Klaxons

Wed 15th Dec, 2010 in Features

The voice of Klaxons’ drummer Steffan Halperin comes through loud and clear. Pleasantries exchanged, the drummer casually divulges his own whereabouts. “I’m in Oxford, we’re touring the UK at the moment. We just played a show here,” he continues.” It’s been great actually, it’s been really good fun. We’ve got a new guy playing keyboard with us as well, Anthony Rossomando… the shows have all been amazing. I think we sound better than we ever have.”

The raw enthusiasm in Halperin’s tone is immediately apparent, as the London-based band find themselves at, arguably, the snow-capped summit of their career. It’s all systems go for Klaxons. “It’s kind of more fun. The gigs are more enjoyable. Maybe it’s because we stopped drinking so much before going on. I used to think ‘I’m going to die,’ each time before coming on stage… we save the pint for after the show now, whereas it used to be the moment we woke up,” he laughs.

Their drive almost certainly comes from the release of their very own ‘difficult second album’, the acclaimed Surfing The Void. The record came three years after a celebrated debut, the band taking home the Mercury Music Prize and a slew of other awards for Myths Of The Near Future. When quizzed upon the role of newfound pressure and expectation derived from such an achievement, Halperin is admirably diplomatic.

“It’s just how much you let it get to you, really,” he notes of the hype surrounding their proposed follow-up. “You’ve just got to make the music that makes you excited and that’s what we did. People really, when you release your second album, they’ve kind of got their knives ready to stab you anyway, so you’ve just got to touch base with it yourself.”

“We wanted to make something again that was exciting and celebratory. We wanted to maintain some of the energy, we wanted it to be vocal and very melodic. Those were the sorts of elements we wanted to keep,” Halperin reveals of their latest work. “It’s a heavier record, the songs were essentially played live in the studio… it was kind of just the sound of us in a room playing a song, so it had kind of a live feel. We wanted it to sound like a band, we didn’t want it to sound like machines playing songs.”

Klaxons were aided this time around by veteran producer Ross Robinson, famous for his work with such bands as The Cure, Slipknot and Korn. “It was quite cathartic, because Ross… you can’t really hide from Ross. The actual room where you record everything in was tiny, in like a basement, very dark and you’re basically sitting there facing each other… you’re all playing at the same time.

“It’s different from going into an expensive studio where you’re miles away from each other when you play and you’ve got headphones. It was like playing a live gig in a room. He also made us talk about the meaning behind the songs for about an hour before we went for a take. He got us prepared, really.”