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ah you all right I'm all right you okay hi Sarah nice to meet you you're all right I'm just doing an interview oh no worries I've got something else I do music reviews oh yeah oh thank you so much thank you do you do do you mark
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your reviews out of five or ten what did you give the album boom boom nice to meet you just gave it a strong sentence definitely not a 10. another line [Music] this time here we are the new Doctor Who in his middle-aged Millennial sidekick hanging
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around Manchester at Maddie's request talking about the new album being funny in a foreign language but diving into all things 1975 because we've never done it like this and we've wanted to for a long time so here we are in the north of
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England for the day me and Maddie Healy from the 1975. let's do a Malibu you said I wanted a bit of realism mate I'm really glad it wouldn't be Manchester I'm really glad I wasn't pissing it down it's really good to be back actually it's Manchester whether it happens it's
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where the Good Ship comes from man but the question is if what is never happened or what will be yeah if I if if is isn't could not first time here you know the revelations oh this is a fun room this is a fun room with the bleachers at
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the back but that was like wow I saw that as a seated venue oh you can't lose here it's amazing grace it's the smell that I always remember when I walk in these places do you ever go back to your first Primary School oh my god I've driven
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past it so many times I never had the courage no I went into for some reason I went into my old Primary School not long ago and yeah there's that smell but it's the scale of it it's like there's this relative scale where it feels like this is a um
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a set of the deaf Institute because it felt massive when I played here yeah and now it feels you know like a a faux remake of it yeah it's almost like if you can imagine what your first gig should feel like it is this place which is why it's so sick and
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you and you realize why so many people visit Manchester I heard the story that Whitley chose to play here even though they could have scaled up to 3x recently because they wanted the experience of playing it so funny though with the kind
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of Legacy because the deaf Institute for for us became we became quite late like the deaf Institute was there was there was the dry Barn there was a ruby Lounge there was Jabez Clegg there was the beer color there was Academy three if you could get there
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deaf Institute was quite new and cool by the time that we got to play it the reason that deaf Institute had a such a big part in our story was it was the first Manchester 1975 gig where we went from being a bands band two people knowing songs so from leg up to standing
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on your own feet is what you're saying it was sound control and then it was here and that was a real thing where like the idea that a first album was gonna happen you'd started playing the record basically yeah not to not to like pick
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you up but the truth is we couldn't get arrested we were trying to go down that route that everybody was trying to go down in the mid late 2000s of getting a major record deal that's what you did and we couldn't and then we were like right let's start
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our own label which we did over a bowl of pasta with like however much money we had which was nothing yeah but then you started smashing the city which became this kind of cult like hit I think I played it I think I'm gonna
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play it twice in a row the first time I played that movie I remember the first time it happened because I remember texting Jamie because it obviously everything that we'd done up until that point we had tried so hard yeah we tried
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we'd been trying and and you know we tried to get these people interested and I was driving I was with like I remember I was with I was with a girl so I would have been wow what was that 23 or something I was driving around and my Clio and it just came on
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saying it was that Zane low thing and I literally pulled the car over I was like this is my band this is me this is me that's me and she was like and then and then I text Jamie and he was like no no no are you sure and I was like mate I
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just listened to it yeah and that was the start of it really it just you know from my perspective while we're reflecting it just um I remember the first time it was Alex who played me your music and I remember I remember listening to it and going it just sounds
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so ready and so that work you talk about that you're done trying so hard putting in all of that energy into something that you felt wasn't being reciprocated it was you are reciprocating it yourself because by the time that that song was
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was done no one that was new sounded that like ready well on purpose well that's where the suspicious came this the irony and the suspicious yeah the industry plan thing because they we were just better it wasn't subversive to be a band
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from Manchester that sounded like a band from Manchester because this is the thing that this is the weird relationship we had with Manchester now now we're super embraced I mean it's bad you're going here because you're not an
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obvious Northern banter anyone is not from the north this is the thing but now you go on the street like today is madness like so many people coming over and I love it in Manchester because people are so there is this kind of Manchester pride thing but at the
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beginning yeah the Buzzcocks yeah the Smiths yeah the stone roses you had Happy Mondays you had Oasis you adopt your brother the reason that those bands were massive is because it didn't sound like anyone else and they changed stuff that's why
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they were celebrated and became a Manchester sound after that so after the Oasis the Manchester sound had been so established that people walking around dressing like Ian Brown in a Parker were looking for the next obviously recognizable thing and I was a
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bit like well nah we're the next Manchester band because where where is New as this yeah people talk about following in the footsteps of Giants or standing on the shoulder of them while we're talking about Oasis but um you know and I think I think where there's a
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where there's a a confusion there is people feel like you know be influenced by that and and embellish it ever so slightly now what it means is like stand in their footsteps for a minute and then take footsteps of your own on that path
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don't like copy them yeah that's exactly it don't copy other bands because it's been done better like do you know what I mean like all that confusion when we headlined reading when I said who's Rage Against the Machine it was such a dumb
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way of phrasing it I didn't mean it I phrased it wrong what I meant was listen I've had this conversation with you I use rage as an you could bring into context what we're talking about all right you can't really do rap rock credibly after Rage Against
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the Machine because they did it they invented it and they ended it bands like slow dive great but My Bloody Valentine kind of started and ended something so really what you're saying is originality was always an essential part of the chemistry of this band you
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wanted to be original nothing changes culture that isn't new nothing young people are always at the Forefront of cultural change that's always the idea but that's always because the economy has supported that there's always been
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environments for that to happen whereas now young people if they want to make art a lot of them tend to have to make like quite homogeneous art whether it be like the the flat design for the internet startup or the this or the that it's
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like there's not many generative alternative scenes left because no it's go on because well there's like four websites now like the internet used to be this like huge utopian mental free source thing now it's four websites if I if I wasn't um
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encouraged by my surroundings these places if I wasn't like in a scene I'm not calling myself a senior a genius I am not calling myself a genius but I'm saying you can't you're not allowed exactly but seniors yeah is required for
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anybody anybody to rise to the top so when you live in a country like the United Kingdom at this point you've never left you've never relocated permanently you've always come home um and you and I lived here for a long time and again we were we reminisced and
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reflected a little bit on when I felt that the Arts could could flourish and Thrive that's what we're talking about with regards to bands and art and artists everywhere every where you went every town every city there were people
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playing all the time venues are closing down people can't afford to do art wholesale they have to find ways to compromise their art to survive you live in the UK this is the realities the reality all over the world and then you see the government coming in and and
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especially during quarantine the news traveled far and wide cutting out the funds for the Arts cutting down the opportunities for the Arts because the Philistines it's literally because they are Philistines I'm not being I'm not being um
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terse on purpose I'm saying that if you are the minister of culture you should be able to and you should know who Aphex Twin is because some people are a person and then they hear Blue by Joni Mitchell or they hear Bob Dylan they hear whatever
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record it is and they immediately become someone else your identity is they are transformed yes if you've never felt the transformative power of music or art then you're not going to give it the reverence that it deserves these people can't they don't know they've got
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no Source they don't get it Billy Connolly said your desire to be a politician yeah should disqualify you from being able to be one you know it's it's a I probably didn't deliver it in the way that he well you've got to laugh in the cheap seats I
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laugh in the cheap seats but that's true if you want to be a politician you shouldn't be allowed you should be forced to do it that's so true you should be forced to do it it's so true it should be really cool you should find someone really
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really cool yeah and then be like listen we're giving you shitload of money you've shown real promise here we need you to go and Salvage something yeah we did like you're sick go and do go and sort that out I've always had the feeling and I'd love you to talk about
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this not something as obvious as a written plan or a synopsis of what was important and not important but in your head I feel like you map it out more than others you just do well I'm I'm a fan first so like I'm I was obsessed
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with the culture for a star yeah but also yeah I I you can think about it like like there being a plan but it's considered in the way that a lot of people when they're older they try and journal and they do it for a little bit and they can't yeah most
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people that journal as an adult have been doing it since they're about 12 or 13. you know we know why they do it it's just it's ceremonial it's part of their day if they don't do it they feel weird right that's the 1975 for me so with
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journaling elicits a certain amount of self-analysis where am I going what have I been doing what does where do I stand in the world now I've been in the 1975 since I was 13. so 12 isn't a person so all of my self-analysis has been under
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the umbrella of what is the 1975. who is the 1975. so of course I've projected and placed Us in places in my like in the in you know or I've been reflective or or I've thought yeah well this is what it's going to be but it's because it's my it's who I am
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that's why it was hard when we got like you know if you've been in a band for two years and you start at college and a major label comes along and says you're not good enough it's like oh the band isn't good enough if you start a band at
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13 and it's your journey and you're 20. you're not interesting enough you're not good and you're not interesting well you write about yourself and the world that you see is not to our taste and bro exactly and it and I was like oh
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and this is the thing as well and by the way that goes then you go one of two ways history will tell you either go all right lads I'm going to University I'm doing something else in my life or you go I like how this feels there's some real
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you here well Manchester felt safe because what I managed to do was convince Han and Ross's parents to let them go to Manchester and Salford uni you did yeah I did you did well no this is good I I tell the story as it is okay I was very much like trust me
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right because this is the way you've got to think about it right this is the way because you know what I'm like I know I can be like lofty and a bit like pretentious but you know but you know that I'm actually like quite a solid
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down to earth you see it through bro right I'm not actually like think I don't actually think I'm meant yeah yeah but so I what I have to do right is separate the words Visionary and the word genius always get put next to each other and they're super complementary
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words right right so I'm not gonna even consider let's take the word genius and throw it away it's not something I would ever regard myself as or want to but let's just look you're not allowed to other people get exactly let's just look
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at the word Visionary and remove the complementary element of it and think of it as an objective thing so there's certain people you saw it who can who it's just the way some people are maths people yeah some people some people like
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see stuff so it's not like I think about that much of what I'm doing yeah all I'm really trying to do is just get out what I can see so I'm I'm not our Visionary but it's it's a v it's me catching up with whatever I'm seeing in my head you're not very much a
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Daydreamer and I think that so I think that I was saying to them like listen I've got this thing in my head and I know that this suit doesn't agree with it and I know that this person doesn't agree with it but trust me I'm younger than them and culture's turning I was
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very into this idea of like this is in a living room with two parents this is like a actual hangout no this doesn't explain the situation this is over a period of time as well because like I'd I'd um we we you know by the time we got
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to 18. I'm only being granular because this is this should be a scene in the film one day this is actually quite a pivotal moment in the story of the band it is because we were because we've been doing it since we were 13 and we'd been
