Longtime friends who all still live in Bristol, the Southwestern UK port city that gave birth to the ’90s trip-hop scene, the three members of Beak> — drummer Geoff Barrow, bassist Billy Fuller and keyboardist/guitarist Will Young — seem as much like brothers as bandmates these days. Anyone who’s seen the band live know they are fond of taking the piss out of each other, and are just as likely to finish each other’s sentences. Barrow, especially, has a reputation as a crank, but it’s clear Beak> are softies at heart; the cover art to the band’s fourth album, >>>>, features Barrow’s dog Alfie (RIP) depicted as a Godzilla-sized canine who at first glance appears to be blasting Barrow, Fuller and Young with death ray eyes across Bristol’s River Avon. But look again and those rays are actually forming a glowing heart around the band, and they are basking in its warmth.
Beak> are full of surprises these days, including the release of their fourth album which was dropped on an unsuspecting public today with nary a hint it was coming. “Everybody just goes, ‘Oh, you can’t do it like that,'” says Barrow, who founded their label Invada Records back in 2001. “The industry has become so standard and boring…For fuck sake, we’re Beak>. It’s not like we’re anything huge. You should basically be able to do it how you want do it. I think it’s quite exciting.”
Formed in 2009 by Barrow, Fuller and Matt Williams, not long after Portishead released Third, Beak> felt like a deliberate move out of the spotlight, a chance to make the “head music” they all loved, including prog, krautrock, dark psychedelia and post-punk. Records were made as live as possible with an emphasis on groove and vibe, though they’ve never shied away from hooks, melody and structure. Young, who also records as Moon Gangs, replaced Williams in 2016, bringing even more melody to the table, as heard on the band’s terrific third album in 2019. This new one is their strongest yet, a cohesive work meant to be listened to start-to-finish but also one with many standout moments, from slow-build opener “Strawberry Line,” to hypnagogic numbers like “Denim,” and the folky harmonies of “Hungry We Are” to dubby, paranoid synthwave (“Secrets”).
A couple weeks before the album’s (and days before the 5/17 release of the long-awaited debut solo album by Barrow’s Portishead bandmate Beth Gibbons), I had a transatlantic Zoom call with all three members of Beak>, who each dialed in separately from their respective homes. Over the course of an often jokey, acerbic and self-deprecating conversation, we discussed how touring and playing festivals changed the direction of >>>>, its wonderful artwork, the pluses and minuses of the surprise release, and the challenges of playing the album in full on their upcoming tour and how Barrow’s recent broken ankle has affected that. Other topics: why there aren’t as many good basslines in rock anymore, old synthesizers, Steve Albini, Low, and why Barrow doesn’t like looking back (including with Portishead reissues), despite describing Beak> as “regressive rock.”
Read the interview below.
Geoff, first I want to ask, how’s your ankle?
GB: Yeah. I’ve got my boot off today, so we’re rocking and rolling in the free world. So, hopefully I’ll be able to start playing, rehearsing in the next two weeks. But, yeah. It’s been a pain in the ass, basically.
It was a football accident?
GB: Yeah. Yeah. Bill witnessed it.
BF: It was ridiculous. There was nobody near him. He was just trying to stop the ball from going out of play. Nobody near him. He did it all by himself.
GB: Yeah.
BF: And as soon as he did it, I was like, “You tosser.”
GB: I pretty much had the same words to say about myself as well.
Well, I’m glad you’re on the mend. So I really do think the album is great. When was the bulk of this recorded? Was it throughout the last maybe four years, or was a lot of it in one certain period of time?
BF: It was two or three periods. The first period being, we went to an old house in the middle of North Wales in the middle of nowhere. It’s an Airbnb, a friend of ours. And we just set up in the living room, moved all the sofas out of the way. And we took a couple of mates, a mate of ours to engineer and another friend of ours who was really good at cooking black bean burritos. And that’s what we ate for a week, because he didn’t bring anything else. So, we just recorded and we didn’t really have much in the way of ideas, so that’s how we started banging things together. But, two of the songs that came together at that session ended up on the album. So, the first tune and “Secrets,” I think it is, which is on the digital version. Those two are from those sessions.
