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 The
Magic Numbers’ eponymous platinum selling debut album released in June of 2005
and their melodic harmonious tunes cemented the brother-sisters combo as the
sound of the summer. But underneath the
sunny exterior are the dark lyrics, chronicling relationships gone wrong and
the less happier side of life. Speaking
on the phone from Berlin via where the quartet are engaged in promotional dueies for their much anticipated follow up, titled Those The Brokes, bassist Michele
Stodart explains that there’s definitely more to them than most people seem to
realise.
“You could be in a crowded room, have a few
drinks and be happy, but yet still you’d have that second thought in your head
where you just kind of switch off and suddenly you feel alone. That’s the idea and I think that most people
misread us with the first album and thought we were just this summer pop band,
happy go lucky whereas the lyrics ran darker than that,” she says.” In that sense people are never a hundred
percent understood and I think that’s why you’ve got your album out there for
years to come. I think then people will
suddenly listen to the Magic Numbers and think, ‘wow, there’s something a bit
more different than that”.
Michele’s
brother Romeo, guitarist and lead singer, writes the deeply personal lyrics and
she is quick to praise his talents.
“I think we’ve got that certain bond where I
can say to him, ‘Man, this is so heavy’ when it really hits me. We wouldn’t
change it. Why force not putting yourself out there. In that sense Romeo’s one
of my favourite songwriters because, he puts one hundred percent of himself in
there, you just feel like you’re there in that moment,” she says. “And because it’s so true it’s easier for us
to sing along and feel the pain and feel the heartache”.
Following
a busy touring schedule which the quartet (the Stodarts plus Sean and Angela
Gannon) them tour Japan,
Europe and America,
the band were eager to start recording the new songs, having clocked up about
30 songs in between albums. This summer they finally got into the studio in New York to work on
these new tracks.
“Our label said ‘are you sure you don’t want
to take a couple of months off? This is going to be pretty heavy’ and we didn’t
think about it and kind of just said ‘no, this is exactly what we want to do’.
We wanted to go into the studio and put these songs down whilst they were still
fresh in our heads. We wanted to the
time and leeway to do it on our own as well and we were given a hundred percent
freedom, producing the album ourselves and stuff like that,” explains
Michele. “It was just great to go in
straight after touring and spend six weeks in one place. We hadn’t had that for
while. We didn’t even have that for the first album. We just kind of wanted to
breathe, drink, and sleep music for six weeks. We didn’t want any distractions
and just felt we were ready at the time to do that”.
They
did feel any pressure for their sophomore effort?
“I don’t think there’s any pressure actually
this time around. I think there was more so the first time. I think this time we put a lot more pressure
on ourselves to obviously make something that we’re a hundred percent happy
with and step it up a notch from the first album. There’s not a lot I can say I’m a hundred
percent happy with, but I am a hundred percent happy with Those The Brokes,”
insists Michele. “Everyone’s going to
have more of an opinion on people’s second album. People are just going to feel
like they have a bit more freedom, a bit more leeway to say what they want, and
I think that’s great. I think people can have their own opinion on what they
think. What I kind of hope people would
do is not to base all their judgement on one review or one particular thing or
something they’ve read. Basically, to give it a chance and go in with an open
mind and enjoy the record for what it is really”.
Many
artists have cracked under the pressures of the music industry. Tom Chaplin of Keane was in the news for
drink and drug addictions, whilst things got all too much for Justin Hawkins
who recently left his band The Darkness, was also admitted rehab for treatment.
“With these things you never know do you? You
don’t know what’s around the corner, you don’t know how you’re going to take
certain things but with us we’re surrounded with people that we love and with
people that we can be a hundred percent with.
We can tell them that for some reason we’re just not happy, or I’m just
not feeling very well. They’re there to
cheer you up and they’re there for the ups and downs,” says Michele. “You put yourself up in this position and you
have to focus on all the good things and all the positive things. But this stuff that brings you down, you can
certainly understand why people would crack and why people would change their
tune. It’s a mad life”.
Sure,
life in a band can be pretty crazy, but working with your brother and best
friends, it can’t feel like hard work, can it?
“When people ask me ‘what do you do for
work?’ I never say I do this for work. I just say I’m busy” ‘I’m not working, haven’t
got a job, I’m just busy all the time’ because I never see this as work. It’s definitely no nine to five,” laughs
Michele. “It’s pretty much twenty four
hours a day, but it’s fun as well. You’re
doing something you’ve always wanted to do so you can’t in anyway complain
about it”.
Those The Brokes is out on 6th
November
For more info: www.themagicnumbers.net
Words: Helen Duong
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