Upon listening to ‘Nobody Wants To Be Here and Nobody Wants To Leave‘ for the first time, it felt like a beam of clarity had been shone on The Twilight Sad‘s career to date. The record all roads had been leading to had arrived. Of course, there’s always been a brilliance about the Sad in the studio, especially on their 2007 debut ‘Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters‘, yet this album felt like a culmination, a logical conclusion to what had come before, an end to any lingering troubles, taking pinches and dashes from their canon whilst making a huge stride forward in the studio.
As our review put it, ‘Now, a combination of all those elements has been focused, honed and channeled into ten marvellous pop tunes’, and it was all enough to make ‘Nobody Wants To Be Here…’ our #1 essential album of 2014. In celebration, we invited the band’s frontman James Graham to talk us through the LP’s creation, what its critical reaction has meant, and to look ahead to their plans for 2015.
Don’t forget, you can check out our Essential Albums list in full at this link, while our entire Essential Listening 2014 series is available here.
How much do positive reviews matter to you?
“From day one in this band we’ve written music for ourselves. We want to do things that excite us within our music and constantly move forward, while allowing us to learn things we are good at, improving them on every record. My lyrics are very personal and I kind of use our songs as a weird type of therapy where I can get things off my chest and speak about things within our music that I wouldn’t be able to do in everyday life. To begin with that’s why we write music and have produced the albums we have done so far. After that I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t care if people liked what we do because I do. What’s important is that I can go to sleep each night knowing that we have put everything into our music and I can honestly say that I think we have. We’ve been very lucky over the years in that critics have been kind to us.”
“These days there are so many outlets for people to form opinions and judge what you do. You can’t please everybody so you’ve just got to do what feels right and what comes naturally to you. I know the type of music we write isn’t for everybody and that’s cool. I do get pretty upset and feel a bit hurt when we get a bad review. I’ve tried to have thicker skin when it comes to things like that, but it’s just not the kind of person I am. The reaction to this record has been amazing though, and I couldn’t have wished for it to be better and I’m very thankful for that.”
“So to answer your question, it’s kind of a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’; yes I care if people like our record and if people do, there is more chance of that record becoming successful and reaching new people. Do we listen to reviews? No we don’t. We do what we want and if people like that then great. What has been really pleasing is that people who like the band have really embraced this record and that means a lot to me. If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t have got this far or been able to make this record.”
Tell us about ‘Nobody Wants To Be Here and Nobody Wants To Leave’, its origins and what inspired it.
“I’ve been pretty open about the band going through a very difficult time after we finished touring our third record. We had some time off after touring that record and we had time to spend with friends and family back home. That helped us reflect on what we had achieved as a band and ultimately what we hadn’t achieved. I wouldn’t say that’s what this record was about, but I’m really glad we went through that tough period as it influenced how we approached this album. I approached it like it could be the last bunch of songs I write because that was the feeling I had at that time.”
“The record itself has similar themes to all our records – like love, loss, relationships, the way we treat other, depression, the want to be a better person and sometimes failing. Lyrically it has all those themes in the record, but it has been approached in a different way as I’m a different person now, as in that I’m two years older than the person who wrote our last album, all be it none the wiser. Each song on the record is a chapter in the overall story of the album. ‘Nobody Wants To Be Here and Nobody Wants To Leave’ also has themes about growing up and leaving where you grew up but ultimately that place drawing you back all the time. The title refers to relationships or certain everyday situations we find ourselves in life.”
How has 2014 been for the band?
“It’s been a busy year. While we were recording the new album we released a live recording of us performing with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra at Paisley Abbey as a free download in January, then we reissued our debut album on Record Store Day and toured that. We supported the Manic Street Preachers in Edinburgh and Glasgow which was a big thing for us as they are one of our favourite bands. Then we had a few festivals over the summer while we were getting the new album ready for release. We did a couple of tours before the record was out and then we headed over to North America for a six-week tour. While we were over there the record was released worldwide. It’s been a good year, quite a stressful one but it’s great to be busy. We’ve got a good work ethic. I hate to call anything we do work but we like to be constantly doing things, be it touring or writing and recording.”
How will you be celebrating Christmas/New Year?
“We had a couple of gigs on the 18th in Stirling then a big Glasgow gig at the O2 ABC on the 19th of December, then we’ll be at home celebrating Christmas. We have a band tradition where we all go to my local pub, The Swann Inn ,on Christmas Eve. Then we’re playing at the Hogmanay Street Party in Edinburgh on New Year’s Eve. All of our friends and family are coming to that so it will be a good way to see out the year.”
Plans for 2015?
“Touring, touring and some more touring. I’m really looking forward to it. We’ve got a couple of special gigs around January and February which haven’t been announced yet. Then we head over to North America for a headline tour and SXSW. Then we’re touring Europe and UK, then hopefully we have a really busy festival season. After that I hope we tour everywhere again and maybe tour some places we’ve never been before. We’re also releasing a couple of singles from the record in the first half of next year.”
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