INTERVIEW: Two Door Cinema Club

As teens, these three friends routinely held band practice in their parents’ garage, with no one believing anything serious to come of their efforts.

But when Northern Ireland bred TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB suddenly found themselves in demand left, right and pretty much all over the globe, those who were ever in doubt of the band were seriously proven wrong and left at the tail end of the trio’s success.

Released in 2010, debut album Tourist History gathered legions of fans with its anthemic lyrics and dance-inducing melodies. The band had something that made them so easily likeable; a fresh-faced, exuberant and youthful energy that was hard not to succumb to. Following its predecessor, Beacon is the band’s much anticipated sophomore album. Distinctly different from the sound listeners initially fell in love with, this latest offering is somewhat testament of the band maturing with their craft.

In the midst of their world tour and ahead of their upcoming Field Day (TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE) and Falls Festival appearances, Alean Penaflor spoke with bassist Kevin Baird after their Munich gig.

PS: Coming off the popularity of Tourist History, did you guys return to the studio with that fact as positive reinforcement, or more of a daunting responsibility to live up to?

KB: I think we didn’t think about it at all, we selfishly only thought about ourselves. We’d written the first album and went on tour with it. The time we spent between writing and going on tour, it lasted two to three years. So by the time we came around to writing a new record, we really just wanted to write something different, something new and have something else to play. We didn’t really think about anyone else, which I think is important to having a decent album. Because if you’re trying to mimic what you’ve done before, or you please other people where it’s been contrived and forced, it’s not really going to work.

PS: With that idea of, as you said, being ‘selfish’ musically, what were the driving themes for this album?

KB: The most driving theme for our second album, Beacon, was the fact that we’d been living a crazy, crazy, abnormal life for two years. Being on the road constantly, you know not seeing friends, families, girlfriends, whatever be with us working solidly. I’m getting to terms with being in a band, playing shows every night and having people who want to listen to our music, buy our music or you know tattoo your lyrics on their body, get autographs on their arms, their face or wherever. Getting used to that, was for me, a bit strange.

PS: Considering that the themes you mentioned were about your touring life and the experiences you’ve had, are there any particular songs that hold a real significance to you?

KB: Lyrics are a very personal thing and Alex (lead) writes all the lyrics to it, I think I can’t really commentate too much about lyrics in the album. But there’s many songs – like for example the song ‘Pyramids’ is a valuable experience three of us shared one day when we were in Mexico. We were on tour in Mexico and we had a day off, we went to the pyramids just outside of Mexico City and had the most amazing guided tour around the pyramids and that song’s just about that day, so I think that’s an important one for us.

PS: You’ve previously mentioned in another interview that album title Beacon alludes to the notion of being “stranded at sea, and aiming for this distant point, this beacon”. What is it that the band, if not yourself personally, is striving for this time around?

KB: It’s plain and simple really; we want the band to be at the most successful, bigger place than we were with the last album. Playing shows that are bigger than the ones we played last time we were in that city or selling more records – it’s simply that. We just want to keep writing more and better music.

PS: As a full-time musician, what’ve you found as a big downside that you didn’t necessarily think about at the beginning of your career?

KB: I guess just the craziness of what goes on, for example today. We woke up, we did interviews, then we sound-checked, then we did more interviews, we had dinner, then we did more interviews, then we played the show, and now we’re doing more interviews. It’s something that you never expect. We always looked at big bands and thought ‘they’re so cool’, they’re poised, they have people doing everything for them. Then they just rock up and play the show and write music all day, that kind of thing. Then we began to realise it’s not like that, there’s a lot of hard work you have to do and behind the scenes that people don’t know about. But I mean I’d rather do this than anything else, there’s a lot of things we didn’t really know till now.

PS: You guys only recently returned to the touring life, how’s the reception been so far on the new songs?

KB: It’s actually been surprisingly good, it’s kind of hard to know how people are going to react with songs they don’t really know so well. We’ve been so happy with how things are going. I think it’s just simply because we thought about things logically - we tried to work out a percentage, how many people we imagine have our new record and we kind of had to organise our set in accordance to that. When people come to shows they’re selfish, they want to hear the songs they like and they know that they can sing along to and dance to. We have to appreciate that - the point is we don’t bombard them with things they don’t know enough. But anytime we play a new song it’s great, people sing along and ­­­ have a good time.

PS: How have your relationships with the other band members changed throughout this entire experience, considering you’re redoing it all again after just being on a short break?

KB: I think our relationships have improved, a lot, since at the end of the first album. The first album took so much out of us, it was just totally, totally insane - I think it’s unhealthy to spend that much time with each other, like you can compare it to a married couple, sort of. You know they have that point in their day where they go to work or whatever, they have that space away from each other, it’s so similar to that as well. We don’t have any time away from each other and that’s really good to have time on your own. I mean our relationship never got bad, but on the first album - by the end of it we just needed some time apart and some normality. I think our relationships have basically become much better, because when we started this album, it was the first time - since we’d left Ireland when we lived in our parents’ houses - first time basically that we’d lived in separate houses. We’d always lived together and written music, I think it helped our sanity to not live together.

PS: Starting out, you would’ve aimed as a band to gain at least a steady following in the UK and quite possibly even make it big internationally. But now that you’ve successfully achieved beyond that, where even the President of the United States counts himself as an avid fan, does anything ever come as a surprise to you anymore?

KB: Yeah, of course! - I think especially for us working after the first album, things stopped surprising us. But when we had that first break and went back in the studio, writing these songs, we’re introducing new things to people and we kind of have that feeling again, that anything could happen. We’re still in a place where anything really can happen - we have to continually make good music and work hard for things, we’re very aware of how disposable we are. It’s important to work hard; things do surprise us and we are shocked and I think that’s a good way to be.

PS: Another high profiler that you’ve recently gained as a huge fan is Simon Cowell?

KB: I wouldn’t say he was a huge fan [laughs]. I think he was forced by the TV show he was on to listen to us and he politely shook our hands and said we wrote a good song. I’m not sure that he’d download our records and playing them in the office all day, while he’s doing the tours kind of thing, I don’t imagine that. We want to dream, want to dream!

PS: That’s interesting because, he specialises in these pop-star breeding reality shows. So what’s your opinion on those who become a worldwide hit just by auditioning on these things?

KB: I don’t believe that music should be competitive - it doesn’t make sense to me.  The people that actually influence it are the people who vote, the viewers basically. It’s not about these record label bosses or Simon Cowell saying the best person is more commercially viable than another person, it’s what the viewer’s saying ‘this person is better than that person’, that’s all it is. You can’t define that as music – but at the same time discovering talent is always an amazing thing. I always genuinely think it’s so crazy like when you’re in a band, the path is almost, at least the beginning of the path is almost achievable. It’s like we’re in a band, we play guitars, we write some songs, we ask a guy if we can play in his bar, he says yes, we play and we keep doing it until you get involved in the local scene. But I don’t know with these artists, like Leona Lewis – how do you start like that? Do you just go to karaoke bars and sing? Doesn’t really work like that, I don’t think. So it’s hard to quantify from my perspective, ‘cause I think about how a band can do things other than a solo artist, mainstream pop artist would do things.

PS: On the back of Alex (lead) performing at the Olympics ceremony, if TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB could write a theme song for any event or TV show, what would it be?

KB: We would love to soundtrack an episode of Boardwalk Empire – Sam and I are massive fans of Boardwalk Empire.

Words by Alean Penaflor

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