Interview: Editors [Part II: On Songwriting]

by Mick Lewis
18 April 2006

[Continued from Part I]

ML: How does the songwriting process work with you guys?

TOM SMITH: Very simply. I write the words and the music is a combination of all of our ideas.

ML: So you come in with a sheet of lyrics and then show it to everyone and they start playing?

TOM: No, not to put it too simply. I write a base of the song on the guitar or keyboard and record it on a little demo, and that’s very…

ML: A four-track demo?

TOM: Yeah. And that’s very far removed from what the song will actually end up being. But lyrically, and I guess the chord progression is the same in places. Then that goes up to other three, and we all have our own ideas about where the tracks should go and move. Then we move to the rehearsal room and try to sort them together. We are democracy, and we listen to each other’s ideas.

ML: So you must have been writing these songs before you came together as a group?

TOM: Me, I’ve been writing songs since I picked up the guitar, bad songs to start with.

CHRIS: We’ve all have haven’t we, in our previous bad bands and write bad songs.

ML: Was the song “Munich” coordinated with STEVEN SPIELBERG for the release?

CHRIS URBANOWICZ: (kids) It was, yeah.

ML: You knew about the movie, I’m assuming.

TOM: “Munich” was recorded in April of last year.

ML: While it was filming.

TOM: (kids) I’m good friends with Steven!

ML: What is “Munich” about? The song, not the movie…

CHRIS: It’s about Steven Spielberg, how he steals all of our best ideas! (laughter)

ML: You have to admire him for being ahead of the curve on the music scene!

TOM: It’s based around the fragility of people, trying to express that in some way.

ED LAY: The frigidity?

TOM: Fra-gil-i-ty! ...Fri-gi-di-ty?

ML: So, the fragility AND the frigidity of people!

TOM: Yeah, we just won’t give it up. (laughter)

ML: With lines like, “You’ll speak when you’re spoken to,” it sounds like a totalitarian order, is that where the name “Munich”…

TOM: No, the name “Munich” is really just a stamp, like the name EDITORS or the title “Bullets.”

ML: It just sounded good.

TOM: Well yeah, I was like, “I’ll write things down that I think make good names for songs,” and sometimes they don’t come from the lyrics quickly.

ML: Sometimes the titles don’t come from the lyrics at all. It’s a feeling you get from the music.

TOM: It’s quite strange, people have said, “Oh ‘Munich.’ It does sound slightly Germanic” and I hem and haw…

JR: Before the hostage deal at the 1972 Olympics, Munich was primarily known as the scene of Hitler’s appeasement [September 29 1938, when British Prime Minister NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN and France’s EDOUARD DALADIER signed an agreement with Hitler and Italy’s BENITO MUSSOLINI to let Germany take over the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, mistakenly believing they had secured, in Chamberlain’s immortal words, “Peace in our Time.” -JR]. You can put that element in there if you want. [Munich is also where the 1956 Manchester United football team died in a plane crash. Not a good luck place for England or Israel, for sure. -JR]

TOM: What was the first question we got from TIM JONZE in our first NME interview.

CHRIS: “What do you think about the appropriation of Nazi chic?” Thank Tim!

JR: That was the first question???

TOM: The first thing he ever said to us!

JR: Damn Mick, we f***ed up! (laughter)

ML: Shows he has been doing his research. (laughter) I should have read more interviews last night…

JR: Well, JOY DIVISION took their name from a Nazi prostitution wing. How about that!

ML: And then you have [infamous Nazi slogan and post-Joy Division band] NEW ORDER. And then you have [Joy Division and New Order bassist] PETER HOOK DJ-ing at your after-party. Did you go to that?

CHRIS: We did, and we met Hookie.

JR: You could go ask him about Nazi chic! That’s a bit more direct!

ED: Well, he was wearing kind of an Army jacket!

ML: Did you know him before?

CHRIS: No, but we kind of had contact…

ML: He’s into the group?

CHRIS: Yeah, our first NME piece [was the one where] Hookie would go around and leave a little comment about new bands. He actually said that we sound like THE SKIDS and plays our records in his DJ sets.

JR: I take it The Skids were another band you guys haven’t heard?

CHRIS: Yeah.

JR: I need to make a list for you all then! That was a great band!

CHRIS: Yeah keep them coming!

JR: History of British post-punk!

ML: You must have heard BIG COUNTRY?

JR: That wasn’t as good, though. Much as I liked them.

ML: It was related, though, right?

JR: Right, STUART ADAMSON was the Skids guitarist, but he didn’t sing then [RICHARD JOBSON fronted The Skids].

TOM: So the guy from Big Country was in The Skids? [yes]

JR: He was The Skids if you ask me.

ML: And he just died, right? What did he die of?

JR: Suicide, I think I recall. In Hawaii, if I’m not mistaken. [Yes, hanging in a Best Western hotel room in Honolulu on December 16, 2001. At age 43, Adamson’s alcoholism had returned after 12 dry years. -JR]

CHRIS: (laughing at the absurdity) “What did he die of?” “Suicide.” That’s a gem…

JR: That incurable case of suicide—the doctors could do nothing for him!

ML: I remember that no one else was involved, that’s all I recall.

JR: Thus the coroner’s findings—it was an open and shut case!

[Parts III, IV, V and VI to follow]

Filed under britpop post-punk