a&e | POP, ROCK & JAZZ PREVIEW
ALT-J BRINGS RELAXER TO THE BOWL
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t’s been 11 years since Joe Newman, Thom Sonny Green, and Gus Unger-Hamilton formed alt-J in the halls of the University of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England, and six since the trio released its debut, An Awesome Wave . Since then the band — known for creating a unique, earworm-y collage of sounds that include enchanting keyboard-driven melodies, dynamic tempo shifts, rock sensibilities, and often-indecipherable lyrics — has garnered a large, devoted following and played to audiences worldwide. Its sophomore record, This Is All Yours, went straight to number one in the U.K. following its fall 2014 release. In 2017, the band released its third studio album, Relaxer, which was shortlisted for that year’s Mercury Prize, an award ALL YOURS: Indie-rock band alt-J (from left, Thom Green, Gus given to the best record from the Unger-Hamilton, and Joe Newman) returns to the S.B. Bowl on United Kingdom and Ireland. Monday in support of its third album. I recently spoke by phone with Unger-Hamilton, who was walking the streets write the song. Nobody knows really who of London before heading to the U.S. leg of wrote the song. So it’s anyone’s for the takalt-J’s tour, which includes a stop at the Santa ing, really. I think we felt that, “Oh, our third Barbara Bowl on Monday, April 16. “We’re album, we have the maturity to tackle such going to be touring until like October,” he a well-known song.” If we had done that on said of their relentless schedule. “So yeah, the our first album, I think it wouldn’t have been rest of this year mostly. But that’s all right. We the same thing, but I think now we’ve got to enjoy it. Getting to travel around with your a level of maturity where we can have a go mates around the world playing gigs — it’s a at such a famous folk song and not be some great journey we’re on. We’re young upstart. loving every minute.” The following is an edited version What does “3WW” stand for? of our conversation, which It stands for “Three Worn focused mainly on the making Words.” In the chorus, it of Relaxer. goes, “Oh, these three worn words.” So it’s actually a refI read that several songs on Relaxer erence to the phrase, “I love by Michelle Drown were composed in the studio on you.” And how it’s a bit of a the fly. How did that process work? tired-out phrase that doesn’t In the case of “Hit Me Like That Snare,” really do the job that it needs to do necessarwe had all of our gear all set up, which isn’t ily. … When we were in the studio, we had a something we often do in the studio, actu- whiteboard where we were basically plotting ally. Usually we’re very track by track, layer the progress of the album, and I, in the shortby layer, but in this case we … were going hand, wrote, “3WW.” And then we were like, to try and do something else, then while we it’s actually way cooler when it’s written like were standing around, Joe started playing this that. It’s different, and we felt sort of like it’s guitar riff. I think it’s something he’s had for “World War III” backward. a while, but I think he kind of played it faster than he played it before, like double the speed. When you went into the studio, did you have things It completely changed the character of it. And you wanted to tick off your list for this album, or Thom and I immediately locked into it. And was it, “Let’s just go in there and see how it feels?” I Charlie [Andrew], our producer, luckily just think we basically went in and just went, “Let’s pretty much hit record straight away …. We’re see what happens.” But I think we do always all really feeling it. And then Joe went home like to make [our albums] varied in terms of and very quickly wrote the lyrics for it. And the style of the songs. None of our albums rather than record it again from scratch, we has been consistent all the way through in managed to use that original jam … [which] terms of the style or genre. … I doubt we’ll is the basis for the final track …. That was ever make an album that is 10 songs all in the quite an exhilarating way to write a song. same style.
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U.K. TRIO RETURNS TO TOWN ON TOUR FOR ITS LATEST RECORD
Was it daunting taking “The House of the Rising Sun,” which is such a famous song, and making it your own? I don’t think that we felt that we were playing with something that shouldn’t be played with. I think we felt very much within our rights to it, being that The Animals didn’t
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Alt-J plays with opening act Børns Monday, April 16, 7 p.m., at the S.B. Bowl (1122 N. Milpas St.). Call 962-7411 or visit sbbowl.com. INDEPENDENT.COM
APRIL 12, 2018
THE INDEPENDENT
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