Radiohead clones clogged the galaxy at the turn of the millennium, but few have come into their own like Midlake. The Texas group humbly set the stage in 2001 with its debut EP, Milkmaid Grand Army, which was actually as much Mercury Rev as it was OK Computer. After a growth spurt in the form of 2004's Bamnan And Slivercork—for which celebrity fan Jason Lee directed a video—leader Tim Smith and crew quietly unleashed last year's The Trials Of Van Occupanther. Suddenly, Midlake's bubbling psychedelia had become a bucolic, concept-heavy stew of indie-pop, folk, and the moodier end of the '70s rock pantheon. The accolades piled up, and 2007 saw the band handpicked to tour with The Flaming Lips, while Smith was asked to sing on The Chemical Brothers' new We Are The Night. The day after starting work on Occupanther's follow-up—tentatively titled The Courage Of Others—Smith spoke with The A.V. Club about navigating acclaim, recycling "Suicide Is Painless," and the specter of Radiohead.
The A.V. Club: From an outside perspective, it seems like Midlake popped up out of nowhere to instant acclaim. Did all the attention feel sudden to you?
Tim Smith: In some ways, because nothing happened on our first album, really. We've been a band for eight or nine years now, so there were six or seven years of trying to make it and trying to be known. Things did happen gradually. It's awesome that lots of people still haven't heard Occupanther and are just now discovering it. I don't want to mention any bands, but we're certainly not that band that blew up or anything.
AVC: Slow and steady wins the race?
TS: Yeah. I feel like we've paid our dues in a lot of ways. We've come a long way.
AVC: Midlake's origin as a jazz-funk band gets mentioned a lot. Do you think that has any relevance to what it's become?
TS: Certainly we wouldn't sound the way we do now if we hadn't had that as a foundation. We did try to get away from that sound, but I'm sure it's still there.
AVC: How so?
TS: Jazz musicians want to use all these complex chords and progressions, but it's just not that way with popular music. You want three chords. It just feels better. On Occupanther, I think there are three songs that only have two chords. [Laughs.] It's very simple stuff. That was something we fought against, putting too many chords in our songs and making it complicated. As a jazz musician, you want to show off, in a way, but this is a totally different style of music. We had to weed that type of thinking out. It took me a long time not to be hindered by my jazz thinking. Sometimes I wish I had picked up a guitar instead of a saxophone when I was 10, and really been into Sex Pistols or something, gone a different route. I'm not sure where I'd be right now, but it certainly wouldn't sound the same.
AVC: You're very open about admitting you didn't know much about indie music when you formed the band. Do you think that fresh approach was a benefit at all?
TS: No, I don't think it was. I felt like I didn't have my homework done. It took me a long time to catch up, and if I had started my homework when I was a teenager instead of when I was 23, then I wouldn't have had to go through all the mess we've gone through in the last seven years to learn how to write a song. [Laughs.] I had to do lots of homework: Radiohead was a huge influence, and Björk. A lot of those big bands. Then you realize, "Oh, there are a ton of underground bands, too." Then you get into Grandaddy and The Flaming Lips. I just hadn't heard that stuff, but it was needed.
AVC: There's a real sense of innocence and giddiness to your early releases, like a little kid with a new toy. Did it feel that way at the time?
TS: Not really. I've always been very down on my songwriting. It's always been a struggle. Back then, I would like my songs for maybe a month, then I would think they were trash and get on with something else. The Milkmaid EP was kind of a lesson. There are so many different influences on there: Radiohead, Rufus Wainwright, Clinic. We hadn't quite found out who we were. It was just something we had to go through. Looking back, that EP is like a bad diary.
AVC: The Radiohead influence seems to be fading with each Midlake release, but the middle two songs of Occupanther—"Branches" and "In This Camp"—still have that sound.
TS: Yeah. The beginning of "Branches" has a section like that. It has to do with my voice—I can't get away from the Thom Yorke thing. It also has to do with that chord progression. And in the middle of "In This Camp," there's this section that gets a little heavy—well, for us it's heavy. [Laughs.] That part was very debated when we were in the studio. We were like, "Wow, this really sounds like Radiohead." We have thrown away lots of ideas for that reason: We don't want to get called a Radiohead rip-off band. I think Radiohead is a lot closer to my natural tendencies as a songwriter than a band like, um, Jethro Tull. I listen to way more Jethro Tull than I do Radiohead these days, but I could write 10 Radiohead songs before I could write one Jethro Tull song. I want to sound more like Jethro Tull, but I just can't. That's a big struggle.
AVC: There are a lot of rumors about the guys in Radiohead being Midlake fans. Is there any truth to that?
TS: No, no. The first time I read that, I was blown away. As far as I know, though, they don't know who we are. I think it was just somebody at NME who said that in some article, and it kind of started from there. Certainly none of us has told an interviewer that, and our publicist never said that. That would be awesome, though. Two of the guys in Midlake met two of the guys in Radiohead, maybe it was Ed and Colin, and they said, "Hey, we're in this band, Midlake." But they had no clue who we were. [Laughs.]
AVC: Speaking of celebrity fans, how did Jason Lee become a champion of the band?
TS: He's a fan of Cocteau Twins, and the bass player of Cocteau Twins [Simon Raymonde] is the president of our label [Bella Union]. Jason had always been in contact with Simon, and Simon sent him our first album. Jason really liked it, and said he wanted to meet us and do a video for us. We met him at South By Southwest three years ago, I think, and he was very, very nice. He's written articles about us and taken photos of us. He came to [guitarist] Eric Pulido's wedding a couple of months ago. He's just a good friend now.
AVC: You've also got fans in The Chemical Brothers. How did your collaboration with them come about?
TS: It wasn't as much of a collaboration as people might think. I didn't go to England to do it. I never met with them. I never talked to them on the phone. They sent me the backing tracks through my label and said, "Pick one of the two tracks and write the lyrics and the melody, then sing over it." I knew who The Chemical Brothers were, but I had never really listened to their music. I borrowed some CDs from a buddy of mine and got familiar with their stuff, and then I just wrote my part in my living room in about a week. I recorded it and sent it back to them, and I guess they liked it. [Laughs.] That was basically it. I think it was quite nice how it worked out—very simple, very easy. I picked the one track that felt more like a Björk song. I could totally hear Björk singing over it, so I felt like it would be more up my alley.
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