It’s nearly been a couple of years since art-poppers Everything Everything last released an album, and they’ve taken a bit of time off. With only one show pencilled in this year – and at Latitude no less – we thought we should catch up with singer Jonathan Higgs and drummer Michael Spearman in the back of a buggy after a boat photoshoot to see how things are going.
Hi Everything Everything! So today is your only show this year, why Latitude?
Jonathan: We haven’t done it in six years? We’ve wanted to do it for a while. The last time we did, it was the Lake Stage, which was quite small, and we haven’t been able to make it work for a while. We weren’t going to do any festivals, but they asked us, and it seemed like a good opportunity.
Anything special planned for it?
Jonathan: It’s just literally a one-off special, nothing too crazy. We’ve got a replacement bass player at the moment because ours is off with another band because he thought we weren’t doing anything.
Michael: Moonlighting.
Jonathan: So, it’s just enough. We’ve got to make that work, let alone something special.
Which are your favourite festivals?
Jonathan: It’s always Glastonbury. We’ve had some amazing times, some ridiculous gigs loads of people we’ve never seen before, high emotions.
Michael: Took me a few years to understand Glastonbury and to feel okay with how big it is. I really like it, I was catching up – because we didn’t go, obviously, was watching it on TV.
Did you have FOMO?
Jonathan: Big time, and because our bass player was there.
So what have you guys been up to the rest of the year?
Jonathan: Been practising so we can do this show, but really we’re writing at the moment.
Michael: We had to get all of our writing stuff out of the rehearsal studio and bring in all the touring stuff, and remember the songs. It’s been fun, it’s been nice to do it, but yeah, we’re in writing mode.
And how’s all that going?
Jonathan: Very well, we’re about halfway through I’d say, with less than half the time to go. But pretty much everything we’re writing now is of a certain goodness.
Is there a time frame for it?
Jonathan: We’ve got a year that we want to put it out in, but we can’t say when because we don’t know.
Michael: It’ll be out next year at some point.
Is it easier to write together now you’re on album five?
Jonathan: It’s easy, it’s kind of the opposite problem to when we started, which is when you’re stressed out about everything. Now, it’s kind of trying to get stressed about everything. It’s very easy to write songs and not push yourself, whereas when you first start you’re like ‘oh my god is this good enough?!’ Now it’s like’ Yeeees, everything’s great’. And we’ve had to try and get some of that old mindset back and be like, ‘no it’s not good enough, actually’.
Michael: Our process of writing songs is quite streamlined now. We know what we’re doing, but it’s the what are we trying to do, how do we make it? When you’re on your fifth album, it’s like how do we make it something that people will be interested in, and keep us interested in, and keep it fresh.
Did going back to learn this set help that?
Jonathan: Yeah, it reminded us how good we are. Well, it reminded us how good the songs we’ve written in the past are, and what level we took them to and how detailed things are, what we’ve worked on and what works live. Things you kind of forget when you’re sat with your laptop.
Michael: It’s a good reminder that we are writing stuff to be played live and people hopefully will appreciate it because otherwise you get too locked into your own. The last record we were writing that as we were on tour, so that was quite good, but this one been quite. With the last show on New Year’s eve, and this is the only thing we’re doing, it’s good to get out of our little mode for a bit.
Taken from the September issue of Dork, out now.
Words: Steven Loftin
