On The Record – Spy Catcher
on November 24th, 2011Spy Catcher had their debut album released locally last week via Shock Records. The band feature members of Gallows, Haunts, Cry For Silence and The New 1920. The debut, titled ‘Honesty‘ was written, recorded, mixed and mastered by the band themselves in their own studio in Watford, UK. It delivers 12 British indie punk tracks that integrate them in to the rising UK scene headed up by bands like Lower Than Atlantis, The Xcerts and Sharks. Find out more about ‘em [Here]. Steve from the band took the time to answer our On The Record questions, see below for those as well as some tunes to check out as you read.
Tell us about the title.
Spy Catcher is a book we’d been interested in about written by an MI5 office exposing all kinds of scandal. There were a string of other terrible possibilities, all of which are staying under wraps, they’re just way too embarrassing!
Tell us about the artwork.
We darted around East London with photographer Ben Pickett to try and capture the idea of hope within the setting of blocks of flats, run down shops, things like that. It’s not us saying ‘ooh, look how gritty and urban it all is’, it’s just that’s the general feel of the album, positivity in the face of adversity. I think the artwork sums it up quite well.
Tell us about the studio and why you chose to record there.
We recorded the album ourselves. Mitch and I work recording bands so it made sense. It’s great to have been part of every stage of this album, it’s made it really personal to us and obviously we had complete control over it. We had the time to be able to leave our comfort zones and try out instruments we wouldn’t normally play. There’s violins, synths, organs, pianos, accordions, trumpets, sax, programming and percussion all played by ourselves, mostly for the first time. We didn’t see the point in just going through the motions if it wasn’t an exciting record for us to make. I guess the only drawback is at times you start to grow immune to your own material – I was working on everything, so at times I had to take a break to regain that initial excitement, but we’re all really proud of the outcome and wouldn’t have it any other way. We treated every track as it’s own entity, the album was made over the best part of a year. Some of it was just me at home on my own, other tracks we drafted in crazy instruments and had friends doing gang vocals. It really encompassed everything we were about up until that point. It’s definitely the first recording we’ve looked at afterwards and thought ‘that’s really what we’re about.’
Any memorable studio moments?
Someone had left a German Vuvuzela at the studio, so we gave Willy T a pop at playing something on it, and it made the record!
Any additional tracks recorded that didn’t make the cut but may see the light of day sometime?
We had a two part song called ‘The Places I Can Steal’ that just didn’t seem to sit with the flow of the album. It’s an awesome track, it has this weird French-sounding intro with loads of accordian. Maybe it’ll see the light sometime soon…
Now that it’s ready for release, what can fans expect of the album?
It’s a pretty candid account of our lives as a new band, the town we grew up in together and the people we’ve met. It’s a bittersweet kind of affair. Cynical punk songs sweetened with 80’s pop sensibilities…
How would you compare the album to previous releases?
It’s definitely a huge leap from our debut EP. This is the sound of us getting more comfortable in our own skins.
Any stand out track/s to you personally?
Our first single ‘Remember Where You Were When Michael Jackson Died’ will always have a special place in my heart. I think it’s the first song we did where we really thought ‘that’s what Spycatcher is about’. The video was a lot of fun to film too, we got loads of friends involved and threw a big party.
Anything else of note you want to say about the album?
If you fancy hearing a punk band who have the balls to be honest enough to try something different, go pick up ‘Honesty’. Love Steve.
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Buy ‘Honesty’ online now [Here]
