The last few years of British rock music have been dominated by a new wave of fantastic, so-called ‘post-punk’ artists; with bands like Yard Act, Shame, and Black Country, New Road all producing exciting, boundary-pushing music, it’s a great time to be a British rock music fan.
One of the bands at the forefront of this new “scene” (if you can call it that) is the hugely talented Squid, whose new album O Monolith came out at the start of the month. Their recent gig in Sheffield was absolutely incredible, and I was lucky enough to chat with lead singer and drummer Ollie Judge about their new album, his opinion on Sheffield, and the state of the British music scene generally.
O Monolith is, at least in my opinion, quite a significant departure from Bright Green Field. It sounded a bit more “prog-rock”-y, with more electronic influence as well. Was this a conscious decision that you guys wanted to move away from the more typical post-punk sound of the first album, or did this just occur naturally?
I’d probably say it’s a bit of both, to be honest. I think it just falls under not wanting to repeat yourself. It was only when we finished writing the tunes, that we all turned around to each other and were like “Is this prog? Are we a prog band now?” But yeah, just not wanting to repeat ourselves I guess.
That makes sense, definitely! Did recording at Peter Gabriel’s studio have any effect on the “prog-iness” of the album at all?
Yeah probably! That studio felt like a bit of a Bond villain lair. But yeah it definitely had a big impact on what the record sounds like. There is a lot more physical space in the studio, which gives us room to set mics up far away and experiment. And then, in a musical sense, it is a massively well-renowned studio. Like there is this guy who programs this synth called the Fairlight, and he is Peter Gabriel’s programmer for this synth, which is really hard to actually program because it’s really archaic. He programmed it for Hounds of Love by Kate Bush, and that synth just sounds so much like that record. So just the historical side of that studio definitely fed into the sound of the record, like we used that synth and stuff. It is like old folk tales being passed along.
So then would you say that, aside from all the equipment, even just the size and physicality of a studio can have an effect on the music?
Yeah I mean, this is the first time we have ever recorded not in Dan Carey’s home studio, which is kinda small. So we definitely noticed a difference. Just even the difference in the headspace, of knowing you have a big space to record, can really change the sound of an album.
Was this album a bit of a reaction to the whole “post-punk” label, which, rightly or wrongly, has begun to swamp most British bands? What do you think about the future of British rock music?
Yeah I think a little bit of it was like “yeah lets try and move away from that a bit”, but also there is nothing wrong with being a post-punk band. But I feel a bit disconnected from the contemporary music scene, to be honest; I mainly just listen to like ambient music, and lots of New Wave. My partner just put on Violator by Depeche Mode, and I forgot how much I love that album. Yeah, stuff like that, lots of Sheffield 80s stuff, like Cabaret Voltaire and stuff like that. But yeah I don’t know where it’s all going, politically the country is not getting any better so I think the music will stay angry for a while.
Do you guys find yourselves struggling in this very complex, political time, with the cost-of-living crisis going on?
We are very fortunate to be in a position where we do music and that does pay our bills and give us something to live on, but it is getting really hard. We have to make decisions that, in a musical sense, we really shouldn’t have to make, like “should we hire a person to do our sound for this gig?” because we actually need to make money, but all these people are paying to come see us and if the sound is shit then their experience won’t be good and that is a really shit thing to do on our part”. It’s all just about balancing up all these costs, and we completely fund our shows ourselves, so it means our management have to do a lot of budgeting for that. There are a lot of things you have to weigh up now before you can go on tour.
Are you looking forward to your gig at Foundry?
Ah yeah man, we love Sheffield. We mainly love Sheffield though because there’s this pub called The Broadfield that does the nicest pies we’ve ever had.
Ah well, you should try the pies at The Nottingham House, because I think that might throw your rankings a bit!
Right, I am gonna write that down! But no, I love Sheffield, it reminds me a bit of Bristol, where I live. I really love it, and we always get good crowds there.
Squid’s new album, O Monolith, is out now, and can be found on Spotify. You can read Henry Noble’s album review for Forge Press here.