Interview: The Leisure Society can't resist those sunny tunes

When Ragged Words phones Nick Hemming, the twice Ivor Novello-nominated frontman of The Lesiure Society, he warns us that he and his bandmates have been playing a drinking game that basically consists of trying to fit two drinks into each interview conducted that evening. As luck would have it, we're the band's fifth and final interviewers of the day; thankfully, though, it appears Nick can handle his drink just as well as he can pen a tune, and over the course of our conversation he gives us a great insight into the band's second LP, Into The Murky Water, an "elegantly arresting piece of work" that they have high hopes for.

RW: Hi there, Nick. Thanks for taking the call. To me, the new album sounds like a band who have given a little bit more in terms of resources as well as a bit more time to realise their sound and potential. Does that sound accurate to you?

NH: That’s exactly what happened. Helen (Whitaker), our flutist, is at Trinity Music College which is just around the corner from where I’m living so we’ve got access to all these amazing classical musicians. What I always wanted to do - being a huge Beach Boys fan - was to make things bigger and more diverse, and with the use of a studio, time and money wasn’t an issue so we just tried everything we could possibly try. We didn’t settle for anything either, like Brian Wilson did with ‘Good Vibrations’, we explored loads of different ways of doing the songs. It was quite obsessive and at times, I thought I was going mad but I’m so glad that we put the effort in because I’m really proud of it.

What sort of difference did having a label on board from the start – as well as not having to worry about a separate day job – make when it came to writing and recording the album?

The main difference is not having a day job, because that means that you can get up really early and work on songs 'til really late without having to worry about squeezing in sessions. The record label have been really hands-off too – they didn’t really get involved until we had finished and mixed the album – which is exactly what we wanted, somebody who was going to help us once we’d finished the album. They’ve been perfect really, but not having to worry about the day job has certainly been a massive, massive help.

You started recording it early last year, right? Did you spend more time working on this one than you had on The Sleeper in that case?

It was March, wasn't it (confers with bandmate Christian Hardy)? Yeah, March was the first drum session. As far as the amount of hours we spent doing it goes, it’s probably been about three times as much as with the first album, but then it was done over a much more condensed period of time. With the title track, for instance, we probably spent three days working on the marimba because we had gotten three different marimba players and it wasn’t sounding right, so we ended up layering them all up. So yeah, a lot more work has gone into this second album.  

Did the writing process change at all? Do you tend to write most of the stuff on your own, or with Christian or some of the other guys?

It was all written before we started recording it. I’d recorded some rough musical demos, and then on a road trip around the coast of Britain I'd just put the CDs on in the car and sing along to the demos that I’d done, and that's how I ended up writing most of the lyrics. That was about a year before we started recording, and I had about fourteen songs at that point, so we went away in March and just jammed them out for three or four days to get them tight as a rhythm section. So yeah, they were all written on my own before that really.

Right from the first listen, Into The Murky Water sounds 'bigger', both in terms of production and the amount and variety of instrumentation on display. Was that perhaps a result of having played together quite a bit in the intervening two years, and thus knowing what everyone's capable of?

Playing live definitely informed the writing process, because when we used to play, for instance, ‘Matter of Time’ off the first album, just seeing how the audience would react made me want to write more upbeat songs. I started off playing electric guitar in bands, so I always wanted to get more electric guitar on this time, so that informed the way the songs were written too. I guess I wanted the songs to be more upbeat this time around.

And yet, from a lyrical perspective the songs are still quite downbeat; I also remember reading somewhere that you had thought album number two was going to be a bit darker. Obviously, sonically speaking, it didn’t quite turn out that way...

We’ve been talking about that actually, because when we were recording it I thought it was a really dark album; and then, as people started listening to it, they began saying it’s the album of the summer and that it’s really upbeat! I didn’t see it that way at all, but that's the way it turns out I guess. The lyrics are definitely quite dark, but I’ve always had a tendency to want to write summery melodies and have nice, big uplifting arrangements. I’m just a massive Beach Boys fan, so that’s where it obviously comes from.

Speaking of influences, the album sounds like a really interesting split between classic British folk and the modern songwriting twists of American bands like Grizzly Bear and Sufjan Stevens. As I recall, those types of US acts dominated yours and Christian's albums of the decade lists. Which side of the Atlantic do you draw more inspiration from?

It’s weird, because most of the music I listen to is American. Take, for example, Department Of Eagles' In Ear Park – that was my favourite album from the year before last; I was just obsessed with that album, and still think it’s an absolute masterpiece. So yeah, I listen to a lot of American music, but then again everyone says we sound very English. I quite like that though; the fact that that music has clearly influenced us, but at the same time it’s not coming across too blatantly.

I know you’re a big Neil Hannon fan too, and I can definitely hear a bit of The Divine Comedy in ‘Better Written Off (Than Written Down)’...

We’ve just been thinking about who/what we sound like, and we couldn’t actually think of anything until someone said The Divine Comedy. On reflection, that's probably the closest thing to our sound, because Neil Hannon is someone else who combines thoughtful lyrics and big orchestrations; so yeah, if we had to say we sounded like a particular band, then it’d be The Divine Comedy. We’re all massive fans, and were lucky enough to spend some time with Neil over the last couple of years. That was a real treat... It was amazing.

