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Interview
by SashaS
27-2-2004
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| Zero 7: 'When It Falls' |
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Two in a box
Zero 7: reinforcing the ethnic ambiguity
In an office overlooking the Berwick Street Market, as in many other places of business around London, it is high noon but Zero 7 members are only in this building. It is February 2004 AD, a few days after we had the privilege to attend ‘When It Falls’ playback, presented with a specially commissioned visuals that were mixed live by LiveSurgeons. Yo, it was an audio-ocular feast. [The Surgeons will also be on tour with the lads so you can expect something spectacular in the visual dept.]
The new album is an affair of gentle ambient that takes chill-out a step up. Some familiar vocalists are back, Mozez, Sia Furler and Sophie Barker but there is a new chanteuse, Tina Dico, heading the lead-off single, ‘Home’. ‘When It Falls’ is a collection of songs that embrace instrumentals, Hip-hop, soul, jazz-funk [of the 1970s], a dash of pop and plenty of vibes.
One Zero 7 is facing the reporter who can see the striking cover (after Milton Glazier) of their album framed on the wall. Sam Hardaker answers our questions while Henry Binns deals with someone else’s.
The judgement moment is not far off…
“It’s been a while,” Hardaker admits across the conference table, “and people ask us what we’ve been up to. Well, life essentially, there is a life outside of this. A lot of living, very rich, beautiful, complicated, confusing… Just the same as it ever was… For a long time we were just going with it and things were going on in America a year later than Britain…”
“At the beginning of last year we had a couple of ideas for songs and tried them out live but didn’t work… When we got back from touring we felt we had no ideas, no concepts, no real belief we knew how to do it anymore. So, we started, you start somewhere and see where it leads you, and when you get into the place you just stay there until you are finished … In around nine months.”
Colouring smile
The beginning of this century was undoubtedly the Zero 7’s time when they became a household name with debut album ‘Simple Things’ that earned them the Mercury Music Prize nomination and a Platinum disc in the process! Three years later they release ‘When It Falls’ that is a product of extensive touring where they road-tested a number of songs that are included on the second album.
“I don’t know what to expect as a response to our new music,” the self-professed non-musician of the partnership says, “but I kinda get excited that is not a commercial album. There are no real singles on it and it delights me to try to get on the radio with a song that is not an obvious pop record.”
“I don’t know about the figures and have never used them to measure success of music. If something is good it doesn’t matter what the figures are. But, difficult bit with making a second record is that there are people who are waiting for the record, are interested and it is hard not to take it too seriously.”
It sounds like Hardaker has a problem with accepting success; does he think he is less worthy than Robbie Williams, for instance?
“I don’t know…” he pauses for a moment. “Yes, I suppose I have a problem with success but what is it? Hanging out at celebrity bars, being in the gossies [gossip columns]? Having several Ferraris is not what I’m after but to continue making music although super-cars may be my yardstick in the future, for all I know. I just don’t know what to do with this stuff.“
Forever seems further
‘Warm Sound’, the opening track on ‘When It Falls’, is a psyche-soulster that has a flute on it as if they asked Jethro Tull to guest! [They apparently never indulged in listening to Ian Anderson’s blowing!?] Later on there are funky, dreamy and organic sounds, crisscrossing cultural divisions, pure EA [ethnic ambiguity]. Herewith is rare a distinction amidst genres, it is all one big, melting pot, cooking for the future of our cosmopolitan consumption. It is not just the latest phenomenon to the fashionistas - mix’n’matching cultural differences.
Music industry is in crisis, in a self-created downspiral driven by flogging deadbeats while there is no real shortage of ideas. There isn’t only lack of investment in long-term careers but ‘stars’ are happy to accept the status that is no more than celebrities.
“We are not kids anymore,” Hardeker points out, “and have kids. Success hasn’t affected us but it did change quite a few things around us. I don’t feel it has changed anything really but afforded us bigger budgets, better facilities and aiming to do better things…“
“We are really looking forward to the tour,” Henry Binns, who has sneaked in, concludes, “and playing bigger and better shows. That’s what it is all about, getting music to the fans and seeing them react to it. There is nothing more satisfying than that.”
Thus, to accompany the release of the album, Zero 7 take to the road again in March.
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Tour dates:
11 March - Mandela Hall, Belfast
12 March - Olympia, Dublin
15 March - Colston Hall, Bristol
16 March - Guildhall, Southampton
18 March - Octagon, Sheffield
19 March - Academy, Manchester
20 March - Academy, Glasgow
22 March - Academy, Birmingham
23 March - UEA, Norwich
25 March - Dome, Brighton
26 March - Brixton Academy, London
27 March - Brixton Academy, London
SashaS
25-3-2002
Zero 7’s album ‘When It Falls’ is released 01 March by Ultimate Dilemma/WEA
Single ‘Home’ has been available to download from 19 January 2004
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