Temples | Interview | New Album, ‘Exotico’
British psychedelic band Temples are back with a new album ‘Exotico,’ out April 14th via ATO.
‘Exotico’ is a 16 psych-rock bangers produced by Sean Ono Lennon and mixed by GRAMMY® Award-winner Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, MGMT,) with a North American headline tour getting underway June 6 at Washington DC’s The Black Cat and then traveling through the end of the month. ‘Exotico’ marks the band’s most far-reaching collection thus far, a 16-track panoramic musical travelogue set beyond the horizon on an impossibly utopic island where every song serves as a different stop along the atoll, from beaches with azure blue waters to forest canopies enveloped in rare birdsong. Recorded in studios in London, Brighton, and Worcestershire – with additional multi-instrumental and vocal accompaniment from Lennon as well as extra vocals from Charlotte Kemp Muhl (The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger) – painting visionary new vistas with cascading melodic waterfalls, contemplative lyrical exploration, and an imaginative creative wanderlust unlike anything previously heard in the band’s already ambitious body of work. Temples are James Bagshaw (guitar, vocals) Thomas Walmsley (bass guitar, backing vocals), Adam Smith (keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals), and Rens Ottink (drums and percussion).
The album will be available digitally as well on CD, standard vinyl, pink vinyl (indie exclusive), cloudy blue vinyl (band store), splatter vinyl (Levitation exclusive), and a Rough Trade exclusive (color tbd). Pre-orders are available now.
“Making something that sounds grander or larger than a band”
It’s really fantastic to have you. I still remember when I first heard your band. It was ‘Sun Structures,’ which was a really pleasant surprise. How do you remember that record?
Thomas Walmsley: Thank you for having me. Honestly, it was a pleasant surprise for us too. I think we’d been a band for about 12 months when we’d finished putting ‘Sun Structures’ together. It really was treading an unknown path with what we wanted to say with Temples, but we look back fondly upon it. There was so much flow with how it was conceived, and then we had the pleasure of touring it for 18 months. I think that’s such a luxury with a first record.
Would you mind if we talk about some of the early days? How did you originally form the band? Were you in any other bands?
The band was formed by myself in 2012, we’re both from Kettering, a small market town in the East Midlands. I think somewhere remote tends to be sheltered from the pull of culture or influence of a city, I feel like we were fortunate to grow up in a place like that. Those places often create the best inspiration, dreaming of escaping / otherness. Down the road in Northampton you have Bauhaus, and Spacemen 3 nearby in Rugby. Cities like Birmingham or London just wouldn’t have created those bands.
Kettering has its own little world though and we were in different bands growing up. Temples was the first time we’d written together, and recorded in James’ home studio set up in 2013. I think very quickly it was something we loved and we threw together these demos as a kind of faux EP of 4 tracks, and we’ve kind of played shows ever since.
Was there a certain concept or idea that you wanted to focus on when forming Temples? Do you feel that the concept changed a bit or are you still on the same focus?
I think we’ve always been fascinated with imagery in music, kind of on a cinematic level. Making something that sounds grander or larger than “a band.” We’ve detoured in different directions over the last two records, but I think we still keep true to that. I think Phil Spector’s wall of sound as an influence, still holds its place, all the layers of instrumentation create this bigger, living, breathing percussive organism.
We are all very excited about your upcoming album ‘Exotico’. How long did you work on it?
Writing began in 2020, around when the world stopped moving. We’d just had a tour cut short due to the pandemic and I guess as a musician you try to alter focus and throw yourself into writing, for better or for worse, we wrapped up recording in 2022. It’s definitely longer than we’d hoped to take, but I think the process ended up making the best record.
Can you share some further details on how your latest album was recorded?
We’d worked remotely with Sean on Paraphernalia and I think we knew right away that we’d love to work on a full record with him. I think the focus was really getting to work with him in his studio in the US, and creating a record properly – in a room together, playing together and getting all the impulsive magic that a studio can create. Surprisingly we hadn’t actually made a record like this before, so it was a first for us. And we loved it.
Sean Ono Lennon produced it. How was it working with him?
Sean is one of those people you meet and you feel like you’ve known him in a past life. He’s a brilliant mind, a great mate and a music mastermind. You have to trust a lot in the producer you’re working with, and I think we always fully believed in where Sean was taking us with ‘Exotico’. He’s also the most British North American we’ve ever met.
What can be said about the song? How did you approach songwriting this time around?
The same process really. We begin writing separately, and then pool ideas together in the studio. We did the same this time but it was far more collaborative, and with Sean in the mix too he definitely pushed us in new directions. There were no preconceived rules with making ‘Exotico,’ with what we did or didn’t want to do. I think your last record can inform what you do next creatively, and this time we just weren’t fazed by that.
Would it be possible to draw a parallel to your previous album?
Not at all really. It’s kind of the opposite of ‘Hot Motion’ in the best way possible.
Have you found the recent isolation creatively challenging or freeing?
I think it’s both, there’s a duality at play. For the most part I think we write our best music in isolation, and then I’d say we create our best records together.
Are you planning to go on tour?
Absolutely. We’ve been waiting 3 years to tour and we cannot wait to start properly. I think from Summer onwards we’ll be touring somewhere and everywhere we can. We have a lot of ground to cover after being static for so long.
“Acid House meets Arabic Dancefloor!”
Tell us about the gear, effects, pedals, amps in your band.
It’s kind of straight up really. The same stuff as usual. Fuzz pedals, Fender Twins, 12 Strings, I’ve bought the bass synth back out to play as there’s a few outrageous basslines that we worked on with Sean. Acid House meets Arabic Dancefloor!
Are any of you involved in any other bands or do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?
I released an EP at the end of 2022 entitled T Walmsley – ‘Viva Lost Wages,’ hoping to play some shows at some point in 2023 also. We also have a few potential collaborations in progress which we’re excited to make happen into 2024.
What are some of the most important players that influenced your own style and what in particular did they employ in their playing that you liked?
For bass it’s James Jamerson, Roger Waters and Paul McCartney; and now I love Laura Lee, Thundercat and whoever plays the bass parts in Men I Trust.
Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?
Yeah, I have been rotating heavy on lots of the comps on the Habibi Funk label. It’s sort of the Arabic world’s lens on Western funk/disco. Lots of great North African melodies, amazing instrumentation, really beautiful music that makes you want to dance and cry at the same time.
Thank you. Last word is yours.
See you soon.
Klemen Breznikar
Headline photo: Molly Daniel
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