Ezekiel RodofiliSEIMS are a project that does project things. It’s a project that weaves sounds together in a manner that creates forms that we refer to as “Music”. Tomorrow SEIMS‘ new album, V, comes out, and I was fortunate enough to speak with Simeon Bartholomew, coincidentally enough of SEIMS, about SEIMS’ new album, V, which comes out tomorrow.
V is available here.
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Ez: I believe the album has been named Inveterate Veterinarian.
Simeon: Yeah that’s what the V’s for.
Ez: Wait, is it IV, or V?
Simeon: V.
Ez: Sorry. Vinveterate Veterinarian.
Simeon: It’s Five.
Ez: No, that’s one letter *laughs*
Simeon: The Romans would disagree.
Ez: Well, I don’t see any Romans around.
Simeon: No, that’s right.
I didn’t want to keep naming the numbers as numbers, so every numbered album is written in a different way.
Ez: So why do you have such disrespect for the alphabet?
Simeon: *laughs* Well, it didn’t make sense in the first place, right? English is a memorised language. It’s not a learned language, ’cause the rules don’t apply the same way, let alone twice.
I’ve got almost a five year old and I’m teaching her how to read, and I’m very conscious about what words I teach her so I can build up at least a catalogue of recognition before we break that with the next word that comes in there. It doesn’t make sense.
Ez: So what’s gonna make it hard for her then is that you’ve done your albums 1, 2, 3, 3.1, 4 and then V (actually SEIMS, II, 3, 3.1 and FOUR. Also, 3.1 is an EP).
Simeon: V (5).
Ez: V *laughs*
Simeon: I mean, II is technically a Roman II.
Ez: Oh yeah, it is.
Simeon: It was just one of those things where I feel there should always be some style guide change as it evolves. I think that the sonic trick is that if you’re naming things sequentially, people think it’s a continuation, so I think it leaves the subtle reframe of how that sequence is positioned. Here’s V, but it’s different. That’s kind of the deeper thing of it. In the same way that if you look at Baroness’ albums, Blue [Record], Red [Album]; They feel coherently together, they feel like they should be part of the same sound. Then Purple came out and that was such a different sound and you’re like “Oh, well this doesn’t fit” because it was positioned as part of the same family, but it definitely wasn’t.
Ez: It felt like a continuation from Yellow & Green.
Simeon: For me it didn’t and I feel like Green was a slight departure as well.
Ez: The way that I’d see it is that if it was SEIMS, SEIMS II, SEIMS 3, SEIMS FOUR, then it’d be seen as a continuation, whereas just numbering leaves it a bit more open.
Simeon: Yeah. I want it to be open, ’cause the sound has hanged a lot with every album, and every evolution of the band. That’s partly been conscious; I’d never want to be the Red Hot Chili Peppers and just be putting the same thing out thirty years later. I can’t think of anything more uninteresting or uninspired. I get it might lose fans. It might gain new fans and new fans might hate the old stuff and old fans will definitely hate the new stuff, and then there’s people who will probably just love it all because they’re part of that same journey, but for me, the whole point of SEIMS is kind of rooted in this idea of me trying something different. That’s always been at the helm.
Album 1; learn how to play drums and learn how to mix. Album II, learn how to mix and master; album 3, learn how to introduce orchestral instruments and work with it like a different engineer and take it out of the box. Album FOUR, actually go and embrace the orchestra. Album V is bringing pop sensibilities to it, and how do we do that.
And similarly, with the live environment, how we’ve grown over the years… that changes as well. Those crazy math rock tunes sound absolutely horrible on a really wide stage in a field in the middle of Bristol. They just do, sonically. Once you amplify volume and it passes and washes, having things that have a bit more time… all that chaos just becomes noise. ‘Cause it’s just really hard to discern, but in a small club with a giant PA and a really tight environment, it sounds fantastic.
So I guess as we change where we turn up, that’s definitely influenced how we turn up as well. I don’t wanna say you write for the stage, but there’s a point where you know you’re gonna perform these songs at some point so you still wanna make sure that they can be performed to the integrity of what the song is.
Ez: If the earlier songs don’t sound good on a wide, open space, would that suggest then it’s worth possibly dismantling them and fucking them for a live setting?
Simeon: That’s an idea in the works and I’ve pitched that to Mike (Solo, Bird’s Robe), just to go “Is there merit in going down this path, or merit in writing a new album?” In my mind I see an album that’s… Side A is like pure orchestral arrangements of some of these really heavy tunes that really don’t have the orchestra component, and how do we flip that 180 and just dynamically be really beautiful and pretty. Side B is how do we bring the new SEIMS sound of where it is today to the really old stuff? Not just copy/paste the songs and put an orchestra around them; actually rearranging, get to the core of that song and then reinterpret and reimagine it as if it was today.
Mike said “That’s great, but also new music is great, so you do what you wanna do”. I think once V is out and I’ve toured it to death and I have a headspace, I think that’s where it’s gonna be.
Ez: I think in the pursuit of art, there’s always a drive, whether borne through dissatisfaction, or satisfaction obut seeing where next lies. A certain restlessness is always gonna be a drive to do something new. There’s only so much twisting one’s own work can go.
Simeon: Yeah, that’s right, ’cause you’re still limited to a framework and a time and place in your mind of literally, ten, fifteen years ago now.
Ez: And unless you’re able to disconnect from that stuff and what it meant, if it meant certain things and emotions.
Simeon: Definitely not emotional, but there’s also those moments where a lot of those tunes we don’t play now just ’cause of the sonic nature of where the set’s at; they just don’t fit together in a forty-five minute window. It’s as simple as that.
There’s not too much sentiment in the songs, but [rather] where they kind of live. There’s two particular songs that were really big in our Japan tours. For me, whenever I hear those, it transports me back to then.
Ez: So talking about V. V for 5detta.
Simeon: V for 5detta.
Ez: There’s no end to the lack of humour with these kind of things.
Simeon: *laughs*
Ez: You mentioned growing with SEIMS, changing around. What’s the impetus for putting out a SEIMS album in 2025?
Simeon: The impetus was actually 2024 and then it just became 2025 for no reason of mine.
Ez: *laughs*
Simeon: It was done in April last year.
Yeah, I have no say in that *laughs* It just happens when it happens, but I guess with my intent, there’s always new songs. I’ve already got new songs for what would be Six I guess. But I’m not touching them yet because I always worry that I’ll get so obsessed with writing and developing the new stuff, and my two worries are:
A) I’ll get bored with V before I’ve toured it, let alone I’ll get bored with V before I’ve even toured it, let alone released it. Obviously I’ve heard it a lot in the last two years. Writing, recording, mixing, mastering, proofing, all of that. I worry about losing the love of that and I haven’t even brought it to life yet, and;
B) I worry that the influence of V would influence VIVIVI, because I think there’s an important part where you’ve gotta kind of… I would worry about influencing the sound of 666666 with the sound of V. I had that when we did the 3.1 EP, but to be fair, those songs were written with 3 at the same time, and then it became a too hard basket. “I’ll just do four songs, that makes sense in therms of like the record is forty-four minutes, don’t change that”.
Ez: So what was the impetus for doing these songs? FOUR came out, and I imagine you started writing V…
Simeon: Yeah, it was toward the tail-end of touring. Kind of like after doing ArcTanGent toward the end of 2022. I already had two or three of those songs. I had written sixteen in the end that were for this record, and then a simple cull of:
A) is it good enough;
B) does it fit with the rest and;
C) how much quantity of content can we fit on a forty-four minute record?
I guess there’s an editing power in there that also gets to decide for you.
So they all kind of came through, but a lot of the theme around the record is trying. That has always been the innate motivation of SEIMS; to try something new. But in 2020, had my daughter.
Sorry; just to clarify I didn’t birth her. My wife did.
Ez: *laughs*
Simeon: But that adds a whole new perspective, because you’re not just trying to be a good person and good parent and also a good role model; you’re trying to actually teach someone to try, which is something that has to be taught.
“I need to teach you to fall over. I need to teach you to sit and focus.” That’s something that needs to be taught. That inner discipline. So a lot of that came through the songwriting of these little moments. One of those songs “Flowing Upstream” – is kind of like that.
Sometimes you can have an argument with someone – obviously as an adult – and whether it’s rational or irrational, there’s still a finite point where you can still get your perspective through. But arguing with someone who has literally experienced the world for three years, let alone the emotional intelligence of maybe one year, and as something as simple as asking her to brush her teeth…
She’s great at brushing her teeth but then one night she was just destroying me for like ten minutes. “I don’t wanna do it, I don’t wanna brush!” So maybe something’s happened. Maybe she’s hurt herself. I don’t know, but obviously that’s not communicated, right? So you can’t tap into what that thing is, but she was just being an absolute punisher for ten, fifteen minutes, and I was getting frustrated.