When exactly was that?
BF: That was January 2023.
So pretty new. I was wondering as “Ah Yeh” is on the record, too, and sounds to me like it’s the same version that you released in ’21.
BF: Well spotted, Batman. We just say that it actually went with the running order of the album. We thought, “Why not?” And also because it was a B-side of a 7″, it hadn’t really been heard by a lot of people and we liked the tune. And it’d be really good to start playing it live in the set with this new record. So, why not?
Right. In the little info blurb I got with the album, it said that touring began to influence your writing so you went back to your old process. How did touring start to influence your writing? And why was that a bad thing?
WY: I think we tried to write pop songs for a bit, because festival people liked them. And then it turned out we weren’t that good at it. So, we went back to the old weird ones. Seems like a better idea.
GB: Yeah. Festivals, you have 45 minutes to an hour or so. You get thrown on. You’ve got a monitor engineer you don’t know. It’s all about survival. Right? So, if you’ve been doing that for a fair few years, that’s your experience of playing music, survival, which is a really horrible place to be. So your instinct thing is to go, “What can we do to …” You’re playing to a load of people you don’t know. So, your view of music can become about cheap tricks and stuff just to survive. And I thought that we had lost the very nucleus of the moment, which was to make head music, really.
BF: And it’s the subtleties, isn’t it, that you lose when you play live.
GB: You do. You lose all subtle stuff and you start playing louder and hitting harder. And so we purposely went kind of back. But, we couldn’t really go back, because we all know each other so well and we’ve covered so much ground. And also we’re a little bit dubious of jam music, like bands just jamming out and making weird … doing solos and shit like that going, “Hey, look at us make this weird noise, man.” You know what I mean? We’re all older and it’s like you get past that point. So, we feel like there has to be some substance there, not just fucking drones or stuff to hide behind, because a lot of cool bands do hide behind just fucking shite. And we’re all into songs. We all love bands that play drones, but it just didn’t seem right for us.
WY: It’s easier. It’s easy, isn’t it? What you’re saying about drones? If we just put one note … We have a playback of a note that runs through the whole thing, it’s suddenly made the song weird and interesting. It’s not actually very weird or interesting, though. We’ve just played a note alongside a song. So, I think we tried not to do that. Like, let’s write things that sound good, let’s not worry about like, “Oh, no, what if it’s too weird? What if it’s too normal? What if it’s hard to play live?” Just like, “Let’s just try and write some nice music again,” rather than…it doesn’t need to end on a bang maybe. But, they prefer it when they’re drunk if it ends on a bang. There’s that kind of mindset. “Oh, let’s not worry about that for a little bit,” because…
BF: It did get to a stage when we were playing live where every song went with a big finish at the end of each tune. Remember? We’d just be like, “Oh, what have we fucking become, man?” But, the more we did it, the more people loved it. So, it’s like, what do you do when that happens? You got to fucking do something else.
WY: Yeah. They did love it. And every time we did it, I felt a bit older.
What’s the process like when you come together to write? Do you come in with an idea, or a bassline, or a keyboard hook or something like that?
WY: A bassline. Yeah.
BF: Yes. It works like that but…
GB: It’s going to be a bassline, because Billy’s the only one who writes. [Laughs]
WY: He’s the only one that is in any way proactive about it. So, yeah. It is a bassline.
BF: I tried to protect them, but they’ve just both admitted it!
GB: But, it’s very hard for me to write. It’s like, “Oh, here’s a drum beat.” [Laughter]
BF: Will’s doing himself a disservice actually on this record, because he came up with the initial organ chords for “Strawberry Line.” You came up with a guitar part for “Hungry Are We” and you gave me the initial bass part for “Denim,” and then we started writing from there. But, apart from that, yeah, it’s usually a bassline.
Was this record more like the first one where you played everything live? No overdubs and maybe just some edits? Or…
GB: No. The opposite. More like a traditional record would’ve been, basically.
You had all the songs figured out when you went in the studio? Or not that much?
GB: No. No. No. No. Not that much of a traditional record.
BF: We’ve never done it like that have we? Ever?
GB: No. So, there are things that we’ve only ever just played once as a demo on the record. You know what I mean? There’s very few re-recordings. They usually are just the first time we played them. So, in that sense, it’s the same, that ethos. But, in the sense that we might know a little bit more about what we’re doing, or add more overdubs.
WY: There’s just more parts on it. There’s very few tunes on the new record where it’s just us three playing one thing each. Every tune’s got five or six parts on it.
BF: We worked a lot harder. We worked a lot harder on the vocals as well on this one, I felt.
GB: You can’t just hide behind mumbles.
BF: Yeah. There wasn’t so much mumbling. We actually had things to say.
Maybe you could walk me through the process of how one song was created. “Strawberry Line,” has a lot of the things that I think you guys do really well. There’s the vocal harmonies, which I don’t think you guys get enough credit for. And then, of course, the rhythm section and the woozy synthesizers and stuff.
BF: Well, that one was one that happened in Wales.
WY: For a song that sounds like it had a lot of writing and thought and stuff going into it, I think that’s actually the one that was the most just off the cuff, wasn’t it?
GB: Yeah. It was. The overdubs, things like the synths and stuff came later. But, the general idea that it would be something that would grow, the synths. The melody was pretty strong already in the demo but then I had to go off and write lyrics and then we had to work on harmonies and stuff. Actually strangely enough, you are right, Will. It was actually one of the most natural ones.
GB: It’s weird. Because it’s one of the most natural ones, and then because it was recorded really roughly and stuff, it’s the one I most probably mixed about 70 times.
BF: Also, we ended up putting the last harmonies down at the very end of the album. We started the album with it, the recording, like the initial backing tracks. But I remember us putting those last vocals down at the end of the album when we were nearly done. So, weirdly it took the longest to get finished. Didn’t we get the idea for it because we liked that it was like that band from Finland from the ’70s, Paternoster. [The others nod in agreement.] It was a little nod to that band. If you’ve never heard that, Bill, you should check that record out. They’re really good.
WY: Only the self-titled one, though. The other one, I don’t rate that much.
BF: The first one. Yeah. There was this guy in a record shop in Lyon. We went in and he said, “Oh, you’re Beak>. Have you ever heard this band?” And we were like, “No. We haven’t heard of this band.” And he put it on and we were like, “This is really good.”
GB: What it is, it’s just got … You know when you got a vibe and you just go, “That’s fucking wicked that vibe. I’m going to have that.”
BF: There was an organ that just went for ages before anything happened. And we liked the idea of there being something at the start of an album where it’s a while before things started to happen.
WY: I think we argued. Well, we ummed and ahhed about “should we start the album with two minutes of the same organ riff and nothing happening for ages?” “Yeah. I think we should.”
It’s a cool way to open the record as it builds and builds and then it goes right into “The Seal.” If “Strawberry Line” was the most natural to come together, what song gave you fits?
GB: Everything else. [Laughter] “Denim” was the one…
WY: It really floated in various points between all kinds of terribly wrong things as well, didn’t it? “Sounds like AI wrote it. Can we change this little bit? Oh, it’s gone a bit Mumford. Remove that.”
BF: It never ever went Mumford.
At what point did you hit on this idea to just spring the whole album on the world with no advance notice?
WY: I think just no one wanted to read any more emails about things. It gets so boring following the pattern of the trickle. Your friends are like, “How’s Beak>?” It’s like, “Yeah. I’ve got a new record coming out.” They’re like, “Cool. When’s the 6 Music single?” and “Who’s premiering the video?” It’s like, “Oh, it’s just really tedious. Can we not just put it out?”
GB: Everybody just goes, “Oh, you can’t do it like that, because the shops need to pre-sell it,” and it’s just like, “Fuck them. Fuck it all. Who fucking cares? It’s not fuck the shops, because we love record shops. But, just the point of the industry has become so standard and boring. You have to release it on a Friday, you have to do this, you’ve got to give them the heads up, because someone else is going to get angry. It’s just like, “Fuck off.”
WY: But, when we finally got to the bottom of it, it was like, right, what are the negatives to just putting it out? And it boiled down to, well, the punters will get it digitally and then have to wait an extra six days for the vinyl. It’s like, right. That doesn’t sound that bad really, does it?
GB: No. Two days. Just two days.
BF: Yeah. It’s fine. There’s been a lot of kickback, though, generally. We didn’t realize there was such a system in place where it would be this major, especially with a band of our medium to low stature. I didn’t realize we could create that much problem. It should just be able to come out and then you can get it, listen to it and buy it if you like it.
WY: It also feels a little bit like no one’s sure why it’s a problem. And it’s a bit like, why can’t we do it? And it’s, “Oh, well. Because that’s not how you do it.”
GB: That’s so true. No one really knew why it was a problem. They just kept on saying it was a problem.
WY: Yeah. “You can’t do that.” “Why?” “You just can’t. It’s not how it works.”
BF: It’s not a financial thing, is it? Is it the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about? It might be money. I don’t know what it is.
WY: Maybe when every independent shop in the country goes under, because of our record, we’ll have to own that for the rest of our lives.
GB: Yeah. For fuck sake, we’re Beak>. You know what I mean? It’s not like we’re anything huge. You should basically be able to do it how you want do it. I think it’s quite exciting. When you wake up in the morning … If you’re a Beak> fan, one of the four, and basically you wake up and there’s a new Beak> album and you just go, “Oh, that’s great.”
WY: I think that’s why we discussed it for ages and that’s why we ended up doing it. That thought of someone that does like it and a band you like, that’s a really … Scrolling on your phone while you’re shitting and going, “Oh, this band I like have a new album out. Oh, today! And, oh! There’s a video. Oh! There’s a load of tour dates near me. That’s put me in a good mood.”
GB: Beak> put people in a good mood for a change.
WY: Just maybe Beak>, for the first time ever, might cheer someone up…
GB: Until they hear it, of course. [Laughter]
WY: Yeah. Until they hear it. Then it’s all over. The video’s nice, though. They can watch it with sound off.
From my side of things, the long cycle can make things anticlimactic. They announce a record three months in advance — or maybe more in some cases — you end up getting five “singles” before the record comes out. It’s a bit of a letdown when it actually comes out, as you’ve probably heard all the best songs already. And now you’ve just got the filler deep cuts for release day.
WY: And those filler deep cuts have probably, by that point, leaked. And if you really want to, you’ve listened to them anyway.
Right, for those who still download music.
GB: When we released our first album, there wasn’t really any promotion for it that I was aware of. People just came across the album. There were no singles. Do you know what I mean? And it was just like, “Oh, this is a body of work by three musicians,” and that was it. It was just like, “Oh, it sounds awful,” or “I like it,” which is a really nice thing. If we went the normal way, we would have to then choose a song that would be the main track going to radio and stuff. And it’s like, “Well, we’re not actually one of those bands.” We have done that, but that’s influenced how we’ve made our records, because we’ve known then that we’ve got to do a track that’s got to be edited or whatever. And for this, it’s just like, “No. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.” It’s just like, “Get the record. That’s it.”
