Art Brut 'Vs Satan' album

Art Brut will be releasing its third studio album, Art Brut vs Satan, Out May 12th On Downtown Records. “We recorded the album in a punk-as-f@*k two weeks in Salem, Oregon,” explains lead singer Eddie Argos. “I don't always enjoy the recording process - all that fiddling with guitars and drum sounds waiting for my turn to ‘sing’. This time though, we did it just right. We spent a day getting the sound of the instruments perfect, then with all of us in the same room at the same time, with the amazing Black Francis conducting us, we pressed record, jumped around and played our songs. This is how I always thought albums were made and it’s definitely how we're doing it from now on!”

The first single to be released from the album will be Alcoholics Unanimous, Art Brut, who love touring (“we actually have to be physically restrained to stop us playing live every night”), will be coming to US in late Spring.

meet the band Art Brut
Eddie Argos (vocals)
Ian Catskilkin (guitar)
Jasper Future (guitar)
Freddy Feedback (bass)
Mikey Breyer (drums)

Art Brut interview
Does British pop deserve Eddie Argos? A chart fixture in France, iconic in Germany (where his lyrics have been the subject of a lecture at Berlin University under the tile ‘The Depressive Dandy’), lionised by the cream of alt.America (Craig Finn and Jeffrey Lewis are fans) and a world class blogger to boot (check out :www.the-eddie-argos-resouce.blogspot.com) he is, as the NME pointed out in 2005, ’the new Jarvis’ and so much more.

“It’s strange” muses Eddie. “Outside the U.K people seem to find it easier to accept our songs on face value. We played in Brazil with Franz Ferdinand and all these school kids were singing ‘Emily Kane’ to me. It really freaked me out.”

Eddie may be an outsider worthy of Albert Camus, but his time is about to come.

Produced by Frank Black over twelve days last December, new album Art Brut vs. Satan is the record Brut-o-philes have been waiting for since debut single ‘Formed A Band’ illuminated the musical universe back in 2004.

Tuneful, truculent and more on the button than University Challenge’s Gail Trimble, it’s the sound of Art Brut at their most confident and confrontational.

Eddie: “In the past I’ve been worried about what people might think about our records, but this time I don’t care. I know it’s good.”

So how, as David Byrne might ask, did they get here? At the start of 2008, Art Brut found themselves on the other side of the world, touring Australia in support of second album ‘It’s a Bit Complicated’.

Eddie: “We were away on tour for two years. By the end it became a nightmare. Consequently, the second album was full of songs about relationships. I’d been engaged to someone, so every night I’d be singing miserable songs about breaking up with girls. We needed a break.”

When it arrived, it came from an unlikely source: in March, the band severed their relationship with EMI. Infuriated by the label’s decision to release ‘Pump Up The Volume’ without their permission, Eddie wrote the word ‘SLAVE’ on his face. Guitarist Jasper Future began posting anti-EMI blogs. In a stand-off of this magnitude, there would only be one winner.

“They said ‘we’ll let you go as long as you stop slagging us off’” laughs Eddie.

“It was us being a bit cocky and rude, but that works for us.”

Where others might have buckled, Art Brut found themselves gaining (super) power from the spat; a creative Kryptonite which fuels ‘Art Brut vs Satan’.

Eddie: “We’ve been lucky, we got signed to Rough Trade on our first demo, and then we signed to Fierce Panda, which is a great label. But having that bit of friction really helped us. This album is quite feisty and argumentative, and I really like that.”

Having endured a lengthy recording process for debut ‘Bang Bang Rock’n’Roll’ and ‘It’s a Bit Complicated’, the band resolved to record their next album as speedily as possible.

“I love the first Frank Black And The Catholics album” explains Eddie.

“He did that in one day. It made me think-that’s how I want to records to be made. So we came to the conclusion, let’s ask Frank Black to produce it, and do it like that”

To the band’s surprise, Black –a fervent fan- said yes.

Accordingly, the band found themselves packing their bags and heading for Wavelength Studios in Oregon last December.