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like dedicated to it since we were 13. by the time we got to like 19 and we were still like just like delivering Chinese and stuff like that yeah uh some parents are a bit like what are you gonna do yeah I was like let's convince everyone yeah that we
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should stay here so we can keep doing our thing and we did um and we kept kind of just like playing and doing shows and it wasn't really going anywhere Jamie our manager was was putting us on on on tours with with bands and we were getting like a little
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bit of a following so with little comments yeah I remember talking little comments we toured with one night only wow yeah I know right was it like yesterday when you played here does it feel like that I know it's a weird a
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weird question you gotta remember this is like it's like you've got the early 2000s you've got the iPhone you've got the front camera on the iPhone coming out yeah so stuff like the the synthesis of technology and social media and
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Tumblr and the emergence of all these things so up there on that balcony somebody had obviously got what is the new iPhone right horizontal filmed the whole set put it on YouTube right now God never never happened to me for me just referencing it as a shot and it's
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come there we are that's the shot anyway it's just me playing here like that and I'm here hands here Ross is there and George is here and um and somebody played the whole set and it still exists did you notice the camera at the time
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when you're on stage no no this room was this room was like electric that night like it was it was a real thing as well because also we were playing stuff off our forthcoming album that like wasn't out and like that was like a real and like I
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said you YouTube is quite a new phenomena in the way that people would were discovering stuff so um we kind of we really came through and were part of all of those big fluxes that happened constantly across the generation it was transformative new
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things were meeting hands and being used technology and art were truly combining and it was a transformative error and I think about timing a lot and I wonder if you do and I wonder if someone who ultimately grew up in a in that where you're ready
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you're a hessy and a baby you're born at the end of the 80s so you were born into Manchester really interesting when all that crazy culture and amazing yeah the experience of art was going on and you no one could film it most of it is not
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captured exactly and then obviously you live through the 90s as a kid where tabloid culture affected the dynamic of your family yeah yeah massively let's talk about that for a second because your relationship with attention is I've always felt a bit
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love hate it's a little bit like I love it but I hate it I love it but I hate it it swings on a dime yeah and I wonder whether some of that traces back to this kind of I mean the Tabloid culture in the 90s for kids who are too young to know and
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most of you watching this will be was biblical yeah yeah beyond what you would you would see nowadays biblical it's industry now back then it was just straight Street Terror it seemed to me what was fascinating was that on paper you had all the ingredients you
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had you came from a family that was already known by the tabloids yet you were doing something different you know you can read the headline right now it's like you know um Denise Walch has stunned Bad Boy pop star rock star like rails blah blah yeah
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yeah it's just perfect because it brings your family back into the school that they're out of they made it out yeah now they're back in you bought them back in I think the truth is though is that quality over anything always the truth
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kind of always out so the fact of is that the 1975 how good we were how definitive we were becoming in a culture at that time was so much bigger than than those ideas yeah yeah that the 1975 took off way before they could be like
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he's whose son or what it was it was a completely different thing no it's almost like a light gotcha it was almost like this king of credibility as far as the their fans are concerned comes from this other background and everyone was like well we're a new generation we
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don't understand this painting that you're trying to present exactly and also to be honest with you if you can draw me a clean line from how your mum knowing curly watts to having a number one album in America I don't you don't
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need but it's it's it's Tableau culture they're not looking for a clean line no no no no no for sure but this is the thing that and then you know what happens now is like there's this whole um I made a joke that I drew the um Short Straw in the at the nepotism baby
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nursery uh because there's so many like famous kids out there the nepotism baby concept is interesting though isn't it because it seems to be something that people talk about when they're a little bit jealous especially of what it's fine no
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no no one cares anymore no what I'm saying is right I grew up Kardashians changed everything well let's I'm not getting into that love love everyone um people grow up in cultures right right I grew up around artists so when I
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was a kid I was like right what does he do for job right he's not he makes art what does he do he's an actor right okay you just subconsciously take it in if you grow up in a family of doctors yeah there's not many nepotism doctors if a lot of the time he does a doctor
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you're a doctor because you grow up in the culture okay I'm with you you know what I mean so it's like that happens across the board it's not just so I grew up in art right so I made ah it's it's not it's not like that complicated what
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I became a witness to when I was a young person what you were talking about in the kind of in this in the brutal landscape of the Tabloid media yeah was people maintaining personas mediating this mediating that negotiating with this person negotiating
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with that person by the time I got famous I was already bored mate like my mum had died one bit Celebrity Big Brother like I'd I'd seen Fame in every single form so what started happening was I started getting interviewed and
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then I started getting known for my interviews but the only reason for that was was because I thought you know what if I'm gonna do this now I I'm just gonna have to make it conversations and not lie except that I'm gonna say
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things that I'll want to apologize for make mistakes in public but in the moment just be otherwise you're gonna get stuck I'll go mentally you'll go crazy because if I tried to maintain I don't even know where I am so if I tried to construct a version of
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who I am and then maintain that yeah every question is a nightmare every question is a night like I I would be terrified look I'm surprised you know I the last one of the last times I spoke to you when quarantine kicked off you were like I'm not gonna do this
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again and you didn't and you didn't draw a distinction between me and you or you and a few other people that you would talk to you were like I'm not going to do this again and then you were like I'm gonna go do drive like I do and I just
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felt like you were searching almost for a reset um yeah I was or or I was searching to solidify what this feeling of resetting was that was happening to me by proxy because of what had happened now the thing is with covet it didn't have as
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much as it had an effect on me in the way they had an effect on everybody we've put out an album just by nature and the way that it's flowed every two years and we put out a record in 2020 and we're putting out a record in 2022 going into the studio during the pan
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there was no better place to go so we've not I wasn't artistically um that interested in the pandemic but I also wasn't it it didn't it didn't Define a lot of stuff apart from the fact that we weren't on tour whilst we were making stuff yeah and I think that
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what I was looking for which I looked for for ages was basically every record that we'd made up until being funny was had its moments of strife and difficulty but it just it was obvious what it was so as as soon as we made the first
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record the let's say I don't know this Vision thing again what I like it when you sleep was although it was difficult to grasp at it was kind of obvious a brief inquiry it was obvious where we were going to go even though notes was
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mad we knew where we were going you lived there was a break room trailer that's right after notes it just kind of really opened up and we didn't we were lost we and and then we um basically every time we've made music the only thing we've been doing is being loving it
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being excited or being like really turned on by it and there was a point where I think I mean George admit that we'd kind of just been making like notes part two but we're going to pause here because I actually want to dive into
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this in detail okay at night and day okay so I want to get out to Manchester I want to get a little more let's go for a walk around here [Music] Barca which is still here this bar and then Duke's next door that was like a real scene in like 2000
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2000 well maybe 19 well 98.99 you know you had what was like sweet female attitude Wookie and Lane like um all this kind of like and then all the pop the pop garage stuff and I would go to these kind of like oh I would Meander from there down to here and find
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these like daytime Raves with like sonship playing like I don't wanna like I don't want to like um no but you're over glamorized that's okay you're a kid I'm trying to figure out the timeline you were literally a kid and so your
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eyes are like your aperture is opening in real time well I was always so obsessed with like music and the thing is with like dance music that used to excite me was it was almost like um and it would excite me in the way that
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like TV post Watershed would excite me right because in the UK the radio after eight o'clock nine o'clock goes to dance music it goes to this kind of music so it felt like adult music right and then you would I would be young and I'd be in in some the back of
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someone's car you know a teenager's car and they're listening to some kind of like hard like garage kind of thing I was always very excited by electronic music in um as I was as I was growing up in the in the 90s so then when I moved
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here and I lived over there this was actually a proper scene which I didn't really reflect on I think until I was a little bit older but I would be in these you know as a kid that would be like giving it in these daytime Raves um just around here and I kind of
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it to me it's it's like really beautiful I know it's not but this is the thing it is I saw you talking to um Billy eilish about the neighborhood right and that show that she was talking about we opened for and we used to talk to the
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neighborhood a lot and we both did this we're doing this like miserableism black and white thing at the same time right and it was funny because like maybe there's such different bands because but think about that what I'm saying is musically yeah we went like
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optimistic we need to get out of this and then we were the exactly and they went we're from the valley it's sunny all the time it's like getting beaten over the head with a A you know a rainbow they created a banal Suburban
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morose environment from what is considered glamor exactly and you painted the prettiest sunniest picture from inside all of this industry that's what I was trying to do and I'm not trying to claim Manchester too much because also like where we're from in
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Cheshire the the countryside like where I eventually moved to is a big part of the 1975 that's where you move into drive like I do and the kind of birth of that right but this was when I my because I was emo Prime from pretty places right emo punk from pretty places
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emo punk from pretty places but there's a lot of country on the new record and I always reference that funny meme where it's like emo is I'm gonna Live and Die in this town on some sad face and country is I'm going to live and die in
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this town happy face you know totally and I think that I'm gonna live and down and die in this town happy face I relate I relate to both well I was going to ask you this and this is a nice nice place to sort of get to on on this part of our
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Manchester trip um home the idea of home now I've I've tried to get inside that conversation with artists my whole life because I think when you travel and when you know you search for inspiration the idea of what is home is is is distorted and
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twisted for a big part of your life but you've brought us back to a place at a point in your life you know going into your mid-30s the band is Perpetual art is now your life and you've decided to come back here was this a reflective
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decision to come back here what part of your journey did you want to trace to and bring us here to tell us about really it's my favorite place to write and what I mean by right is walk around and essentially write lyrics and there's with that now there comes an
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element of nostalgia I think it's the Purity that I'm trying to hold on to because we started this at like 13 and there's something like magical about it that none of us can really bottle or contain or commodify and I think that as you get bigger you
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get presented opportunities to like do that I mean the analogy is probably best to like the camera like if I if we're at a party like if we're if we're at a bar and I'm talking to you and we're talking like this but every couple
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of seconds I'm kind of just like I'm listening to you but I'm looking over here I'm looking over here eventually you're just going to be like go over there right you're going to be like go over there because I'll go and find another
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favorite band yeah I mean and it's like so and if over there is like money or getting bigger or like you know if you're ever doing anything creative for money but it's not the right thing and I think that this place not this place reminds me that like I'm not like you
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know I'm not like from a council estate in Salford but like walking round Manchester as being like formative formative for me and I think that it's that's huge it's still it's still really really it still really really resonates with me and because
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yeah we've had an interesting relationship with Manchester and we've become later in our career we've become more of a Manchester band I mean there is just something about the canal system I remember when I first moved to the UK
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I'd never seen anything like this you know a canal system and the boats were almost like is that like a theme park ride like you actually like do people live on I said yeah that's industry it's industry I need to avoid this mud well I'm the one in one of it singing in
