Chatting with The Twilight Sad about Touring, Recording, and Being Miserable
The Twilight Sad put on a live show unlike any other. Andy MacFarlaneâs noisy, dizzying guitar and Mark Devineâs drumming seem calm compared to vocalist James Graham. His delivery is beautiful and melodic even as he paces, shakes his head, and occasionally shouts away from the microphone. Itâs an intense experience that feels personal, and that power he has earned the Scottish trio a loyal following in the States. On the last night of the bandâs American tour opening for Fatcat labelmates We Were Promised Jetpacks, I sat down with (the charming, not so miserable) Graham at Webster Hall to look back at the year and to touch on whatâs next for the band.
So the last time you were here, you were actually playing at Rough Trade playing your entire first album [Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters]. Whatâs it like to go back to that while promoting a new album [Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave]?
Itâs because we reissued it in April. I think it was April, Record Store Day, whenever that was. We always wanted to come over and do it in America, and we just didnât have the opportunity to do so. We saw this as a window to try and bookend the tour because weâre doing it in Chicago tomorrow as well. It felt good. It was nice to play that for people who are big fans of that record. I think the show went really well. People seemed to be really happy with it and enjoy it. Aye, it felt good, but it feels weird coming back full circle after six weeks of touring and then coming back to New York. I mean, itâs a good place to finish a tour even though weâre playing tomorrow night, again. It was good. I did enjoy it. We had to learn the songs again because weâre rehearsed for the new stuff. We got all the new stuff learned before this tour and then were like, âOh no, we have to remember all the old songs as well!â We gave ourselves a wee more work, but I enjoyed it. Iâm glad we got a chance to do it, if Iâm being honest.
Now youâre actually opening for another band, We Were Promised Jetpacks. Whatâs it like to be putting out a new album and be an opening act in another country like this?
Weâve done that a few times, but this time, because weâre four albums in and weâve got 45 minutes each night, itâs quite hard to fit everything we want within the 45 minutes. But itâs been great. The Jetpacks, theyâre good friends to begin with, and they do really well over here. So it was nice of them to give us the opportunity to play in front of maybe larger crowds than we would be doing and maybe nick a couple of their fans. Itâs been great. The drives have been long and hard, but you get 45 minutes to show each town what youâve got for people who donât know your music. Iâve been relishing the opportunity to play in front of people who donât know who we are and maybe try to win them over. Itâs a different kind of mentality when you go out in front of a crowd who have paid to see you, you know? To go out in front of a bunch of people who have probably never heard you to try to impress them. I donât know if we play any different, but itâs just trying to win them over as soon as you get out there, like do I make an impression here? So itâs been good. The only thing is not being able to play as many songs as we want, but itâs quite good to play 45 minutes and then youâre done for the rest of the night. I usually go to the merch stand and meet people, have a drink. Six weeks as well, six weeks. I canât believe it. Theyâve gone like that. It just shows you how good it has been, the fact that itâs flown by.
Putting the new album out in America whilst youâre in the middle of a tour is quite good because it took my mind off it. I wasnât so stressed about it. We were busy doing stuff, so I wasnât sitting at home looking at my phone going, âOh shit, I hope people like this.â The reaction has been great. Iâve enjoyed my time over here.
This album feels a lot more diverse than your previous albums. Was that a deliberate choice to mix up the style, to have that guitar rock and at the same time also have the quieter moments?
Yeah. We had a wee break. Not a break, we just hadnât toured as heavily as we had been, and we went home. Over a period of about a year we played different types of gigs, like we played normal five-piece gigs where it was noisy, and we stripped it down when me and Andy played some acoustic gigs. We played three-piece gigs where Mark played the organ and Andy just played the guitar. And then we played with an orchestra as well at one point. I think playing those different kinds of gigs whilst we were writing the record kind of helped make it the most dynamic kind of record weâve made. Youâre right, itâs got big, loud, noisy songs like âIn Nowheres,â but then youâve got the last song on the record thatâs just me and a piano and a little sample. I think it was good to show the range of what the band has and what weâve learned over the years. Itâs the most cohesive set of songs. They all work together, but they are pretty different at the same time. But yeah, I would agree with that. Itâs probably the most diverse but also, for me itâs the strongest set of songs weâve written. People seem to be reacting to it really well. Itâs been a bit ridiculous. Itâs been a bit overwhelming, the amount of positivity thatâs been shown to the record and to us. Weâre used to being, as you can tell by our music, weâre quite miserable all the time. Itâs quite hard with people being nice to us all the time. Itâs been good. Fingers crossed, touch wood.
Well, youâve made it to the end of the tour, and people are still coming out rather than going, âOh, weâll wait until after the opening act is done.â
Aye. The one thing is we have made it to the end of the tour. I wasnât sure if weâd make it to the end of the tour. I think we all thought weâd probably kill each other. Weâve got there, and yes, weâre all still friends. But I think weâre looking forward to some time away from each other. Six weeks in the back of a van with five other guys. Weâre ready to not be around each other for a couple of weeks, I think. You just need that one week off, and then youâre ready to go again.
And then you start itching for the road again.
Yeah, I miss it. Adjusting to being back home, doing your usual stuff, you start to miss the wee kind of things about touring. I miss playing gigs. The thing is we are all still friends, so we kind of enjoy hanging about each other. I think thatâs why weâre still going. Not to say the music isnât why weâre still going, but the fact is weâre all still friends and weâre still able to be around each other is a big thing because itâs seven years in close proximity to each other. Itâs quite a testament to how much we believe in what weâre doing.