There’s the trying of trying to contain my own thing but I actually proper blew up. “I have no idea, just go brush your teeth right now!” Lost it. Then she stormed off and I stormed off. I had to sit down and go “Hang on a second, I’m thirty-eight years old, just get my shit together”. At the same time I was like “I still need to get her to do the thing she does”, and “Flowing Upstream” is just about getting on the same page of someone that is going in a different direction, and rolling with it.
In that instance, the tactic that I had was I went into her room and went “Hey, I’m really sorry; I’ve realised that I’ve been asking you the wrong thing” and she stopped sulking and looked at me and went “What?”. I went “I totally forgot that today’s opposite day. Mum messed up and she bought the wrong toothpaste, so instead of being actual toothpaste in the tube, it turns out it’s poo, and because it’s opposite day, can you please go and put poo on your teeth, because it’s opposite day?” And she’s like “Yeah, absolutely” and then just went and did it straight away.
It was so simple, but so effective. It’s almost humbling in a way, really trying to understand how to roll with it in such a different mindset and different way.
Ez: So what you’re saying is you’ve tried to make an aspirational record.
Simeon: I wouldn’t go that far. I hope it’s aspirational. My intent is still – as selfish as it sounds – to just do what I want to do, and hopefully people like it. If they don’t that’s okay and if they do, that’s okay. I think the beauty of this project is that it was literally a learning project for me. Especially at a time in my life where Godswounds was very active. That took up a lot of my emotional attention as well as the physical in terms of playing bass. I was worried that I was gonna be this… only bassist in thirty, forty years. I’m really good at that, and I only did that.
The whole point of SEIMS was just learn to write songs, learn to arrange for a band rather than just be a bassist who comes in and goes “Well here’s what I think for the bass”. It all picked up not with any effort. It was just me putting demos on Soundcloud more for myself to listen to because this was the era of like “Hey, you know you can stream songs on your phone? What a concept. Oh, I’ll use Soundcloud. That’s a great idea.” And then of course other people find it through that avenue. You get all these randoms who are starting to pick up steam and stuff.
Eventually people started asking for an album. “When’s the album coming out?” “There is no album; it’s just me in my living room”, and then it all just kind of steamrolled.
I still wanna stay true of like people have been really enjoying it and discovering it and loving it, and hating it because of the – I guess – the intent is really pure in terms of like “Here’s my perspective”. So if I keep doing that, then we should be fine, you know?
Ez: SEIMS has been successful in that regard; not in a large scale, but at least enough to be stable to warrant doing it. There is a restlessness in you.
Simeon: I don’t think that’s ever gonna change. I think that’s just any artist, regardless of whatever your craft or medium is. I think the reason why you do it is because of the self discovery, in terms of “Ooh I can make this now, Ooh I can make this sound, Ooh I can make this picture. How about if I try something new and see what else I can do?”
Obviously I’m not comparing myself to Picasso at all, but –
Ez: Too late
Simeon: Definitely too late. Done it.
But you can see through his career, how he changed his own… let’s call it “Brand”, sure, but that constant restlessness is he’s going from line drawings to cubism, stuff like that. There’s a constant evolution in the self. Even in someone who is so clearly defined by his work is so diverse in his work, and I think that’s the difference between music being an art form and music being a product. The intent is art and then it happens to become a product as opposed to it starts as a product and stays a product.
Ez: So in what way does V scratch all the itches you’re looking to scratch?
Simeon: I’ve got a sousaphone doing a solo on it, so that’s pretty sick, from a tactical point.
Ez: Is that something you’ve been looking to get done for a while?
Simeon: I think the perception of involving the orchestra always screams strings, but how do you make brass become part of that? I guess that’s more on a technical level; don’t just be the loud trumpet solo, but how do we actually ground you and give you some weight in that world?
But I guess also structurally there’s more of that pop sensibility which is through it. “Forever the Optimist”; for me that felt very left of field to write something so structurally simple. It still has its nuances there. I know technically it could be 4/4, but it’s phrased like… 4/4, and then 5 and then 3, where the accents hit and where the weight of the tune sits and where the downbeat is, and it’s subtle stuff. Then there’s a lot of intentional dissonance of changing from majors to minors, but everyone else kind of stays the same, and the same with the vocal chorus at the end. Taking the rules that are written and breaking them but still making it feel like it’s comfortable, or at least like it’s party of the story. With this one maybe it’s partly more narrative-driven in that respect.
