Foxygen

Released : December 1996

 

Personnel

Peter Nuttall - Music/Lyrics/Vocals
Douglas Hunter - Lyrics
Ian Forbes - Lyrics

It didn't feel difficult to follow 'Magic' at all.  The atmosphere was there, the grip on the technology was there and the muse was still burning.  'Slojam' was built on a shuffle and a lovely bass riff but the two singles were obvious - 'Think about me' was a twist on the 'feeling sorry for myself' theme of Magic and a 'Now it's time to go and do something about it - this time, I'm going to think about me.'  'You don't have to tell me' was written as a duet with a singer we'd recruited in the summer of 96.  She only turned up to a couple of rehearsals and never recorded anything - so I duetted with myself.  There's a lot of Gary Numan in these two songs as I'd been listening to 'Strange Charm' on repeat for about four weeks but I'd also been playing 'Jagged little pill' to death.

I'd noticed that the songs were beginning to sound nice. They weren't niche any more, they didn't have sharp edges and fumbled playing on them.  The melodies were being crafted and honed. The drum sequencer was paying for itself and the addition of the guitar pedal (guitar was used for the first time on any of our studio stuff) took the band's sound somewhere different - somewhere that would shape the next two albums.  We also started using the guitar's delay and reverb effects on the vocals.  This is most evident on 'Look Back' which is a terrible song but one which pushed our production forward a great deal.

Although we were mainly using the same keyboard that had been the sound since 1992, we started to make some songs own the sounds.  'Why does it always have to rain' owned the bell keys and 'Fallen Angels' owned the synth guitar.  It occurred to me not long ago why I'd always been suspicious of 'Fallen Angels'. I liked it, especially the chorus, but never wanted to make it one of the signature songs because it felt borrowed.  It wasn't until 'Sweet Child of Mine' was on the radio a few months back that I realised the verses are almost exactly the same.  It was unconscious, I promise.

'Beautiful World' was Chris Barber's song. He brought it to the summer 96 rehearsals as a fully formed entity. I added some keys and drum machine.  'Lies' was my favourite on the album for a while. I was into big airy ballads at the time and wanted to realise the song with a full orchestra - but that's wildly pretentious so it won't happen.  'I Ran' got a make-over as I felt whilst the original lyric was great, it could have more commercial appeal with a more accessible message.  

The fact there were demos that were never completed or recorded properly kinda showed we were getting better at making albums. Instead of just shoving everything we'd recorded on a tape and calling it an album wasn't enough - we were 'rejecting' stuff, which in turn meant the content of the album was a bit more consistent.

- Peter