Metronomy is the project of Joseph Mount, a producer/songwriter from Devon, UK who, along with his live-show comrades Oscar Cash and Gabrielle Stebbing, has recently released
Nights Out, an album more ambitious, mature and considered than his predominantly instrumental 2006 debut
Pip Paine (Pay The $5000 You Owe).
Thematically
Nights Out is disapproving of the restlessness and flippancy of contemporary youth, warning listeners against a lifestyle of parties and drugs. As well as many a songwriters source of inspiration: girl trouble.
Mount isn’t resentful of his peers, rather a little disillusioned, “they want every night to be the best night ever! And it never is!” he says. “Where I live in East London is supposedly the cool bit, so people come here and worry they might not be in the coolest bar, and stand around asking ‘is this cool here…?’ People end up worrying about that kinda thing too much.” Pausing to reflect, Mount laughs, “but I do enjoy going out, I’m not miserable!”
Once a Devon country boy Mount took the leap to big city London last year and in doing so thrust Metronomy into a collective of indie electro bands like Klaxons and Foals who borrowed melodies and guitar hooks from pop songs and manipulated them into nightclub anthems. “We were lumped in with the New Rave thing and were playing with Klaxons when we started gigging. But everyone in London is so cynical…” Mount says. New to the scene, Metronomy bore the brunt of that cynicism. “We were seen as too hip, but all we had to do was weather the storm and prove we would last beyond it.”
Nowadays Metronomy are untouchable, as is praised the world over and Mount himself has become famous for remixes of Gorillaz, Architecture In Helsinki, Goldfrapp, Hot Chip and Kate Nash. “Bands are less the cool thing now, and exciting stuff is going on with young solo artists who are thinking they can take on pop music” Mount says of the music currently being made in London. “We probably sit somewhere between that and a band, but we get called electro-pop.” While on the subject of remixing and producing, Mount reveals he is currently working on a project called thecocknbullkid with artist Anita Blay whom he met through Myspace, “loads of people get in touch with you that way and you’re just like ‘URGH this is rubbish!’ I had been waiting for someone interesting with really brilliant influences and an amazing voice to work with, so I was really lucky.”
While working with Blay on her debut album, Mount is writing the third Metronomy release, multi-tasking to make the most of the situation he currently finds himself in. “The danger of relaxing and taking time off is you start worrying about it. Above all I enjoy (making music) so it’d almost be like forcing myself to stop!”
Mount is one of a small group of people in this world lucky enough to be doing what they love for a living, but despite his current successes, the country boy from Devon has a back up plan for when the offers from record labels dry up. “Driving instructor. They make a huge amount of money. And I love driving. I think driving instruction would be the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done!”
A producer with a twenty-year plan? “You gotta have one!”
Michaella Solar-March for Groupie MagazineNights Out by Metronomy is out now
Metronomy - 'Heartbreaker'