Foto-Credit © Tom Oxley

Fast zwei Jahre schon führen wir Gespräche über die Pandemie, über all die ineinander verschmolzenen Lockdowns und unser aller New Normal. Wir sind müde und werden doch gleichzeitig nicht müde, uns auszutauschen, Erfahrungen zu teilen, von der vielleicht verrücktesten Zeit unseres Lebens. Auch im Interview mit The Wombats-Drummer Dan Haggis ist es der rote Faden. Immerhin ist Fix Yourself, Not the World ein waschechtes Lockdown-Remote-Album.

Die Band, die sonst unermüdlich auf Tour war, jeden Festivalsommer umgeben von Tausenden zu einem lieb gewonnenen Ritual gemacht hatte, die man nicht oft genug sehen konnte. Es ist ein fast schon tröstliches, hoffnungsvolles Gespräch und der Beweis dafür, dass sich nicht alles geändert hat. Dass The Wombats immer noch diese leidenschaftliche Gute Laune-Band ist, der kein Hindernis zu hoch, kein Kilometer zu weit weg ist.

Und um das waschechte 2020/2021-Erlebnis abzurunden, ist die sympathische Band aus Liverpool bei TikTok viral gegangen – ohne anfangs zu wissen, was das überhaupt bedeutet.

Hi Dan. How are you?
I’m good, thanks. Yeah, very good. We’ve just been rehearsing for the last 10 days for next year’s touring and after this very strange year and a half it’s been so nice to be back in the same room, finally playing the whole album. Every band starts to hang out and play music, so we’re back to the essentials.

That’s so nice to hear, especially now that everything starts to be unsure again…
We were just talking about that. When anyone asks „Are you excited for the tour next year and stuff?“, it’s like…we are very excited, but at the same time, we’re trying to keep a little bit of realism and understand that some of the shows might end up not happening and it might be a strange year for touring again. But we’re hoping and planning that we’ll be able to do all the gigs — all we can do is just be ready and hope that it happens. But at the same time, we cannot control the uncontrollable so just let go and try.

Before the pandemic, I was always so enthusiastic, like weeks and months prior to events and now I’m like „let’s pretend it doesn’t happen“ and when it happens on the day it’s even better. This is a whole new approach to living life.
Because it’s not even just music-related, is it? It’s literally everything. Actually, it’s probably a good mindset to have where you don’t take anything for granted. And if nothing else, it’s taught us all to live in the moment a bit more, and focus on today, maybe look forward to this evening.

I’m so glad and relieved that you release a new album, which shouldn’t be that surprising as a band but I don’t know if this partly irrational fear that all my favorite bands break up all of the sudden.
Yes! We never considered breaking up, that has never been anything in our minds. But of course, you have to roll with the punches that come your way — like we had to make a decision on recording, mixing and mastering the new album in different countries, and then push the album back. It was supposed to come out in the summer and because of COVID, we said: It could be risky, let’s wait and see.

And so you just have to go with the flow and we’re so happy that we have music and we have a band to be able to pour our thoughts and feelings and frustrations into. It really did help us get through the lockdown. I literally spent a lot of time in this little spare bedroom in my flat, making music. It was a much needed distraction and kind of routine every day.

You said that you worked remotely. I wondered what the best thing about working remotely on the album was? We’re only ever talking about the negative points.
Lots of positives actually. Murph was in L.A. while Tord and I were in London. You know, The Beach Boys, you hear about that when they were making their albums, they would often deliberately go into another room to do different sounds or go into another studio to do a different part of a song or things like that. Where sonically you build up a slightly different palette of sounds and textures. So we were forced to do that, but I think actually only realized that towards the end of the process where it was like: I think this is actually making it even richer and even better sonically. So that was a positive.

And also just to be able to really focus on an idea that maybe each of us had at any one time. You could just concentrate 100% on your part, without having too many people listening to all the details and being like „Oh, but about this…“. Sometimes it can lead to spontaneous moments happening. Some mornings, we would receive all the files, and we’d listen back and be like „What’s this sitar?“, so we had that kind of exciting moment that maybe if we were there wouldn’t have been the same or wouldn’t have been able to get to the same place. And in that respect, that kind of meant that we didn’t have to overthink each other’s parts.

