In a matter of hours, Joe Newman, Gwil Sainsbury, Thom Green and Gus Unger-Hamilton will take the stage of Sydney’s Oxford Arts Factory for their Australian debut. Tickets for the two exclusive shows in Sydney and Melbourne sold out in five minutes.
Pleas from those who missed out immediately began emerging online. Weeks before the band was set to appear, tickets on eBay skyrocketed to upwards of $300, an impressive feat for a band with a debut album only weeks old.
They are Alt-J (∆), and by almost all accounts, these four young men are the most successful British band of the year. With their debut album, An Awesome Wave and singles Tessellate and Matildaplaying on high rotation across radio, the boys are now odds-on favorites to win the heralded Mercury music prize.
“Being nominated for the Mercury Prize is beyond belief”, says frontman Newman. It’s the best award for us, because it’s an award for our album, and we are all about the album. We love albums, we think that they are still extremely relevant, and to be nominated for An Awesome Wave is such an honour.”
It has been five years of hard work for the band, formerly known as Films, but the result, or reward if you like, is an impressively mature debut. An Awesome Wave is filled with well-crafted hooks that move beyond shallow lyrical matter into poetry filled with esoteric allusions. It is clever and complex music that somehow remains highly accessible for general consumption. “Being broadminded when it comes to writing is very important, I think. We don’t limit ourselves to worrying if fans are going to like it or not. The best bands, and the ones we admire the most, have sounds that are hard to grasp, like Radiohead or The Beatles – that’s something that I admire about them.”
Alt-J has drawn heavy comparison to Brit progressive-rock pioneers Radiohead, but believe such claims are premature. “I don’t think it’s very accurate to compare a band that have one album to a band like Radiohead,” says keyboardist Unger-Hamilton, “They are amazing because they stay relevant. They are progressive and have crafted their sound over twenty or so years and their success is consistent. We’ve only got one album, and the next one could be shit!”
Such humility is quite remarkable considering their rising status, and they are far more endearing than they realise. Unbeknownst to them, their Australian fan base has steadily grown, and as they playedTessellate to a sold out crowd at Oxford Arts Factory, hundreds of voices join in as the line “triangles are my favourite shape”, resonates throughout the room.
“It’s very strange coming to a country that you don’t know, and have only experienced through television or books, but our music has gone before us and made a home here,” says Newman, hiding from the uncharacteristically hot spring sun. When told of the astronomical ticket prices their shows attracted online, the pair were shocked: “Christ, that’s mad. Sorry everyone.”
“I think having our music online has really encouraged crowds. In the modern music industry, an album is not much more than a calling card. You may as well give it away for nothing. It’s much more about encouraging people to come to your gig. If they torrent our album but then buy a ticket to see us play, then that’s great,” says Unger-Hamilton.
“We are very pro making our album available to stream, because you might as well be in people’s favour and give it to them as opposed to punishing them for stealing it,” adds Newman. Unbelievably, Newman struggled for years to sing in front of anyone. It wasn’t until he met his band mates at Leeds University that his secret talent emerged. “I just thought, ‘Fuck it, I’m in a new environment with new people and a new city, I’m going to do what I always wanted to do,’ and singing in front of Gwill [Sainsbury] really gave me the confidence.”
“I think that the way I sing is a manipulation on my natural voice, but it’s my comfort zone. I was always singing because my dad sung, and there were bouts in my life where I wouldn’t sing at all and it really depressed me because I really enjoyed doing it, but I just didn’t think I was any good at it. I’ve never really thought about it, but I guess the way I sing is kind of forced but at the same time is really natural.”
Each track on the band’s outstanding debut is accompanied by an epic cinematic video-clip: Tessellate, directed by Alex Southam presents a modern twist on Italian Renaissance painter Raphael’s School Of Athens; Breezeblocks - a hypnotising murder scene played in reverse.
“From the beginning, we didn’t want to be in the videos, because we wanted to allow that time for the pure cinema that is attached to the music. We want to allow the directors complete free reign to go with these ideas without having to show us in there with our instruments. We all grew up watching great films, and so we thought it was really important to have great music videos. “We also didn’t like the culture of bands who didn’t even have an album yet wanting to have their picture taken. Band photos can be so formulaic. In not showing our faces in our videos or in press shots, we ended up with more interesting pictures. If you put limitations on things you immediately have to be more creative, and that was a lot of fun.”
Despite much speculation and numerous theories floating around regarding the band’s name (∆) (created from the Mac keyboard command for the ‘delta’ sign), the boys seem less convinced. “We were originally called Films, and that was the name we loved. That was the name of our baby, and traditionally you don’t change your child’s name because someone wants you to, but we had to for copyright reasons. We were struggling to come up with a name and then Gwill came to us and said he had a idea, and Gus liked it, I think Tom liked it, and I was like, great, that’ll do,” says Newman. “There is no meaning behind the triangle; we are not obsessed with the triangle.
