Brakes, made up of Eamon Hamilton (vocals, guitar, then in British Sea Power), Tom White (guitar, Electric Soft Parade), Alex White (drums, ESP) and Marc Beatty (bass, Tenderfoot), released their first single in 2004 and their debut album, ‘Give Blood’, was one of the albums of 2005. Since then Eamon has left BSP, Tenderfoot are taking a breather and ESP are doing their own indie thing, giving the beast called Brakes full rein to work on the follow up album. At South By South West 2006 they met Stuart Sikes (producer of Cat Power’s ‘The Greatest’ and engineer on White Stripes’ ‘Red Blood Cells’). They recorded a version of new song ‘Cease and Desist’ and were so impressed that they returned to the US to record the album with Sikes in Nashville, using ‘House of David’ on Nashville’s Music Row, where Elvis Presley, JJ Cale and Yo La Tengo, among others, have recorded. ‘David’ is David Briggs, studio owner, who joined the Muscle Shoals Band at 14 and played with Elvis between 1967 and 1977. Brakes used local steel player Kevin Teel for texture and Briggs added barrelhouse piano to ‘If I Should Die Tonight’, which was the first time in four years that he’d felt moved to contribute to a session. They kept the sound real by recording straight to tape, cutting a live take to get the drums sounding fresh and then overdubbing as necessary any guitar, vocals or bass. The result is brilliant, as reviews elsewhere show, and they’ve followed up the recording of the album with 10 summer festivals and almost constant touring (they are electric live) to support the release of the record on 6 November. They’re a great bunch of blokes, friendly and with no artistic preciousness (hear that, Borrell?), who all contribute equally, musically and in interviews. We met the band at the end of October 2006 in a pub off the Edgware Road, prior to their gig at Trash.

SXP: Like the first record, the album is just under half an hour but with 11 rather than 16 tracks. Do you consciously keep it short?

Eamon: We’re lengthening the tracks, just not lengthening the album!
Tom: Basically, that was everything we’d got at the time ready to go. I think it’s just a bit more refined. The arrangements are better, the recordings are better, and the playing’s better.
Alex: We just had a bit more time as well. We did it in 2 weeks but the first one was literally 5 days, mixed, finished, done. We did 13 backing tracks in one day. Ridiculous! [The Beatific Visions] was a bit more considered.

SXP: What was it about Nashville that made you want to record there?

Marc: It was cheap! We got the studio for $300 per day plus engineer. When we went to SXSW in March we met up with Stuart Sikes and he was really desperate to work with some British bands. So we did a get-to-know-each-other recording day out there and it went pretty well so we decided to go back.
Tom: We knew a guy called Seth Riddle out there who’s married to Cerys who used to be in Catatonia. We got over there, and spent about 5 days just hanging out and getting over our jetlag.
Eamon: And drinking Jefferson whiskey and rocking on the porch!
Tom: We stayed on the Vanderbilt University campus and it was Fresher’s Week so there are, all these proper rich model girls hanging out at the pool on campus every morning. Get down the pool and there’d be all these girls on their mobiles!
Marc: We became dudes, the whole thing!

SXP: Was it the Elvis connection that attracted you to David Briggs’ studio?

Marc: Not really. The label just looked for studios and found a few that were more used to recording alternative bands rather than the rest more used to recording sickly country pop records. It was just small and had some good gear in there.
Alex: We went and saw Mark Nevers of Lambchop. A lot of the studios there just look like a house, you go in and there’s the kitchen and sitting room. People live there but it’s a studio 24/7.
Marc: I feel kind of sorry for Mark Nevers’ family. You went in the front door and there’s these kids watching television. You went in the next room and there’s a huge mixing desk and he’s “hey, how’s it going?”
Tom: If we ever went back I’d want to go to Mark Nevers’ place. It was lush! You should have seen it. *general agreement*

SXP: Did Nashville actually influence your writing? Would it have sounded different if you’d recorded it in Brighton?

