ELLIOT MINOR INTERVIEW
Words: Kelly Jones Photo: Zoe Wild
Today is the second day of Elliot Minor’s whirlwind five-date tour, and vocalist/guitarist Alex Davies has already begun to lose his voice. It’s an occurrence he may soon become familiar with, as he begins to unveil the band’s extensive plans for the year. The vocalist is drinking coffee on the band’s red double decker tour bus – a vast upgrade from the decrepit van they were touring in only a few years ago.
The mini tour, dubbed ‘the Satellite tour’ – or ‘the Should’ve Practiced More tour’, depending on who you’re talking to – takes them to five of the main cities in the UK. Tonight the York band take their hybrid of rock and classical music to the Relentless Garage in London, having performed in their hometown the previous night.
The band formed some years ago when Davies and guitarist Ed Minton met in school at the age of twelve. They originally began as an acoustic duo before forming ‘The Academy’ with their present line-up. They were signed to their current label, Repossession Records, when friend Josh Wilkinson, who at the time was in a band called Go:Audio, informed them the label were looking for bands. Almost ten years, eight singles, two albums and one name change later they’re still going strong and don’t intend to slow down any time soon. They’re already heavily planning ahead, including a European tour, UK summer tour, a show in Japan, festivals across the world and plan to start tackling their third album toward the end of the year. They also have plans to film a video for their upcoming single, I Believe, taken from their sophomore album, Solaris.
“We’ve gone a little soft recently, and I really want to get more of an upbeat song. We’re missing our Parallel Worlds and Jessica type tracks,” Davies says, when explaining their decision to pick I Believe as their next single, a decision apparently mutual with his fellow bandmates Ed [Hetherton, Bass], Ali [Paul, Keys] and Dan [Hetherton, Drums]. A concept for the video has already been conceived, and Davies cites Finch’s single Letters to You video as inspiration.
“The kind of video where you just rock out, like in a little basement, sparks and things going off,” he explains.
Solaris reached number 9 in the indie charts, following up their debut album’s place in the top ten of the mainstream charts. The album has already produced a single, Electric High, and Davies reveals he has an idea of what will follow I Believe.
“I want to release Shiver after; the full track,” he affirms. “It was always going to be Shiver or I Believe, it was just deciding which one to release first.”
Solaris was produced by Jim Wirt, famous for his work with Jack’s Mannequin, The Rocket Summer and Incubus. Wirt also produced the band’s self-titled debut release, and the band chose the American producer again for their second album.
“There’s a lot of loyalty in the relationship between a producer and a band, there’s a much more kind of friendship – or ours is, anyway,” Davies continues, revealing that their inclination to Wirt was based on his flexibility as a producer as well as the Jack’s Mannequin/Something Corporate sound he influenced on their music.
“There’s a lot of other producers that would say ‘we’re starting from this time, nine thirty in the morning and we’ll be finished by eight in the evening’, Jim will just start at midday and record until four in the morning,” Davies laughs. Their work with Jim brought them to America to work on the first album and again for the second album, but the band have yet to play a single show in the country. However, that will hopefully begin to change soon, as the band prepares to release Electric High in the States. It’s a process that won’t be quick nor easy, though their story in the States could have started a lot sooner.
“We were supposed to tour with My Chemical Romance a couple of years ago,” Davies muses. “I don’t know why we didn’t take it!”
Missed opportunities aside, the band are still working toward a long-term future; however, the vocalist points out they’re not likely to be on the infamous Warped Tour anytime soon.
“Apparently it’s just agonizing, literally just in a van… hot… you can’t shower. I’d rather just go on tour with a band,” he resolves. One of the bands he states he’d love to tour with is the Orange County band Jack’s Mannequin, whose singer and frontman Andrew McMahon worked on the track Tethered on Elliot Minor’s recent album.
“It’s got all the characteristics of the things he does, we kind of copied it a little bit,” he smiles. McMahon recorded vocals for the track in demo form but due to schedule conflicts was unable to record a final version. The song has become a favourite off the album, and Davies states he’d like to release it and that he’d love to work with Andrew again in the future.
However, the band has a lot more planned than just touring and taking over America. They recently recorded two acoustic versions of tracks from their album for the website Punktastic.com, but plan to take things a step further and re-record Solaris as a full acoustic album.
“We’ve done literally Dancer to Let’s Turn This Back Around, the whole thing,” the vocalist explains. “We’ve never really had any stripped down stuff.” The album will take their music down to the bare bones, nothing more than piano and guitars.
However, in between this, the band’s still looking toward their third album.
“I’m going to hit it hard soon, do a lot of writing,” Davies affirms, and states a lot of the previous album was written on the road when they were touring. The band’s days off on a long tour will see Davies spending his time in their studio on board the tour bus. His writing tends to start with piano chords and is built up from there, lyrics also being written by Davies. However, he states he would like to see a change in this and get a lyrical collaboration from the rest of the band on the next album. Currently, the surface of the third album has barely been scratched – one demo has been completed. Though, it’s no surprise, as Davies explains there a lot more going on too.
“We’re also thinking of doing a side project and doing an EP of heavier tracks, just to put on iTunes,” he explains, stating that currently, as Elliot Minor, there’s a certain limit to what they can do. “There is a line, we can’t start screaming and stuff – not that we’re going to start screaming, but we can’t have those kind of Metallica guitar riffs,” he explains, using Shiver as an example of their possible future direction for said side project. “I want everyone to write and get involved with it,” he affirms, enthusiastically, explaining the side project would involve the current members of Elliot Minor.
In spite of all this, Davies’ enthusiasm continues to lie in many different areas of music, involving everything from writing to producing. In March he spent two days working on tracks for up-and-coming South African soulful pop/r’n'b musician Chad Saaiman and has been working with former tour mates The Days. Despite all this, Davies claims he is still learning, and that he has been educating himself via their sound engineer, John Greatwood, who is also a producer. Davies records all of ‘Minor’s early demos, and has also set his sights on one day hopefully becoming a film composer. Their manager, Gary Ashley, lived next to Los Angeles composer Tom Newman in America, and Davies expresses his fascination and appreciation with his work when he spent the day with Newman.
“It’s just what I want to do, it’s really cool,” he explains. Davies got a taste of just how hard it can be to sync music to action when working on a piece for the Winter Olympics, syncing the band’s song Solaris up to an animation.
“That was really fun, quite hard though,” Davies continues. “Syncing’s really hard.” Davies expresses his dejection the piece wasn’t enlisted for the Winter Olympics, however Elliot Minor’s song Solaris was still used.
Despite the band’s successes and future aspirations, there were always those fervently hoping for them to fail, as there always is with a band with big ideas. Davies points out he dislikes the band’s early marketing, citing a promotional shoot where the band is in suits outside a church as a particularly regrettable decision. However, it’s acknowledged that they have come to understand the industry far better as they’ve grown older.
“It’s hard to turn people around, you have to deal with it,” Davies says. “I’ve got no regrets, when you are that young, you just don’t really think about it, you just do whatever you want to do,” and, without a moment’s hesitation, adds, “we’re still going to do whatever we want to do.”
It’s a policy that will undoubtedly work well in their favour. It’s obvious the band have plenty of aspirations and ideas, more than enough to take them up to the end of the year and beyond. Now it’s all down to hoping Davies’ voice can take the strain.
