fact that the label prioritises music above all else is the biggest gift ever for a band.

Caspar: They don’t pay attention to what the industry is hyping necessarily. They’re treading their own course and they’re looking for what they like, not what Tik Tok might like, which is really necessary because otherwise you just get into the algorithm loop and everything just sounds the same. So, they bring attention to the flavours to those that aren’t the lowest common denominator. It’s the stuff that is shiny about the London scene.

Peter: Could you call Speedy Wunder ‘taste makers that don’t mind taking the back seat and pushing people forward? Like passion forwards first kind of thing?

Jude: Definitely.

Tom: It (Speedy Wunderground) was basically made because Dan was frustrated with how long it took to release stuff. That’s literally it. I think he was inspired by the old school Hit Factory sort of thing where you record something straight to an acetate and send it straight to the radio and they play it immediately.

Caspar: Or put it to a dub plate and play it out that night.

Tom: Exactly.

Caspar: See how it goes kind of thing.

Tom: That’s the inspiration. It’s obviously not quite like that. You still have to service it digitally and you’ve got to do a press release and things like that. But I mean, if they want to, they could record a band and as soon as the pressings are available, they could just release it straight away. I guess, if it was like a big act which didn’t need much backing then they could just do that.

Caspar: And the ethos of that kind of flows through to everything else. Obviously, the realities of it are a bit different, but that idea thread does pull through. There’s definitely a throughline.

Peter: All in the Game, to me, sounds a lot like, sonically, the sound palette and stuff like that, is very sort of The King of Limbs era Radiohead.

Jude: Oh, shit!

Tom: That’s a new one, but I like it.

Peter: I don’t know whether you’ve got a CD player or anything on your van, but I got you a little gift. Something to listen to. *Peter fumbles around in his bag and pulls out The King of limbs CD*

Jude: Aw, mate. Fucking legend!

Tom: Quite underrated artwork! I hated this when it came out. I was like ‘what the fuck are they doing? It’s so shit’ but now I’m like ‘It’s actually kinda cool now, I don’t know’. It’s kinda mental.

Jude: It looks like 28 Weeks Later.

Tom: You know what it’s based on? It’s based on a tree that was called ‘The King of Limbs’. When they recorded (the album) that was like near this house and they were like ‘oh that’s the King of Limbs’ and obsessed over a tree.

Jude: It’s got “Morning Mr. Magpie” on it as well.

Peter: Magpie is very “Dream Pixel”-y, I think.

Jude: Yeah, right, OK. Tom was saying another lyric on a song reminded him of this (The King of Limbs).

Peter: Damn, hell yeah.

Jude: Serendipity baby.

Peter: I think the tree is down in Wiltshire somewhere. Down by Bath.

Jude: Not that one that got fucking dug up, is it?

Tom: No, no, not that one.

Peter: That’s up here (Newcastle), I’m pretty sure.

Tom: The one in the valley.

Peter: Yeah, that’s up here, somewhere on Hadrian’s Wall. Not too far from here.

Solomon: The thingy Gap Tree.

Peter: Cheers for having the chat. What can we expect from Moreish Idols in the coming months and years?

Jude: Well, we’re on tour. We usually say that we’re going on tour, but we’re on tour now.

Tom: Be expecting present gifts.

Jude: Loads of Christmas presents.

Tom: We’ve got some festivals coming up in the Summer. Off the top of my head, Wilderness and there’s one in…

Jude: Misty Fields!

Tom: Misty Fields. But we’re also going to allot some time to write another album.

Jude: Yeah.

Caspar: That’s the main thing.

Jude: Keep it going, man.

Peter: That’s exciting.

Caspar: The writing is the main thing. We’ve got loads of ideas that we haven’t quite managed to get in the studio and put down. So, that’s it. Basically, a year’s worth of ideas and things that we just – the albums been such a focus, the videos and everything else that all our time has been going to that – so, yeah just writing and trying to excite ourselves with music.

Peter: Awesome. All in the Game is out now. Incredibly good record. My favourite project so far this year. Moreish idols, cheers for the chat.

Moreish Idols: Wicked! Thank you so much.