Alex: Yeah, I think so. The mood you’re in over there, the whole lifestyle, the pace of it, it’s so hot that everywhere you go you’re searching for aircon! We had about half the record written before we went out and some half-ideas. We weren’t really sure what was going to work until we got out there and got a vibe going, rather than trying to pad it out in Brighton in a rehearsal room like we normally do. I think you can hear that in the writing: the tunes just came together.
Marc: Because Nashville has a rich history with recorded music, everybody there knows how it all works, how to calibrate the tape machines properly, so everything sounds a lot better than if we were recording onto tape in a studio here.
Alex: The first album was on tape and it was a lot of problems running the desk, getting the desk to talk to the tape machine, cos it’s just used to ProTools, it’s just used to computers. You go to studios in this country, Abbey Road, Metropolis, anywhere like that and there are corridors lined with tape machines not being used. It’s quite depressing.

SXP: David Briggs played with Elvis and was a member of the Muscle Shoals band. And you got him to play for you?

Tom: Probably one of us could have knocked down something like it but to get a guy who speaks that language of the honky tonk…it would have taken me about 2 hours and I would have agonised over it and he just went ‘boof’. He knows exactly what he’s doing!
Eamon: I offered him 10 dollars to play and he played pretty cool and said “ah, that was worth 50 cents!” But it was just brilliant. He had a few tales about the Beatles at Shea Stadium, no, it was in Washington the next night. He was filming it and went off to get some more film and just got mobbed. He had to have a police escort to his dressing room. He said he kept filming all the girls and sent it to be developed. In those days there was censorship so they chopped out all of the girls and just left the Beatles!
Tom: He lived upstairs from the studio.
Marc: I don’t think he lived there. It was his office; just his “stabbin’ cabin” as he referred to it!
Eamon: It’s kind of flattering to have all these old Nashville dudes coming up and saying “these are great songs”. The Memphis Players came in one night because Cat Power was playing and they really liked it.

SXP: What do you think it is that they relate to?

Alex: They respond to the fact that this isn’t a bunch of guys trying to make a record that sounds like the current thing or trying to fit into a genre, we’re just making tunes! Music is cool enough for these people, know what I mean?
Eamon: It’s an industry, the country music industry, so when you get bands who aren’t from that industry they just respond to it. They’re like: “yeah, we got the music back!” We were just welcomed with open arms.
Tom: You’d have thought that country music would be at its most authentic in Nashville, at its best, at its purest, but it’s as polished as the most polished boy and girl band videos are here.
Eamon: Just the same thing as hip hop does. Just take a theme, rinse it and copy it and copy it and copy it until there’s no feeling left on there, there’s no message or anything.

SXP: The sense of anger in the music and lyrics is particularly strong on this record, from the first line of the first song: “woke up late and found my liberty lost”.

Eamon: It’s just a reflection of the times we live in. There’s a war on!
Tom: You can’t make a record at this point in time and not address it.

SXP: Not many bands do that though.

Tom: I think there’s a lot but in mainstream music people prefer something that’s wallpaper. Easy on the senses.
Marc: Pop music’s become something to take your mind off issues.
Eamon: I can’t believe bands are doing it as well. It seems just important for bands nowadays to look and dress and sound the same. State of the world – how we going to sort it out? Rock music!

SXP: The war theme is repeated in ‘Cease and Desist’ where it’s all a game between God and the Devil.

Eamon: That was from the book of Job! You know the bet they had to screw over Job’s life? I thought it’d be funny if the devil won! But it’s just people taking bets on god: you know, my god's better than your god: let’s kill each other!
Alex: My favourite thing about ‘Cease and Desist’ is the musical representation of that, which was a complete accident. In the track, where the devil wins the beat goes backwards. The point it reverses, is where the Devil just won and then it’s back to front. The Devil takes the front snare and then by the end God gets it back in the last second. It’s a photo finish.
Tom: The god beat wins!
Marc: Doesn’t the earth blow up?
Eamon: Yeah it ceases to exist.

SXP: But it’s not all doom though?

Eamon: Oh, no people are still falling in love, while there’s this war. That’s the point of this album.

SXP: Is it easier now in Brakes as Eamon’s no longer in BSP?

Marc: It’s easier physically yeah. Not so knackered.

SXP: And are Tenderfoot still sort of together?

