Kassidy are back with their new album One Man Army, which comes just twelve months after the release of Hope St.
I caught up with Hamish to talk about the album, recording it live and what lies ahead.
- You are about to release your new album One Man Army so what can we expect from the new record?
We recorded the album live this time because a lot of people after seeing us live when we were promoting the last record had said ‘wow you are so exciting live. I love the records but it really comes alive when I got to see the show’. So we thought that we would incorporate a bit of that into the new album. So we recorded it live.
We went down to Rockfield Studios in Wales and we played all the songs out life and layered them up. So it is a really an exciting sounding album.
- I was reading that the album was recorded in a single week so is that true and why did you decide to record that way?
Yes we recorded it all in one week. Basically we had written it all and we knew how it was going to go - that’s all we needed because when you record live it takes three to five minutes to record. So we just laid them all down and that was all we needed to do in the end.
- It must have been an incredibly tense experience?
Yeah it really was. Because the way that Rockfield is set out, it’s on an old farm, there is basically nothing around it. We would just stay in the farm and you would get engrossed in it and totally lost. But that is really great because it feels real and feels true; you all really get into the music.
- As you say you recorded at the Rockfield Studios so how did you find that?
I loved it, really really loved it. It’s quite an exciting thing when you are going down to a place where bands like Queen, Motorhead, Led Zeppelin and all these massive people have recorded there. We weren’t really fazed by it we were just inspired even more - it was an amazing opportunity.
Before we went we just got ourselves so super tight so that when we got there we could achieve what we wanted to.
It was an amazing studio because you would be playing a bass part and then a horse would go past the window; it was quite nice and brings you back down to earth.
- The album hasn’t been released yet but how have you found the early response to the record?
It has been amazing. A lot of people have been really impressed that it has been just over a year since the last album. The take-up for pre-orders has been really good so we are really happy with that.
None of us really want to be the biggest band on the planet we just want to keep doing it and it’s really nice that people are still enjoying our music. So as long as we get to go around and play gigs then it’s great. But it really does sound great so we are totally psyched.
- I gave it a listen yesterday and there is a bit of rock in there, indie rock and maybe even a little bit of a pop vibe so how would you describe the sound of the album?
The thing with Kassidy is there are four song-writers and there are four singers (laughs). I don’t think any of us are into one style of music, one day you will walk past and someone will have Sly & The Family Stone on another day you will walk past and they will have on Black Keys or Jeff Buckley or Coldplay. The other thing is we are not really scared to write a big chorus.
So it’s got rock, it’s got indie, it’s got pop - but the major difference with this album to the last is that all four boys take on the lead vocals at one point. It sounds big, it sounds sonically pretty big.
- Thomas McNeice & Mike Crossey worked with you on the album so how did those collaborations come about?
Well Thomas McNeice works at Rubber Gum Studios, where we did out first album and all of our EP’s, he is a good friend of ours and he plays bass in Gang Of Four.
That just came around because we have just known him for ages. With the last album Hope St we recorded the whole thing with someone else before we realised that we should go back to being with Thomas. Jim did a great album but it just didn’t sound like what we wanted it to sound like and what Kassidy sounds like and Thomas knows how to do that.
We wanted to do it live but the studio in Glasgow wasn’t big enough so that is why we went to Rockfield. When we came to mixing we really liked what Mike’s done as he has done Black Keys and he is doing the new Blood Red Shoes album.
We just wanted a harder sounding record; because it was live, so the stuff that he was mixing we really felt that it could suit us. We did one track and were like ‘yep that is it, good man.’
- You have mentioned some of the artists that Mike Crossey has worked with so what did his experience bring to the album?
When we have mixed our tracks they sound really good but it is really hard with the equipment that we have to make it sound wider, it’s really technical jargon. Mike can make sound stuff sound really really hard and really energetic.
Sometimes when you play that way when you are recording it’s quite hard to get it to sound like that once it has gone through microphones and computers and stuff - once it comes out the speakers you think ’that doesn’t sound like we played it’ unless you know how to do that. So Mike is really good at making bands sound the way that they play.
- One Man Army comes a year after Hope St so how do you think you have developed as musicians and as a band in quite a short space of time?
I think as a band we have developed immensely to be honest, personally I have improved my playing ability even since I started in the band. In forcing ourselves to record this live you can’t slip up, when you are recording and you are layering things up you can have twenty million takes; but when you are recording live you can’t slip up.
So every single one of us has had to drill everything into playing perfectly every single time, singing every harmony in tune every single time - so it has forced us to become perfectionists. So we have got a lot tighter, especially when it comes to playing in time and listening to each other, so in that way we have really improved.
And with the way that this album sounds the song-writing has definitely improved, the lyrics mean more and it sounds a lot more grown up. Definitely a big improvement.
- So why did you decide to bring this album out so close to the last?
Because there are four songwriters in the band we have got songs going round so it was a case of ’we have got another twenty or thirty song do you want start jamming them?’ We just said to the label ‘can we put out another album?’ We showed them the songs and they thought they were good enough.
Hopefully in another year we can stick another one out (laughs). We are always writing tunes and we all live in one house so because of that it’s a hobby rather than work. We have already started writing the third album.
- How does the writing process work within the band - is there one main writer or do you all work on songs together?
The four of us all live in one house and we probably have five pianos and hundreds of guitars so there is always music going on somewhere. Sometimes someone will come in with a full song and it will be amazing where only a couple of wee bits will need to be tweaked.
Other times someone will come in with a chorus and then someone else will say ’ I have got a really nice verse that would go well with that’ and they come together and then s someone sings a melody over that. It’s just continuous writing all of the time really.
- You are also about to embark on a tour so what can people who perhaps haven't seen you before expect from your live performances?
It’s probably the loudest acoustic band that you will ever see. When we play live we have lots of extra wee solos for people to enjoy. So it’s just a fun experience, it’s a party in a gig.
- And how much are you looking forward to performing these new tracks?
Oh I can’t wait, I absolutely can’t wait. My attention span just disappears and I can’t focus on anything for very long so getting to play some news songs at a gig is the best thing, of course you have to play the old ones as well.
I just can’t wait because it is so refreshing and it has just brought a life back into it, we are so psyched.
- Finally what's next for you are the any festival slots on the horizon?
We have got this tour and then we are doing Rockness this year, I have been to Rockness a few times but we have never played there, we have got a great following up there so we are excited about that.
And then I think we are doing one called Hebfest, which up in Stornoway, but apart from them there are talks of others but nothing has been confirmed yet.
Kassidy’s new album One Man Army is released 30th April.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw