Embrace 'Out of Nothing' album

There isn’t enough music in the world today that manages to truly elevate the listener with its epic intentions and heartfelt emotions, but Embrace want to change all that. The Anglo five-piece specializes in crafting the kind of unforgettable songs that adroitly balance a profound sense of personal intimacy with anthemic hooks and sweeping choruses. Blending the fervent optimism of U2 and the majesty of The Verve, Embrace wants everyone to be singing along and still feel like the songs were written just for them.

The critically acclaimed quintet will release their chart-topping UK disc Out of Nothing on Lava Records on June 14, 2005. Made up of brothers Danny McNamara on lead vocals & guitar and Richard McNamara on lead guitar, the band also features Steve Firth on bass, Mick Dale on keyboards and Mike Heaton on drums. Formed in the mid-90’s at the height of Britpop by the brothers McNamara, the band found early success with a string of celebrated singles, each of which found its way higher into the echelons of the UK charts. Their #1 debut album, The Good Will Out, solidified the band’s European success and would have been their ticket to stateside domination, if a massive record label merger hadn’t left them without a U.S. home the very same week they found out their first single had been the #2 most added song at college radio over here. Despite the setback on this side of the Atlantic, the band continued to thrive overseas, releasing two more successful albums – 2000’s Drawn From Memory and 2001’s If You’ve Never Been – before losing their record deal due to diverging artistic opinions with their UK label. They were quickly snapped up by Independiente Records, then spent the next two years writing songs, before they felt like they were ready to make their comeback.

The magnificent result is Out of Nothing, a proudly defiant collection of ten memorable songs that debuted at #1 in the UK, spawned a pair of top ten singles and earned the band endless accolades in the press. Hailed as “Colossal” by the Evening Standard and “Monumental” by Q Magazine, Time Out called the disc “stirring and affecting,” while The Fly reported that “Embrace have written their best songs to date.” This was hard-fought praise, because the songs in question were born out of a lot of tireless work, bottomless patience and unswerving dedication. Danny McNamara readily admits that it wasn’t the easiest process “It was incredibly hard,” he confesses. “I’d have writers block for months on end. We all had down days, but never at the same time. And what got us through that time was our belief in ourselves and each other. We felt that Out of Nothing was going to be our last album and we put everything that we had into it – our time, money and energy – and it came first in our lives for those three years.”

Over that time, Richard and Danny came up with over 500 songs and half songs, at which point they decided to start putting down their ideas on tape with respected producer Youth (known for his work with The Verve, The Orb and Killing Joke) at the helm. “We wanted an artistic songwriter/producer, the rarest cat in the jungle,” explains Richard. “We know that he was strong-willed, talented and had produced some enormous albums. After talking to him, we all said, “That’s the guy for us.”

Youth had actually produced two songs on the band’s debut and had mixed it, but this was the first time the fivesome had worked with someone else producing in over seven years. “We realized that we needed somebody new to come along, after working for three years on our own,” Danny freely admits. “He was someone that would bring a new perspective to the songs and mix it up a bit. We had no idea how much he would mix it up and how hard it would be though. I argued a lot with Youth. At one point I wanted to quit music altogether and go live on a small island and throw my mobile phone in the sea. Get religion or live off the land or something – something that meant I wouldn’t have to keep arguing with Youth.”

Nonetheless, the band persevered. The first song that let them know that they were on the right track was the album opener, “Ashes,” a stomping anthem about rebirth that serves as the perfect summation of the band’s ascendant return. It actually began as a slow-burning ballad, until Youth had an idea to speed it up a bit. “When he first told us to stick a four to the floor drumbeat on it, we all spat our drinks out and started laughing,” Richard remembers. Nonetheless, the band complied and by the end, all five of them had grins from ear to ear. That was the turning point and from there, the sessions began to move quickly.

Each song on Out of Nothing has a story to it, though perhaps none more moving than the touching ballad “Looking As You Are.” ”It was three in the morning and I was waiting for a phone call from a girl who was – hopefully – about to leave her boyfriend,” Danny recounts. “I knew that they were in bed together and that she was supposed to call me, but she hadn’t. It literally took me four minutes to write. How long it takes to listen to it was how long it took to write. Fortunately, she did call, but she called at 4 o’clock in the morning. If she had called at half two that song never would have been written.”

“‘Glorious Day’ is about relying on things that aren’t necessarily good for you,” Danny continues. “It can be a destructive relationship or a religion that’s not really helping you grow spiritually, or drugs. I took inspiration from Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day,’ which is about heroin, but he’s kind of ironically saying that it’s just such a perfect day.”

And then there’s the first single, the magnificent ballad “Gravity,” which was penned by longtime friend, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, whom the band had known since a pre-“Yellow” Coldplay had supported them half a decade before. “Two years ago he played me ‘Gravity’ down the phone and I told him it was an amazing song,” Danny relates. “He agreed, but he thought it sounded too much like Embrace for Coldplay to use the song.” “He was nervous about offering us the song,” Richard interjects. “He was worried we’d turn it down, because we thought he was bigheaded.” “At first I was a bit skeptical – for all the reasons you would be skeptical,” continues Danny. “But then Chris went on about all the people like Dylan and Graham Parsons in the ‘60’s, who swapped songs and ideas.” “It’s not something that bands in the indie fraternity do,” Richard admits. “But then we asked ourselves ‘Why shouldn’t we do this, just because no one else does it? Let’s be the first to do it.’” The outcome is totally Embrace and you can’t imagine anyone – even Coldplay – making it sound as poignant and powerful.

Out of Nothing is a rare album, a triumphantly anthemnic collection of songs that will lift you up, up and away. Whether they make you want to raise your arms and sing along at the top of your lungs or quietly indulge in them on your iPod, Embrace make you realize that something truly amazing can come out of nothing.

Danny McNamara - lead vocals & guitar
Richard McNamara - lead guitar
Steve Firth - bass
Mick Dale - keyboards
Mike Heaton - drums

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Embrace - Out of Nothing