So, last night I was talking to a friend at a bar and telling her that I was going to interview you guys today. And she’s a fan and was asking me what the new album sounded like. And I said, “it’s still got their sort of psychedelic things going on.” And she was like, “Beak> are psychedelic? I’ve never thought about that.” I know you have played many psych festivals but do you actually consider yourselves a psychedelic band?
BF: Yeah. But, only in the sense … Not that we sound like the 13th Floor Elevators or anything like that, but it’s just a mindset, isn’t it? Or, I just always felt like Beak> sang like we’re crawling out the ground, for which I really … If you’re anyone who’d ever done magic mushrooms and ended up fucking chatting to a fucking bramble bush for four hours, you’ll understand what that means. Even though there’s synthesizers and stuff, I always just felt like we just sounded like we were coming out of the ground. So, to me, that’s how we’re psychedelic.
WY: When someone asks, “Oh, what kind of music does your band play?” And I know it’s going to be so lost, whatever I say, I just go, “psychedelic rock.” And they go, “Oh, wicked.”
BF: Yeah. But, as I said, it’s become that kind of term, hasn’t it? Which is like, it doesn’t actually have to mean that. But, we all know about the psych festivals and psych-y music and what that leads to — you go to droning in D with a fuzz pedal going ape shit. But also, it’s tragic that it’s become that, because there’s more to it than that. It’s probably not even called psychedelic. I don’t know. It probably got another name like mud music or something. I don’t know. Grand mud.
That’s could be your genre
BF: No. Regressive Rock was our genre.
GB: That is basically the best thing for us. Regressive Rock is us.
BF: Yeah yeah. It is the best term for us.
I think that the synthesizers are the most psychedelic thing about your band, because it’s always like a little out of tune and makes everything sound very woozy.
GB: How dare you say it’s out of tune! [Laughter] I’m a consummate professional! I’m a producer, you know!
I’ve stepped in it. It’s purposefully out of … I don’t know if even that’s the right term to use for what I’m hearing
GB: No. It’s not purposefully out of tune at all. It’s just a vibe. You know what musicians are like, you know what I mean? They either care about that or they don’t. And it’s not like we’re trying to be wobbly, it’s just, it feels natural.
WY: Not to sound really poncy about it, which is going to be really difficult and I am going to. But, it’s not deliberately out of tune. It’s more deliberately playing a harmony, because it’s not out of tune compared to a lot of music that isn’t from predominantly white areas of the world, for example. And microtonal music doesn’t really exist in Western culture. And what sounds out of tune when you’re used to hearing a 13-note scale is just a different harmony to what you’re used to. And I don’t mean that in the way that, “Oh yeah, we’re doing these mathematically super intelligent micro-harmonies.” But, it’s like rather than there is no–
GB: I prefer to be out of tune than be known as a white person trying to do, basically, microtonal otherworldly music.
WY: That wasn’t the point I was trying to make…
GB: No. I know it wasn’t.
WY: But, a half tone is hardly wild and quarter tones are hardly wild. And that’s about what the difference is in the bits that sound out of tune. And it’s just maybe an interval you’re not that used to in pop music.
BF: There we go.
WY: I guess?
BF: Right. Is that your final answer, Will?
WY: Well, it depends how long you’d like me to talk rubbish about it for.
Your synthesizer sounds remind me of … I don’t know if you remember the theme song for the old The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy BBC show? There’s this last little synthesizer note at the end and it goes all weird … It’s been stuck in my head for 40 years. And Beak>’s synthesizers always remind me of that, but maybe it’s just like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop sort of sound or something.
BF: We’ve always used the same synth. There’s one synth that stuck with us all the way through. And it’s a really basic synthesizer. And it was one of those ones that, in the UK, it was in your mum’s catalog and you could get it for cheap. It’s Korg Micro-Preset. I think some of those early synth bands from the UK had them, like Tubeway Army had one on their first album and stuff. [Geoff has turned his camera to his keyboard collection and pulled out the Korg.] Here you are. There you go. We now own 10 of them. There’s five of them there. There you go. A Korg Micro-Preset. But, it’s really, really simple, but in its simplicity, it’s the reason why it’s really, really fucking brilliant. It doesn’t do very much. It’s got very simple voices, but it is very musical. And that’s been the solid synth throughout all the Beak> records. That’s what we use mainly. That’s the big daddy for us.