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the rain I'm the one where did the country thing come from by the way the country thing comes from being from the north of England because I really resonate with I've spent a lot of time in America and the south of America is very similar
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in ways to the north of England it's underfunded it has its own folk music it has its own language it has its own kind of political beliefs do you know what I mean and there I also so I grew up in the Northeast and then moved to the north west now the Northeast has a lot
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of folk music and what the north of England has is a lot of politics it has a lot of history it has a lineage of all those kind of things and I think that country music comes from the same thing so you're you're creating a direct connection
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between someone who's writing country music in a Richard Thompson you think that that's almost England's country yeah if you take out like the obvious black influences that are in 75's music it's country music look alike um well especially songs like
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be my mistake but even like it's not living if it's not with you sure do we do it like kind of psychedelic fursy yeah yeah like uh Post Punk but it's if I play that on the acoustic guitar that's a country song you know that's so
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weird I love it it's so weird because you've got you you it's so true like if you really dive into this stuff and get inside the granular nature of of your influences you flip so quickly from Paul Simon from Graceland to mirror moves
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Yeah Yeah from Mirror moves over to like like you say something that's like very folk driven almost something drakey thing but it's music it's like it's it's the the genre is kind of the um is almost like is so surface to me because it's it's eight notes
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like it's eight notes it's it's it's like you and you can do whatever you want with them but at the end of the day it's like it's like shiny stuff like if it's a beautiful Melody I like it I don't care if it comes from the right hand of Miles Davis or the left tweeter
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of Aphex Twin or it doesn't matter it's it's music and like I don't um I understand like I'm not interested in I'm not particularly interested in like cultural sensitivity I'm interested in authenticity so there's certain things that I
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wouldn't do just because it wouldn't be authentic as much as it's I make the joke that the guys would hate the idea that there's not much separation between them and us but there isn't because if you start a band at 17 18 you've got a leather
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jacket you've got a bird that you like you've got a favorite record you've got a you've got a cultural identity if you start at 13 you don't have that so because every film or band or political or social event that's happened has
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happened to the four of us at the same time in the same room it's kind of meant that we've become not necessarily codependent but just like symbiotic you know we're very much for parts of one thing that's why we still like we hang
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out like we don't we don't it's not fake do you know what I mean like we are we're best mates we don't get together to do the 1975. did you ever feel that forces were conspiring whether they meant to or not to separate you and let me qualify that in the sense that when
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you started to actually make some noise and in particular focusing on America because here I think is a place where bands there's a real desire to to break out as a group that cut that gang mentality right I mean we're about to go to a building
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where the Monday's rehearse Joy Division rehearse you rehearse right but in in America in particular when something becomes successful it becomes brand it becomes a brand yeah and people are looking for the most easy to Market situation yeah and that's you yeah okay
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whatever happened did that feel like you were being pulled in any direction at any given point even just by by the circumstances rather than by you know any clandestine Force no because it feeds into that thing that we were talking about before where you said that
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for some reason it feels like whatever I'm doing has its own direction that is going a certain direction right so for example what that also meant is that I kind of understood what a frontman was right right right I understood what I
36:05
understood that like the difference between a democracy and an autocracy not that an autocracy is a bad thing but I don't want Dire Straits I don't want Pink Floyd honestly I want like you too right do you know what I mean like where
36:21
they're it's kind of it's this it's this sharing thing and also like the truth of it is like you just want like you know like the Lost Boys in Peter Pan just very it's only an 80s movies where people go like they're like like 4 13
36:39
you're spitting their hands they put it in the middle and they go I'm gonna stay together forever do you know what I mean it's like idealistic ridiculous thing when that starts becoming a reality then you're kind of getting away with murder
36:52
and you and and then you're just having having fun and I remember in one of our early interviews like 10 years ago I said like I think what we are doing is like we're in the pursuit of Excellence which sounded really lofty but what I really meant is like
37:12
we don't really have any other Pursuits left we've pursued getting big we've pursued sign into a major and the thing that actually worked was when we just didn't care and we'd been together for 10 years and we now owned our own label yeah I just I
37:28
just think you but you built a world for yourself so no one could take away I mean whether you realize it or Not by necessity because the major label didn't sign you all right let's begin by actually building our own our own
37:38
Fortress War right in what we put inside it well over time that's up to you no one can get inside your wall I want to talk about this place man because look at this place by the way this is like I mean first of all I'm just really glad it hasn't been knocked down well my
37:51
friend has bought it so it's not getting knocked down that's amazing it's amazing that is like stealth wealth much so Mars bro yeah I know right marlsborough house how important is that doorway yeah right that doorway I take a picture of that
38:04
door every time I come back yeah every time I come back I take a picture I gotta take a picture of it right now I'm serious and it's so miserable it's like but if that's what's cool about it is it has a sense of once you go in there there's nothing else that matters of
38:18
course and of course we all understand where like that there's Beauty and brutalism and like you know we can understand like architecture from that perspective but there's like a miserableism here well it's that black door really is kind of
38:32
such an important well I I can't really put myself next to like uh Joy Division or those kind of did you rehearse so today so there's a linear there's a line okay so they rehearsed at the time that we were rehearsing there it we down
38:46
there it was us everything everything delphic and the answering machine that was very much what was happening in Manchester at the time and um it was all downstairs in here Sean Ryder came numerous times in Nick the PA and sold it I'd say that this is one of
39:03
the most important buildings in kind of in kind of music history because every band that's from Manchester is has been it's been in there but by the way in case anybody's worrying I can see where this is going already everyone's gonna
39:17
be like could have could have shared your umbrella Maddie what the what the he's trying and I'm like I got a hoodie don't worry I'm trying my best I'm just trying to I'm trying to make sure I preserve your integrity here so right where this van is parked here
39:31
yeah this van yeah parked out here this is where I wrote the lyrics to the city I was sat here in the van we were playing Drive bus we were playing dry bar and I was parked here in the van that we bought from the Christian swimming club
39:50
and I wrote the city in this space which is a loading only now but it definitely wasn't because I've never been that and so what else do you remember about that experience like I remember I remember don't call it Spade if it isn't the
40:03
spade and starting to I remember that I was basically I wrote chocolate and then people started to listen and then I was like ah instead of just rhyming I'm gonna have to do words as well yeah yeah yeah because chocolate is literally just
40:15
me writing it I know but but you're right the city was witty the city was witty nice little bit nice little word play but that's the first time that I started thinking oh maybe my currency is in telling the through the truth through like being a bit funny I think that if
40:30
you're constantly Earnest it's boring you're the boy who cried wolf like the fact that so when I'm Earnest people believe me because they're like oh God he's like said that so what's the most what's that this is a tough one tell me
40:43
tell me you love me because that's all I need to hear without talking about my dick like that kind of thing you know I mean now this is without ruining it this is the most important one for me so this is Affleck's Palace this is where it all
41:01
this is a new thing again this is very different this used to be like a crazy bizarre all right mate um like a crazy crazy bizarre but so you used to come in here this used to be a t-shirt shop yeah but up on this wall was like I've played MSG I've you know what this
41:24
is the stuff I've done this moment for me because walking around this corner was the moment because it was stone roses it was Joy Division it was all that and one time when I was about 25 I came back to Affleck's Palace and I came
41:36
around the corner and there it is dude that was the best man it's a good position moment of my career that was the best moment of my career what year was this what did you done well this is 2013. so like you know that one there that one there
42:03
but that was that was when I was like okay you've got Hacienda you've got Smith's you've got 75 was that that's that's what I'm happy with the councilor trying to shut down the night and day for a noise complaint yeah
42:19
and it's been there for 30. I mean it's like moving to Leicester Square and then complaining about there have been too many Cinemas yeah yeah it's been nice today you know for me to be back yeah you know I spent formative years of my life in the UK I love the UK
42:33
you know it's been really nice just to kind of see you walk the streets here and be appreciated and it hasn't always been that way you've taken your fair amount of shots oh yeah yeah for real um but you know the truth will always
42:47
out it's weird doing this with you man you know like I came kind of after John peel like you were the taste maker for my for my generation so to like be reflective and walk around and talk about me like yeah it's great it's great
43:00
but it's all part of one thing it's it's um it's been nice for me as well I mean I came back quite a lot when I was writing being funny when I was um when I was finalizing lyrics I spent a lot of time walking around if you don't have a whole camera crew you don't draw
43:22
as much attention but um but still different time as well I think everybody was pretty focused on the micro then um that was a real indication to me that things are getting back to whatever The New Normal is the fact that people aren't just looking straight ahead or in
43:38
their own Direction they're actually willing to notice somebody else across the street that's Matthew Healy and then not not thinking about the kind of weird social boundaries yeah yeah yeah that's what I mean it's been really nice to
43:49
kind of see the whole Human Experience happen but it makes it makes total sense and I think that the reflection of your lyrics drawing people back towards you it it's all with purpose you've written an album if it is inclusive and it's it's
44:03
self-reflective in a very honest way I feel like in a weird way this is my observation of your boys at this point in your life is that before you've been riding inside the room yeah trying to reflect what it feels like to be one of
44:14
that crowd yeah this album feels to me like you're actually and you're still doing that but you're looking more back at the crowd and seeing how it affects people in a different way if you look at like our show like our last show it's
44:27
like a like an Adam Curtis documentary it's like words and I'm at the front and I'm telling you and there's this 22 track record and it's a big like construct and every movement felt a little existential yeah existential but quite deliberate yeah this record we
44:42
wanted to let people be a witness to something a bit more so the last album was going to see Transformers of the IMAX this is like going to see a play that maybe you'll be like should I go to the bathroom right now it's maybe a bit
44:55
awkward it makes total sense now because as soon as the piano comes in which is obviously the LCD reference to all my friends reference which is I know very knowing and it's beautiful and no one's gonna ever hate on that sound so it comes in
45:07
it almost does feel like the house lights have just gone down and that's the first thing you get it's it it's it is very much like that it starts and it ends and it happens and you can listen to it as one thing I remember hands
45:20
saying like this isn't war on peace this is like our holiday photos this is like a collection of Polaroids it's like it's a Captured Moment of a time that isn't particularly interested in the past or the the future you know people ask me quite often
45:38
what is it about the 1975 or why are the 1975 like still big or why are they still relevant or why people are asking and it's like bad for you to qualify it's hard for me to qualify but if you asked me that question I think well if you just subtract us from band and put
45:54
us next to Taylor Lana Kendrick Frank I'm pushing it a little bit but like you know like let's say put it in that ninja no one is asking questions about why they're still interested yeah it's because we're just four Dudes with guitars and for up
46:12
nearly a hundred years no since like you know 80 years we've known what that is we've known how long they last we've known that they come from a scene we know that the scene dies we know that something else yeah but it's different
46:25
with you you are a band on paper but the way that you create the way that you change and it shapeshift and adapt to the times and reflect the times you are you'll almost move as a four-person solo artist in that regard because because a band is completely for
46:42
us it's like you're a weird band yeah but it's because it's arbitrary the band thing is we're a weird band I'm not a weird artist no I actually think you're a very honest pretty transparent I think it's pretty kind of I think it's quite
46:56
post-modern and meta and all these things but we're all smart enough to understand that it's like yeah yeah but as a band it's like we're not like bands because bands sound like things and and that we just happen to be four Dudes who
47:11
play recognizable instruments and at the core of it is friendship man I mean the reason bands break up is because the relationship gives way um there's a lot of things pushing and pulling at that but friendship if it's strong we'll always see it through I I
47:25
really don't ever get a feeling that you guys have actually ever had your backs against the wall in terms of your friendship ever no now that is rare that has to be acknowledged yeah and that's not something really comment on or take credit for
47:38
like we hang out like we're best mates it's like like I said it's not that so wait are you saying you split everything fairly as a band we have done up until this album and then the guys changed it yeah so and we're Tony open to talk about
47:56
everything so it's always been known that me and George are predominantly the main songwriters but we've essentially split all of the songwriting money equally amazing up and up until being funny because it's not just about my ability to write
48:11
songs it's the environment that is nurtured for me to do that so like if there was ego or resentment or anything else going on I wouldn't be able to do my job in the 1975. I have to also qualify what you're saying because anybody who's still stuck on that
48:28
comment about I don't do things for money which was in the New York Times recently which is a great piece by the way Joe but um anything that was anyone who takes anything from that you don't split your writing percentages evenly if you're if you if
48:47
you're bullshitting like that is a serious Line in the Sand it has been before anybody questioned that and what happened was basically rare by the way well and then as an example of how mature a relationship has got is that we never spoke about that we never said why
49:03
we were doing that it's just what we were going to do we'd lived we we'd slept on each literally slept on each other's laps for 10 years and what I'm gonna take more money than Ross because it's working because I'm because I yeah
49:16
yeah whatever it is why would I do that with my boy yeah yeah yeah you know and also like you know like when there's four of you and two people start saying you go like whatever do you know what I mean whereas if there was four of them and it was
49:29
just me and Ross yeah Ross would be ready regardless of what's the story of Glastonbury some guy had stuff that's your first ever glasses it's our first ever Glastonbury and somebody was like throwing cans and you know someone's
49:42
drunk or whatever but then this one guy started standing on cans and turning him into like ninja death stars and he's throwing these things at my head that's up anyway Ross catches him doing it by the time I noticed Ross had lobbed
49:55
himself over the barrier and was now scrapping with this guy now this isn't to say oh we're Lads from Manchester and we like a fat we're not fire you are we are a bit but we're soft Lads from Cheshire who love art really is what we are but but the truth is is that we
50:10
bound together and we like it sounds silly like we would die for like if someone like pulled a gun it would be who gets in the way first you know I mean we're not like there's nothing to be a bit sad like that there's nothing else like that in my life
50:31
got a bit emotional man oh it's nice to recognize it I don't have um I don't have anything like else like that in my life thank God you have that in your life you know I I think about what you must have been going through it in the moment
50:56
when you were ultimately most distracted from your emotions and and searching for anything else but the reality right you know what I'm talking about really tough time for you we've never spoken about it I've always given you a wide berth on it
51:09
but um we're talking about friendship and trust and people being there for each other how important was their support in that time when you were going through your issue with drugs so the heroine thing was a problem because it
51:23
was the first time where there had been any thing that one of us was doing or was into that the others weren't could come between yeah so they weren't into that they weren't attracted to that for some reason I was and so it was the first time I had to
51:48
like tell them something so it was the first time that the idea of a secret existing even came out that's huge so it's almost as if like okay well is there anything else that we've not known like that you because that's a big thing yeah there's
52:07
diligence you have to do before you can focus on the issue for sure I mean listen The Story Goes the famous story goes is that we're in Conway we were trying to make a brief inquiry and I basically the guys kind of called me out one night
52:24
at dinner and they were like listen dude like you know that we know what's up like we don't think you're in the right place to be making a record and to be honest with you it's kind of bumming us out like being in a studio with you like
52:34
strung out because this isn't what we do you know it's not you at your best and all this kind of thing and I think I ended up saying something like well you know what I've got you got it it's it's hard to be me if you want me this is me everyone's
52:54
gonna have to deal with this I'd never it never gets to like you or anything like that but I was like no you need to you need to respect my drug addiction and um I woke up the next morning almost like with an emotional hangover and I
53:10
was like oh my God Not only was that the wrong thing to say that was so cringe like because I know that they will get over that but that's going to be an anecdote that they'll take the piss out of me for years for that's the first thing I need to think about but the
53:24
thing that I learned is that when you get to rehab often you meet a selection of people who have lost everything yeah and losing everything as elicited this desire to change their life now when I got to rehab I realized I'd not lost
53:40
anything I'd nearly lost the respect of everybody I loved but I hadn't hadn't lost my career hadn't lost your position hadn't lost my possessions Emily hadn't lost my money I was just walking a very very thin line I think that I was lucky
53:57
enough in my um condition in the way that I am as a person to recognize that what needed to be done needed to be done and also what when I was doing heroin I was really scared about people finding out about it not because of the moral outcry because I didn't want to be a
54:21
cliche and you know why else because I didn't want to do a sober record I didn't want people to think because basically when I made a brief inquiry I was like okay I can take ownership of this narrative if people had found out I wouldn't have
54:42
been able to say your fear was I can't shake this now and by doing it the way you did it and then facing it down the way you've done it even today having the courtesy to answer the question and when you've been asked her before it's kind
54:55
of it doesn't fall into that whole of oh he's just a recovering drug guy who's trying to get back to his greatness it's like it was a temporary thing move on yeah and also it's kind of like like anything I don't stay in many places for a long time and I go through
55:13
lots of phases and the junky phase yeah was the kind of phase of mine I'm always going to have an issue with substances but I do a lot of stuff that I would do in place of drugs that I now do that I prefer drug to jiu jitsu yeah being in
55:33
the gym yeah um like I know that sounds like quite arbitrary but to be honest with you like that's really common being as the 1975 has has gotten let's say bigger the the world has gotten smaller and what you see really is the work of Me
55:56
Jamie Ed Sam me Jamie oborn Ed the band yep Jamie oborn Ed blow Samuel Johnson and Patricia Villa how do I say your second name I mean villarilio Patricia villarilio I mean you he's the most patient answer of the day did you hear that yeah the most
56:17
patient you can actually hear go ah yeah because she's my best friend of like seven years exactly she's not my best friend I don't know her name I just don't know what it is I mean if it wasn't Charming right you want to just creative director
56:33
is me and Patty you've got Jamie and Ed who are the editors and the runners of everything so it's like the team is so small so I have so much to do I have so much physically to do that also being able to do it without Clinging On yeah feels really
56:51
good yeah like being able do you know what I mean like when you when you get past 10 press-ups to 50. yeah the knowledge that you can do 50. yeah is just a good feeling yeah so like I have the ability to like to do stuff a bit better now like I
57:09
think that everything I did was in I mean I'm 33 I'm not old but like everything I did was completely in the like the bloom of pure youth you know I mean the way I moved the way and you wore it and still wear it really well
57:25
but I think I can speak for everybody everybody everybody just mentioned all the fans everybody want to say that if you had ended up not going to rehab and by the way you talked about walking a fine line it's pretty common knowledge that that fine
57:42
line goes more often than not down a Hill yeah somehow you didn't roll down a Hill God that would have sucked can you imagine what would have happened yeah that promise had been yeah I can imagine what what would have happened I just
57:58
I just they would have sucks it would have thing well it would have sucked man and also it just it's just such a waste all that kind of as well because also it's like I actually much prefer me now at this age than I did before because I think I was having
58:21
a bit of an identity crisis because I was like I wanted to be a serious writer but I was like 26. yeah so you you you can't be serious anything you don't have the tools yet yeah by the way that goes for everybody yeah it gets better like
58:33
I'm not gonna lie to you like I'm old that's okay it's really good now and like really like myself now like for a lot of my 20s and 30s I hated myself yeah you do and that's what it's for and you you do 90 things wrong in your 20s and you get three of them right
58:51
and you focus on those and I think that are you man there's a lyric oh there's a lyric what that was you say it outright you say I apologize for my 20s I was figuring it out oh yeah what is it I apologize I'm sorry about my 20s I was
59:04
learning the ropes I had a tendency of thinking about it after I spoke which is very great learning very true I have a tendency of thinking about it after I exactly but that's what you do especially if you're Matthew Haley well if you put me who's like trying to
59:19
figure out who I am on a camera and be like what do you think it's like what do I think yeah but what's awesome is you haven't changed like most people get so sick of sick and guessing themselves in the wake of analysis that you either
59:32
button up or disappear you're sitting here and we're just like wide open and that's what I love about it is like you keep committed you're like I can't write this unless I live it there are some constants through your writing and certainly in the in the Sonic
59:47
the landscape of 75 albums which is this yearning for affection connection yeah connection and all that comes with it um hope disappointment love heartache boys girls love lust smoking smoking drinking posturing the real thing yeah
1:00:16
it's all there but this is the album for the first time that I heard you give in to it in a in a pretty overt way like you've always painted this picture about what relationships are yeah but you are you just like I'm in love with you yeah 100 tell me
1:00:36
you love me that's what I want that's what I need to hear it took me a line just I'm only really safe when we're together God when you say it like as kind of almost prosaic is that it maybe that's the thing that I've always tried to
1:00:50
avoid it it comes slightly from me and Me growing up it comes from two things it doesn't come from being in love it does come from being in love but it comes from different experiences of being in love and it also comes from Han
1:01:04
and George being sat at the desk and me doing the typical 1975 thing where we have this beautiful sugar pop thing that we know is So Glorious yeah yeah and I'm trying to go um not in love with you I'm trying to debase the sentiment to the point that
1:01:22
hand cuts the thing goes dude say it say it write a song about I love you you've written enough songs about how you don't like this or this is what you're scared if you're impelled to write a song about this be in the moments that's always the
1:01:35
quiet one say right and I think that this whole I've been talking about sincerity is scary for a long time and it's a lot easier to be ironic in the face and instead of being um sincere but the thing is like it's not even getting old it's just growing up a little bit
1:01:50
this whole like nihilism and individualism that I was defined by postmodernism that all of my previous albums have been defined by individualism drug addiction nihilism the search for all these kind of things the internet the Internet it's all very
1:02:06
sexy and cool and transgressive and maybe appropriate at that time but it will life will eventually Make Way for a less sexy set of circumstances family question mark responsibility question mark love question mark and these are
1:02:25
the big things now I've always be I've been scared of the big things and I've never wanted to take them on and certain people don't David Byrne could write the best song in the world about this cup and it would be amazing but that's a small thing he's not going to write a
1:02:41
song about love heal he'll manage to by accident but I've always done small things I've gone okay we'll look under in the end man I mean homes where I want to be that's where you're at on this album now this is what I mean it took him a while
1:02:56
of only looking at the small to make so many small gestures that he painted this huge world yeah and I think with this record I was like yeah I could say I've got a disease and you took a picture of your salad and put it on the internet I
1:03:11
could do that or I could say just tell me you love me that's all I need to hear it's amazing it was really it was a revelation hearing you get to get to the point and that's that thing about I'm talking about earnestness is
1:03:24
that if you're always Earnest then when you really do it it doesn't it it it it doesn't really translate whereas the one thing that I know on this record is that I believe everything that I'm saying because it's hard because that's the
1:03:38
thing where I'll edit I'll go back and be like what's up did I mean that or was I posturing or was I like making it up do you know I mean I saw you on Jaws the other night you were like nothing wrong with a little self-indulgence yeah you did it was great because you
1:03:52
you lit that you let the song go for another 32 bars of sack solo and you literally caught yourself and went nothing wrong with a little self-indulgence and it was brilliant because what it said was like I'm fully aware that you're at home and especially
1:04:03
all the kids out there are just dying to move on but I kind of wanted this just go I kind of just want to do my thing yeah man and and I just think it's for me it's really fascinating but I I want to I want to finish by asking you this
1:04:16
what do you know about love at this point in your life to write those kind of songs you can't be wise and in love that's what Bob Dylan said you can't be wise and in love it's a trade-off after it you can be wise for a bit until you're in love again you can't be wise
1:04:34
and in love so trying to be both which is what I always was is Sisyphus you know it's completely specific and it's for me I've always wanted all loves at once I've wanted the romantic love I've wanted the phone call at the end of the
1:04:51
night I've wanted the text in the morning I've wanted the connection with 10 000 people on the other side of the world I've wanted the domestic life I've wanted the love from fans I've wanted all those loves at once and because I
1:05:02
always tried to take them at once they were Always In conflict with another with one another so my malady that was going on in my relationship would mean that I'd be thinking about it when I'm stood in front like 10 000 people when I
1:05:16
shouldn't be thinking about that I should be thinking about that love and what I'm trying to do is separate the loves and experience them as exclusively as possible because when you're 20 and you've got all this love and all these
1:05:29
girlfriends and all these people that look precious it's just thrashy as man and and I think that now like I I I think I'm starting to understand where the love is and what I don't want to take for granted is that thing that we've spoken about why do people do that
1:05:48
as shows grown people will go to a show and they know they can't touch you but they do that but it's because they're reaching for that one thing that like connects you in the artist it's this transient ephemeral thing that is what music
1:06:05
you're talking about Mass because that means something else as well you know that means something else no no I'm talking no I'm not talking about what you think I mean that that is also Applause is it not yeah I suppose it is and it's not Applause it's Applause if
1:06:15
you're hearing impaired it's Applause yeah yeah and and I think that you can see it on mass it must mean something well yeah but it's people reaching for something which is why I like hate paid meet and greets because it's like someone's you've paid for the album
1:06:27
you've paid for the tickets you get them in the room and somebody's gone how do we monetize that thing it's just not good how do we how do we get this you know the touchy bit you know what the model should be what if you want to do a
1:06:40
pip you tell you what if you want to do paid me and greets do them I stand by here but you take the money if you're an artist and you do paid meet and greets do it cash and you take the money off the fan I challenge you to do that don't don't
1:06:56
put it on the moment yes yes don't put it on the company don't put the responsibility on someone can we get the Apple pay over here please man I've got a fan who wants to shake my hands right it's gross it's absolutely gross that you might not now
1:07:13
young people being convinced by adults that want to make more money and go oh yeah sure I'm not judging them I'm saying trust me do a paid meet and greet where it's 20 quid of meet and greet and every single fan before they touch you
1:07:29
go let me see that 20. and you'll do it for two minutes and you'll never do it again because you'll realize that it's disgraceful yeah and all that lot that Jared Leto crowd who promote all that is it's a Abomination greatest rapper of all time Lil Wayne