In our latest Band Spotlight, we chat to The Black Lagoons about their new, forthcoming album, inspirations and more…
The Black Lagoons
S] Been a while – how are you all doing?
Jamie) We’re good. We’re all excited to be releasing new music and getting to play together again.
Joe) As good as one can be in this life thankyou.
S] How do you feel, with the debut record coming out in April?
Patch) Eager to share it with everyone, it’s been a long time coming and it definitely is our best work yet, something we’ve all put a lot into and it feels like the right time for us to release a debut album.
Jamie) Excited to be putting it out via Creme Brulee as well. We’ve never released stuff with a label before so they’ve been a huge help in getting the album to the point it is now.
S] Talk to me about some of the biggest influences on the band at the moment – not necessarily just music, but film, TV, games, art – anything like that?
Harry) There are a lot of films and soundtracks that have influenced the songwriting and I always like to picture what kind of mood the songs would set along with visuals in a film. Angelo Baldalamenti’s scores for David Lynch stuff is always great, but it’s nice to have a cinematic feel working on top of rock n roll foundations. ‘Wings Of Desire’ by Wim Wenders probably had a fair bit of influence when writing the album. And the view out of my window. But yeah there wasn’t really a eureka moment of “this is who we’re gonna take inspiration from on our sound and how I write lyrics”, it’s been a more intuitive process of building our own world.
Jamie) Yeah, music-wise, the Julee Cruise album ‘Floating Into The Night’ is always an influence for me. With film and TV, Adam Curtis documentaries and archive footage in general always gets my brain going. Leather jackets are always an inspiration as well.
Joe) Leather jackets, Joe Pesci, Townes Van Zandt, and Elvis Presley.
S] How would you say that you’ve changed and developed as artists and as people – from the beginning of The Black Lagoons, until now?
Jamie) I mean apart from being 10 years older, I think we’ve learnt how to slow things down and spend more time on songs. We’ve definitely prioritised making music and recording over playing live the past couple of years.
Patch) Yeah we’ve definitely matured in the way we approach things, this has probably come with age. We’ve given ourselves a lot of time to work on this album and this has come through also in restraint as to how we play and perform. The beginning of The Black Lagoons was a lot more noise and constant shredding from all of our parts, perhaps trying to sound too much like other things, whereas now I think we’ve developed into our own pocket. In terms of as people too much has happened to sum it up haha.
Joe) We started off just being consistently heavy and now I feel we take more care in the writing and use a wider range of dynamics.
Harry) Yeah we’ve prioritised the songs basically. We all work together to give an idea its best shot at becoming something good and we have a lot of faith in the ideas so we’re careful with how we treat them. I’m thinking of it as a kind of rebirth with this album.
S] How do ‘My Mind Works So Quickly’ and ‘Bells Ringing’ represent the debut album?
Patch) They represent the softer and metallic sides that the album has, giving an idea of what the album holds between these two bookends.
Harry) I feel like they give good context to the world that this album exists in. The feeling that comes across in ‘My Mind Works So Quickly’ is happening to some hungover character in a place where the night before they felt a bit more like ‘Bells Ringing’. And then the third single which is the album title track ‘These Hills We Ride’ holds a bit of all of it.
S] Is there a message for your supporters that have gotten behind the band, and stayed with you?
Joe) Hello!
S] Is there anything else you’d like to plug before we finish?
Patch) There will be a UK tour in April and May and we’re gonna have vinyl of the album too. We still have a few limited edition 7” lathe cuts with ‘My Mind Works So Quickly’ and a B-side that isn’t on streaming platforms yet so have a look on our Bandcamp.
Jamie) Listen to Vehicle and J Halliday.
Harry) We’ll be heading to France to play some gigs too thanks to Creme Brulee Records, so look out for when we announce more dates.
S] Thanks so much for your time!
Harry) Thanks for having us!
For more visit: https://theblacklagoons.bandcamp.com/
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