The world has changed a lot since O Emperor released their second album, 'Vitreous', in 2014. In that year, Germany won a world cup, Macklemore beat Kendrick Lamar to the best rap album Grammy and decided to text him an apology, Flappy Bird both arrived and left the app store and the Ice Bucket Challenge went global to raise money for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
Now, in 2018, on the brink of another world cup, O Emperor find themselves mixing their third studio album. We sat down with frontman Paul Savage, to discuss their latest record, the importance of improvisation, the bands live comeback and their newest single 'Make It Rain'.
Q: How’s your new album coming along?
A: Well, it’s been done for about a year now but we’re mixing it at the moment, so we’re in the final stages of it. We’ve got half the album mixed at this stage, it’s sounding good. It should be out sometime in autumn. We’ve no name for the record yet, we've got a list of stupid, piss-take names, eventually one of them will end up being the actual name but it’s all very much up in the air at the moment.
Q: How would you describe the sound of the album, in comparison to your previous releases?
A: It was conceived differently to how we’ve done the last two records, nothing was pre-written before going into the studio; it was written entirely in improvised jams. We met in the studio, set everything up to record and just started playing. When we listened back we had a few hours of us playing, we listened back, picked out certain parts. It was very much the improvisation that leads the whole thing, and then in a reverse scenario, we fit vocals around it rather than having the melody first. It was more enjoyable to us.
Q: Did that suit you better in regards to finding time to record?
A: Definitely, that way of working came about due to logistics - not being able to meet up as frequently as we used to - that pushed it in that sort of direction, but we were also influenced by that way of working, listening to jazz records and rock bands like Can, improv was kind of where we were going anyway. It worked because we only had a few days to record and do post-production.
Q: After a two-year hiatus is it nice to be back on the road and performing again?
A: It was something that we were really looking forward to doing, especially with new songs. I think it may have felt a little bit weird playing the same set that we left off on two years ago but it was exciting to play new stuff and people were quite responsive. It was weird to play the new songs. I’ve been listening to them pretty much non-stop for the past few months and it almost felt like a record that was released already, but enjoyable to finally play these songs live.
At the same time, what we recorded on the album was the first time we played it so I had to sit down and re-learn what I had played, I had no idea what I’d actually played. With improvisation, there are weird clashes, no traditionally constructed chords so it was funny to listen to it and be like “What the hell am I playing?”, it was like learning someone else's work.
With the live shows, we’re kinda trying to get out of being stiff, playing it as it is on the record, I’m hoping because it’s a looser kind of sound that we can be looser on stage, which is a hard thing to do without being free-form jazz.
Q: The new single, Make It Rain is out now, why did you choose that as the song to break your silence?
A: There was a number of singles we could have picked, each one of them had their own ‘cat-amongst-the-pigeons’ kind of effect; In-time they’ll raise a few eyebrows. I think that’s a good thing. We enjoy putting a slight U-turn in sound out, that’s something we’ve always strived towards. It’s probably the most upbeat, groove-orientated song on the record. It seemed like the most immediate, catchy thing to put out first, to kind of highlight what’s to come, either more of it or more bizarre twists
Q: Are you happy with its reception?
A: Yeah, it’s been very heart-warming for people to be excited about the song and let us know that they like it, and really that’s as much as you can hope for. There’s always a slight apprehension putting out new stuff, but I genuinely think people are liking it, and hopefully, more people are getting curious, people that haven’t heard us before will come into this as a surprise so.
Q: What are your plans for the remainder of 2018, any touring on the horizon?
A: We are scheduled to play a few festivals in Ireland and we’ll drip-feed singles over the summer months leading up to the album. Once the album is out we we'll do a proper Irish tour.
O Emperor's new single, ‘Make It Rain’ is out now on all major streaming services.