With The Enemy well and truly back in the game, I caught up with them to find out all about the band, their drunken antics and what the future holds.
CW: Talk me through the album, tell me a bit about it.
The Enemy: Well we spent pretty much most of last year writing it. We took some time off and then we started writing again without really thinking too much about the album we just wanted time to write songs. We recorded half in London and half in LA which is quite cool. We recorded it with the guitarist from a band called The Bronx which are a punk band and we got the raw sound back. We sound like ourselves again and the songs are there, it's all good.
CW: So when it comes to writing do you guys all write together ?
The Enemy: Tom will always do the lyrics, and I suppose it varies, sometimes Tom's already had an idea, or we're all in the practise room and jamming it out. Like 'Gimme The Sign', the first song on the album, literally we wrote in three minutes. Just jammed it out. But we've got some older songs on there as well which have been around for a few years that we kind of had the chorus and never did anything with so there was a little bit of reworking. They've turned out really well. If a song's not working we never go back to it but on this album we thought sod it yeah, got back to that old riff.
CW: When it comes to writing do you ever have any disagreements?
The Enemy: Yeah all the time. Not big ones. But you've got to speak your mind, if you don't like something say "yeah I'm not feeling" that or whatever. You've all got to put in your ideas but you can't argue, you've got to enjoy it.
CW: That must be hard in a band because you guys spend a lot of time together, especially when there is tension. How do you guys work through that?
The Enemy: Well it hasn't been this time. There was on the back of the last album, because it'd been non stop. We took a year out, so we basically just took time off and lived quite normal lives again because we had to get back to reality really. Hang out with our mates and stuff. We've all got different mates at home so we all went back. We spent a bit of time apart from each other. We didn't have two years off, we started demoing really early on, and we probably had about a year. It's just time off touring and time off when you're constantly living in each others pockets was nice to take in, and every thing is better for it. The songs are better, everyone's happier.
CW: You've played some incredible places and come up with some incredible material. How did it feel going back to normal life and what was normal life for you?
The Enemy: We still live where we've always lived so we're not far removed from our old lives anyway. What we mean by that is instead of "oh we're back for a couple of days" and then doing one to the lads back home or whatever. It's like sod it we were there with them, in a way it was like "shit they're at work, what am I going to do now?" We got houses, got a bit settled and just sorted our own shit out, and yeah it's all good now.
CW: How important do you think it is for a band to be grounded and have their roots down like that?
The Enemy: I think it's important for us, I suppose it's different for everyone, I think some people probably like to get sucked in by certain lifestyles, if they're happy doing that then that's sound, but we're all quite grounded and we know at the end of it we don't want to be left with naff all. You've got to strike up some sort of balance.
CW: Who's the worst behaved out of you all?
The Enemy: We're all quite chilled none of us are complete nutters. I think Andy's more likely to be the one that hurts himself, he hurts himself a lot. Broke his fingers before a tour and nearly broke his shoulder and ankle. He went to Download Festival and ended up with a broken shoulder.
CW: How?
The Enemy [Andy]: Well, I was drunk again. Basically all these injuries are from getting drunk. Like one day I was on The Sun golf day and me and Danny from Mcfly were like sliding across this bar and I decided I wanna try a flip, trying to out do each other and I made a fool out of myself and nearly broke my heel.
CW: Okay what is the craziest thing you guys have done as a band?
The Enemy: I ended up in hospital on a drip, I started drinking early because I was nervous about the gig, back in the early days. Someone must have spiked a drink or something somewhere along the line because I started whacking my head against loads of stuff and Liam's like "what are you doing?" And I was fuming, I can't remember. They filmed me for a bit and then they realised. Apparently I tried jumping out of a van with my hands behind my back.
CW: While it was going?
The Enemy: No just about to but luckily the guitar tech caught me. I was sick in a bramble bush, like I can't remember any of this and then suddenly my face started scrunching up. Ended up in the back of an ambulance and they tried to get me in and I was like "no!". They couldn't get me in. It was quite weird. And then I started spitting at the ambulance crew and stuff, and I'm not like that at all and I can't remember that and it was just horrible, then I got into hospital and I was on a drip and I ripped the needle out of my arm and Tom said there was just like blood squirting out. I'm scared of needles, I can't even remember any of that, oh and then I walked out of the hospital with a piss pot on my head and started going up to everyone in there saying "Hi nice to meet you". Delayed the journey home by about five hours I think didn't it? Everyone was fuming. I still lived with my mum and dad at that point as well, we got back and I was like "Yeah it was a good gig", "Why are you so late?", "Nearly died.".
CW: So moving forward what are we expecting from you guys?
The Enemy: I'm looking forward to festivals next year. These festivals we've got off the back off being The Enemy, where as it's going to be nice to see where this album takes us next year. More tours, we've got a tour later on this year and hopefully there'll be a number one. It's all about promoting an album, because not in an arrogant way but we're so proud of it. We made sure it was brilliant, and I know what people want to hear. It's just getting people to hear it, with limited radio playing stuff it's hard to get out there.
CW: Do you think that it can hold artists back the fact that radio has got so much power?
The Enemy: Yeah 100%. I think it does hold some back because there are a lot of people who do take lead from what's on the radio. It's their prerogative to do what they want. We know we've just got to go out there and play good gigs and if you get radio play then that's great but if you don't you've just got to work extra hard. Everyone that hears the album as well, like the feedback on Twitter and Facebook, they love it! Not one person and that is genuinely not one person that I've seen has said it's bad, like everyone who's got the album and listened to it is like "Yeah you're back!" so we're well excited. And we had that year off and now we're in the best position we've ever been in. Literally like, taking a step back from the industry and stuff you work out exactly how it works and you're like ah!
CW: What's your favourite track on the album?
The Enemy: Mine is either 'This Is Real' or 'Saturday'. I quite like 'Gimme The Sign' which is the opening track, cause that's like quite a raw, in your face sort of track. I know Tom's is 'Big Cages'. But we really like the whole album like luckily we had enough songs where we liked every tune on it. 'This Is Real', playing it at a festival is wicked, it creates an atmosphere because it's a slow one but then it's a builder and it's building to a massive sing along.
CW: Awesome. Well good luck it was lovely to meet you
The Enemy: You too!
Written By ::: Carly Wilford
Website ::: http://carlywilford.com
Twitter ::: https://twitter.com/#!/CarlyWilford
Facebook ::: http://www.facebook.com/ItsCarlyWilford