CRAIG DYER OF THE UNDERGROUND YOUTH
Hi Craig, thanks for taking the time out to speak with us at Musicology and congratulations on the new record. An album can be a lifetime worth of experiences concentrated and refined into a body of work that encompasses many years and phases in life. Other times it is a snap shot, a brief period in time crystallized into a record covering a specific epoch. Was it a case of either / or for The Falling?
I think it’s true of each album that I’ve released, that they end up being a snapshot of that specific period during which the writing and recording was done. That couldn’t be truer than with The Falling, although primarily written in the pre-pandemic light of 2019, we recorded on returning from our cancelled tour in 2020, so to the backdrop of this disappointment, financial concern and uncertainty, the album was formed. Unable to go into the studio as we were in isolation, we each set up home recording spaces and began work on the album in a way very unique to the situation we found ourselves in. What I’d envisioned as a grand studio album became a much more intimate home recorded one, though, thanks in most part to Leo’s production, it doesn’t sound that way.
There are always so many ebbs and flows in style, sound and sentiment when evaluating your own work and The Falling being your tenth album, where does the record sit with you in terms of its uniqueness, creative fulfilment and exploration of sonic boundaries?
I always strive to make each record we release unique within the back catalogue, there’s a lot of material there now you know, in ten albums, and I think it all stands strongly in its own period of where the band is or was. Maybe besides the first few albums, but I recorded the first four in the space of just over a year, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. Anyway, I do now, and for me, each album I release has to satisfy my creative fulfilment at that time. I wouldn’t release it if it didn’t.
Your approach has often been the true essence of independent and DIY, particularly with your early releases online. Haven steadily amassed a cult following over the years and reaching an ever wider audience, has your methodology changed in any significant way that the Craig Dyer of 2009 wouldn’t recognise in the Craig Dyer of 2020?
Well I think in many ways I would be unrecognisable, but who wouldn’t after a period of over ten years! But seriously, my approach really hasn’t changed, we are still very much a DIY, independent band. We have a record label, a booking agent and pretty much everything else we take care of ourselves. Our existence in the press and on the radio is minimal, the reason we have amassed such a cult following that grows and grows is simple, we tour relentlessly all over the world and prolifically release music that our fans love.
Lyrically the album was very introspective and upon delving deep in search of honest words to mirror the sentiment you were unearthing, what unexpected self-discoveries did you make?
In honesty it was in making those self-discoveries myself within my private life that made the album so introspective, not vice versa. The words and emotions in the writing came fluidly from this period of self-reflection, it felt natural to try and work an album around that.
The lead single A Sorrowful Race is a slow and deep reflection and its accompanying video clip is a humble and honest one. In choosing the style and approach for the video, what was the thought process you went through before arriving at the final cut we see?
Well, as with everyone, we found ourselves trying to be creative through a lockdown. We decided that rather than work with a filmmaker on the videos for this album, that Olya would herself conceive the video ideas and we would film them ourselves in true DIY style. This would allow us to make a video for each and every song on the record. So as with the video for A Sorrowful Race, those videos that will soon follow for each song on the album, will be humble and honest in their approach, they will be personal and intimate and will directly express our feelings towards the album.
On the other end of the spectrum, the final track off the album Letter From A Young Lover is an amazing song. Richly layered with haunting strings, eloquent piano and outro of church bells. In crafting the composition for this piece, were there certain sounds that immediately leapt to mind that to your ear were the perfect sonic touch to encapsulate the emotive message of the tune?
It’s rare I sit at a piano to write a song but this one came out in that way. Lyrically it’s quite light and almost jovial, the idea of writing a letter to a young version of myself, naive and yet to understand or appreciate love. The music is the complete opposite, dark and dramatic, I really love that clash of mood and context. Leo and I were bouncing ideas for the track back and forth and I could hear the church bells, but I was worried it was too much, too dramatic, Leo made the point that it was a little late to worry about that with this track.
On a technical level and your use of old and new equipment, can you share with us what instruments featured throughout the record and ways the instrumentation was specifically utilised on The Falling?
In addition to our usual formation of two guitars, drums/percussion and Max’s bass, we experimented with building up the sound on the record with string arrangements, with Leo arranging and an old acquaintance, Astrid Porzig, joining us in the studio to bring the violin parts to life. We also layered piano, accordion, organs and even the sound of a typewriter, amongst other instruments. I think with us recording at home and in this condition of isolation, we were more willing to experiment and take time to try things that we perhaps wouldn't normally do in the studio.
You were mid-way through a world tour and due to record the album at the conclusion of the tour when the global pandemic set in. The geographical and physical restrictions to recording are obvious but from this unusual situation, what were some of the never experienced challenges in putting this LP together and conversely what were some of the greatest surprises you encountered through the making of The Falling?
There was a moment on returning to Berlin under those circumstances that I thought to just abandon the recording until things went ‘back to normal’, in hindsight obviously that would have been a terrible idea. But anyway, we didn’t. We set up small recording spaces in our homes and started sending tracks back and forth, slowly building up the tracks from the demos we had recorded before we left for the tour. There are obviously things we couldn’t do without being in the studio, but we worked around it. In the end the album would have sounded very different if it was recorded under normal circumstances but now I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I love the record and it also stands as a document to this unique time we are living through.
Having meet so many amazing artists over the years and performed with so many musicians, during that time were any words of wisdom spoken to you that really resonated with you and in turn altered the way you approach your craft?
Probably more than what is coming to mind right now. I learnt from being in the studio with Anton Newcombe not to overthink the creative process, when something works, it works, when it doesn’t, stop and try something else. I learnt from Mark E. Smith not to try and continue a conversation with Mark E. Smith, I believe his exact words were “Fuck off and go that way lad.”
Given the clarity that hindsight affords, can you pinpoint a few select moments, decisions, outcomes that have occurred during your career that have proved to be pivotal?
To be honest, much of it doesn’t feel like it happened as the result of a decision, but rather that it just flowed and found its way. The decision to work with Fuzz Club as a label and to stay loyal to that for all these years has perhaps been pivotal. We tour as much as we can and treat every show in every city with exactly the same enthusiasm, which is a lot to say when you’ve been on the road for months on end. I’ve never had any of those ‘make it or break it’ moments in my career, for that I’m thankful, it could all easily have been broken.
Lastly, on a philosophical level, what does music give you that nothing else does?
A soundtrack to live to.