I have to ask you about the video for ‘This Phantom Life'. it’s great – did you have fun making it? And how did you manage to get Mark Heap ('Green Wing', 'Spaced') involved?

Thanks! We’ve been really lucky: we’ve got loads of comedians who have become fans of ours. Olivia Colman, who's in both 'Green Wing' and 'Peep Show', is a huge fan; I met her at a screening with (long-time friend, actor) Paddy Considine – whose new film I’ve done some stuff on, incidentally – and it turned out she lived around the corner from me, so we ended up sharing a taxi home. I heard from her a few weeks later that she’d downloaded the album and was saying that she and her husband were massive fans. She even mentioned us in an interview with Jonathan Ross! So, when we were doing the video we wanted to get a recognisable face in it; I decided I'd just text her to see if she had any friends who’d be up for doing a video on the cheap. She phoned back an hour later with a list of everyone she knew, and we ended up doing it with Mark Heap – who was absolutely perfect for the role, and is such a nice guy too.

It was the most fun day I think I’ve ever had. The thought of doing a music video terrified me, but having him there made it such good fun. It’s the only thing we’ve ever relinquished control over, and it was nice to be able to be in a video but not be the centre of attention. So to have a genius comedy actor there was just brilliant.

I know it’s probably tough to pick a favourite, but having been shortlisted in both 2009 and 2010, which song is going to land you a third Ivor Novello nomination next year?!?

I don’t know, I don’t know! I don’t even want to think about it, it’s terrifying. I’ve got a couple of favourites on the album - I’ve got a real soft spot for ‘Dust on The Dance Floor’ and also the last track on the album, ‘Just Like The Knife’ – there’s just something about that one I quite like. It’s quite subtle; it definitely won’t be a single, but there’s just something I love about it. And also ‘I Shall Forever Remain An Amateur’, because that was kind of written partly because of the Ivor thing. I’d just left my day job on what ended up being the same day that twenty people got made redundant in the warehouse I was working in, meaning my leaving do was combined with their redundancy leaving parties. So it was a real bittersweet occasion. The next day, I was incredibly hungover and sat down to write that song, so I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for that one. Maybe that's the one that could be a contender! (laughs)

As nice as all the attention arising from the nominations must have been, will you be happy to put the 'warehouse boy done good' story behind you with this new album?

Definitely, yeah. It was a little embarrassing to be honest, because I had TV cameras come into the place where I was working, getting me to do my job while they filmed and doing interviews with all the guys in the warehouse who were sitting around, wondering what the hell was going on. At the same time, though, it was an amazing ride; the whole thing has helped us reach a much wider audience, so in a way I’ve got mixed feelings about it. In a way, I’m kind of glad I didn’t win the Ivor the first time around, because if I had it would have become such a big press story. Apparently all the tabloid press were there backstage wanting me to win, and so it could have just turned into a Susan Boyle-type thing – all about the news story rather than the songs. So I’m glad it’s over and done with, but at the same time I really appreciate the fact that it did happen. The truth is that without those nominations I probably still wouldn’t have a publishing deal... I'd most likely still be in my day job, and this album would never have been finished.

I’m sure it must be nice to be able to write 'Occupation: Musician' on your census form now, but how tough is it to make a decent living from being in a band these days?

It’s incredibly difficult...almost impossible these days, in fact. The one good thing is that you can make an album incredibly cheaply nowadays. We had all our own equipment for this album, we hired out a house for a couple of weeks and paid student musicians a minimum rate to play on it. So, while it took thousands and thousands of hours' worth of recording sessions to finish this album, if we had had to do it all in the traditional way that it was done years ago, it never would have been made. It's really difficult financially, though, and with nine of us in the band we’re just about on the tipping-point of being able to make enough money to pay the bills. We have principles we stick to, and one of them is that we want to play as a full band – it would be easier for just a few of us to go out on tour, but we don’t like to compromise – so we’re going to have to sell a lot of albums to make it work for the next one! (laughs)

So is the plan for the time being to get out and tour as much as possible, then?

We’re really busy: we’ve got a tour of the UK this week; after that, we’re off to play a festival in Holland; then we've got a week off, followed by a trek around Europe, before we play festival dates most weekends of the summer. We’re also in the process of planning another tour for the autumn, and we'll be coming over to Ireland too to play Dublin and Belfast around October time. We’re just finalising those dates now at the moment, but I think we’re going to come back and play The Sugar Club; it's such a lovely venue, and the people who came to see us were so nice and attentive as well, so we can’t wait for that.

Well, we'll certainly look forward to that too. Best of luck with the album – it really is great, and fully deserves the attention it will hopefully receive.

Thanks a lot. We’ve got high hopes for it, so hopefully they will be achieved.

Into The Murky Water is out now on Full Time Hobby. The Leisure Society's UK tour continues tomorrow night (May 7) in Leeds, before finishing up at London's Union Chapel on Tuesday (full list of dates here).