Ez: Can we expect some orchestral percussion then?
Simeon: There is a little bit of that on there. Not too much, but there is a great video of Cheggs playing a woodblock, and he looks like he really hated me asking him to do that, but such is the world, I guess.
This one is very heavily rooted in the one band being the orchestra with, I guess, the noise band. I think there’s natural predecessors on this record. “Preoccupations” feels like it marries up with “Showdown without a victim” on the last record. They’re both kind of in that crazy math rock world, but with these crazy, big choruses.
But there’s one called “Abandomnent Is Expected” and it’s a very acoustic, fragile, vulnerable tune which is something that’s new for me on a record. Especially with SEIMS being this constant loud, all the effects, very bass-driven. Now here’s me playing an acoustic guitar. You can hear me breathing; you can hear the fingers scratching and it feels really intimate. I guess that light and shade really comes through a lot more on this one, and then when it picks up and gets bold and bruising I guess, it fucken’ hits.
Ez: So obviously the album is coming out, unless you decide to not release it.
Simeon: It is coming out. I need to kick it into the world.
Ez: What does this mean for SEIMS?
Simeon: What do you mean by that?
Ez: An album launch, obviously there’s got to be some sort of relief ’cause it’s the start of it being born and killed off, in a sense.
Simeon: Absolutely.
Ez: There could be hesitation, it could be stressful because how are people gonna receive it, are people gonna get into shitfights about which album is best.
Simeon: I mean, I’ve never cared about if people like it or not. Especially in the age of the internet where everyone has an opinion and it’s all presented with the same merit, like [in] YouTube comments. There’s no hierarchy, there’s all the laundry, so there’s a point where you’ve just kind of disconnect and just be true to you. So for me here’s the next stage and that’s kind of it. Let’s get it out there and play some shows.
I love touring; not enough to make it a full-time job ’cause I don’t find the other side of touring glamorous, like living in a bus, not knowing where you’re gonna shit next, going to have a shower at a truck stop and going “Ooh, maybe I’ll be cleaner if I don’t have a shower”. Clothes constantly smelling like someone else’s cigarettes. That side of business I hate so much, but there’s something really beautiful about traveling halfway around the world and having some dude at Romania standing right at the front bar, going “I flew all the way here to England to see you guys because I knew you would never come to Europe” and then you watch the footage back of all the stuff you filmed three weeks later and there’s that one guy literally singing with their heart out. That’s awesome; I didn’t intend for that to happen, but there you go”. You know?
Ez: Then you realise they’re singing “Tom Sawyer”.
Simeon: Yeah, it’s got nothing to do with my music. Turns out he’s deaf, and he’s actually got something else going on *laughs*
Ez: He’s actually a horse. No idea how he got to front of the stage. It was a very impressive disguise, let me tell you. The moment he started breaking people’s rib cages… *laughs*
Simeon: And just asking people to ride him. It’s the point where we thought it was sexual, but it wasn’t.
Ez: He escaped from his trainer.
Simeon: Yeah, exactly, exactly. But anything goes in The UK.
Ez: See what you do then is you do a tour of Europe but you skip Romania.
Simeon: Exactly, just for that one fan.
Ez: *laughs* and you get a message and it’s like “Hey, how come you skipped Romania?” And you’re like “Well, you saw us.”
Simeon: Yeah yeah yeah.
There’s so many random things like that. It’s great if you intend to create those connections, right? For me it’s always been about the craft and the art and my own goal, of I’m just trying to push me. I always worry about the day that I can’t do what I do now, and whether that’s because I’m dead, or my nerve damage has gotten the better of me, or I discover I’ve Alzheimer’s, or I just live to be 100 and that person is just constantly looking at the gig posters on the wall and just crying because you’ve got so much regret of the moments that you’ve missed. That demon’s always in the back of my mind, so when you do make those connections with these random fans overseas and here, you’re just like “Cool, cool cool cool. I didn’t mean to give you something, but there it is” and that’s pretty magical. It sounds so wanky, especially when that isn’t the intent.
I really love that someone found something probably with a deeper meaning than I have intended to put in the music, but they’ve gotten something deeper out of it, which is pretty cool.
Ez: Well, back to the recording process of V: How was the recording process?
Simeon: Yeah we just went into a studio, paid money and recorded everything.
Ez: *laughs* Excellent. Alright, next question.
Simeon: Yeah yeah yeah, great answer. Great question, great answer.
It’s pretty standard with SEIMS. The band is me for the most part, and then everyone comes in and reads the charts, plays, takes the money and goes.
Ez: Sam Sheumack’s still in the band, yeah?
Simeon: Yeah, but I play guitar on the record, and he did play slide on a couple of tunes, but it’s me. It’s not because of Sam; it’s for me to sharpen that guitar side of my musicianship. So that’s the reason why.
Ez: What with this being the Vth SEIMS album, and coming after a number of other albums you’ve worked on, there’s gonna be some things that are becoming second nature, whereas other things there are challenges that reveal themselves.
Simeon: The second nature thing was I’ve kept the same intent for a long time… This was all Dawsey’s fault. After the first record we were talking about one of my tunes because he did sub in for a few shows after we put out II. And he made a comment and he probably was being a smartass, but he goes “I don’t know why you’d replace your bass with MIDI considering you’re a bassist”, and what that told me was A) I’m an amazing player because I’m perfect, but B)…
Just make sure the sarcasm’s captured when you transcribe that.
Ez: No.
Simeon: *laughs*
But B) because you are recording in a box, it’s so easy to re-edit and achieve perfection because you’re sitting at your computer in your living room. I think the cliche with math rock and a bit of post-rock, but the cliche is that everything is so perfect and pristine, clear and crisp that it kind of takes out a bit of the soul and the energy, right? And then it becomes like acrobatics. You’re like “Yeah, cool. I mean, it’s great that you can play that amazing tapping rhythm”, but it’s so boring to listen to because it’s actually quite clinical, right?
Since we’ve been doing stuff in the studio, since 3, the intent has always been one take one go. Unless you’ve properly fucked it up, the first take’s the take, with all of the anticipation built in. With all of the “This could be unhinged and this could fall over at any point” burned in and printed. When you listen to a SEIMS record, that live nature does come through and does feel quite organic because you can feel the innate detection of “Oh fuck I don’t know if I’m actually going to nail this riff”, so that’s super important. That’s become second nature to be part of the process and I think that’s something we’ll always do.
I think the only thing we really, truly did different was I bought myself time in the studio. That’s something that you’d normally just try and maximise how much time you can have in the room and go “We can only afford four days so how do we make this fit in four days and do the rest in home?” Instead I went “You know what? I’m going to pay for seven, and of course that’s going to hit my wallet”, but the one thing we’ve never had the luxury of is time, and time means trying things in the studio. Not necessarily about doing more takes ’cause I didn’t want to do that. I still wanted this live rawness captured and printed, but it left time to actually sit there at the end of the day and listen back and go “Oh, you know what’d be cool? Cheggs hitting a woodblock for three minutes straight” and just having it as this one really small layer in the back left ear.
That crisp magic, and having time to just sit there and talk to Tim [Carr] who is our engineer and go “Oh man, what about when they did that Radiohead blah blah blah, on In Rainbows? Lets put a trash mic on the kick and let’s just do a really flat, clipped kind of sound” Having the ability to have time meant that we actually explored a lot more and still kept that same raw dynamic.
In “Chaos Within a Construct” at the end there’s these beautiful vocal harmonies that come in at the end. Initially my intent was guitar solo to the point where I’d already hit up Rory from And so I Watch you From Afar and said “Hey, here’s the tune, I had this idea for you to play a guitar solo on it” and he’s like “Yeah, great”. We could never make it work in terms of calendars, but when we got to the studio and we were doing that, we had the time, and Tim was like “Something feels like it’s missing from the section”. “Oh yeah, there’s gonna be a guitar solo there, but Rory’s gonna do it from the UK”.
Because we had the time, Tim’s like “Let’s just fuck around and have some fun in there. Why don’t you just plug a mic into a pedal?” I’m like “Why don’t I just plug a mic into all of my pedals and turn them all on?” He’s like “Yeah okay”. And then that became a really nice harmonic vocal melody that kind of… literally every pedal on my board was on and we did these really nice swirls.
When Rory said “We couldn’t make the dates work”, I was like “I don’t care now” ’cause that magic is still there in some form of this new idea of me doing [this vocal harmony] with all of these [pedals] on. So I think buying time helped finesse that final sound.
Ez: So the album was recorded piecemeal though. One takes, but piecemeal?
Simeon: Yeah. We still did it traditionally in terms of drums had two days. Then I came in and did all the basses and guitars in two days, and then violin, and then…
Ez: So it wasn’t live.
Simeon: No, no no. I don’t think I ever want to do that live, everyone sitting in the room in front of you. For a live show, obviously that would be amazing, and if we had a solid 50-piece, a proper orchestra, then yeah, for sure. Logistically that’s the right thing to do. But I think with the soundscape that I had in mind of kind of…
In Rainbows was a big reference for me because of the amount of space that’s on that record. Everything has an identity and where it sits in that work, and you’re not gonna achieve that with everyone in front of you. Obviously you can pad and stuff but you’re still gonna get bleed, you can’t pick up the cello and move it over there now because you’ll get phasing issues and stuff like that.
And I knew that there was something I wanted Alex [Wilson]to play with in the mix and really craft that space, So that was just being more pragmatic rather than an artistic direction.
Ez: And obviously you feel it paid off, otherwise you wouldn’t be releasing the album. Or maybe you would be releasing the album!
Simeon: Yeah, it’d just be shit. I’d just be like “Eh whatever.” Still need to make money off it I guess.
Ez: If it didn’t work you could just compress the fuck out of it, make it really noisy.
Simeon: Always.
Ez: SEIMS is now purely a noise rock band.
Simeon: We’re just Death Magnetic part II.
Ez: Cut the drums out and then reincorporate them but make everything 4/4.
Simeon: Totally. Actually burn in the click over it.
Ez: *laughs*
Simeon: Even though the song’s in 11/8, doesn’t matter. Just here’s a 4/4 click, burnt in, clipping, and have it pan, I guess.
Ez: See now the problem is now you’ve gotta do this on the next record.
Simeon: Probably. Probably.
Ez: You’ve gotta have one track that is really compressed to hell and really noisy, and it’s gonna have a baked in clip.
Simeon: For one of our tunes “Cyan”, when we toured it, my gag was have the click at the start of the playback – cause we opened with this song – ’cause I want people to hear the click and go “Oh wait, what?” And then the song would start.
So we left the click in and we had it really prominent in the mix. When we would start the set the audience would hear the click and be like “Oh, I can hear the click”. Then when it got proper heavy it was a bit more in your face, but I don’t think that gag ever landed *laughs* so we stopped doing that.
Ez: No, you’ve got to take it to the next level now. Just have a 4/4 click running through the whole set.
Simeon: Even in the gaps.
Ez: Do stage banter to the click.
Simeon: And just never acknowledge it.
Ez: *laughs* It’s good days, because you have a few shows coming up to support the album. And V is not necessarily a new direction but it’s a different direction. You’re gonna be performing it without an orchestra.
Simeon: We haven’t worked it out yet, but there’ll probably be some sort of playback with the strings.
This is the problem we logistically run into, because now I’ve really entwined both worlds. The Orchestra isn’t a backing band; it’s part of the music. Sonically when it’s part of the music and you don’t have it on the stage, it changes the music.
Ez: You could just reinterpret it.
Simeon: Well that’s the thing; it’s so sparse now. Even if you just think about the fundamental of a major chord, the bass is playing the one, the guitar is playing the three and the strings are playing the seven, right? If you don’t have the strings playing the seven, where’s the colour?
Ez: So you get someone else on stage then.
Simeon: But then also does that do the same thing, or does that change it? And with a new record coming out, should you present it with its own integrity, or should it be interpreted straight off the bat?
Ez: Well either way, it’ll still be respectful.
But this is a predicament, because if you are creating large music, do you play with playback, which can limit you to a point.
Simeon: Well yeah, because it puts it on rails to a point, right? What we did with the last tour, we did have tracks and with the bigger shows we had a violinist, Kat (Hunter, Lack the Low) for Australia and Japan. For the last few runs in The UK and and Belgium, we had a guy called Oscar [Tabor], which was really good. He’s a session king, and we’d send him a video of our rehearsal, and the set list, and he’d have all the click tracks and he’d be good to go.
We still have the tracks playing just to support that sound. Otherwise it sounds a bit thin. And that really worked.
When we’re planning for that, we’re still kind of… obviously when it’s still musical in terms of the riff part, we’re still on rails with the click. But when it gets to a noise section the click will stop. Do whatever, and then there will be a verbal cue to bring it back, and then we’re all back together again. Sometimes Cheggs will have a playback for the next track ready to go, and we’ll just vibe how it goes, so there’s still that bit of that organic sense, but I do personally love having the click in the ear, because it does make us a tighter band. I think for music that is already quite chaotic, that cleanliness really helps in translating.
Ez: Well, do you have any closing words?
Simeon: What were your three questions?