Uniform Motion - Indie-pop in the age of Bandcamp

Uniform Motion, originally a duo made up of English singer-songwriter Andy Richards and French illustrator Renaud Forestie, later joined by drummer and multi-instrumentalist Olivier Piotte, represent a rather unusual proposition on the international independent music scene (in the truest sense of the word): during live shows, Andy and Olivier provide the soundtrack to sketches improvised and projected in the background by Renaud.

Although the trio operates within orthodox folk-pop coordinates, with a good dose of melancholy and adolescent pathos, they have the rare ability to never come across as banal, often making those hidden chords that only perfect pop songs can touch resonate, with simplicity and understatement.

When we meet Andy Richards, we find ourselves in front of an open and approachable person, with just the right dose of idealism, even a bit naïve, but with crystal-clear ideas about his band's musical direction and a sharp, disenchanted view of the perilous world of the music business.

What's behind the name Uniform Motion? Why did you choose it and what does it represent?

At first Uniform Motion was a line from a song, meant to convey something like "we move through life along a continuous straight line, and the path we follow will never change unless something, or someone, strikes us".

Then I found out that in physics it means more or less the same thing, but it refers to objects and planets. It's a concept they teach in maths! Maybe I already knew that, but I hadn't consciously realized it.

It just seemed to sum up the style of music I was playing at the time, and I thought it sounded good!

How and where did you meet? How did the Uniform Motion project get started?

Renaud and I met at work. He was in the office next to mine. We chatted a bit about music and realized we had similar tastes. Renaud offered to handle the artwork for the album I was working on at the time, and the partnership kept growing, until he ended up joining me on stage, drawing illustrations for the songs and singing backing vocals.

How would you describe your project?

An illustrated indie-folk band that combines music and visual art. Musically, I'd describe it as quiet, guitar-based acoustic music. Visually, I'd describe it as quiet drawings made with a graphic pen!

How do you combine images and music? What's the process that leads to their “fusion” in your songs?

They influence each other, in a way. Our first album had already been written when we started working together, so the drawings were an alternative interpretation of the songs, but starting from the second record I began writing the music and lyrics with the visual element in mind, while on the third there's a main character (Little Knight) and a story to work with.

In 2010 drummer Olivier Piotte joined the band. How has your sound changed since then?

Olivier's arrival in the band brought in a lot of the dynamics we needed. Back then, I was making loops with voice and guitars and bass lines on stage, and it was a very cerebral experience. It was like being a “shoegazer” tap dancer, pressing buttons and that kind of stuff. It was also a pretty painful thing to do! Now that Olivier's here, a one-man band who can play drums, keyboards and sing backing vocals all at once, I can focus on the vocal performance and rhythm guitar and actually enjoy the shows! And that's what making music is supposed to mean.

How do you start writing your songs? Do you start with the lyrics or the music? Do you write on acoustic guitar?

Songs always start with strumming an acoustic guitar. Sometimes it's just a short riff, which gets recorded, then copied and pasted on the computer. Sometimes I write a whole song over the course of several days or weeks, just playing the chords until something complete comes out of it. But the lyrics always come towards the end. Certain words or vocal sounds get stuck along the way and can't be removed from the song anymore, but I usually only realize that several months after the song's been recorded — sometimes never!

Half French, half English. What are Uniform Motion's influences?

According to last.fm (a social network where, by having an account and tracking your listening online, you can get charts of your most-played artists and tracks, ed.):

Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, Tv on The Radio, Why?, Elbow, The White Birch, Bon Iver, Liars, Pinback, Midlake, as far as I'm concerned. Tom Waits, Herman Düne, Iron & Wine, The National, Why? Will Oldham, Buck 65, Johnny Cash, A Silver Mt. Zion, Belle & Sebastian, for Renaud. Olivier doesn't use last.fm, but his tastes are pretty similar too.

The cover of your latest album has a kind of fairy-tale atmosphere. Do you think that sometimes you need to be a child at heart to see things more truthfully?

Truth is in the eye of the beholder, so if being a child at heart means seeing the world with wonder instead of fear, I certainly prefer to trust my child-at-heart eyes!

Taking a cue from your song “Our Hearts Have Been Misplaced In A Secret Location”, where do you like to keep your heart?

I like to keep it at home, which is where it belongs (there's a reference inside to a song by Hood).

What's the driving force behind your songwriting? Do you think there's still meaning in pop music (aside from money and success)?

It's all about what makes you feel good. I feel good while I'm creating songs. If I spend too much time away from my guitar, I don't feel good. Unless you're saying something really offensive about someone in a song, I don't think you can do harm when you write music. But you can definitely do good. The right melody, paired with the right lyrics, can bring people comfort. It can give strength. It can make you think. Money and success can play their part, of course, but there's nothing wrong with pop music if it makes you happy to listen to it!

