ComfortComes

Their Hearts Were Full of Spring

Normally, I hate asking this question but the name of the band fascinates me. Where did you guys come up with the name?

Markus: It’s probably much less interesting than you think. It’s on old song, written by Bobby Troup – the guy who wrote (Get Yout Kicks On) Route 66 – and first made famous by The Four Frseshmen, but the version I was first aware of was recorded by The Beach Boys and appeared on their Smiley Smile album. We needed a name, but I just couldn’t come up with anything good off the top of my head, and then my iTunes played this track one day when I had it switched to shuffle … it seemed right for the kind of music we were making, so we took it for our own.

Tell us a bit about the recording of your new record “How I Wasted My Youth.” Where was it recorded? Who produced?

It’s been a long process, recorded in bits and pieces over the course of about three years in many different places – a lot of the live drums were recorded with Robert King at his Z-Noise studios in North London, but most of the rest was recorded in my bedroom, and I mixed and produced pretty much the whole thing myself right there at home. We had a guy called Paul Tipler in as a producer for one session (he’d previously worked with bands like Idlewild, Stereolab, Dogs Die In Hot Cars and Elastica). He was great to work with and I learned a lot from him and from Robert, but even with the tracks that we recorded with those two guys, I ended up making my own mixes once I got them home … which probably makes me either a control freak or a perfectionist. Or maybe just a fussy bugger.

Did you really waste your youth?

Yes – I was raised to be a good Catholic boy and spent far too much time in church and doing my schoolwork when I should have been out getting drunk and chasing girls.

A wide variety of influences can be found in your music. What influenced you during the recording of the record? Both musical and non-musical?

When I was writing the first batch of songs that ended up on the album – stuff like New Favourite Band, A Question of Trust – I was listening to a lot of Swedish indie pop – Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, bands like that. But the whole twee thing got a bit boring quite quickly so that stage didn’t last too long. I stumbled upon Sufjan Stevens at some point in the middle of things and his (Come On Feel The) Illinoise record was a huge influence, it definitely had a big effect on the instrumentaion of some of the tracks. Same with Arcade Fire’s first album – it reminded me that’s it’s OK to go BIG sometimes – you don’t have to end up sounding like U2. And then there’s the old touchstones – stuff I’ve been listening to for so long it’s seeped into my bones and comes through whether I want it to or not: The Flaming Lips, The Lemonheads, The Smiths, Phil Spector. Those are the basics – I could go on, but listing band names is boring, right?

Non-musically … there would be some long stories to tell if I was to go into all that here, but the lyrics tell you something about the story of what went on these last three or four years. Oh and a couple of books I was reading in that time definitely influenced the themes of some of the lyrics – The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, and Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion.

You have a remix competition going on. Have you been able to listen to any of the submissions? What made you pick St. Cecilia?

The remix competition doesn’t get going til album release date (10th August), so there have been no submissions yet – we’re pretty excited about what we’re gonna hear though. St. Cecilia seemed the obvious choice for a single, and the idea is that the entries we like the most will be used as b-sides to the single, so it made sense to start there. If it’s a success maybe we’ll roll out the whole album as stems and see if some crazy fan will do a Dangermouse on us!

I first heard of the band via your cover of “White Winter Hymnal.” I think you did a wonderful job with the song I am just curious as to why you decided to cover that song?

Thanks, I was really pleased with how that one turned out too.

A drunken band outing ended up in a conversation about songs that it would be cool to cover and we went a bit concept-crazy and came up with the idea of making a series of seasonally-themed recordings to give away as free-to-download singles, one single per season, starting with Winter. We all loved the Fleet Foxes album – it was my favourite from 2008 – and with all the vocal harmonies going on it was obvious that it would really work for us. Most other reviewers picked up on our cover of Winterlong, which was the other track we recorded for Winter, and although that one turned out pretty good too, I’m glad White Winter Hymnal made a bigger impression on you – I think it was the better track, you’re obviously a man of impeccable taste.

Any other bands out there we should be paying attention to?

Plenty. Ian also plays bass in a band called Breton, they’ve an EP coming out in the UK soon, and an album to follow. It’s hard to describe what they do – dance music with real instruments? Indie you can dance to? It’s best you have a listen and make up your own mind.

William are another ace band who are good friends of ours, you should check out their Slightly Delighted mini-album that came out here a couple of months back on Tough Love Records. They’re a drums/bass/guitar three piece but they do incredible things with that very traditional set-up, and they’re awesome live.

I also just produced a few tracks for a band called Hindley, and they’re sounding pretty immense in a post-punk-with-a-pinch-of-The-Specials-when-they-were-being-dark kind of way. At this stage we’re not sure if we’re gonna put out the tracks as an EP or if we’re gonna record a few more and make a full album, but either way, you should keep your eye on them.

One year from now, what will Their Hearts Full Of Spring be doing?

I’m growing a comb-over, should be ready by then so I’ll be doing hair products which will be a novelty.