Noah and the Whale may have once aligned themselves with folk upstarts like Laura Marling, but the London band have switched gears to charge through American-heartland rock on their third album, Last Night on Earth.
In place of wobbly fiddles and ukuleles are synths, backing choirs, and programmed beats. Following the homespun fragility of 2008’s Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down and the wrenching pain of 2009’s The First Days of Spring—inspired by frontman Charlie Fink’s break-up with one-time bandmate Marling—Last Night on Earth looks to Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty to build anthemic tales from minor characters.
Ahead of Noah and the Whale’s spot at Splendour in the Grass, sideman Tom Hobden discussed the new album and influences, touring America, and growing as a band.
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Last Night on Earth leave a lot of the band’s folk elements behind. It’s more pop/rock and even electronic.
[In the beginning] we were just playing instruments we had laying around, and that’s the kind of sound we generated then. But we all grow and try different things and push ourselves as musicians. I think the way we’ve gone on these three albums has just been very, very natural and influenced by music we were listening to at the time.
So the instrumentation you used earlier was just what was available?
Yeah. Thinking back to making Peaceful…, I remember we had fiddles and guitars and ukuleles and melodicas and a cheap harmonium we managed to pick up somewhere. Just bits that we had. When we went into the studio … y’know, it’s daunting for a band making their first album. We didn’t know how anything worked, so it was very much flying by the seat of our pants. But I feel like as you grow up—I’m only 22 now—you feel more confident in the studio and you’re more keen to test it to its limits. I think that’s what we’ve done subsequently.
How much time did you have in the studio for this album?
We had a lot more time. That’s the fortunate thing. We actually gave ourselves nine months to do the album. We started in January last year, demoing in this synagogue in East London. This huge converted room where we were able to set up all our gear for a month and go in every day and try things out. The actual proper album was recorded in Los Angeles that August. The way the songs developed from that original demo stage to the final album version is quite huge. We’re constantly evolving and trying new things.
Were you worried about turning off fans with this change in direction?
For me, what always rings true amongst our albums is Charlie’s songwriting. It’s very much its own thing. And sure, some albums are more introverted than others, but essentially it’s his style of songwriting that I think really shows through. Of course there are [other] elements: I am a violinist, and violin does crop up on this album. But all these things inform the way you approach other instruments. I never think it’s a black-and-white thing. There are so many crossovers. So it doesn’t really worry me too much.
When you tour now, are the songs from the first two albums performed more like the songs from the third album?
That’s a good point. It’s been quite challenging for us. There’s such an array now of songs we’ve got at our disposal. At the moment the set is Last Night on Earth-heavy, but we still play a lot of tracks from the other two albums. Some of the earlier songs from Peaceful… we reimagine a bit with the current instruments we’re playing. And I think that’s to great effect, actually. It really gives them a new life. Some of the ways we play them now, I prefer to the original. But we appreciate that fans like different albums. We’re conscious of that and we try to cater to it.
Charlie is the songwriter, but how much say do the rest of you have in the music and lyrics?
Charlie is the lyricist. He writes all the lyrics. I think that’s the way it should be. I never really believe in bands that [all] contribute: you get kind of a hodgepodge. But musically we’re all very much equal entities. Charlie sometimes might come along with a chord pattern or a riff of some sort, but there are many songs where he’s come along with literally just the lyrics. And we’re there to make them songs. It really varies, to be honest. We each have our own areas: Urby [Owens] does bass, Fred [Abbott] does keys and guitar, I do violin and choir arrangements and all kinds of things.
Do you try to recreate things like the backing choir on tour?
We never try to emulate a track from the album. I think that’s a sensible way of approaching it. We just make it work live. It’s a whole different beast.
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