An interview with The Colour Movement

Cambridge-based anthemic rock band The Colour Movement start their busiest scheduled tour this month, after the release of single Future Man and their debut TV appearance on Sky1’s Gadget Geeks on 19^th March 2012. These guys are one to look out for. Their dedicated Cambridge following is growing and extending out of Cambridge at an accelerated rate, and packed-out gigs across Camden suggest they are on the way up.

The Upcoming caught up with three of the four-piece at The Monarch bar, Camden, to discuss their indefinable sound and the busy year ahead.

How did you all meet and form the band?

Piers: We formed at school, came together when we were 14.
Leo: Just the coincidence of three of us out of the four being from Cambridge meant that’s our home really, and the home of the band.

With Future Man coming out, you’ve got a pretty packed touring schedule coming up. Is this the busiest tour you’ve been on so far?

P: Yeah. Well, we’ve taken about a year out, writing the album.
Dave: We always knew that was going to be the focus of this year, writing and getting the studio sorted. Really getting down, getting the album sorted and then getting out on tour.
L: We’ve been flirting with a lot of different things though. Like, if we did five gigs in three months in London, each gig we’d try a different set up because we’ve had so many songs. We’ve done quite a lot of stripped-down stuff, a lot of acoustic stuff. It’s been an experimental year. And actually, Future Man came from the Sky1 thing.
P: Yeah, we’re gonna be touring loads now. We’ve got loads of festivals going on. We’ve had a year off, kind of, from gigs, although we’ve played London quite a lot.

So, do you guys have a favourite venue, city or festival to play? Somewhere where you always get the best crowds?

P: This is a really tricky question because we played Download Festival to thousands of people, which was amazing – but, though it might look best on paper, the best would maybe be in our home town in Cambridge.

If you could describe your sound in three words, what words would you choose?

D: Anthemic
P: Melodic
L: Symbolic
P: I don’t know. Anthemic pop-rock is what we say. Although it’s not really pop and it’s not really rock.
L: It falls in many categories. We’re not setting things in stone, because we’ve been doing so many things: we’ve been building this studio and now we’ve got a single that we’re happy with. So we don’t really have a sound.
P: People say, “What’s your sound?” and, you know – we like lots of sounds.

I heard you built your own studio? Tell us more about it.

P: Yep. It’s called Headline Music Studios and it’s in Cambridge. Proper recording studio.
L: It’s taken a year!
P: Yeah, year of my life I’ll never get back. Proper built; it was just grass before.
L: Nowadays to get on a label, the money they put into you usually is for recording costs.
P: We can record how we want to!

Your new single Future Man started out as a random generation of chord sequences and lyrics, is that right? How does that work?

P: That’s it. I don’t want to give away too much, but in essence it was a machine created by the gadget geeks that tried to write songs. They came to us and said we’ve got this song, it doesn’t really work. And we did our own thing on it and made it into something.
L: The sound isn’t necessarily what we are; t’s more of a concept, it’s a piece of music.
P: It’s really clever… I’m just going to go ahead and talk about it now: it sources lyrics from the internet, from Facebook and Twitter. So “future man” was typed in and it collates everything connected to that. The result wasn’t listenable, as you’ll see if you watch the show. I’m not down on the thing, I think it’s an incredible product.
L: But you need to know what you’re doing.
D: It’s a collaboration thing: you take what it’s done and use that to create your own music.

Finally, if you were all made President of the World tomorrow, what would be the first order of business?

L: Free booze!
P: Yeah, free booze.
L: And everyone gets a record deal.
P: No, only we get a record deal.
L: Nobody gets record deals!
P: To be honest, if I was offered a presidency I’d turn that down.
L: I wouldn’t. I’d get all the power and reign!
P: With a crown?
L: No man, get it right, a sceptre.

Your single, Future Man, came out on 19^th March…

L: If you want to find out anything about us, go to Facebook, find The Colour Movement, all the tour dates are on there.
P: And Twitter @colour_movement. We’re always on there, chatting away. And our website too, thecolourmovement.com.
L: And you can see the video too, which is doing pretty well, 10,000 views on YouTube so far.
P: Really? Well let’s anticipate. Soon, 30,000!
D: And then we will be president.

Abigail Moss

The Colour Movement’s debut single Future Man is out now. Catch them at The Monarch, Camden, on 27^th March and across the UK throughout the year. Listen to Future Man and Roots and check out upcoming dates here.

Watch the video for Future Man here: