Interview: Maximo Park's Paul Smith

Maximo Park are something of a British music institution, famed for their high octane live shows and evocative lyrics.

The band have witnessed many changes in the industry since they started out, so we thought we’d sit down with the ever honest and opinionated master of ceremonies Paul Smith to dig a little deeper into his world, and find out how they’ve managed to stay on top for nearly a decade.

In our in-depth conversation we also find out what inspires his writing, his thoughts on the Mercury Music Prize, and find out he really doesn’t care for indie music.

You’re currently in the middle of a UK tour, which has completely sold out. How does that feel given you took some time out? Is it reassuring to know the support’s still there?
It feels good, there’s always a doubt in the back of your mind. In pop music or whatever you want to call what we do, it’s a fashionable business, people want something new all of the time and when you don’t provide them with it, it disrupts the system. I think that’s good, it’s nice to have a rupture in the natural flow of things, because otherwise it becomes repetitive. Music was always a release for us, a way of getting way from our daily grind.

Your lyrics are very much centred around everyday events and people often remark that you’re a bit of a spokesperson for ‘social angst’. Is that something you strive for or does it come naturally?
For me, I mean other writers are different; I try and write about something I’m passionate about. It could be something on the news, something you read. This is how some songs happen, you connect it to something in your own life. I mean I obviously see what’s going on in terms of a global recession; that’s affecting people’s behaviour and people’s economical circumstances on a very wide level. I don’t drive so I’m catching trains all the time, I’m always on public transport, so it’s my natural way of looking at life, I also walk a lot. I try and pick up on the things I see,

You’re a big fan of films and literature, do you find they also influence your song writing?
You’ve got to try and take inspiration from as many things as possible and it will hopefully broaden your palette from which to take from. For me, I don’t see too many barriers between things, I mean I understand that different things are different disciplines. I try and write in a sort of descriptive way in some of the songs and I try and mix some very simple lines with more complicated things. Both accessible and subtle, they have extra layers, so if you want to get into them, hopefully there’s enough hooks to get you in immediately, then hopefully there’s these other layers of meaning. This also extends to the artwork.

Are you heavily involved in the artwork and design side of things?
Well we give a brief to someone. We’re all very interested in the band so if it was just one of us that did it, it would feel like too much of their thing. It has to be a group thing; we collate ideas and give them to a designer. For the last couple of albums it has been my brother who’s a graphic designer. We link him up to an artist that we like or whatever. All four albums have been influenced by fine art painters and artists that we admire and we’re kind ripped them off essentially and made them into accessible pop friendly artefacts.

You released a photography book with your solo album, ‘Thinking In Pictures’, are you still taking pictures?
Less and less so. When I’m on tour I’m just trying to focus on what I’m doing as much as possible. The book was very much a specific document of a time, it felt at the end of Polaroid film it was kinda the end of me doing that. I wanted to do drawings everyday on this tour but I’m such a fidget, a mental fidget, I read, I watch films - I go from one thing to the next.

This is definitely something that comes across on Twitter, you’re always watching something or reading something and sharing your little reviews with us aren’t you?
Yeah, that’s my role on Twitter. For other people it’s gossipy or they’re funny, and I just kinda post up things that are culturally interesting.

I once read a quote from you saying that Maximo Park “always progress and evolve but within the template”, is that something you’re conscious of; essentially knowing your limits as a band?
I think we feel like we occupy a unique position in the pop landscape. I don’t feel we need to do too much different but I do feel we need to do some things different each time so that you’re providing something else. For me, because we have the outlet of doing things solo or collaborating with other people, there’s never any chance of us feeling creatively stifled. There will always be an outlet for what we wanna do. I always thing we have our own thing, if you want it we’ll be there. If you want somebody who sings from the heart when you’ve listened to too much detached cool pop music, we’re there. Music is like that for me, I mean I don’t want to listen to Maximo Park all the time!

You’re very much famed for your passionate live performances; is providing a great live experience for fans very much at the top of the list for you?
Live, especially we put in a lot of effort; we try and connect with people. A lot of bands just go through the motions. We’re trying to do something that means something to people on a nightly basis and again that’s unusual. You see the same sorts of bands trudging around the circuit with traditional posters and art work, it feels like, and it probably is the case, there’s a record company churning it out and the band are almost like an empty vessel for it. I don’t feel we’ll ever be that band, because if I ever feel like that’s going to happen we’ll do something about it. It’s not in our nature. People see the name and now what we’re about.

A decade in and you’re still selling out venues. That kind of longevity isn’t often seen in such a fickle industry. What’s the secret Paul?
Having a hard core of fans. I think people that know the band, know that they’re going to get a great show and they know that the records will be made in good faith. Records that we believe in. Whether they like them or not is entirely down to taste and whether they want to get absorbed in our world or not. There are certain people that won’t like our records because they won’t be their cup of tea. We’re going to try new things out but it still sounds like us. We can’t help but sound like us.

You mentioned earlier about “singing from the heart”. Do you think that’s something that sets you apart from others?
If you’re singing, you’ve got to sing how you feel. The great singers that I like, it feels like a part of them is being transmitted through their voice. Whether it’s a classically trained voice, or a mumbly voice or a soaring voice. The best are the ones where it feels just like them, an extension of them. A projection of their emotions. That could be a funny song, it could be a morose song, could be a melancholy or happy one, but if those feelings are transmitted then that’s job done. That’s what we’re trying to do and hopefully that stands out in a sea of bands.

