Interview: We Were Promised Jetpacks

After catching Ragged Words' eye with a storming support stint with fellow Scots Frightened Rabbit late last year, We Were Promised Jetpacks subsequently recorded their debut album, finished university and finally 'became a band'. Frontman Adam Thompson tells Ragged Words about a record brough back from the brink.

Tell us about recording the debut album, you got a pretty mean back room team together with Ken and Jolyon Thomas (Sigur Ros) producing and Peter Katis (Frightened Rabbit, Twilight Sad, The National) mixing?

“Well I don’t think we recorded right. It was  certainly a lot different to what we thought it would be and we just weren’t that happy. It was quite stressful because we got Peter Katis to mix it but he had bands in the whole time so he was doing it on days off. We didn’t hear for a few weeks what was going on and we got a couple of tracks back and they were much, much better than the original.”

So what happened with the Thomas’?

“We got on great. Jolyon was very much keen to have the album quite raw and not too overproduced. He had a clear picture of what the band was like and we all thought that when we were there. It was only when we got it back that we thought it didn’t sound together enough. We had a really good time recording but In hindsight, maybe we would have done it a bit different.”

So Peter Katis - by now surely an honorary Scot - essentially salvaged it for you?

“Yeah, I can’t work out whether I just didn’t like Joleon and Ken’s mixes or didn’t like them because they were different to what I thought they were going to be but certainly when we got ’Quiet Little Voices’ sent back by Peter Katis, it just sounded much bigger, much more together and much more what we thought it would be like. We were delighted he said yes and really appreciated him mixing it on his days off and at night.”

Back when you contributed to our ‘In The Bag’ feature, you said you were keen to have variation and depth on the album. Did you purposely steer yourselves away from anything short and snappy?

“We didn’t want an album that was always upbeat. I mean, we know we’re pretty poppy and commercial. We know that. We didn’t want to have 10 songs of that over and over again. We didn’t want to be like an NME band, not that we’d ever be but we were keen to not just show one side of ourselves. We do have some quieter, softer built up songs and we tried to show that. It wasn’t like, we didn’t sit down and go ‘right, we have to have tracks 4, 8 and 9 or whatever a bit different’, but we certainly had to make a few decisions.

It’s a very powerful sounding record - was quite a lot of it recorded live? Sounds like you’re about to burst a blood vessel during a couple of choruses on Ships With Holes Will Sink.

“That was the plan (bursting a blood vessel or two). We recorded Ships With Holes before and with the vocals softer and we all absolutely hated it, it sounded awful so we recorded them again and before we left, I wanted to do them one more time because I thought they could with being more ferocious because it’s that kind of a song. It was the last thing we did and I’m really glad we did it.”

“But yeah, it was all recorded live in the same room and we played without headphones so it was like playing a gig or being at band practice.”

The power was hardly surprising because live you’re certainly the most powerful band these ears have heard since Interpol. Has that live ingredient always been there?

“We’re just so comfortable with each other. We’ve known each other for so long. I’ve know (Darren) Lackie for sixteen years and the other two for around ten or something and we’ve just played music together for so long. We’ve always written songs together and are all totally invested  in each other. We just really like playing live.”

I assume then, given you’ve been playing together since you were 12 or 13, you’ve taken part in a battle of the bands or two? What obligatory dodgy covers did you play?

“Our history teacher Mr Vass, he was a bit crazy but was all for getting battle of the bands together. There was only three of us for the first gig in 2003 – the only time we’ve played without Michael the guitarist – and I think we played Jet’s ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ and one of our own ones. We were going to play another of our songs but we ran out of time ‘cause we were the last band on.”

Jet is pretty 2003 alright, what other stuff were you listening to then when you were starting off?

“To be honest I wasn’t that into music, there weren’t really a lot of bands I was into. Of course I liked Oasis and The Beatles or whatever that you’re super-exposed. Michael wasn’t really into any guitar bands at all and Lackie was probably the biggest music fan then – he liked Blink 182 and Biffy Clyro. They (Biffy) were a bands who really caught us all back then.

Are you more of a music fan now? Are there many bands you guys all agree on or can it be quite varied?

“Yeah, I definitely am. I’m still envious of people who like a load of music and a load of bands, I’ve just never really been like that and just have a few I listen to quite a lot. We all agree on some bands like Biffy, Frightened Rabbit, Twilight Sad, The National, Born Ruffians - but it does vary too.”

Quite a few Scottish bands among that list – and there’s always been great Scottish bands - but at the moment there seem to be quite a lot of similarly minded bands. Is it quite a tight nit group?

“There are quite a few bands and some that have been really supportive. It’s nice to have lot of people play music who you like. It’s just fun. But I find it hard to say because I only really know about music in the last couple of years - I haven’t been to loads of gigs or played loads of gigs -  so I’ve no idea what Scotland was like ten years ago but certainly there’s plenty of bands and plenty of different pockets now but obviously it’s always been like that.

You’ve played with Frightened Rabbit quite a lot and I know they introduced you to Fat Cat. When you did a session for our sister site Bandstand Busking in Brighton, I remember Scott (Hutchinson, Frightened Rabbit) telling us he‘d drop the kids off for it! Are they almost like big brothers to you?

“That’s totally true. We just absolutely adore Frightened Rabbit. I hadn’t listened to Midnight Organ Fight in about a month or something and I popped it on when I was on the bus yesterday and it’s just so good. It’s just so good. They’re one of our favourite bands and they’re really nice folk. It’s nice even just to ask them about what cd sales, or just a few things like that and they’re really useful. And yeah, they give us good advice and are really supportive. It’s really nice to be friends with them.”

Back when you answered those few questions for us you said you wouldn’t let them near any promos of These Four Walls because they’re still blaming you for letting copies of their album out. True story?

“We’ve never got a straight answer - I think they’re just winding us up but we got an early copy of it and we gave it to a blogger guy who was in the flat and had a spare cd with him. We think he might have given it to folk but I mean I gave it to my brother and told him not to give it to anyone but I had to let someone hear it, it was that good. We gave Scott a copy of ours and I don’t think he sought revenge.”

You’ve just finished your first headline tour and our set for the States in September, how have the dates been going?

“It was our first headline tour of any sort. We’d done maybe three or four headline gigs in Scotland. It felt like we were about to be a proper band for so long and hadn’t really done a proper tour, so once uni was out of the way we were all just dying to be a proper band, touring lots and playing lots and let that be our job.”