Marc: We’re …parked. We’re kind of going to get another album together in the course of next year, We don’t hate each other. We’re cool.
Alex: Slow recovery from major label. Takes a while!
Tom: I’m not really a fan of time off. What’s the point of being in a fucking band if you prefer time off to being on tour? *laughs*

SXP: You must like the festivals, you did 10 this year.

Eamon: Yeah, it’s brilliant watching live bands in a field, isn't it, with a pint of beer in your hand.
Alex: Electric Picnic: that’s great. It’s not like support bands and then you do your set; that’s standard. It’s bands like Elbow, Super Furries, shit hot bands. You think: let’s nail this then!
Tom: Neil Tennant had a toke on my joint! I got Neil Tennant stoned! I walked out of the dressing room and he was sitting there having a chat with Rufus Wainwright. And I was like: I fucking love the Pet Shop Boys! Can you do ‘So Hard’ or ‘It’s A Sin’ or something? .And he was like: uhh…have you got a cigarette? I was: no, I’ve got this. Want a toke? I never thought he would. I thought he’d be really…serious.

SXP: In the PR blurb it says that ‘Margherita’ was inspired by Bulgakov’s novel [The Master and Margherita] but I couldn’t catch the references.

Eamon: Yeah, he’s in a kind of prison. She turns into a witch and it’s kind of him calling to her: come liberate me from this place and take me away on your broomstick. That was where it came from and then it turned into something a bit [different].
Alex: It was about that gig in New York wasn’t it - certain bits of it? The gig in the glass box: it’s clear, but it’s not clear what we're here for. We played in this hermetically sealed glass box, 30 floors up this fucking building by Radio City. It’s this big industry conference with this table panel set up, with Alan McGee, Andrew Loog Oldham and Conor McNicholas from NME fielding questions from this media audience and then they all turned round and watched us. But they were chatting away and we were just playing with no audience feedback piping though this little PA.
Marc: We were the finger food entertainment.
Alex: We were trying to play our songs and it was a radio session so they were recording our songs. It was the weirdest gig I’ve ever played!

SXP: Is there any career plan for Brakes?

Alex: A few months in advance. When the band started it was ‘whenever’. Every few months, we’d rehearse or play a gig or something. But then it got more serious when we were signed.
Eamon: Our aim is to create records you can still listen to in 40 years – well, it’s not an aim, we haven’t actually talked about it yet! *laughter* That you can listen to in a number of years’ time and still enjoy it.
Tom: If something’s still relevant in the future, whenever that is, 5 to 10 years, and if it doesn’t embarrass you, then I reckon it’s all you can ask for.
Alex: My issue is with the production. Our producer is more of an engineer. He puts mics up, he gets sounds, he’s not like some floaty producer guy who’s like: chuck a load of stuff on it, make it sound a certain way. If you listen to the first Soft Parade album it sounds very dated; it sounds like it was made in 2001 and it was. It was using new synths that came out that year, using ProTools as an editing tool, all kinds of plug ins and processes. But if you just get drum kit, guitar sound, bass sound and vocals, bosh, it’s a band. It’s never going to not sound like that, because it’s just those guys playing.
Tom: It’s made in the same way that a record would have been made in 1965.
Alex: There are no aesthetics or production choices, no 80s drum sound or whatever, or big grungy guitar. It’s pretty much how it sounds here. That’s why it works and (a) why it sounds fresh and (b) why it won’t date.

SXP: Do you have the last say in how it sounds?

Alex: Personally? Yeah! In terms of being left alone, yeah, every time. Rough Trade’s great for that. None of that fingers-in-pies stuff. It’s: get on with the record, we trust you. Deliver the record, we’ll put it out. BMG with Soft Parade, they were in the studio talking about getting the piano louder in the mix and stuff like that. And we were: fuck off! I won’t tolerate that. Leave the band to do their thing. The best track on the album is ‘Hold Me In The River’; it jumps out at you precisely because it hasn’t been pushed around using ProTools and edited and made to sound perfect. It’s because that is the first take. Put it down, we’ve got the vibe, does it work? Yes! There’s no fiddling with it. Know what I mean?

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