TLOBF Interview :: Noah and the Whale

-

With their glorious second album The First Days of Spring and a meditative 45-minute film accompaniment looming large on the horizon, there’s no doubt it’s been a mind-blowing year for budding film-maker and Noah and the Whale frontman Charlie Fink. But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. We talk about art, life, and big fish in the calm before the storm.

How did the album/film concept come about?
The initial idea started with music and the way people listen to albums – the way people pick individual songs to listen to, rather than giving full records their time. People maybe just download a record and they listen to it while searching the internet, or reading a book or whatever. The experience of putting on a record and really sitting with it is an important one that people used to have and don’t any more.

The thing with making the film was that it wasn’t a short film or a feature, it was something that didn’t really exist yet. There’s this guy W.G. Collingwood who wrote that ‘art is dead, and all that’s left is amusement’. This was about creating something – and I hope you take this the right way – that was pointless, pointless commercially. You can’t take it to festivals. The only reason to do it was to make it exist.

And why now?
I’ve been wanting to make films for a while. I came up with the idea about a year and a bit ago, and from that moment it slowly took over my entire life. It was one of those projects where I was like ‘I need to finish this or I can’t live with myself’, you know.

The album soundtracks the film from beginning to end. How did the writing of the album inform the making of the film, or vice versa?
I wrote both of them together as much as I could. But the album was recorded first – in January – then we toured a little, mixed it in New York, then came back, did the casting, did another tour, filmed the film, than I’ve been editing it until about three or four weeks ago. The music led the film and it also defined the pace of it, but at the same time there were times when I added sections to the music if I felt that would complement the film.

Do you think the film accompaniment informs the way people listen to the album?
That’s something that does worry me a little because it’s a difficult balance to get right. I wanted this to be an album that people would listen to irrelevant of it being with the film, and likewise I hoped that people could have a relationship with the film irrelevant to it being with the album. And people are saying that they do. For me, the narratives were kind of separate, but I always had the film images in my head as I was writing.

The editing process must have been essential to hooking everything together. How did you approach that?
I edited with a guy called Julian Eguiguren, and he had his own little setup in his bedroom so we did it all there. After we finished the film I’d given him a very clear definition of what I wanted from each scene. We were touring in America for a month – and it was terrifying because we had no contingency – but he started editing while I was away and sent me through clips. and I’d send him back like five-page emails every day. There were a few moments that we really obsessed over, but it came together relatively quickly, actually, because I had a clear idea of what I wanted and it was just about selecting the right takes. It was the grading process of the sound mixing which really dragged on a little.

And you had no film training for this, right?
Absolutely none. Yeah, it was a baptism of fire really, trying to make a near feature-length film with the budget of a short in eight days. It was the best way to come into film-making I think. I mean, I learnt this lesson a while ago. The first thing I did in ‘the music industry’ – to use that term – was to produce Laura Marling’s second EP. I’d been writing music for a long time before that, and been making demos in my bedroom. And she heard that, and I played with her a few times and she said I really want you to produce this for me, I think you’d be good at it. So the first time I was in a studio, and I was meeting all these ‘music industry’ people, I realised that these guys have no idea what they’re doing. And you just think, if I know as much as these people, and I’ve got a vision and a passion for this…There’s a quote by W.H. Auden which is: ‘all you need to make art is something to say and a respect and understanding of the medium’. And that for me sums up how I feel about art and film and music. The technical stuff you can pick up on the way.

How did you decide the look of the film? Was there an awareness of the kind of film that might appeal to your audience?
I made it for me to be honest, but that’s the best way you have of making something that people will like or connect with; by doing something that’s right for you. The look of it was very important to me. The whole film’s sort of about memories, and the look I wanted was this slightly faded rainy thing, and I was incredibly blessed by the people I was working with.

