Words With: Field Music

Field Music have been slowly creeping into the public consciousness since the release of their self-titled debut album last year. Festivalwise duly caught up with the Sunderland lads shortly before a special gig at Lancaster Library…

For those not in the know, Field Music are a trio of Sunderland lads - brothers Peter and David Brewis and old school mate Andrew Moore. All come across as intensely passionate about the business of making music. ‘Intense’ just about covers the slightly tense atmosphere that clouds the first round of questions. Dave explains that he feels not many people are on their wavelength at the moment: “That’s how it seems, but one thing I do feel about the single is it’ll kind of wet the appetites a little bit for the people who are looking forward to the album. And that was the idea all along really. And I know that people are looking forward to hearing the album now”.

In fact, Peter adds that they’re happy in their position of perennial outsiders: “We’re really not very cool, or fashionable, so when people come to our gigs and expect that sort of vibe, for want of a better word, they’re probably better off just going home”.

Sat in a coffee shop twiddling their empty cups, Festivalwise tests the water about their feelings about the radio play they’ve been getting lately, and whether getting onto Radio 1 is still important. Dave starts off: “I don’t listen to radio at all, basically it’s like a weird surprise… eeergh, almost what have we done wrong!” Peter chips in: “We could sit down and right, we are going to write an indie-rock hit and get it on the radio. And we’d be basically trying to fool people into listening to the rest of our music. Whereas we don’t have any music that we could put it out there and fool people into liking us under false pretences, so whatever it gets played on, or however it gets out there its like fair game”.

The banter moves back and forth between the two brothers, with one taking up the reigns of the conversation, running with it and passing it on.  The discussion moves onto how others see their music, the particular phrase being ‘crystalline pop’. This is put down, by Dave to the fact that “We do harmonies, and there’s no reverb, just distorted guitars”

Comparisons to new wave and The Beach Boys are skirted around until we move onto Peter’s involvement as a drummer for fellow Sunderland band The Futureheads and the impact this has had on their music. Peter comments: “I don’t mind us being compared to The Futureheads, but actually I think there’s lots of interesting things about the similarities and differences in how we approach music.  And for me that’s interesting because of knowing where we all started from.  For me it seems absurd to lump The Futureheads in with Editors for instance, so then for us to be compared to Editors. It just doesn’t make sense and I feel so far away from it, and that’s like any association which has invented itself. I don’t really like indie music I don’t listen to indie music, I don’t consider The Futureheads to be indie music. I think they make good rock music”.