The Ambience Affair have recently launched their new single ‘Weeds’ and took part in the Certain Three Tour. Vanessa Monaghan caught up with Jamie to see how things were panning out.
Hi Jamie, You’re debut album is due out this year, how are thing’s going with it?
‘We’re getting the masters back, probably in a couple of weeks so its pretty much nearly there. What we’re going to try and do is try and see if we ca find a home for it somewhere and if not then we’ll release it ourselves. We spent a lot of money trying to get it ready to this point so we want to see if we can get a hand to try and release it or if we’re going to have to do it ourselves and get more money together.’
Where and who did you record with?
‘We worked with the same guy we worked with for our second E.P. His name is IanMcNulty, he’s a great guy and we get on really, really well. I think that’s really crucial and he’s got a pretty kick ass taste in music so he knew what we were looking for.’
A kick ass taste in music always helps doesn’t it?
‘It really does help. When you say something in a studio and you say ‘that sounds a bit like that’. he says ‘ah no, I don’t think so’ and he knows exactly what you’re talking about. So he’s got good taste and knows exactly what we are looking for as well which really really helped.’
Yvonne Ryan has just been brought into the band for live shows, was she involved with any on the recording?
‘She did two tracks, she plays bass. I play bass on the rest on the tracks, not really play bass, I kinda mimic playing bass. She played on a couple of one’s that we think might be the single tracks jsut to give them a bit more beef. She can play far better than I can so I figured the we should get her on a couple of tracks and it turned out really really well. She’s a very very competent musician.’
Is that why you brought her in for the live shows, as you say, beef it up a bit?
‘Yeah and I was writing more bass lines than I was capable of looping in a live setting so I was getting to a point of no return. It was getting too advanced for me to do everything myself. Now, I’m willing to share the burden with Yvonne and Marc as well. It’s just adding a lot more, hopefully a lot more audible niceness in the live setting without taking away from any of the urgency.’
For anyone who hasn’t seen you live, what way do you work on stage?
‘90% of the stuff is all done live and then a couple of the original loops are pre-saved but we’re having some difficultly with that. It’s a tricky thing to have a pre-saved loop and everybody to be in the same time. I’m the time keeper, which is weird because usually, it’s the drummer that’s the time keeper. I need to start teh loop myself and then I build on that. Marc usually joins in adn then Yvonne work off Marc so If I’m off time or make a mistake, it will be like a chain reaction. Marc starts to mess up, Yvonne will start to mess up so it’s a real important thing that I get everything right as much as I possibly can. It works well though, it works well. It’s just tricky sometimes.’
If you come up with something and commit it to record, it’s there forever. Do you find yourself under pressure to be able to recreate that live?
‘No because the best thing about us is that we probably have played some of hte songs that are on the album about five or six hundred times live. I still find it really entertaining to play them because it’s always a challenge, you’re always on. The challenge would be, not really to reinterpret, to give the audience a version of the song that they are obviously familiar with but it’s going to be completely different.
There’s a lot of brass and strings on the album, unless we find someone that’s going to want to fund all these musicians coming on stage, it’s going to have to be a stripped down version of what you get on record. All the melodic lines are still going to be there, everything is going to be in its place but it will be a different arrangement. The sound quality wont be as nice because it wont be as padded and lovely to listen to but it will be a different kind of listening experience. It will be a lot more urgent and hopefully the idea is that it’s compelling to watch. That’s the idea. Because we’re all doing something at the same time and I’m running round and Yvonne’s trying to focus on Marc pretty much anything can go wrong at any given time. Hopefully That lends itself to viewing pleasure.’
At least that way, you don’t feel that the songs get stale?
‘Yeah it’s the hardest thing to try and create a song based on a four bar or eight bar loop and to have that as your mantle. There are some really successful domgs that kinda get away with it like ‘All My Friends’ by LCD Soundsystem, that’s the same thing over and over again and yet it still sounds as great after about five and a half minutes. I kinda look at that when I write stuff and I try to figure out, how has he done it, how has he actually approached that where he has a repetitive theme going on throughout and it doesn’t sound boring.’
In some ways it’s almost like a mathematical equation to get everything fitting?
‘Everything fitting yeah, I don’t like to look at it like maths cos if I start doing that I’d just headache so I try doing everything by ear and by how it sounds to me in my room with my headphones one. I take it to the guys, it’s great, because Yvonne is now as brutally honest as Marc is. If they don’t like something you’d be able to tell in about two seconds. That’s generally what happens, I’ll create something and I come to them with the idea and they’ll see if they can pad it out, make something of it.’
The Ambience Affair had one of their tracks used on CSI: NY and your music is perfect soundtrack music. Is that something you would like to get further involved in?
‘Since the CSI thing we got a couple more enquiries but we were cautious to do something else in a similar vein cos, well, I don’t think we should be getting a label as that kind of band. That’s my opinion. First and foremost I think we’re a live band, then we’re a recorded band. Then maybe see us as a band that might, maybe do that in the future. You know the way you have an association with some bands, you know, that’s what they do. I wouldn’t like that because I think it would take away from the music or the person’s perception.’
I guess when you’re still this early in your career you really don’t want to pigeon hole yourself?
‘Yeah, I guess so. We did say no to a couple of other things, which I am now glad of. I mean the CSI thing was great and it gave us the money to do the album. It was a really beneficial thing to happen but if we were down the line and we really needed the money, I don’t know what we’d do. We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. I’d be sceptical of it, I know myself, I have images of bands. It would depend on the type of show or advertisement, that would really affect our decision as well.’
So having started the year being on the Certain Three tour and having an album coming out during the year, what are The Ambience Affair hoping to achieve in 2011?
‘Well. We’re going to look for a home for the album, we’ve had interest before but it’s really hard to gauge. I’ve learned to take everything I received with a pinch of salt over the years. I’d get really excited when I’d get a mail from a label but it would come to nothing. That’s the main thing to see if we can find a home with a label somewhere because I think we have a lot there. The product is there and we’re really proud of the album. Hopefully as a band we’d be sign-able. Everyone says do the DIY thing but us, the band we are, it would really suits us to have people behind us and give us the correct amount of exposure that we just couldn’t do ourselves.’
The Ambience Affair’s current single ‘Weeds’ is available from http://theambienceaffair.bandcamp.com now.