Hi-Res Audio European PR Asset: Q&A Description: Indie band Editors tell us about why Hi-Res Audio studio quality sound is important to them Q. What is the best thing about the recording process from an artist point of view? A. It is a massive thrill to hear your ideas come to life. In the case of a band like this it’s also the collective’s creative explorations coming to life, before your ears if you like. When you enter the studio, for the most part you have a good idea of where the demos are going. Over the course of our 4 albums so far we’ve spent a lot of time rehearsing prior to recording. But I think the best part of the recording process for me is the things that happen in the studio that you didn’t plan for, the spontaneous moments of creativity, those moments give you the biggest buzz because they’re a complete surprise. You can split being a band like Editors into two parts, recording and performing, for us the recording part has always been the most rewarding. Q. Your two studio albums ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ and ‘The Weight Of Your Love’ are being released in Hi-Res audio format on 19th November via Qobuz. How important to you is it that fans can hear the music in Hi-Res, exactly as you recorded it? A. I think it’s great that the opportunity for fans who desire to listen to the music in greater depth is there. As a musician, to know that listeners can go deeper into the sonics of your recordings if they wish is definitely a good thing. There’s a moment in the recording of every album we’ve made where all the tracking is done, it’s usually late at night and there’s usually been a few drinks had, and we all sit down together and listen to the recordings we’ve done so far nice and loud through the studio’s monitor speakers. We chat through which order we’re going to listen to the tracks in then just sit back and enjoy the work we’ve done. I often think it is at this point that the songs are never going to sound as good as they do ever again, even after mixing when although the songs will have developed and sound amazing there’ve gone through somebody else, the mixer, and have moved on from the bands original recording. Hi-Res audio is giving the listener a chance to get closer to that moment of recording, albeit the mixed version of the tracks, still it's closer to the artist’s vision than they were previously able to get. Q. The change in the music format landscape has seen a shift to user generated playlists, do you think album sequencing is still important against that backdrop? A. It is to me, I still enjoy an album that takes you on a journey, that shifts in mood in a pleasing way and that leaves you feeling differently to how you did when you started it. But I understand I’m in the minority in comparison to the wider record buying public. Q. Tell us about the way you sequenced ‘In This Light And On This Evening’, and why you ordered the tracks the way you did. What are the key factors of this part of the process? A. We always knew the title track was going to open the album, I think I knew that from the moment I recorded the demo in my front room. With the album being a dramatic shift in style and feel from our previous two records it was important that it started bravely, dramatic foreboding synths straight down the middle. The listener knows immediately they’re in a very different Editors world. It was also important that the album’s calling card ‘Papillon’ was near the front end. This record was an experimental thing for us, using unfamiliar sounds and instruments. We weren’t paying as much attention to traditional song writing structures and rules as we have done previously and since, and I think that shows in there being only really one decent “single” on there. Not that it is a negative thing to have an album shy of traditional radio-type songs but we knew this record wasn’t full of them so having ‘Papillon’ near the top was important. But not until we’d had the albums biggest groove ‘Bricks & Mortar’ at track two. Another important track in the realisation of this album, a very different feel and groove for us to attempt so it felt important to us that this was heard very early in the album. I think the rest of the order was kind of developed by committee between us all, trying out different ideas, sending playlists to and fro until we found something we all liked the flow of. ‘Walk the Fleet Road’ was always a strong favourite to close it, sad songs always are, don’t know why. I guess albums need to close like it’s the end of the night, last slow dance before bed. Q. Do you still download / buy full albums or are you more inclined to buy tracks separately? A. Albums all the way for me. Even if I hear one track by an artist and not know anything else about them I’ll still download the album. I want to know what the artist is about, I can't get that from just one track. If I love the album ill then buy the vinyl. Q. You worked with Flood on ‘In This Light And On This Evening’, how did that relationship come about? A. Like it always does, we send the producer we’re gunning for demos of the tunes and hope they’re into them and want to work with us. In Flood’s case we thought he’d be the perfect guy to help us bring the dark electronic songs and ideas to life. He had made so many records we all loved and in particular we were listening to ‘Violator’ (Depeche Mode’s 7th studio album) a fair bit so he seemed like the obvious choice. We were over the moon when he said he was into the stuff. When we met for the first time he came into our rehearsal room wearing a t-shirt which said “The Beatles Were Shit”, we liked him straight away. Q. You worked with Jacquire King on ‘The Weight Of Your Love’, how did that relationship come about? A. We had already tried to make the record with Flood and with Chris Urbanowicz, our old guitarist but that didn’t work out. Ed, Russ and I continued working on the songs with Justin Lockey (Lead guitar) and Elliott Williams (Keys, synthesizers, guitars, and backing vocals.) We were essentially a new band, a new version of Editors at the least. We spent a long time rehearsing in this new line up and the songs were taking themselves into a more traditional rock setting, using the more traditional tools of rock albums gone by, electric and acoustic guitars, strings, big drums etc. I think being a new band it felt like the right thing to do, to try to be a band as it were, turn the amps up loud in the rehearsal room, and leave the synthesisers and experimentation behind for a while. I think Jacquire reflects that different approach for us. He makes great sounding rock records, in a variety of styles but all with the focus on the band, the playing and the songs, kind of old fashioned in a way but these elements can be missing in more electronic albums. Again we were chuffed to bits when Jacquire said he liked the songs and wanted to do it, before we knew it we were in America recording. This too was important, I think we all harboured dreams of recording in the States and certainly that set of songs were the most alt-rock Americana influenced songs Editors had ever written. Q. How would you describe the progression in sound between the two albums mentioned above? A. ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ is a dark, claustrophobic electronic rock record whereas ‘The Weight Of Your Love’ is a wide open rock record, more immediate in its sounds and in its song writing. Q. How would you describe the progression in sound that you’d like to see when you get back into the studio to record the next album? A. We’re already a long way into the recording of record five, and I think in some ways it’s a combination of the two. It’s much more electronic than ‘The Weight Of Your Love’ but it has an immediacy which that record shares. Q. Tell us a story about something that happened in the studio, behind the scenes, that will always live in your memory? A. Predictably it’s something stupid rather than insightful. Jacquire had a penchant for making Tequila drinks for us all, after a certain hour many an evening….hence why we called him Jacquila. It was one of these evenings when we were finishing the recording of the track ‘The Weight’. We were trying to the give the kick drum that leads the whole song a different feel so we decided to record us all, en masse, stamping our feet along with the beat. I’m not quite sure why the recording was so funny and why I remember it so well, but the look of pissed concentration on all of our smiling faces, tequila in hand, whilst trying to stamp along in time to the whole track will live with me for a long time.