This second album has a very different feel to it. Was that a conscious decision?
I had a vision for the sound I wanted but it evolved a lot. It’s a million tiny steps you know, like every little one changes everything – which is something that film-making really taught me. And that’s another good point about the difference between film-making and music making – the level of control you have. In film-making you’re at the mercy of so many things, and there’s so many margins for error at every stage. Like you’ve got an idea for how you want to shoot a scene outside and on a sunny day, but if it’s overcast you’re like this is going to have to work with an overcast sky, and sometimes that throws up something even better.

I think it’s a case of embracing what you can’t control, and I’d say it’s the same with music because you never really do what you set out to do. You do things differently and often a lot better. The best thing I’ve heard along those lines recently was actually Denzel Washington who said that the best time to worry about flying is when you’re on the ground.

So you’re not worried about the reception of the film or the album?
You’ve probably heard this from every band you’ve ever interviewed, but quite honestly my own satisfaction is what I’m really looking for – it’s like what I was saying before. I’ve realised that if you’re not happy with something, and a million people tell you it’s good, you won’t believe them. And if you really believe in something and a million people don’t, you’re still going to believe in it. And the impact of listening to the album for the first time was fucking powerful, and that feeling is something I’m gonna chase. I literally wept when I first heard it all the way through. Because when I wrote the album I wrote it to be this whole piece, and when we were in the studio we recorded one song at a time, and we’d never put it together so we had no idea if it was going to work out how I’d envisioned it. And hearing it like that… really honestly, I can’t explain it.

The film’s been screened a couple of times already. What’s the reaction been like so far?
There are people who have formed a perception of us from parts of the first album, and this is not what they were expecting. I think with the film there was a relatively low level of expectation which is understandable, because why wouldn’t you be cynical about a band making a film? But what’s most satisfying is that people haven’t been bored, despite the film being directed almost entirely by its soundtrack. Art’s supposed to be reactive, so people liking it or disliking it has never worried me, just as long as they aren’t bored.

Will you be playing any of the songs from Peaceful The World lays Me Down on the tour this year?
The tour will be led by the new stuff, and the old stuff’s been given a newer varnish so that it makes sense with this stuff. I really don’t feel pressure to pacify people, if you know what i mean. The only way I can feel like I’m being honest is by doing what I think’s best. We did a big-deal show at Williamsburg Music Hall in New York when we were mixing the record, and we only played two tracks from the old album. All the rest was new material, and it pisses people off but that doesn’t scare me. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. I’m selecting a set of songs which I’ve got the most attachment to, or the most understanding of at that time, and musically what I think sound best of all the things we do.

I’ve always found touring difficult but I’m trying to embrace it now. I’ve felt in the past that our live sound doesn’t quite do the songs justice, but we’ve brought in an extra guitar player and it’s a real pleasure playing at the moment. I do feel like I’ve found more in myself as a songwriter and that’s what I’m trying to chase.

Where do you think that new drive has come from?
It’s hard to say because you don’t want to over-aggrandise what you do and I don’t want to sound like I’m preaching, but it’s definitely something that comes and goes to some extent, and while it’s there you’ve just got to get everything you can from it. I guess that in the process of writing I felt like I’d accessed something I hadn’t done before. David Lynch talks about it. He’s obsessed with transcendental meditation and he uses the metaphor of ideas being fish – you’re only going to catch the biggest ideas in the deepest waters, but you’ve got to go inside and look for them.

Where do Noah and the Whale go from here? Are there any more unconventional projects in the pipeline?
I’d like to do a conventional film, I’ve been listening to a lot of heavy Crazy Horse/Neil Young stuff with distorted big guitars, I also want to do more production stuff. There’s like a billion things I want to do. With music and all these things I try to follow my instincts as much as I can and go with whatever it throws up at you, and the same with life really. The thing is, the film was finished two days before it was debuted at Latitude and the last two weeks have been totally bewildering, like oh my god what the hell do I do now. I’ve been completely lost because I’ve been a frantic mess up until now. But the joy is that I’ve got this blank canvas again, which is a great feeling. Honestly there’s been some incredibly tough parts to this last year and it’s nearly killed me at points. So do I do that every year of my life before I die, or do I try and enjoy some moments as well? I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.

Look out for our review of the album next week!