I see. You guys were saying earlier that a lot of the songs start from Billy’s basslines. I just want to say bravo to all of you guys for everything on this album but Billy, I think you’re the superstar on this record. Every song has an amazing bassline.
WY: Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah. Cheers. Thanks, man. Ok, I’m off [Pretends to get up and leave].
GB: So am I. Yeah. I only poured my heart and soul into them fucking lyrics. But, don’t worry, mate. It’s all right.
WY: I didn’t. Put very little effort into any of it, so I’m just happy for Billy to take it.
I’ve stepped in it again, I meant that to say…
BF: You’ve only made one friend by saying that today, Bill.
I should have asked for a lyric sheet.
WY: Oh, yeah. Well good luck with that. I’ll take you a photo of some of the lyric sheets that are used live that may as well not be in English. They’re indecipherable.
GB: No they’re not.
WY: What’s that? Yours are. I’ve still got a setlist on the wall that you only spelled three of the song titles right in there, Geoff. That’s a good one. I’ll take a photo of that later. There’s seven that are wrong.
BF: Anyway, Bill you were just about to big me up. Sorry about this. Sorry.
Yes let me big you up some more. What I was going to say is, listening to the basslines on this album, I started to think, I associate a lot of my favorite bands, especially from the ’80s and stuff, The Cure, maybe New Order, The Smiths, other bands…they’re all known for having amazing basslines in rock songs. And I feel like you don’t hear that anymore. It’s all very rudimentary. Do you feel the same way?
GB: Yeah. Fuck. Yeah. Totally. Also, it’s because Billy does write most of the stuff. Out of all of us, Bill’s got that thing where he enjoys playing music and will sit there and write basslines. You know what I mean? Which means that your vibe is set up from there. The track starts from there. And we agree. We love PiL and we love Can. And so much is that from the bass. It’s a lost art, really. Do you know what I mean?
WY: And I’m with you on The Cure especially. I’ve been playing guitar for a few years and it was from listening to The Cure when I was a kid. I was like, “Oh, bass is a melody instrument actually as well, isn’t it?” And we joked about every tune is just Bill bringing a bassline in. But, the ones on the record did come from Bill playing on his own. And it feels like when he’s playing, he’s like, “Oh, I’ve got a spare finger there and I’ve got a spare finger there. I’ll add another counter melody on top of that, while it’s going.” And then all of a sudden … I think it wouldn’t work as well if it wasn’t Bill writing on his own, because someone else would be playing melodies over it and maybe you’d stick to some simpler stuff, Billy. But, I think it is sitting down and playing on your own, which I know you do quite a lot.
GB: But, also using effects as well Bill, isn’t it? Using delays and stuff.
BF: Using delays to create a groove, because it flips the groove on its head and just stuff like that. Because you’re on your own, you haven’t got anyone else to play with, because you’re in the middle of a place called Yatton, and you haven’t got anyone to talk to.
GB: Other than the gimp.
BF: Other than the gimp.
WY: I reckon he could put a fresh melody down on a couple of your…
BF: So Bill, just to get you up to speed. Where I live, I’m sort of 30 minutes outside of Bristol. And it made the national news here that basically there was this guy who was dressed up in a gimp costume and he was terrorizing local people late at night and doing the Scooby-Doo scary walk towards them and stuff, doing all that. The zombie sort of walk. And they caught him recently. But I’m not sure whether they’ve caught the right guy there. I think there might be another one, a copycat. But, anyway, that’s by the by. And it’s not about our album, but yeah, that’s who we’re talking about
WY: I think the Yatton Gimp had a little bit an influence though, didn’t he?