Eddie: “The studio Frank uses is in Salem. It’s in the middle of nowhere. We were staying by the motorway, and he’d pick us up in his car every day. We’d do eight hour days then back to the hotel. We did the whole thing in twelve days. It was very simple.”

With the band set up in one big room, their amps in the kitchen and Eddie singing his vocals in a cupboard (“It was ok, I had drinks in there”) they set about exorcising the demons of the previous two years.

“I had an album’s worth of songs written, but once we got there we wrote four or five new ones. It all just flooded out.”

Opening with first single ‘Alcoholics Unanimous’-which finds Eddie bawling “There’s so many people I might have upset/ I apologised to them all with the same group text“, Satan spills over with wit, wisdom, and righteous fury. From ‘Passengers’ -a neat inversion of Iggy Pop’s ode to isolation- to the deeply personal ‘DC Comics And Chocolate Milk’ (“From delivering post to serving beer/I’ve never had much of a career”) it’s a rummage through the diaries of British pop’s sharpest observationist.

The pivotal ‘Demons Out!’, meanwhile, cast Argos as an indie Witchfinder General on the trail of those who would corrupt music to their own ends, complete with the lyric: “This is Art Brut versus Satan/The record buying public, we hate them!”
Eddie: “It was inspired by seeing Muse. My girlfriend is in The Blood Arm, who were supporting, and so I was compelled to see them. It was horrible-all these visuals of Tiananman Square and the Vietnam War. They’re from Devon- what have they got to do with that?”

‘Slap Dash for No Cash’ meanwhile, is an ode to immediacy which poses the question: “Why is everyone trying to sound like U2?/ Why would you want to?”.

Eddie: “I can’t stand the fact that every band seems to think it’s ok to use that epic sound. In the current climate people shouldn’t be sounding like that. They should be more austere-it’s just not cool.”

If ‘Summer Jobs’ –inspired by a stint working at Harry Ramsden’s in Bournemouth- and ‘Twist and Shout’ –about singing Jeffrey Lewis songs in the post office- touch on familiar Brut themes of alienation and social embarrassment, the surprise comes with a final ‘Mysterious Bruises’.

A seven minute excursion into the agit-funk of ’77 era Talking Heads (or, if you prefer, Julian Cope’s ‘Safe Surfer’) complete with the Pullitzer-prize worthy couplet: “I can’t remember anything I’ve done/I fought the floor and the floor won!” it’s a sobering account of the morning after the night before which seems destined to fill dancefloors from Paris to Pasadena.
Which is where we came in.

The sharpest, most articulate song-writer in rock is back on our doorstep, ringing on the doorbell. He’s here to make us laugh, cry, and remember why we got hooked on the stuff in the first place.

After all, they’re doing it for you, so you better be grateful. Time to decide whose side you’re on.

Art Brut biography
“That’s what we kept saying all the while we were recording the album,” says Eddie Argos, ‘it’s a bit complicated’. So it just made sense that that would be the title.”

Oh yes, with their Dan Swift produced second album, their first for new label Labels / Mute, Art Brut (Eddie Argos - vocals, Ian Catskilkin - lead guitar, Freddy Feedback - bass, MIkey B - drums and new guitarist Jasper Future) have grown up. But don’t worry, they’ve only grown up a little bit. “The first album was kind of me when I was 17, and I suppose this one is me when I’m 19. If we do another one, I expect it will be me when I was 21.”

As chief rapier wit and unlikely champion of Britpop’s new wave, the 27-year-old Eddie Argos is used to living life at the speed of pop. It was (a bit) complicated enough for the band who combined kitchen sink drama and French philosophy to even get here – “here” being encroaching international superstardom – from humble beginnings as champions of London’s DIY New Cross Scene, class of 2004. And you’ll know about Eddie Argos, former postman, lifelong dreamer, occasional indie prophet whose only real ambition in life was to one day get on Top Of The Pops.

The TOTP dream may be over now the show has ended, but It’s A Bit Complicated takes Art Brut’s love affair with pop music to dizzying new levels. From opener Pump Up The Volume’s awkward fumbling, wondering aloud “is it so wrong, to break from your kiss to turn up a pop song?” to the deranged dancefloor melodrama of new single Direct Hit, or the rolling, melodious I Will Survive, the new album takes their ascent to pop supremacy to its next dizzying stage.