Any chance of your next record being produced by a record label? Or do you prefer to have complete control over your project and self-release your work?

There are doubts about that. It's not like we're drowning in offers from record labels. Actually, we've never received one from a commercial label. I say "commercial" because we made our first album with Aaahh Records, a netlabel that releases music under Creative Commons licensing. I have nothing against record labels in general, but I firmly believe they're no longer necessary. Not being necessary doesn't mean they shouldn't exist, or that there's no value in working with one, but until a few years ago we wouldn't have been able to make music in a totally "homemade" way and reach so many listeners and fans as easily as we do today. You really needed a label to get an album out. I'm interested in making music, and I'd rather spend my time writing, recording and playing live than running around chasing a record label. If they contacted us, we could discuss their offer and decide whether it made sense to work together, but pigs will probably fly on remote-controlled helicopters before that happens!

As a result, doing things independently is both a choice and a necessity, but it has never stopped Uniform Motion from existing and making music, and until something, or someone, knocks us down, we'll keep following this path.

You recently decided to make public how much you earn from each platform your album is streamed on. What do you think of the music industry in the digital age?

I decided to publish that information on our blog after a conversation I had with a friend. He was unsure about the best way to support independent musicians. So I explained to him how much we were actually earning from the different platforms, and he suggested I publish that data so our supporters could decide for themselves what the best way to support us was. The post ended up being picked up by a number of websites and sparked some pretty heated debate, which I think is a good thing.

As for the music industry, it's hard for me to give an opinion, since I'm not entirely sure what the music industry even is. As an independent artist, I don't really feel part of it.

What I do know is that the more we play, the more music we make, the more things we do, the more people we talk to, the more fans we gain, the higher our earnings will be. So I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the digital age in terms of how musicians and listeners can coexist, but maybe there's a bit more of a problem for all the middlemen who used to make money connecting the dots!

When the telecommunications switchboard was invented, human operators became unnecessary, but that didn't make communication itself unnecessary in any way — quite the opposite. What matters is the conversation. The operator was there to enable the conversation, until they were no longer needed.

You have a very active Facebook page, where you interact diligently with your (always attentive) fans. What's your relationship with them like? What do their feedback mean to you?

This is the best part of the digital age. The interaction. A month before we finished our latest album, a guy on Facebook sent us a message: "Will you also release the new album on vinyl?" I replied, "No, sorry, but it's too expensive for us and I doubt we'd sell any." But then I felt a bit bad for shutting the door in his face, so I followed up saying it would cost us about 1,000 euros to press some vinyl, which would be exactly the price to press 250 vinyl copies of our album. All he had to do was help us find 66.77777 people willing to pre-order the record at 15 euros each, and we'd release the album on vinyl too.

Two months later the vinyl arrived (we've now sold about 100 copies), and it was a great feeling. I never thought I'd release an album on vinyl.

We've almost finished organizing an eight-day tour of Germany for this coming June, and that too was done almost entirely with the help of fans on Facebook, who reached out to venues on our behalf and even pushed to get us booked for some shows!

It makes you feel like you're part of a team, and it makes you feel like you're providing something of value, because people spend their time interacting with you and help you develop the project even further.

How do you experience your relationship with live shows? What do you feel when you get on stage?

Concerts mean a lot of hard work preparing the songs to make sure they work in a live setting, long drives or van rides to get from one venue to another, plenty of waiting time between soundcheck and the moment we actually get on stage, and a fair amount of stress thinking we might ruin the show, sing the wrong words, sing them completely out of tune, and come across as total idiots. But there's nothing better than playing a song to a spellbound audience and feeling like you've somehow made a connection. So it's a love/hate relationship. Lately I've started feeling better about playing live.

What people can expect from our shows is an audio-visual experience. The visual side is fun, since Renaud's drawings offer a lighter take on the songs. It's also quite fascinating to watch an artist draw an image from scratch on screen. It's especially important for people who don't understand English (90% of the French population!) because it helps them understand what the songs are about.

Any chance of seeing you in Italy for a short tour?

I'd really love to play in Italy again (I toured there with my old band and really enjoyed it!) but we don't have any plans in that direction at the moment, since we don't have much of a following in Italy.

We'll be touring Germany in June, and there's also talk of a short tour in Spain. We've got a few shows lined up in France and we might play some festivals this summer.

We'll soon start working on a new album. A new website is also on the way. We intend to keep pushing our project forward as best we can.

“My Heart Is An Island/Off The Coast Of You…”

P.S. Want to help the little prince of Uniform Motion on his journey around the world? Head over to the band's website, print out the pdf with the drawings of the protagonist of their latest album, cut out the figure and take a photo of it in your favorite place. Then send it to the band: it will end up in the new video by Uniform Motion. And you too will be able to say you took part in the search for his lost princess…

(20/02/2012)

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