Maximo Park

Thu 7th May, 2009 in Features

“We were on our way to an Australian festival, just driving through the outback and we had [Nick Cave’s] Dig! Lazarus, Dig! on the stereo in the minivan and it just threw itself at us,” says Maximo Park frontman Paul Smith, describing the moment his band decided to enlist big name producer Nick Launay for their last effort.

Given that since our landscape and cultural patriarch had an important presence during this defining moment, we can therefore collectively claim some responsibility for the resulting record. Right?

There’s been surprisingly little hype in the lead up to Quicken The Heart, the third album from Maximo Park (who are still vying with Jamie Lidell for the most incongruous act on Warp Records). Smith puts the lack of hype down to their fairly consistent output – consistent both in terms of schedule and quality. Since 2005 (aka the latest golden age of angular, dance-y British guitar music), Maximo Park have released an album every two years with a worldwide tour slotted into the negative spaces between.

It’s a fair task to maintain that routine of near-parallel creation and promoting for an extended period of time when aiming for the artistic heights that Smith outlines. Fortunately, however, this lifestyle is actually conducive to increased productivity. “That’s definitely an advantage of being on tour is that you’ve always got a lot of time and you’re always around your band. We just write whenever we feel like it and we’ve never had a problem with writer’s block.”

Despite boasting about a lack of writer’s block, Quicken The Heart actually represents the greatest amount of time spent on any project in the band’s repertoire. “It definitely took the longest to write and record. It’s like how they say you have a lifetime to write your first album, and then with the second one we didn’t really think about it, we just got on with it. This was the first time that we were like, – œOkay, this is our job now.’ I think we learnt how to deal with that in making this record.”

Part of that process meant addressing the tension between maintaining a signature sound (best encapsulated in Smith’s foghorn vocals) whilst pushing beyond a familiar process and style. “We had a few internal issues – not of any great consequence, but we’ve got five people with different tastes in music and different ideas about where to go with this one. Once we realised we wanted to make a pop album and make things a bit more dance-y, I think it cleared a path for us.”

A dance-y, pop record? From Maximo Park? In 2009? Though seemingly inevitable, the band flirted with some quieter and even experimental digressions before returning to their strengths. Nevertheless, it represents a different band to that which we’ve known before – tighter and more confident with hooks that grow on you rather than beat you in the face.

“We’ve definitely gone with different producers because we wanted the albums to have quite distinct sounds. The last one was a very dense record and with this one we wanted to shake it up a bit. It was about trying something different stylistically,” says Smith.

Quicken The Heart marks the first time recording outside of England and their first time with Nick Launay, who recently transformed the Yeah Yeah Yeahs into an affecting and sleek disco-punk band against everyone’s expectations. The stamp he applies to Quicken The Heart is more transparent, but he leaves the band sounding no less rejuvenated.

Launay was also able to lend a hand to the internal struggles mentioned earlier, with his experience and pedigree with infamously outgoing musicians (John Lydon, Nick Cave circa The Birthday Party) lending him a directness that the often-indecisive band needed. “With five people and a fairly democratic, graceful process it can take a while to get things done. Nick’s really straight forward and takes charge – he just tells you how you should do it and you believe him because he’s good at his job.”

Far from an exercise in rock-star excess, flying to LA to record was actually a decision that served both the band’s artistic process and the label’s financial situation well. “We just said to Warp, – œHave you got enough money for us to record in America?’ They said, – œWell, it’s actually cheaper for you to record in America.’ Studios are expensive in London and Nick has a studio and desk over there so it worked out for them.

“For us, we just wanted to stay away from any comfort zones; the first two records were made on instinct and it would’ve been really easy for us to go into the same studio and do the same stuff and not really push ourselves.” Not too many people travel to Los Angeles to isolate themselves, and yet that’s exactly what Smith’s transatlantic adventure offered. “It helps you focus because you can’t get on the train and just go back home. While we were there we all lived in the same house near the studio – you’re there for that period and that’s what you’re there to do.”

Casual fans of Maximo Park might have drawn the conclusion that there sound is too narrow. Whilst it’s true – and even Smith admits that they stick to a fairly fast meter – that doesn’t mean there’s no room for emotional dynamics and fluctuating arrangements within their tightly-structured pop songs.

“There’s an alchemy between the lyrics I write, the vocals I have – I can really only sing one way – and the music we make goes along with that. It tends to come out fast and sounding fairly similar and it plays to our strength.” Furthermore, the band intentionally structure their albums around their most stylistically cohesive tracks. “When we made the last album we had a song called Jean Baudrillard, which takes inspiration from the French philosopher. It’s more post-rock than anything. We had some acoustic numbers but we don’t want too many stylistic turns in one album – we’re not trying to make The White Album.”

Despite having undoubtedly experienced a seismic shift in lifestyle since the band started, it’s comforting that Smith’s lyrics have not been affected by the self-absorbed rock-star condition (a la Kings of Leon). They are still affecting observant ruminations on much broader situations than buses and groupies. “To me that’s just not an interesting subject for a song. Songs that deal with the rock ‘n roll lifestyle bore me – they don’t tell me anything about my life and I can’t relate to them now, let alone when I was just a fan.

“I’m just a big music fan really, that’s why I make music. I get excited about other people’s music and I want to affect people the same way that music affects me.”

Maximo Park’s Quicken The Heart is out 16 May on Warp Records through Inertia.