Health - Health Through Noise

To mark the release of the Californian band's third album, we caught up by phone with bassist John Famiglietti. His answers reveal the quartet's desire not to feel boxed in along their musical and creative path, but also their wish not to betray the core ideas that led to the band's formation ten years ago now.

The name of your website is simply "youwilllloveeachother", which is odd since names are usually tied to the band's own name. Where does "youwillloveeachother" come from?

The site was actually originally called "healthnoise.com", but then we were offered money for the name because someone wanted to use it for a health blog. So we decided to take the money and build a new site. "youwillloveeachother" was, from the start, a kind of symbol for the band, showing off our more dance-oriented side.

I saw you live in 2009 at Casa 139, not sure if you remember.

Was that in Milan or Bologna?

In Milan. I remember that time there were almost explosions of guitars, while now the sound is much more varied, but I think you can still tell this is the evolution of a band, you've broadened your sonic spectrum but you're not doing anything completely different. What do you want to tell us about that?

Yeah, that's the point. Everything we do falls under the same basic ideas, but at the same time we feel like we don't want to be limited by anything. The core of what we do is always the same, but I think this is the best record we've made.

What I like about this record, as with the previous ones, is that the sound itself is already capable of grabbing the listener's attention, so that's already an important element, but the melodies and the songwriting are too.

This is definitely the most melodic record we've made, as well as the one with the widest sound. In general, I can only agree with what you're saying, and thank you.

Compared to the previous records, I get the impression that vocally this record is much more demanding for whoever has to sing it, since he has to make himself heard over a very layered sound. Did you notice any particular difficulties for your singer compared to the past?

No, actually it was the opposite, for Jake it's much easier to sing this record than the previous ones, it's true the sound is more layered, but it's also much more melodic. Plus we were also particularly excited about these new songs, so I think he was more eager to sing them too.

With all these different things flowing into the songs, how do you build them? I read that early on you had to spend a lot of time figuring out how to write together. Did you change anything along the way?

A lot has changed, and either way it's different every time — for this record we used the computer a lot more. In general, the process changes depending on who brings in the initial idea. If it's me, I usually just bring a basic concept, a kind of instruction, and we work on it together from there. Now, with the computer, I build the idea and we work from that. For this record, some songs came directly from melodies brought in by Jake — for us, building an entire song's world starting from a melody was something new. Either way, the biggest change was using a computer. There's also more electronics compared to the previous records, so we had no choice but to use a computer.

We non-native English-speaking listeners will probably pay a lot more attention to what we've talked about so far and won't pay much attention to the lyrics. Is there anything you want to tell us about that in general?

Actually, we've never paid much attention to the lyrics either, even on the previous records... But on this one, yes, we paid attention to that aspect too, there's a lot of talk about death and things like that.

So does the title “Death Magic” come precisely from the fact that the theme of death recurs so much in the lyrics?

Yes, it talks about death, but also about existentialism and real experiences. Either way, for me it's not a problem if people only judge our music and aren't interested in the lyrics.

Does Jake write the lyrics?

Yes, he writes them all. We collaborate on everything else, but that's something only he does, the rest of us just approve them or not. Only the ones that get unanimous approval make it in.

I also saw you live when you opened for Interpol last January, here in Milan. When you played those shows, was the new record already finished?

Yes, it was already ready. Anyway, after we played them live at those shows, we changed a lot of things about the songs, about the way we perform them, and for the upcoming shows they'll be in a different shape.

I see you have a few European dates coming up, unfortunately without Italy, I hope you'll come back here at some point. In these live shows you're about to play, will there be a big difference compared to how the songs sound on record?

Yes, not a huge difference, but there is something different.

Is it just the band on stage, or do you have any additional musicians?

It's just us, the band members, I'd never bring in extra musicians for live shows.

Your previous album of new material came out in 2009, so a lot of time has passed. I know you haven't exactly been idle as a band, between remixes and other things, but has any of you worked on other projects outside of Health?

None of us has other projects, we're too busy working on every technical detail to make sure it comes out right. It's been ages since any of us last worked outside the band.

Do you already have a timeline for your next releases?

All we know is that we'd like the next releases to come out at more normal intervals, not after all the time that passed between the previous album and this one - that's the only plan we have. Right now we're busy playing live, which is a wonderful thing and something we love doing a lot, especially now, after not having done it for such a long time.

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