Phillyist Interviews.... Aqualung

Now does your brother and your wife play with you in the band?
My brother plays the guitar and sings in the band. My wife doesn't tour with us. She is just involved in the writing of some of the music. She has her own life and her own profession besides the songwriting. We have a little boy that she takes care of while I am not around.

How has the U.S. tour gone so far? You've been in the U.S. for about a month, right?
About five weeks, something like that. It's been very good. Much of the time we were opening for Pete Yorn and in the gaps we were doing our own shows all leading up to the album release which is on Tuesday. We finish up with a show in New York and with Letterman. It's good. It has had a sense of really moving toward the releasing of the album.

Are you doing a European tour after this?
We are going to do some dates, not a full tour. We are going to start things up there and then coming back here [U.S.] for our headline tour. Then after that we are going to Japan and Australia. Then back to Europe again.

Wow. You are going to be busy touring.
Yes you could say we are quite busy.

Do you prefer the live concerts better or the studio?
I do like the studio. Working in the studio is kinda the reward for all of the touring. That's the bit I like the best. I can be at home as well as making something new in the studio. That's very exciting to me. Playing live is excellent too. You have to have the bit where you meet the people and sing the songs to them.

With your new album, what was your concept? It seems to be a bit of a conceptual album.
For a while it was actually going to be an old-fashioned concept album, I suppose. I don't know why, but I was really drawn to the science-fiction. I wasn't reading science-fiction but I was digging up a lot of old movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey - sorta enigmatic space movies. It kinda has a pathos that is quite healing to me. I was also reading Beckett, while it's not sci-fi it sorta fits, exists, in the same space. All that stuff was in there. For a while, I wanted to do this record that was going to be about the end of the universe. Not a very cheerful subject matter. It seemed to be a way for me to discuss contemporary issues. I could question fate, consequences and things like that. But then, it turned out that a whole album of just that would be awful! It would be unbearable. It would also be a lie for me because I don't feel so hopeless as that. With the birth of my son and all the wonderful things that have also been going on for the last few years, I ended up having to have a second pole which was more organic and domestic and intimate. It was about love and relationships and fatherhood. The album has two angles, one is lost-cosmo, something a trillion miles away and the other one is the loved ones back on earth looking up at the sky.

What's your favorite song off the album then? Do you have one?
I don't really have one. I love them all actually. They are still so new to me that I really can't choose. I really like "Garden of Love" which is the second-to-last song which Paul Buchanan sings on. There is something about when someone else sings your song that it finally makes it proper music or something. It's not just me whining on.

How is it working with your wife and brother?
It's good. It works for us. The stakes are sorta raised for us. If it's not working out with the songwriting thing than your whole life is basically ruined. The up-side of it is that when it is good you can get to places that you can't get any other way. It works.

You have a son that's two, correct?
Two and a half.

How did that....? [interrupted]
Happen?

Well no, I know how that happens.
I don't think that is correct question.

No. The correct question is: how did your son change your focus in your music?
It changed my focus in every single way so therefore my music too. I just feel everything more clearly before. I see everything clear now. I feel plugged in a more full way. So somehow or another, it must have affected the process of making this record. The sort of scale which I think pushes out and up more. It seems like I was receiving on more frequencies, so I have to transmit on more frequencies too.

If you ever had to collaborate with anyone, who would it be?
Actually, working with Paul [Buchanan] was one of my dreams. There is a Japanese artist that I really like called Cornelius that I sorta feel like we've somehow supposed to do something together. We met in Tokyo last year so I'm hoping to work on that. That would be very interesting.

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