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X-clusive: The Zutons Start On Second Album
Currently in the middle of a sold-out UK tour, The Zutons spoke exclusively to Xfm Online about their new single, their new album and why losing the Mercury Music Prize to Franz Ferdinand may have been a blessing in disguise.
With copies of their debut album ‘Who Killed The Zutons?’ flying off the shelves and the UK finally getting its collective head around the band’s scousadelic funk, saxophonist Abi Harding explained the story behind the band’s new single, 'Don't Ever Think (Too Much)'.
“It’s just a positive message about not thinking too much into things because it’ll just wreck your head,” she begins. “The words are about this fella who’s standing on the edge of the cliff deciding whether to take his life or not. And he remembers he shouldn’t think too much because that’s how he’s ended up there.
“It was recorded with Liam [Watson, White Stripes producer for ‘Elephant’] at Toe Rag studios,” guitarist Boyon Chowdhury continues. “He’s one of those mad old English eccentrics, which works for him and for the people he gets in the studio.”
As the band begin to work on what will become they’re second album, talk turns to new material and how the band’s sound has changed since their early recordings.
“We’re playing a new song ‘Weekend Scrub’ in the set,” Abi reveals. “It might be on the next album or it might not. We’ve got lots of other ideas as well, but we just need some time to finish the writing before we go in and start recording.”
“‘Weekend Scrub’ is just one of those songs about trying too hard too hard to pull,” Boyon continues. “It’s a bit more groove-based and just more dynamic like some of the later songs that we’ve done like ‘Dirty Dancehall’ and ‘Pressure Point’."
With a sell-out tour and a progressively growing fanbase, Abi concludes that perhaps losing the Mercury Prize wasn't so bad after all.
“All day there was rumours going around that we might win,” she recalls. “But being nominated was enough for us. We’re just glad we won’t be ‘The Band That Won The Mercurys’. I don’t think that’ll happen with Franz Ferdinand, but if we’d won people would’ve said ‘Who’s The Zutons? Oh, they’re the band who won the Mercurys.’ In a way I think we’re better off having not won it.”
The Zutons release ‘Don’t Ever Think (Too Much)’ this week (October 18) while the re-released album ‘Who Killed The Zutons?’ is out now.
The band’s remaining October tour dates are as follows:
- Glasgow, QMU (21)
- Manchester, Academy (22)
- Sheffield, Leadmill (23)
- Cambridge, Junction (24)
- London, Shepherd’s Bush Empire (26)
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