CityLife

Interview: Field Music

Field Music

In a musical climate where bands are having to go to increasing lengths to make money – just short of popping their Brit Award in the post to CashMyGold – Field Music are giving the UK a valuable lesson in keeping things ‘proper’ indie in the 010s.

After releasing a critically-backslapped second album, Tones Of Town, three years ago, they turned down a lucrative arena support tour with Snow Patrol, going on an indefinitehiatus to pursue solo projects.

“We just stopped,” remembers Peter Brewis, who alongside his brother David, forms the fulcrum of the group.

“We had no intention of doing anything Field Music related ever again, really. We didn’t enjoy the position that we found ourselves in.

“We felt like we’d mistakenly taken part in an indie band competition – we were playing the same places as everyone else and were constantly compared to other groups. And we didn’t want to be a live band in the first place.

“We just wanted to make records.”

During their self-imposed exile, they hardly rested on their laurels: both their side-projects – David’s School Of Language and Peter’s psychedelic The Week That Was – were both hailed as sights for sore iPods.

But now the duo have reformed as Field Music, with the only casualty of their admirably uncommercial career path   being the exit of their long-term keyboardist Andrew Moore, who swapped Korgs for cuisine, and is now training to be a chef – these days, presumably more Gary than Nick Rhodes.

What’s surprising is that they’ve reemerged with – holy Pink Floyd! – an expansive double-album, featuring a gargantuan 20 songs, divided into four distinct sections.

Titled Field Music (Measure), it takes in the siblings’ renewed love of the rock canon, with allusions to Led Zeppelin, Prince, Fleetwood Mac and The Beatles.

With the likes of The Cure having been forced by financial pressures to release proposed two-discs as separate albums, how did Field Music’s label react when they originally touted the plan?

“They were more than happy to do it,” laughs Peter. “I think they can be just as mischievousas we are really.

“I think they just thought it was a very silly idea and therefore, perhaps a very good idea.”

“Our main impetus was we wanted to do something different,” he continues. “In the past, we’ve concentrated on making cohesive, shorter albums. You know, 30 minutes of music which you could listen to in an unbroken way, from start to finish.

“This time, we wanted to push ourselves in lots of different directions, and make an album which probably makes less sense on first listen.”

When they were kids, the brothers would jam in their bedroom to Free’s Alright Now; with their parents music taste inspiring them to do more than merely ‘leave the room’.

“When our parents started showing us the more rock side of their record collection, we both felt very inspired by it.

“And that was going to be our hobby that replaced making things out of Lego or playing football.”

Touring Northern Eastern pubs by the time they were 15 as a covers band, the seeds of Field Music (see what we did there? Like, from a mile off?) were sown when the duo collided with soon-to-be Futureheads frontman Barry Hyde on a community scheme for local musicians.

When Hyde formed the Futureheads, Peter became their drummer for two years.

“We started The Futureheads to be more like an arts project, trying to shove in as many ideas in there as we could” he recalls of the days in the band that never pause for breath.

“There was never an intention to become quite big. But once they had big managers involved, they obviously had grander aspirations. And I had to concentrate on my own thing rather than doing that.”

The perplexing internecine network of links – Peter produced the first Futureheads single, David engineered it, and Hyde used to play guitar in Peter’s band Electronic Eye Machine – happened because they shared the same studio space in Sunderland, which they dubbed 8 Music.

“I think we partially share the same sort of ethos,” points out Peter. “Within the music scene from 1998 to 2004  – if you could call it a music scene – there was a real spirit of trying to do things andcollaborating. And trying to help each other out.”

Indeed, as part of an axis of angular bands who revived post-punk in the north east – including Maximo Park – living in Sunderland proved a vital catalyst.

“For someone making music here, you have to make choices about what you’re trying to achieve,” notes Peter.

“There’s no music industry here as such so you either make the choice to try to be a popular band and ship out and go to a town where people will listen to you – like do the London thing.

“Or you do something akin to art and – because there’s noinfrastructure to persuade you to do things by the book – you’re allowed to do what ever you want.”

Nevertheless, they had to put in the graft: owning to a paucity of venues, Field Music had to borrow PA systems and perform their own ad hoc gigs in diverse venues such as independent book shops, libraries, a cricket club and on the back of a truck.

Recruiting new members Ian Black and Kev Dosdale,  Field Music’s capacity for multi-faceted, ingenious pop remains undiminished and – like similar DIY bands such as current alt.pin-ups Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – are doing things on their own terms and  refusing to compromise their boundless artistic vision for a slice of the cake.

“Last time around, we got sucked into the idea of getting an advance for a record deal and trying to earn a full-time living from it.

“And it gets to the point where actually the money runs out and you either have to make a commercial consideration about the music you make or just stop.

“So we just stopped.”

Field Music play Islington Mill on February 26, 2010.