Temples talk new album 'Hot Motion', their "finest work to date"
James Bagshaw reflects on experimenting, their new line-up, and the band's evolution.
Since they first appeared on the scene in 2012 with the psychedelic pop pleasure that was 'Shelter Song', Temples have been an intriguing bunch. Their debut album, 2014's 'Sun Structures' was well received but the follow-up, 2017's 'Volcano' not so much.
Yet, Temples are back a man down and a brand new record up with the scuzzy sound of 'Hot Motion' and as frontman James Bagshaw explains, he believes it's their "finest work to date".
"A lot of the fuzz sound on this record on the bass and the guitars came from this old Roland PA system from the seventies," James continues. "I just use that as a preamp really and stumbled across it sat in storage. I always knew that it wasn't the cleanest sounding thing, so I had no use for it at the time. Then I was like, well, maybe you can use this for what it's not meant to be used for as a preamp for guitar, but then go into an amp or straight into the mixing console?
When the topic of former drummer Sam Toms comes up, James initially refuses to be drawn on his mysterious and sudden departure, saying "he didn't leave the band", but he soon opens up. "It's quite hard to talk about cos you don't want to offend anybody, but when you're a touring band, you need to be a gang, and you need to be reliable, essentially. And he just kept letting us down. You can't have that when you're touring, because you don't want to embarrass yourselves.
James goes on to reveal that even though they've lost a man, the dynamic of the band hasn't really shifted all that much, even with new drummer Rens Ottink.
"[Rens] only got on board after the record was made, so as far as in the studio was concerned, it didn't really change much. Sam wasn't at a lot of the sessions anyway, certainly on the first record [2014's 'Sun Structures'], and only a couple on the second record [2017's 'Volcano'], so it didn't really change that.
Looking back briefly at 2017's 'Volcano', he gets a bit pensive. "'Volcano' wasn't received as well as I would have liked, but I think the second record is so cliche. It's hard because you're sort of defined by your first album - you're laying everything out on the table, and that's your thing. But we needed to make something drastically different from the first, to then take the pressure off anything that we do going forward.
"I also don't think at this point, maybe on the second record, we were thinking too much about the people listening to it while we were making it. As soon as you start trying to make music where you're like 'what do people would want it to sound like?', there's this fear attached to losing what you've got. There's a bit of second-guessing, on the second record, which probably made songs that weren't as pure as they should have been.
"I mean, I still really like that record. There are some songs I'm very, very proud of but then there are the songs where I'm like, 'what the hell were we thinking there?' There's just too much stuff on it, way too many ideas. It sounds almost a bit confusing, and I think that paved the way for this record. For us to then just go, you can't think about anybody listening to this, we need to just make this for ourselves. That's what we did. And it's very, very selfish but the first record is very selfish, and it just happened that people liked it, and then it becomes a shared experience."
Whereas 'Sun Structures' was psychedelia-indulged, and 'Volcano' was dripping in dreamy poppy soundscapes, 'Hot Motion' sees the band trying to get away from the keyboards (while still enlisting their help) and back to their guitars, as James explains.
Continuing along the lines of what they tried to do differently, he reveals that are fewer layers on the record, and "the drum sound is really important; I think the most layering is probably done on the drums."
James admits that one of his favourite tracks on the record is 'You're Either On Something'. "[It's] so simple in places. It's a very honest song, not too ambiguous, like other songs that we tend to write. For me, that's probably the one I'm really looking forward to playing live.
Three albums in, however, it's not always easy for the group to decide what gets played that night. "Generally, we all go towards the same songs, but we do have disagreements which can get a little bit heated because there'll be songs that we've played for two years, and then suddenly, one person in the band's like, 'we shouldn't play that anymore, it's shit'. Then everyone else in the band is like, 'this is really great to play live!' There is a democratic thing going on, but we get there in the end."
Talking about the ideas behind the album, James reveals that "it's a choreographed collection of stories tackling different things. I mean, there's some ambiguous, mysterious wordplay, I would say, more than sort of narrative. And then other songs are more story-based. 'Hot Motion' is like a countdown to like a euphoric feeling or some kind of climax. Then I think [bassist] Tom with his lyrics on that was about an animal spirit that sort of in all of us."
When it came to making sure the flow of the record was perfect, James reveals that the band "weren't a million miles apart from each other" when coming up with drafts. "We're always aware of the LP format, so you've got two openers and two closers on the record which is a really great thing. You've got two ways to introduce the record and two ways to end the record. Knowing that I was going to listen to the A-side first, it should be a dynamic record, and it should feel like a bit of a journey."
In terms of his hopes for the record, James would "love it if people just give it the time to listen to it. I don't mean that they need to listen to it 20 times to understand it. I mean, just not be bombarded by other distractions and actually just go 'well I'm just gonna listen to this album, and I'm not gonna flick on my phone, and I'm not gonna clean my shelf while I'm doing it'. Just sit down and listen to the record.
Taken from the October issue of Dork. Temples' album ‘Hot Motion’ is out 27th September.
Words: Josh Williams
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