We had to be quite organized from before, with all the demos of the songs, we already had them all in a really good place. So the structure was there for nearly all of them. The instruments, the parts, most of it was there. We tweaked a few things and changed a few sections, but predominantly, we knew what we need to achieve. So yeah, it worked well. Obviously, it was a shame we couldn’t be in the same room and have the social aspect, experience those moments together, but it worked out well in the end.

I listened to the album and I don’t know how you’re doing this with every album – it’s brilliant. Every time I think „That’s it, that’s the best album and I love it! The next can’t be better“, but you’re doing it every time.
We’re always pushing ourselves forward. For example „Ready for the High“, it’s this like rock and grunge vibe going until the first chorus and then instead of staying in that grungy rock world, why don’t we see where else we could go? Take it a different way and change the rhythm.

It’s a real experience. You listen to the album and can’t predict what is happening. Because all of a sudden, it changes completely. That’s so much fun!
That was kind of what we’re hoping that people will feel as well that just when you think you’re going in one direction, all of a sudden it’s like this. Same with „Method to the Madness“, it gets to the end of the song and it’s like: „Wait, where’s this going?“

I remember the first time I listened to the song. And thought: Well, it’s nice, bit too mellow for my taste. Then the last third happened and I was so blown away and I love it.
It’s so fun. We love songs that take you on journeys and sort of cinematic moments. And also the kind of the different emotional response you can have to parts of songs when lyrically it’s leading you in a direction but then musically it suddenly changes. We wanted the album to feel like you want to listen to it from start to finish and we love albums when that happens. It took us a while to get the order right and all the rest of it but yeah, it feels really good.

How would you describe Fix Yourself, Not the World in comparison to Beautiful People Ruin Your Life? – For me, Glitterbug and Beautiful People felt like escapism from the turns the world did from 2013-2020 … it was a growing disaster, but we were able to for most of the time live in a very safe bubble. It was overall a lot softer soundwise. And now, Fix Yourself has edges and fits perfectly in the situation we’re in right now.
I think as musicians, you can’t help but be influenced by what’s happening around you. Half of the album was written before COVID hit and half not. And then the recording was all done within it. But from the word go, we wanted to really accentuate. If we were going to go in a direction, let’s properly go there.

And in terms of obviously the album title and the overall sort of, not the message, but the overall lyrical content, I suppose, like the pandemic, if nothing else, definitely turn the focus in for all of us into our own hands, how we deal with life and how you get through the days. As you said before, I was definitely living in this kind of just distraction distraction distraction. Whether it’s going out with friends, gigs, festivals, whatever…

Living from highlight to highlight, but the in-between? I don’t know what happened there.
Exactly. The moment you might start feeling a little bit down or whatever. I’m just „Right, let’s go“…

Oh yeah, what can I do next?
Whereas I think this album and the album title is that sort of actually going inwards and fixing your own inner workings, whether it’s therapy or yoga or whatever your coping mechanisms are. Actually realizing that if you can make some changes to your own mindset and your own thought patterns and stuff, then you’re going to be a much, much better functioning human being for your relationships, friends, family, neighbors, society.

That’s why the last song on the album is „Fix yourself and the World“because we wanted to make sure that people realize that we’re not talking selfishly trying to just think about yourself, that was the last thing we wanted anyone to think. It’s more that issues like the pandemic obviously, are uncontrollable. Climate change, inequality, human rights, you know, all these big things that occupy most people’s thoughts as well. It can get very overwhelming and just don’t know what to do anymore to help or am I doing the right thing?

Why should we all be doing? We don’t want this to keep happening, but then it can get you so down in your mind you feel powerless to do anything. The pandemic definitely for me was and the album title, the two things sent me on a journey. So even when we talked about the album title, we had the emails back and forth. remember mentioning it to my family and a few days later, they were like „I’m still thinking about that album title“.

