Sweetpool’s third album, ‘3AM A Head of Snakes’, finds the Birmingham trio joined by saxophone, violin, flute, synths and guest vocals. It took a year and a half to make and, by Nic Beales’ own account, it wasn’t always much fun.

We spoke with Nic about sleepless nights, writing songs, the trouble of recording the album and why Sweetpool are quite happy to call what they do pop.

“We shouldn’t sound like we’re miming to the CD!”

I really enjoyed ‘3AM A Head of Snakes’. You’ve said the title came from waking at three in the morning with music going round your head. Does that happen to you often?

Nic: Honestly, what often keeps me awake is the music going round my head. It’s actually something of a curse. I feel myself going into a mind space where the latest song or idea is set on repeat. Sometimes I can hear myself just telling the music to shut up! It’s either that or, you know, the problem that you’re trying to find a solution to, where the answer seems clear at 3am but worthless by the time the day arrives. Either way, I’m certain that more sleep would be the best answer!

<a href="https://sweetpool.bandcamp.com/album/sweetpool-3am-a-head-of-snakes-digital-cass">SWEETPOOL – 3AM A Head of Snakes DIGITAL / CASS by Sweetpool</a>

Sweetpool started out as a three-piece, but this album brings in saxophone, violin, flute, synths and guest vocals. Did you know from the start that you wanted to open the sound up?

Nic: Expanding the sound for this album was definitely a conscious decision. We wanted to take it to a different level and adding new instruments was the answer, although obviously the songs were there before the additional instruments were added. You know, we’re quite happy to appear live as a super-tight three-piece, but we don’t see that as the absolute peak. There’s always going to be room for extra sounds and players.

In fact, at our latest gig, which was the first hometown gig of the year in Birmingham, we had all the extra musicians who had played on the album jump up on stage and it was a glorious noise! Generally, I have no problem with it sounding different live compared to how it sounds on record. It’s just a different thing. We shouldn’t sound like we’re miming to the CD!

People have called Sweetpool motorik, psych, post-punk, krautrock, prog-punk, space rock and probably a few other things as well. Do any of those labels mean much to you? How would you describe Sweetpool yourselves?

Nic: Yes, we’ve been called a multitude of what appear to be made-up genres! None of them seem quite right to me, as they all seem to pick on one element and try to sum us up by that. OK, it’s definitely motorik at times, and there’s definitely post-punk in there, and let’s not forget the dose of psychy space rock, but I’d actually define it as pop.

Well, it may not be pop by many other people’s definitions, but there’s definitely a verse/chorus structure in there. OK, it may decide to go off on a 20-minute wig-out, but it’ll get back to the chorus eventually, which sounds like pop to me!!

‘No One Believes Anything Anymore’ is quite a title. What was behind that song?

Nic: Yes, that’s one of the more obvious lyrics. Everything you hear seems like it’s trying to disguise the truth. Accusations of “fake news” have been heard so many times that it’s like the little boy who cries wolf. Politics and social media have become so linked that nobody really trusts anything anymore. It’s all someone else’s agenda posing as the truth and spinning out of control.

Your lyrics often have a funny, sharp edge to them. Where do they usually start for you?

Nic: The lyrics always come first and they often end up being tried out in several different, eventually discounted, songs. I find it very easy to write tunes, but lyrics are a much slower process, and they’re often rewritten many times on the way until a version of the lyrics finally matches up with an acceptable version of the tune!

Also Ant, our drummer, is the critic of the band, so I excitedly send him the latest song only to have it burnt down in flames! At least this helps to keep the quality control in check!

I do find inspiration in what I see as, you know, stupidity, like in ‘Superunnatural’, where the chap buys a gun and ends up accidentally shooting himself, or ‘Magic Food’, where people believe in something that clearly isn’t real!

Sadly, a lot of the songs are on subjects much closer to home, where I’m finding myself really quite pissed off with something or someone. Misery can be inspiring! Here I tend to hide the subjects behind less obvious lyrics and happily swipe away at them!!

The live side of Sweetpool feels important. When you’re writing, do you ever think about how a song will work on stage?

Nic: I don’t think I ever consciously consider how it will work live, but I tend to write to a drum machine, so I guess you get a feeling of how it will end up with the whole band? The songs go through so many changes before the final version that it’s difficult to look that far ahead.

You all came to Sweetpool after years in other bands, including Pigbros, The Nightingales, Church of Elvis, Yeah Yeah Noh and Monkey Messiah. Did all that experience make starting Sweetpool easier, or harder?

Nic: I have to say that the experience of playing in those bands for so many years actually made getting Sweetpool together much harder. I’d played with Ant, the drummer, for many years with Church of Elvis, pretty much without success and, frankly, I don’t think he wanted to be in Sweetpool.

Certainly for the first two years he showed little enthusiasm. The years of musical disappointment had stopped him even considering the possibility that we may get anywhere beyond playing to no one. So that made life somewhat difficult.

On the other hand, I knew Jase, the bass player, but had never played in a band with him. He was the counter to Ant’s despondency by being the most enthusiastic person in the world!

Yes, so it was a weird start to a band. None of this youthful exuberance, optimism and that “we can take on the world” sort of attitude, just a selection of some quite good songs hanging over from pre-Covid times looking for an outlet.

Fortunately, in the last couple of years things have definitely started to improve and, as we do better, Ant has become very enthusiastic, thank God! It can still sometimes be a battle though.

You mentioned it can sometimes be a battle. Was making this album like that too?

Nic: Ah now, you know what I said about it sometimes being a battle? That would certainly describe the recording of the album, which took a ridiculous year and a half.

First off, we thought we could do it all at home. Well, that didn’t work and wasted months. Then we started a trawl between various studios, which again added time.

Incredibly, we went into a studio just for an afternoon, I think that was the third or possibly fourth studio, just to do some tracks for a radio session. The tracks never got to the radio, because we’d just recorded ‘Mirror’, ‘No One Believes’ and ‘Kicking Cans’, which all ended up on the record in three hours!

Then the battle of wills started over the mixing. I think it would be fair to say that I hated the recording of that album! Good job it turned out OK in the end.

So after all that, what’s next?

Nic: We’ve already started recording the next album and, learning from the mistakes of the last one, we know where to do it and who’s mixing it, so hopefully this one should be a lot less painful!

Probably we’ll start releasing singles, that’s the plan, then get the next album out at the beginning of ’27, maybe??

Anyway, glad you like ‘3AM’. Please play it loud! Talk soon, Nic.

Klemen Breznikar

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