Klaxons: Exploding the Myths

Jamie Reynolds is happy. Very happy it seems, to the point that he makes reference to that very fact at least every five minutes. But it’s difficult not to warm to someone so at ease with themselves and also heartening to note that the joyful effervescence that he and his Klaxons bandmates bring to their music is not a front. In fact, he goes so far as to say, “In fact, I’ve never been happier.” OK, we’re biting. What’s the secret? “It’s all to do with the band. I think we’ve all exceeded ourselves and everyone’s role has just clicked.”

So there we have it, the secret to a life of contentment is to be a member of a Mercury-prize winning outfit on the cusp of releasing a follow-up that, with the tasters we’ve had so far, seems to be going down very well indeed. Surfing The Void sees the Klaxons moving very firmly into ‘rock’ territory, no doubt influenced by the input of producer Ross Robinson, the thrash metal guitarist who has overseen work from the likes of Korn, At The Drive-In, Slipknot and even The Cure.

Reynolds is very quick to give acclaim to the American, whilst stating that Klaxons remain “first and foremost a pop band.” As with the debut Mercury winner, Myths of The Near Future, named after a short story collection by sci-fi writer J. G. Ballard, Surfing The Void is laden with otherworldly references. Reynolds elaborates: “The album contains a lot of esoteric ideas. But primarily the message in the record is that, things are at their absolute best when you celebrate positivity and loving living in the moment. I was reading stuff from a woman called Simone Friel. She’s a French writer, post-World War I and it’s just extraordinarily life-affirming. It resonated with where my head’s at in terms of trying to be at our best as often as we can. That’s the kind of thinking that filtered through this record and it’s through her I got the idea of the void, which is this missing part in people’s lives. Surfing that void is a reference to trying to make the best of a bad situation; it’s something which is referential to us and our experiences in the past couple of years.”

With reference to the past couple of years, Reynolds is keen to quash notions of discord between the band and their record label Polydor. Early last year, it had been reported that the Klaxons had presented material for their second album, only for it to be flatly rejected by the label for not being ‘commercial enough’. “That’s not the truth,” he clarifies. “We didn’t ever attempt to make a record and then tell Polydor that this was what we wanted to come out. Over a period of time we made a big batch of songs but never presented any of it as our second record. For the first time after two years of us messing about in the studios they asked what we’d done. We gave it to them and they said ‘with all the love and support in the world you’ve got to go and make some more songs’. The sad thing about the rejection angle is that it makes out that we’re not being allowed to do whatever we want to do, and what we want to do is release the record we’ve just made which we’re 100% happy with. The other sad thing is that it also suggests that the record company doesn’t support us when the reality is they’ve been the most supportive people throughout this entire time.”

The ‘big batch’ Reynolds is referring to will be released next year as in the form of a five-track EP of “sixties sounding psychedelic rock” and an album of “weird, experimental, blippy, glitchy electronic music” that they worked on with Simian founder James Ford, who produced their debut. “We’d gotten to the point where we weren’t making songs as such, just weird noise using mics and pedals. That was the most fun that we had whilst sitting there not thinking about songs for the album. We were like ‘Ok, let’s make some stupid music’. When people hear it they’ll understand that we weren’t at all thinking about making a second Klaxons record. There’s just weird drone music with us singing about trees.”

The success of the debut album wasn’t just critical. Reaching number two in the charts, it was also responsible for coining the phrase ‘new rave’, which started off as a minor in-joke before becoming a cult all of its own. “I think it’s absolutely fucking mind-blowing what happened there,” says Reynolds. “What’s exciting about the new rave thing was that it was global. A music scene normally comes from a city or place. With new rave, there were bands from South America, Australia, Europe, North America, Japan; it didn’t have a specific base, just a bizarre, wonderful, worldwide music scene.” What exactly, to the progenitors then, is new rave? “It’s like a celebration; making sure that music is about creating the celebratory moment and living in that moment and enjoying it.”

So, with a cult movement all of their own making, surely there was a feeling of immense pressure to follow that success up with something special? Reynolds admits it was a little nerve-wracking, but suggests the influence of Robinson helped keep their feet on the ground. “Our motto is to take fun seriously. But Ross came along and didn’t want to change that dynamic. He did, however, give us the confidence to fulfill our roles in what we do as a band and was the ultimate pillar of support for us. This album was about solidifying ourselves as a band so we could say ‘Yeah, we’re the real deal. We’re a band who mean business and here we are’. But for the next one we need to experiment and make sure it’s as creative as it possibly can be while at the same time being pop. Evolving pop music is the next thing that we should be doing.”

According to Reynolds, meeting Robinson “changed our lives and made us completely happy” (that word again). His influence, it seems, stretched beyond what was happening in the studio. “Ross made James [Righton] and I dump our girlfriends. He just didn’t think that they were very good for us. Particularly mine. I can’t comment about James and his girlfriend, because that’s not fair. But he’d say to me that my girlfriend was bad for me, she was awful and that she just had to go. Before I did one of the vocal takes he made me get on the phone to dump her.” And you had no problem with that? “I just trusted the guy and think that it was the right thing to do. And since I did it I became a lot happier, so I just said to him ‘Thank you very much’. It’s a pleasure what we do and we’re loving life. As I said, we take fun seriously.” And why not?