It really brings up so many questions, which is exactly what we want to do. It’s definitely the right time for people to think about that stuff.

Wow, that’s nice. And great to put this complex thinking into music so you can come back to it every time you need it.
For us, every song and every album we do, it’s like a little memory box of songs and feelings and memories and thoughts. But you hope that for people listening as well, they will attach their own thoughts and feelings and memories and that it can be like a memory box for them as well. As you say, every time you listen to it, hopefully, give you a little reminder of „Okay, I need to check in with myself. How am I doing? All right. I can go out into the world and make it a better place.“

That’s really interesting to hear how the album title is so important to you and what it means, the songs, the whole journey. I think what fits perfectly with it is the artwork from eBoy. It’s so fun. I looked at it a couple of times, and every time I found some new details.
We were saying the same thing. We were looking at all, going „What’s your favorite bit?“ I love the robots crossing the road. And then it was the guy on the diving board.

The grandma with the wineglass. That’s me.
eBoy did such a great job. We’ve asked to get a blown-up version of the album to have, and I think we need to do posters as well. So it’s even bigger and people can probably appreciate it because it’s so good. It’s such a cool artwork. Basically, before we did it, eBoy wrote to us and said: „Can you send me a lot of images that sort of speak to you about this album title and about the album itself“, so we sent shitloads of images from the surreal to the really dark and apocalyptic, loads of different images. And then he just digested them all and put his own thing on it. Together. He’s very talented.

It says so much at the same time: robots crossing the street, people looking happy then you have someone sad and it’s and then the striking people at the power station. It’s really cool. And it reminded me of an online game I played when I was like ten, called Habbo Hotel.
I’ve seen people mention that a lot, I haven’t played that game before. When I was younger, I played Populous early 90s on the Commodore or one of the old computers, my older cousin had it, that kind of world-building games. Once we saw that artwork, it then opened up a lot kind of… I mean, maybe this is just me reading into it. But the pixels, all the pixels that go into making that artwork. Think about all the pixels as being days or moments of again, lots of stuff and with the Rubik’s cube that we’ve been having as a theme throughout different videos and stuff.

It was that Rubik’s Cubes are never-ending puzzles as well that you can’t quite figure out and it feels representative of our own brains and life in general. They’re squares, like pixels, and they come together to make something either beautiful or horrible or whatever it is.

So it feels like there’s a lot that subconsciously comes out of the artwork that has fed into our thought process.

During the pandemic, TikTok suddenly discovered one of your best songs. What was it like playing „Greek Tragedy“ last summer?
It was strange for us because when you make the song, you play lots of gigs and you feel that very real connection with fans and people who are listening to the song at the moment. And for us, that’s kind of the moment that what it’s all about. There’s the moment right there. And then in lockdown, it’s kind of strange, because obviously, people are still listening to music. They can listen to it online or on CDs or whatever. So it’s in the back of your mind, it’s probably happening a bit. But then when this kind of thing happened like we haven’t done anything about it.

And you’re at a completely different point in your journey as a band, like „Cool, we made this song five years ago. It’s great, we still play it live…but it’s not the center of our world anymore“.
It was blowing up on TikTok and we were like „….what’s TikTok?“. We didn’t have a Wombats account there. None of us have even heard of it. And then all of a sudden, we saw all these people filming themselves singing. With the first person we saw, it was like „What is going on?“ and then it was like: „No, no, it’s been shared like half a million times already“. The remix wasn’t even released properly at that point and people asked for it, so we put it out.

I looked up the streaming numbers for it on Spotify today…what the hell!
That remix has been like our number one stream song for the whole year. It’s awesome that people who maybe wouldn’t necessarily have heard The Wombats before, discover our music. We’ve had emails and messages online from people saying: „Oh, I haven’t heard of you guys before, but I had this remix. I really liked it. And now I’ve discovered a lot of the music and I really like it!“

So in that respect for us, it’s really nice that it kind of opens the back door for us to people who like different music. TikTok is just surreal. It’s just it’s like a lottery isn’t it? A lottery that you didn’t even know you entered.