AVC: How does it feel to get such high-profile attention?
TS: I can't believe it sometimes. I think people are lying a lot of the time, but I guess they're not. It feels really cool, and that feeling lasts for about two minutes. When you hear something bad, that's what stays with you. Earlier on, I would look online to see what people were saying, just to try to boost my esteem or something. I wanted to see if I was on the right track, but that's stupid, you know? There have been times when someone was dogging us, and I'd say, "Hey, he's right." I tend to stay offline now. [Laughs.]
AVC: The leap from Bamnan to Occupanther, especially the shift to an overt '70 sound, probably stunned a lot of people. Did it seem like a big departure to you?
TS: We knew that it was a departure. In the studio, we'd step back every once in a while and say, "Wow, this is quite different. I wonder what people are going to think." While we were recording it, though, it felt normal—'70s music was pretty much all we were listening to. We had all the old vinyl up around the room while we were recording, for inspiration. If we put on something, it would be Fleetwood Mac or Jethro Tull or Neil Young or Joni Mitchell. I was listening to Occupanther the other day—I had to check the mastering for the vinyl—and I hadn't listened to it in months and months. It really struck me how different it sounds than most modern indie bands. We weren't trying to rip the '70s off, though; we were just living in that world at the time.
AVC: Why '70s music?
TS: I hadn't really listened to that music before, so it was a hidden thing. I heard America whenever I was in college, but at that time, it didn't really mean that much to me. And I had heard Elton John, of course. But after making Bamnan, that music really spoke to me. I don't know why—it just hit me. It seemed more honest, very emotional. There was a quality there that I don't really hear in a lot of modern music, and I can't really pinpoint it. I don't know if it's just nostalgia, but that's why Occupanther sounds the way it does. We weren't like, "Oh, let's get this '70s thing going." We were just trying to be honest and bring something of ourselves to it.
AVC: "Roscoe" was the song that got many people into Occupanther. Do you remember its genesis?
TS: Like most songs, it was an accident. It wasn't some magical thing, like, "Yeah, that's golden!" On that particular day, there was a baby grand piano in the living room. We were borrowing it from someone, and we only had it for a few days. I was screwing around and came up with the riff, and I immediately thought, "That's M*A*S*H! That's the theme song from M*A*S*H. It's very beautiful. I wish I could use this." I recorded the riff on a tape real quick and put it away. Several weeks later, I came back to it and thought, "Man, this can be a Midlake song. It doesn't have to be the M*A*S*H theme song."
AVC: A lot of people have picked up on that similarity.
TS: Yeah, everyone has. But there's a song that Jethro Tull does called "Budapest" that has the same kind of riff. "Wind On The Water" by Crosby & Nash has the same kind of riff. It's used a lot. When I showed it to the guys, I was a bit worried it might sound too much like Radiohead, but Paul assured me it sounded more like Fleetwood Mac. [Laughs.]
AVC: The lyrics to "Roscoe" are also immediately striking, particularly your phrasing and imagery.
TS: It definitely has that feeling of escapism, of wanting to live in a different time and be a different person. Not being satisfied with the way things are. I didn't plan that. I guess I must just be like that.
AVC: Where does that escapism come from?
TS: The easy thing to say is that I enjoy classical music. I enjoy Renaissance paintings and medieval paintings. All of those put images in your head. When I listen to Prokofiev or Rachmaninoff, it's not the hardened streets of New York. It's out in the woods or something. That's my happy place. There's a real longing to be in that place, but people hardly ever get there. You get up and go to work instead.
AVC: What is it you're trying to escape from?
TS: I don't know. I guess there's a lot to escape from, but that's not solving the problem, right? I probably shouldn't be preaching that to people. [Laughs.] That's just the way I deal with a lot of things. I don't get involved in politics. I think most people who argue about politics don't really know enough about it to be arguing.
AVC: Yet you reference a very political book, Hobbes' Leviathan, in your song "Head Home."
TS: I didn't mean to. I was reading a poem called "Leviathan" at the time; I can't remember the author. It was just there on my desk, so I thought I'd use it. I didn't even know about the [Hobbes] book until someone brought it up to me. I guess I should go read it now, though.
AVC: You've said that you want people to listen to Occupanther "in the house when they're sitting around or washing up." What did you mean exactly?
TS: I want it to be something that you can listen to every single day, something very beautiful and pleasing. When you have a song that you really love—let's say a very sad song—and you're listening to it, and it's very meaningful, and you're milking every nook and cranny of it, you just wish you could go through your entire day with that feeling. But that feeling is gone the moment that the music stops. Somebody starts talking, and you lose it. I really love that that feeling. It's these invisible things that make music so wonderful. You can't really explain it. [Laughs.]
AVC: Do you ever reassess your aspirations as a musician?
TS: I'm always assessing and reassessing. I don't think I'm ever satisfied. I felt like I nailed it with our first album, then it did poorly. I thought, "Man, I gotta rethink this. I'm getting older." I feel like I failed in some ways on Occupanther. It's hard for me to listen to; I guess a lot of musicians say that about their own albums. [Laughs.] I shouldn't talk bad about it. It's done us a great deal of good. There are just some songs I wouldn't write again. I'm ready to put that album to bed.
AVC: How is the new album coming along?
TS: It's so difficult. I'm remembering what it's like to come up with the right parts and the right sounds for the drums and everything. A lot of people might think you just go into a studio and play your heart out and make a good album. It's not like that. If I want to record a piano, I have to take all the mics from the drums, see which mic works best, and figure out where I'm going to place it on the piano. I have to make sure I actually have a good piano part, and the more I play it, the more tired I get of it. There's just so much that goes on to make just one single part on an album. It can be very frustrating, and I'm just now remembering how grueling Occupanther was to make. I'm hoping it's going to go better this time. We've got a proper studio now; we're renting this small office space. We're about to leave on a U.S. tour, though, which is kind of a bummer. We've got all these new toys and ideas, and we want to try them out, but we have to leave for a month. We don't have day jobs anymore, though, which is great. We survive, just barely, off touring, so that's really good. But still, you show up at the studio at 8 in the morning and stay 'til midnight. I still have quite a bit of writing to do, too. I have ideas for most of the album, but they're just 30-second or minute-long pieces.
AVC: Where do you see this album going?
TS: It will still have that '70s vibe. It's probably going to be a little darker than Occupanther, a bit more mature.
AVC: Why do you think that maturity is so often associated with darkness, especially in songwriting?
TS: It's actually easier to write a darker-sounding song, so I don't know that it's not the opposite. As you get better and more mature at songwriting, you should be writing really feel-good songs. [Laughs.] I don't why it should get darker, but it's true—it just somehow sounds more mature to be dark. In many ways, my life is a lot easier now than it was when I was 22 or 23, so I can't blame it on age, like, "Oh, the darkness is coming." [Laughs.] I always go back to Radiohead. I'll put on a Radiohead song like "Myxomatosis," and it's just so dark and rich. There's so much to digest. People take you more seriously when you're serious. When you give them that dark stuff, it seems like you mean it more than when you give them the light, fluffy stuff.
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