What kind of music are you into at the moment, what are you listening to?
Well I don’t like indie music, I like good bands. As long as something’s good I don’t mind. I bought a Cody Chesnutt record today from Piccadilly Records. I saw him the other day on Jools Holland like everyone does, and I thought, yeah I’m going to go and get that record. Quite traditional, new soul stuff. I like a lot of obscure American music, stuff that is probably a bit under the radar really. But it’s still in Piccadilly Records so it’s not completely off the map!

Fellow North Easters and friends of yours Field Music were shortlisted for the Mercury recently; do you feel they should have won?
I would probably say they were robbed. They definitely deserved to be up there. It’s quite arbitrary, there’s so many great records made each year, that to pick 12 or whatever is really quite a strange thing and I don’t really understand why we were nominated. I’m glad that we were, and I’m quite happy as I thought we made a good record, but you know I think we make a good record every time we make a record. The money would have made a big difference to Field Music whereas I think I read in the Guardian the other day that alt-j sold 72,000 records… and they’re on a bigger label and they’re well educated chaps, well connected chaps. I don’t really understand what the criteria are to be honest.

There seems to be a great camaraderie between bands from the North East, more so than other parts of the country. Why do you think that is?
It’s the natural way of doing things. The NE is traditionally marginalised whether it’s in a media sense or an economic sense, but you shouldn’t use that as a chip on your shoulder. I think it tends to bond people there and it doesn’t tend to foster any resentment to other people outside the north East but I think you do tend to realise that what you have there is close knit. There aren’t that many places to play or to hide, people get along, help eachother out, putting on gigs and the like. Ross from The Futureheads asked me last week to do a charity gig for St. Oswold’s hospice up in Newcastle but we’ll just be coming back from Australia so we won’t be able to do it, but he asked if I’d like to DJ so I’m going to go along and help out. We all grew up together as musicians, going to the same gigs. Peter from Field Music saw Maximo Park, and said 'I really like your band' and I said 'well I’ve seen your band and I really like you'. We were all trying to do something different and we didn’t mind being somewhat eccentric in the true sense of the word; outside of the circle, and we are still outsiders however many people come to our concerts and whatnot.

Do you find it frustrating at times that you don’t get the amount of recognition that you perhaps deserve as a band?
Well here will always be a hard core of people - whether it’s 300 people in a venue or 2000 at the moment - that really respect what we’re doing and want to find out what we’ll do next. Whereas there will always be a potential market for more people who would come, 4,000 to arena capacity. I mean we’ve played the arena in Newcastle a few years ago, we’d had a top ten single, we were getting played on the radio. The radio now doesn’t want to play as many guitar based records even though I don’t think we’re a traditional guitar band, we have a synthesiser slash keyboardist!

How do you feel about the being described as ‘indie’?
Indie used to mean stuff on independent labels that was possibly a bit weird, recorded on a budget. Now it’s a lifestyle. Everyone had the Liam Gallagher hairstyle, everyone walked like the Stone Roses, or more recently everyone buys their clothes at Urban Outfitters. You buy into a lifestyle. I can’t be critical of that, it’s just the way our society is structured; it’s very easy for people to fit into things.

Was this the case when you were growing up?
When I was growing up, people had their own little tribes. Goth people, emo people, it was all very marginalised, now because maybe due to social networking people can find eachother a lot easier, in good and bad ways. There will always be a co-opting of the subcultures by the bigger businesses. I mean when grunge was out when I was a kid I remember everyone started wearing the flannel shirts which was fine but then the t-shirts went on mass sale. I mean I would love to know how many people are wearing Ramones t-shirts from TopShop who have actually heard them. This is a pretty standard point by now, but this is the funny thing, culture is an interesting thing to look at. You grow up and you make your choices and you align yourself with different sensibilities.

Do you find it quite tedious having to define your sound?
It’s hard to get into our band on one level, people probably wouldn’t write about us, it’s quite hard, there isn’t a story really. We’ll always try and make good music, and that really isn’t a story. It’s just harder and harder to find a way to define yourself because when you first come out everyone wants to do it and now you have to do it yourself. And we just say ‘how do we define ourselves?’ because it’s not really a job for us, because we are us!

People are always quick to pigeon hole bands, do you think that’s prohibited you in some ways?
The music that we make, people might see it as indie because it gets played on XFM, because that’s an indie station, but then it might get played on Radio 1 so where does that put us? It makes us a pop band and a lot of people that probably liked our music in the first place would think ‘hang on a minute they’re probably a bit too poppy for me’. There’s too many barriers, I mean if I listen to a Rihanna song and I like it, I like it, and I’ll put it on. If I like a soul song I’ll put it on, if I like a piano ballad from Joni Mitchell I’ll put it on. It doesn’t matter to me and I don’t think it should matter to other people.

Where would you like to see Maximo go in the future?
One of my favourite bands are The Go Betweens, and they just made good records and they’ve left behind a body of work that I think is really touching and beautiful, melodic and interesting, multi layered and literate. For me if anything that’s the road I’d like to go down. It will sound like us and people can take it or leave it, but I’d love them to take it. I’d love them to get into it.

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