Art Brut’s debut single ‘Formed A Band’ became a rallying cry across indie London, a call to arms to a new generation determined to poke fun at everything and everyone.

Their star was rising. Next single, the stream-of-consciousness ode to unrequited love that is ‘Emily Kane’ narrowly missed a top 40 placing because an administrative error meant that none of their download sales carried forward. “But I kind of like that,” says Eddie, “because I didn’t get in with Emily Kane either in the end. So they’re both a bit disappointing.” Their debut album ‘Bang Bang Rock’n’Roll’ was eventually released on Fierce Panda and things were moving faster than Eddie could ever have anticipated.

Their process of licensing ‘Bang Bang Rock’n’Roll’ one country at a time started to pay serious dividends in Germany. “I think they think I’m more intelligent than I actually am,” continues Eddie, “they were saying it was a concept album.” As things took off, they found themselves playing two nights with Oasis in Hamburg. “Liam Gallagher was at the side of the stage both nights, clapping and dancing,” remembers Eddie with awe. “And then during ‘Modern Art’ he was jumping around, saying ‘this is my favourite! Fucking ave it!” Later on in the dressing room Eddie gave Noel a copy of ‘Bang Bang Rock’n’Roll. “He’s like, ‘oh I’ve got it,’ and started singing a bit of ‘My Little Brother’. I told him it was like Half Man Half Biscuit supporting U2. He said he loved Half Man Half Biscuit and starting singing ‘Trumpton Riots’ at me. It was the most surreal moment of my life.”

But this was nothing compared to what was going on in America, with the band getting plaudits on influential US music site Pitchfork Media Rolling Stone named ‘Formed A Band’ their Single Of The Year. Spin named them one of the 15 Best Live Bands In The World. And they appeared on the coveted Jimmy Kimmel talkshow. “I’m quite a nervous man anyway,” confesses Eddie, “but that was terrifying because it’s real television isn’t it, American television. And you know Americans, they’re all enthusiastic. I realised then it was going quite well.”

But in any adventure, there will be those who don’t make it, and eventually the time came for guitarist Chris Chinchilla to depart. Having left their jobs for a not-exactly-lucrative album deal, the band found themselves without any money. “I’m quite stupid,” Eddie reflects, “I thought it was romantic, starving to death in a bedsit somewhere. But Chris likes comfort more than me I think, so he left.”

But by the time replacement Jasper Future came in, with a brazen Weezer/Nirvana influence to beef up the band’s sound, they were already a very different prospect. The gilded palace of showbusiness was opening itself up; from the sublime (playing with Ghostface Killah and meeting Russell Simmons, Wyclef Jean and Gnarls Barkley) to the ridiculous (being covered by We Are Scientists), Art Brut were becoming America’s favourite sons. “In America and Germany I think they’re a lot less cynical than us. So when they hear ‘Emily Kane’ they say ‘oh you must have loved Emily Kane, that’s a lovely love song’, whereas over here they’ll go ‘oh that’s funny; is she made up? That’s like an emo song’. But oh no, it was all true.”

Actually, the song put Eddie back in touch with Emily, “and her new boyfriend’s lovely,” he says with a sorrowful face, but with that – and TOTP – behind him, he was ready to return to London and work on stage 2.

“I didn’t realise how much I love England, being away from here for so long,” says Eddie. The band had just completed their biggest ever US and UK tours, festivals across the globe including Coachella, Pitchfork, Benacassim and New York’s Siren, had a hit single in all-new track ‘Nag Nag Nag Nag’ and, recently signed to Labels / Mute, they were quick to work on ‘It’s A Bit Complicated’. “It’s good,” muses Eddie, “because we never really got to write the first album. We just had to use all the songs we had. This time we knew what we were doing.”

And in every sense, it’s a better album – a bit complicated, but not so much that it muddies the cast-iron pop principles the band were founded on. “The album is more if the same, but better. We’ve got a sense of humour, but we’re not a joke.”

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Art Brut - Vs Satan