It took Leicestershire band The Young Knives three years, from when they broke into the music industry in 2002, before they gained widespread recognition in 2005 with their single The Decision.Yet despite their struggling early year the trio of Henry and Thomas Dartnall and Oliver Askew are riding the waves of success after their debut album Voices of Animals and Men secured them a Mercury Music Prize nomination.Now they are back and recording their second album which is due for release next year. Their new single Terra Firma is released 29th October.I caught up with Oliver to discuss the new album and their long road to success.
You arrived on the music scene in 2002 but it wasn't until 2005 that you gained national coverage with 'The Decision' why do you think it took so long?
Mainly because in 2002 we released an album on a very small independent label with no money or promotion behind it and then that whole thing went bust. So we had this EP out and then we spent the next couple of years just organising our own tours and playing gigs after work and all that sort of stuff. It took us a while to get a record company interested so yeah we were just slogging our guts out around the UK for a while.
Since then you had a successful debut album and you have been touring are you surprised by the level of success that you have had?
Erm yeah definitely. I think it was we knew that this is what we wanted to do but you don't think that it's going to work out exactly as you planned and that you will get the opportunity to quit your day job and go and play music for a living and it's just nice that we are in a position were we are doing the second album, so things must still be going alright I've completely run our of money, yet, and I haven't been thrown out of my house.
Which bands got you into music when you were younger and why did you decide to pursue this career?
Bands that got me into music probably Blur, when the second album Modern Life Is Rubbish came out, and I think in the same month the guy from The Pixies, Frank Black, released a solo album, and I had like The Pixies, but then I heard Frank Blacks solo stuff and I thought it was awesome he was really experimental with what he was doing. There were probably a lot of things, like Radiohead, who were around at that time as well and they were fairly sort of influential. And before that there was Michael Jackson.
Why did we pursue it as a career? I don't know. You know I don't think we ever did imagine that it would be a career because if you were a kid from London you probably walk around and see people from bands and think it was something obtainable. But we aren't from anywhere were there's anybody in a band or on TV or anything like so you just go that's not obtainable.
So we played in local pubs and stuff and then we all went off to university and decided not to do but then I think we just missed it really and when we had finished we decided to get back together and give it a whizz. And we did alright eventually.
And where does the name The Young Knives come from?
Well we were just looking for names, we used to be called The Pony Club, but somebody else used it and released an album so we had to get rid of the name. We were looking through books and there was a book on medieval Scottish history and it had a very old fashioned etching and it said The Young Knaves, these guys with knives stabbing Scottish noble men and pulling his wig off, and I thought it said Young Knives, which I thought sounded good, and that was it.
Your new album is released next year what can we expect from it?
Erm it's the same as the old stuff, it sounds like us, it's probably a bit more psychedelic in places not quite so, what's the word?, post modern, on the last one we wrote a lot of songs about normal life, and this one is a bit more magical and mystical sort of themes I guess.
How daunting a task was it to follow up your Mercury nominated debut?
Not really because since we done we started working on new stuff. We got it recorded and then we though I'm sure we can do better than so we just started writing more songs. I don't think, if a band released a record and said that's the best thing we have ever done they might as well stop.
You have been working with Tony Doogan who has worked with Super Furry Animals what was it like working with him?
Good and sort of daunting because he had done some really good stuff and you think well we are not as good as Super Furry Animals so I don't know what he is going to think of it when he asks me to play something and I couldn't tell him what key I was in or what notes are and things like that. But he seems to be used to it he obviously works with a lot of non musicians that really don't really know what they are doing. It was nice because he didn't say 'You idiot' (laughs)
And what is your relationship like with your label do they let you do what you want?
Yeah they do but they always have their opinion. I think that we are quite chummy with Tim and Toby, who run the label, it wouldn't say it was a friendship it's definitely a business relationship, but we are fairly friendly I don't hate them and we have never had any massive arguments.
We can usually come to an agreement, there were a couple of songs that we had written for this album and they said that they were not as good as our other songs but we really liked them, and then when you listen to them we were like oh the are right.
But they are music fans so they are listening to it in a different way than we are, so they are quite good really they are useful to have around plus they give us loads of money to go and record an album so I like them.
Do you think that The Young Knives are part of any scene or do you try and distance yourself from that?
I think we do distance ourself from it, partly because we don't know anybody in bands or hang out with anybody in bands we don't live in London or hang around in trendy Shoreditch or anything like that, we have always done our own thing, our own videos, our own artwork we just kind of like to get on with it ourselves.
You are quite regularly labelled as one of the best British bands of our generation how do you cope with that pressure?
No that's rubbish. We do our best but we stumble on the fact that we can't play our instruments as well as we would like and don't know what notes we are playing.
Finally what is next for the Young Knives?
Tea. We are going on tour starting tomorrow in Cambridge and doing three weeks of quite small venues two, three, four hundred capacity venues and playing the new album and some old stuff and some b-sides. It's for fans of the band dates so we are going to do some rare songs, songs we don't do a lot, and some new songs and a few of the old ones as well. And then I don't know a week off maybe.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw