Lanterns On The Lake - Emotions in the multiverse

About ten days before the release of the new Lanterns on the Lake album, I met songwriter Hazel Wilde for a long chat on Zoom. We talked about "Versions Of Us", but also about the band's previous projects, the climate crisis and hope for a better future. In the interview that follows, you can read about the past, present and (uncertain?) future of the English band. Or at least the version that exists in our universe: the ones populating the multitude of parallel universes, unfortunately, I haven't managed to track down yet…

Hi Hazel, how are you? The release of your new album, "Versions Of Us", is imminent.

It's a strange feeling. We really gave everything we could for this record. We always give our all for the music we make, but this work was particularly difficult, and we poured heart and soul into it. When it's finished, you feel a bit powerless; now I'm waiting to hear the first feedback during interviews. It's a feeling that combines excitement with curiosity about what people think of the record.

I've already listened to it many times and I really like it a lot. Congratulations! I think there's a noticeable evolution from your previous record, especially in the sound, but your style has stayed intact. How did you approach writing and recording "Versions Of Us"?

In a very similar way to the last record and to some of our earlier music, I sketched out the skeleton of the songs on guitar or piano and then shared them with the band. We fleshed the songs out a bit and tried to develop them together as a group. It's really exciting for me to watch a song develop. Recently I went back and listened to old voice memos on my phone and stumbled across the germinal ideas for some of the songs on "Spook The Herd" and "Versions Of Us". I was stunned hearing the difference between those recordings and the songs that eventually came out of them.

Did you experiment with any new instruments while making "Versions Of Us"?

I don't think we've ever made heavy use of synthesizers in the past, and we brought them into some of the new songs. But we still stay very true to our traditional instrumentation of drums, guitar and piano. For us it's more important to serve the song and see what it needs. When you don't have a lot of different instruments or much time in the studio, your options narrow. Those constraints then push you to be more creative with what you've got.

I don't know if it's connected to your use of synths, but I think this album has real pop potential. You've always had a gift for melody, but this time I get the sense the songs could appeal to a more mainstream audience too.

Obviously we're ambitious, but there was no real plan behind it. We always try to make the best record we can and try to improve as songwriters and as a band. But yes, other people have told me "Versions Of Us" is more pop than what we've done in the past. Still, if you think about it, it's actually pretty hard to sit down and deliberately write a pop song - a good one, at least.

What inspired you while you were writing the new songs?

Lots of things. Mostly whatever was going on around me, or in the world. I don't set out to write a song about a specific topic, but I've noticed that whatever I'm thinking about at a given point in my life tends to surface in what I write. That said, I don't try to write songs that are deliberately political or that come across as too on-the-nose. My priority is that the words I sing sound good.

Can you tell me about "The Likes Of Us"? I like that it's both the opening track and the first single from "Versions Of Us". The line "I won't let this spark die in me" is a really strong statement to open an album with.

I became a mother just before writing this record, and that changed how I see things. I couldn't afford to keep catastrophising; now I need hope in the world. I need to believe that things can get better, and that I can be better too. I suppose that sense of hope is wrapped up in the line "I won't let this spark die in me". But I was also thinking about the path I've taken as an artist and musician. Some people might think it's silly that I keep writing songs, but when I sat down to write the ones for the new record, I felt it was important to keep doing it.

What you just said connects to my next question. I was struck by two lines in "Last Transmission" where you sing "[a]nd in the last gasp of this old world/you know I think I found the beauty and the good". Those lines remind me of another hope-filled song of yours, "Blue Screen Beams". Are you always this optimistic about the future?

Like a lot of people, I often swing between optimism and pessimism. Sometimes the future looks pretty bleak to me, especially when I think about climate change and things like that. But I also believe change is possible and that there's still hope. That thought ties in a lot with the new album and with the idea of imagining another way of being and existing. Though maybe things need to get even worse before we humans can actually picture other ways of living on this planet.

The song "Before They Excavate", from your previous record, dealt with a similar theme. But there you showed an urgent, burning anger that was somehow tied to the planet in flames depicted at the end of the track. Do you approach the climate crisis, and the political, social and cultural discourse around it, differently now?

Hmm, I wrote that song on a pretty pessimistic day. "Before They Excavate" is about living in the moment. If everything's going to fall apart anyway, well, fuck it. These days I'm even more worried about climate change, but I think that, as an artist, I have to consider other possibilities. If everyone becomes pessimistic and gives up, there's no hope. So yes, I think there's been a shift in my attitude. That said, it's not always like that: every now and then I still feel overwhelmed by negative, discouraging feelings. But, as I said, I have a daughter now, and that adds another layer of perspective. Not that I didn't care about the future for other people before, of course, but I think parenthood makes you more aware of your actions.