GB: Probably. Massive, massive influence.
I love the album cover. I know that it’s your dog, right?
GB: Yeah. Basically what happened was that Alf was a bit of the band’s dog. He was always around the studio and stuff, and he passed away whilst we were making the record. And it really seemed fitting for him to be on the album cover and spreading his love rays. And pretty much the first track on the album is basically about him. It was really weird, because the back of the album was actually going to be the cover. It’s us fighting on the gardens of a mansion house. And then the back cover with Alf ended up being so good that it was like, that’s a better cover.
BF: Because basically, it was my idea that [the cover art] was basically going to be a gatefold. [Billy holds up his vinyl copy of the album.] So, it would’ve been the bridge going across a gatefold. And Alf would’ve been over here and spraying it. This is part of a walk I’ve been going on all my life basically. This is the Clifton Suspension Bridge designed by the famous engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and is like the landmark of Bristol. It crosses the River Avon. Around here was like a cycle track and it takes you out to a place called Pill, which is a song on the first Beak> record. I’ve always sort of thought this perspective, looking back towards Bristol was really interesting. And I thought we’d look good there and we’d have Alf and there’s the “love heart.” I just thought it’d be a really good image. And what’s great about it as well is that Alf, he’s sitting on Clifton which is the richest part of Bristol. It’s where all the rich people are. And it’s just really cool that he sat on them, he’s crushing them. It’s great.
I’m glad to know those are “love beams” coming from his eyes and he’s not blowing you guys up.
BF: No. Because look, there’s a love heart. See the love heart?
Oh it’s a heart! I just have a tiny jpeg to look at and just thought it just like “laser energy” or something. That’s really sweet.
BF: That’s what happens when you have dogs around.
You said that this album has lots of layers, and on your tour, you’re going to play the whole thing front to back. Have you figured that out yet?
BF: No. No. This one’s got a broken ankle.
GB: No. We haven’t. But, I think it’s really interesting. I’m really looking forward to it, because we have basically been playing some of the same tunes for so many years. The idea that people come and see us play and play those songs like that. We’ll still put a couple of family favorites at the end, I’m sure. But, yeah. I’ve never done that in my whole career and I’m really looking forward to it.
WY: I’ve seen bands do it occasionally and ours is going to end up very different to the record, because that’s just how it’s going to have to work if we’re going to play it live. And every time I’ve seen that happen like that, it’s been so nice to hear. I know the record, they’re playing it in order sometimes, because I recognize everything, but this is a new version of it. It’s like listening to a new version of the record live. You might as well go to a listening party if we’re just going to do it exactly like it. And yeah, I’m quite excited about seeing what happens with the tunes I like that they are going to be really hard to play.
It’s almost like you’re doing the 20th anniversary tour for the album now.
BF: Yeah. Well, to be honest, we’re 15 years in now, aren’t we? Next year we’ll be 15 years old. So, we’re getting there.
It’s this year, right? You formed in 2009.
BF: 2009. Yeah. Yeah. There you go.
Happy 15th anniversary, Beak>.
GB: Thanks. It’s been one hell of a journey.
Geoff, if I may dive off a little into other stuff that you do, this is a pretty exciting time to be a fan of the Portishead Extended Universe. Beth’s record comes out next week, the Beak> album the week after that, and you just reissued the Roseland live album and film. There’s a lot going on.
GB: Yeah. Well, I had nothing to do with the Roseland rerelease. I never liked the record myself. I never liked what it sounded like. I thought it was actually a failure. And so, now that I’m old enough to say that, possibly brave enough to say that… I really enjoy that people enjoy it. You know what I mean? But also, working with Universal, I never want to work with them again. I don’t like the record, don’t want to work with Universal and I don’t like looking backwards. So, in that sense, I’d love to talk about Beth’s record, but I’ve not heard it. We do stuff completely separately from each other and as we always have done. The tracks I’ve heard sound great. And it’s a really good band she’s been playing with. So, really looking forward to that.