How important is it to have that kind of foundation in the band? There are some bands where itâs very much about the business, and they donât really socialize when theyâre away.
As I say, weâre in the back of a van together. Yeah, weâve got our laptops and iPads to watch our favorite TV shows, but I think that helps gives you some distance from each other. We actually enjoy hanging about with each other. We go to the pub together, we drink together. I drink back home with Brendan, the keyboard player. I hang out with him all the time. Andyâs been my best friend for years, and Devineâs also a really good friend. Johnnyâs a maniac but in a really, really nice way. Since he joined the band, weâve become really good friends as well, so I think Iâm really lucky, to be honest, that we all like each other. I know thereâs a lot of bands where it is like a business and they function to make money, but they donât really socialize with each other. Thatâs sad actually, I think. The reason I got into this was to make music with my friends. It wasnât to make money or anything like that. I think thatâs the one thing: staying true to the band. Weâre all still friends, and we all still enjoy making music together and being in each otherâs company. If that wasnât the case, we wouldnât still be going to be honest. Iâm quite glad weâve stuck to the reasons why weâve started it.
When you were writing this new album, were you considering how it would translate live, or is it all about trying to make it the best album tracks you can?
I donât think about anything else apart from writing the songs. I donât think about how to play it live or anything like that. Thatâs something once itâs done, we worry about that after. Iâm fully connected to just trying to write the songs, and perform the songs when theyâre recorded versions, as best as I possibly can. I donât actually listen to a lot of other music whilst weâre in the studio or making the songs, to be honest. I try not to get any outside influence if you know what I mean. You always have subconscious influences in the songs, but I try to stay away from everything and think about writing the songs. Iâm probably a bit of a nightmare to be around at that time, as well, to be honest. Iâm probably a nightmare to be around a lot of the time. Once the recordâs done, we go in the rehearsal studio and try to perform the songs as well as we can. At the same time, we try to make the live versions a bit different from the recorded version, because instead of paying money to see a band you could just sit in a house and listen to the album. Theyâre a bit more intense when we play them live. Theyâre a bit noisier when we play them live. I think thatâs a good thing to just have different sides to the band, separating the recorded and the live version of what we do is an important thing. Weâve gotten better as a live band over the years. We were very young and naĂŻve when we started out, and weâve just learned how to be a good band over the years. For me, itâs two separate things. Focus on one at one point, and then when thatâs done, move on to do that.
Youâre supposed to come back next year to tour headlining, right?
Yeah. I donât know the exact dates at the moment, but I know itâs late February/March because I know weâre doing SXSW. Thatâs going to be fun. Weâre going to be playing for an hour and a half each night and stick all the songs in we want to do. When people write in to us saying, âCan you play this song?â we try as we can to learn those songs to play them as well. Itâs always nice when people are asking for more songs being played. Iâm looking forward to that. Itâll be interesting to see where the band is in the US at that point because itâs all about us at that point. This tourâs set us up really well, and Iâm still really grateful to the Jetpacks for asking us along. I think weâve won over a lot of new people, and hopefully theyâll be out there in February/March. Weâve got the next eight months constantly touring.
Yeah, I was looking at your tour dates, and everything after March is like booked so solid.
Aye, and then you add the month in America to that as well at the start of that, and thereâs more coming. But I want that. I want to look at our website and see. Being busy is good. When we finished the album, I really thought it was an album that could possibly take us to places weâve never been before. I think itâs an opportunity to get more people into the band, and that seems to be happening. So far, so good. Touch wood. I keep doing that because I keep saying things like, âDonât jinx it! Donât jinx it!â Iâm very much looking forward to coming back. I think theyâre two, three hundred capacity venues weâre playing. Itâs weird coming to the end of a six-week tour and going oh, Iâm going to do this all again, but the fact is Iâm looking forward to it. I love playing over here. People are so generous. The amount of things people have done for us is ridiculous. Just bought us things, drawn pictures for us, traveled like eight hours to come and see us, buying us drinks. We donât ask for it. Thatâs not why we do it. To get that kind of overwhelming generosity is amazing. People donât do that back home. Weâre quite miserable. Why I love coming over here is the people more than anything. Itâs nice and really refreshing to see people who give a shit about music, you know? Long may that continue. We want to come over here as much as we can.
I actually had a friend who flew all the way from Detroit to come to the Rough Trade show. And sheâs Scottish.
Bloody hell. Thatâs amazing. People donât even travel to Edinburgh from Glasgow to go and see a gig, so it really puts that into perspective. Obviously itâs a different country, itâs a much bigger country, so sometimes if you really want to see someone, youâve got to do that. It still blows my mind that people give a shit about our music that much they would do that. Itâs amazing. If it wasnât for people like that, it would be a lot harder to do this. We do it for ourselves to begin with. The music is for us, but after that, you want people to like it. The dedication shown to our bandâŠWe went through a really bad time a couple of years ago. If it wasnât for those people showing the dedication to what we were doing and showing we really meant something to them, that would have beenâŠIt wouldnât have been a nail in the coffin or anything, itâs just that whilst we were down, that was a really uplifting thing to us, to go, âRight, you know what? This does mean something. This is important.â Not just to us. Itâs other people. This means something to them. I hope we can do this for as long as we possibly can. I love doing it. I hope the next tour is not the last one over here. Weâve got a year visa. The shows go well, weâll come back again. Hopefully we will.
The Twilight Sad play Babyâs All Right on February 24. Tickets go on sale Friday, December 19.