Going back to the last song on "Versions Of Us", how do you picture humanity's final signal being transmitted from Earth?

With that song I was picturing someone who'd left the planet, looking down from space. Right now, I get the sense that conspiracy theories are running rampant. There's a lot of confusion, and there's also a growing gap between rich and poor. I think that creates even more confusion and fuels conspiracy theories. So, at this point, I imagine that the last signal we'll ever transmit will basically be a whole lot of confusion. But there are also a lot of people, especially young people, who are willing to fight against this situation.

Can you tell us something about the cover of "Versions Of Us"? I thought that, since there are infinite versions of us according to the multiverse theory you mention in "String Theory", it's only possible to see ourselves in blurred faces. Does this idea connect in some way with the image you chose?

Yes, I think that's one of the reasons we chose it. It was actually a thought I had too when I first saw it. I came across the Austrian artist Wolfgang Grinschgl, probably on Instagram, and I was struck by his work. With the last album we'd gone for more digitized artwork; with this record I wanted it to be more "human". Nowadays, with all these AI-generated images around, I wanted something made by a human hand. I'd seen this painting and, along the same lines as what you were saying, I liked that it looked like both a human face and a nebula in deep space.

I'd like to talk to you about the EP you released in 2020. I really loved the relaxed atmosphere of "Realist", and the title track is gorgeous. Can you tell me something about that song? Why did you decide not to include it on "Spook The Herd"?

I was pretty keen on the idea of it ending up on "Spook", but in the end, looking at the record as a whole, we realized it didn't quite fit into that world. Even though I loved the song, I had to admit it didn't lend itself to the universe of "Spook". So we thought we'd set aside some songs we had (like "Romans", for instance) to bring them together on an EP that we'd release when the time was right.

"Baddies" was one of my favorite songs from your previous LP, and I was curious to hear a new version of it. But why did this particular song get its own reworking, its "Model City Version"?

Because it was a song we could have played in a completely different way. We were in lockdown and couldn't all work together in the same room. I sketched out this version of "Baddies" on piano and then we built on it from there. We even filmed ourselves recording the song, just to have something different to do and some music to share. Anyway, yes, it was a song we could play differently compared to the LP version, which was faster and packed with percussive elements.

In 2021 you wrote the theme tune for the BBC podcast "Uncanny". For you, as a musician and songwriter, was it a particularly different experience writing a song for such a specific purpose?

Yes, it was, but I enjoyed the challenge. At first I was a bit worried because I'd never written lyrics for something so tailor-made before. Plus, every episode of the series is completely different: some deal with poltergeist phenomena, others talk about UFOs or other things entirely. I was trying to find a way to sum all of this up in a single song, and I wanted a couple of lines in the chorus that could embrace every aspect of the podcast. But as soon as the idea came to me of focusing on the obsession that comes from thinking you've seen or experienced something inexplicable, it all clicked. And the line "I know what I saw" came to me naturally, which then became part of the chorus. I sent the track to Danny Robins and Simon Barnard, the podcast's producers, and they were really excited about it. It was funny listening to the first episode and discovering that someone being interviewed says exactly "I know what I saw". It was a pure coincidence that I'd written that line for our song!

Fantastic! What does the future hold for Lanterns on the Lake now?

I don't know... A lot of things didn't go smoothly while we were making this record. We initially made a completely different version of the album, which we then decided to redo, and in the process we ran out of budget and our drummer decided to leave the band. It was very sad and very hard for us. There were moments when I thought this was really going to be the last record we'd ever make. Then again, I think that every single time we record an album.

I hope this isn't the last Lanterns on the Lake record!

You never know. I think we'll see how things go now. We've started talking to Philip [Selway] about the possibility of continuing to make music together. We'll probably see how this year goes. It's always been the music itself that's pushed us to finish records. Who knows, maybe we'll end up with a couple of new songs that get us excited again about the idea of recording another album. When you start writing songs for an album, you basically become obsessed with the idea. Either way, that's always been how it works for us: when we've got good songs to share with the world, we feel almost obligated to record the album and make sure people get to hear it.

Will Philip be coming on tour with you?

Yes, we'll be playing a few festivals this summer, and we can't wait!

Good luck! Are you planning to come to the continent too?

Yes, but we still have to see if we'll be able to make things work. It's become very expensive to manage a tour around Europe. It's sad and frustrating for a lot of people.

(4/6/2023)

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