Does she know that you guys have a record coming out 10 days after hers?
GB: We’ve not talked about it. Really? I didn’t know when hers was coming out.
Yeah. It’s out May 17.
GB: Yeah. Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Just need Adrian [Utley, of Portishead] to do his jazz record. Well, any record, and it’d be great.
Also, as we all know, Steve Albini died earlier this month and I was thinking back — you guys played the first two ATP New York’s. Right? 2010 and 2011. And ’11 Shellac played. Do you have any memories of that era? Or did you hang out with Steve or anything?
GB: We just played one New York one, didn’t we?
BF: We did the one at Kutsher’s, in upstate New York.
I guess I meant NY area. 2011 was Asbury Park.
BF: Yeah, you’re right we did play 2011 [the year Portishead also played and curated – Editor] but I never ever met him. I weirdly never got into Shellac but I liked Big Black and the band that he had early on as well, with the terrible name. But, you know what? I’ve seen interviews with him about that. I’ve seen interviews with him about that, and he really owned it
WY: I also was going to say, I also, I was thinking about that, obviously when he passed away, and then, yeah, I read some more stuff and he was a cunt for a bit, wasn’t he, in the ’80s? And then he spent the best of 40 years apologizing, atoning for it and owning it. So, fair play to him.
BF: Very sad. He did a lot of good stuff.
GB: Yeah. I never really knew either him or really his music, to be honest. I’ve come from a different world, and most probably the closest I got to it was Nirvana. But, looking back I realized that he produced one of my favorite Om records. And yeah, fuck. He’s a dude, isn’t he? And I learned a new word the other week, which is an “iconoclast,” and there are very few of them, especially in the music game. And he absolutely is. Mark Stewart sadly passed away recently, and he was another. And it just seems like we’re losing them and no one’s going to replace them. It’s quite depressing.
Speaking of people who are gone, the last time you guys played here, Le Poisson Rouge, a year and a half ago, you did that cover of Low’s “No Comprende,” which was wonderful. Did you guys ever record that in the studio?
WY: Yeah. We did, actually. We did.
BF: No.
WY: Yeah we did.
BF: I can’t remember that, man.
WY: We really, really did. Just to see what it sounded like, and then we were like, “Oh, that’s actually a decent recording of it.” And then we were like, “What are we ever going to do with it? It feels very wrong to put it on a record and sell it.” But, I think there is a recording of it floating about on the Invada hard drives. But, we played it live to say thank you and probably won’t play it again or release it.
BF: And we’re sending our love to Alan.
GB: Yeah. We were just devastated really by it. Yeah. It was just so, so awful. I’ve seen people, bands that do that, and you just think, “Oh, you fucking idiots.” You know what I mean? Or, you’ve just made that worse and all that stuff. But, we were trying to do it from the right place. And it’s really amazing to see him out playing again and with his family as well.
With your tour, are you coming to North America?
GB: There’s nothing in there yet. We’re trying to go to Australia for the first time next year. And then, hopefully on the way back through, we’ll come through. I’m glad you enjoy the record, because we are still not quite signed off on it, are we, really? We don’t really know what to make of it.
BF: We don’t know. I said that to Reg or our label manager. I asked him, “Have you heard any feedback about the record?” He was like, “Yeah.” I was like, “Well, do you want to tell us?” He said, “Everybody loves it.” I said, “How long have you known?” It’s like, “I don’t know,” I’ve been going, “Have you heard the new Beak> record? It’s fucking terrible.” You go to bed thinking that.
WY: I’d rather have that. Like, I’m having the dreams of an ocean of solid sixes. A six is way worse than a two, innit?
BF: If you’re going to give us a six, give me a fucking zero. Please.
GB: Yeah. Absolutely. I’ll have a zero over that.
