Palma Violets - One Song at a Time

We reached Sam Fryer, frontman of Palma Violets, by phone on the occasion of the release of their second album "Danger In The Club". His answers highlight the uncalculated, thoughtless approach - though certainly not lacking in care and awareness - adopted by the quartet in making the record.

I read in the press release that conceptually you agreed as a band that you wanted a record full of youth and that showed you were English. The fact that you say you only agreed on the general concept perhaps implies there were different views on the concept itself. If so, could you explain them, and whether in the end they're all represented on the record.

Actually, there was never really a discussion about the direction to take. We agreed, besides on the things you mentioned, also on the fact that we wanted to grow as a band, in a positive sense. We wanted the record to be energetic, with strong guitars. Beyond that, as I said, we didn't discuss what vision each of us had or what the right direction was - we simply got together and pulled out our sound. Also, we never talked about how the album should be as a whole, we just went forward one song at a time; the only thing we'd talk about was how the song we were working on at that moment should turn out. Then, evidently, the album would simply be whatever the songs turned out to be once put together. A whole album doesn't just appear out of nowhere - you can't plan out an entire album, it takes shape bit by bit.

I've only listened to the new record a few times so far, but I find that on the first one, mood-wise, there was a mix of upbeat songs and others that were darker and more introspective, whereas here almost all of them are of the first type - maybe only "Matador" falls into the second.

Actually, in my opinion, there are other songs on this record that are definitely not the happiest in the world. I think this record, just like the first one, has some upbeat moments and others that are much less so. What I said before still applies: we take one song at a time, so when we later look back at a finished album, we don't see it as a single thing. Maybe one day we'll make an entirely dark album, if that's how we feel at the time.

As for how the songs come together, has the process changed compared to the first record, or is it more or less the same?

It's been more or less the same - it all starts from ideas of mine while I'm alone and relaxed, then we all get together and, working on it, we manage to see certain things that weren't noticeable at first, and then it all becomes clear. What's changed is that now we know each other much better, since we already have a record behind us and have toured a lot - basically it's been two years of waking up together every day.

Do you enjoy being in the spotlight, with all the media and audience attention you've had since the start of your career, or does it make you feel under pressure? And has the way you feel about it changed over time?

We do feel pressure, but we find it's very easy not to let it get to us. At this point we don't really feel the pressure at all anymore, because by now we know full well that we're capable of doing things well together, especially now that we've managed to make a record like this one. At the start it was definitely harder; now we feel like we've gotten past the toughest part - we knew we had to make a record that would meet a lot of people's expectations, and we believe we managed to do that, and on top of that the songs came out exactly as we wanted them to.

Compared to the first album, I notice a much greater focus on the vocal side of things — there are a lot more harmonies and often there's a choral kind of singing, and I think that's a real difference from the debut.

I actually think there was a lot of choral singing on the first album too, but I agree with you about the harmonies — those weren't there on the debut, whereas here they definitely are. It wasn't something we did consciously; we just felt like introducing vocal harmonies on tour.

As far as the live shows go, I'd expect you to play the songs fairly faithfully to how they are on record.

It's actually more complicated to play the songs live than it is to do it in the studio, and honestly we want the live show to be something different. We're up on stage and we do everything very naturally, so it can happen that we play the same song differently from one night to the next, since we don't use any tricks. It also depends on the atmosphere that builds up, on how the crowd responds.

Your sound is rooted in a traditional pop-rock setup, while today there are plenty of bands using other kinds of instruments like synthesizers. Do you think you'll ever approach that kind of sound yourselves, or will you always remain a pop-rock'n'roll band?

I wouldn't rule out using keyboards and synthesizers in the future — I'm very interested in that kind of sound myself. But I don't think we'll ever push too far in that direction, and the rock'n'roll feel of our music will never change. We'll probably end up doing what Suicide did, that is, using synthesizers in a rock'n'roll way.

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