The longer you work at something, the easier it is to remain in a comfortable groove. This is especially true in the musical world, which is dominated by a pretty entrenched album cycle format. Put out a new record, tour, rest, write, record; put out a new record, tour, rest, write, record and so on. For their latest musical endeavor, Belle And Sebastian have decided to break out of that easy formula. Instead of releasing a sprawling, 15-track double record like they might have otherwise, the band has instead collected their new material into a trio of different EPs titled How To Solve Our Human Problems.
Beginning next month on December 8, the Scottish outfit plans to put out a brand new five-track record each month for three months. Its an innovative way to share their new music with the world, one designed to break through the avalanche of new releases, while also harkening back to the earliest, most formative years of their career, when beloved shorter records like Lazy Line Painter Jane and Dog On Wheels were the norm.
Recently, I had the chance to talk to Belle And Sebastian’s frontman Stuart Murdoch about this new/old release strategy, how the band has evolved across the last two decades on the road and in the studio, and how a slim book of Buddhist teachings helped inform and clarify their latest musical offerings.
The new project is called How To Solve Our Human Problems, which comes across as a very ambitious statement.
I borrowed that title from a book, and part of the reason I used it was because, yes, I thought it was ambitious. In fact, it’s kind of ridiculous. There’s something kind of funny about it. Something kind of naive about it. I mean really, how are you gonna solve our human problems? It’s not gonna happen. But this book, and it’s a slim book, sought out to tell you in a Buddhist sort of way about how we can do just that?
What was the message you got from that book and how did it translate into these new records?
That’s a good question, ‘How does it fit into the record?’ You know sometimes a title comes along and you think, ‘Thats’ it!’ We had already started writing and recording these songs, but in the meantime, the big thing that happened to me in the last two or three years is that I’ve constantly been going to these classes to meditate and classes about Buddhism. I was surprised there was room in my head for these ideas. I would come home and I would talk about it, then I would go to band practice and talk about it. ‘This is pretty radical stuff. This is turning me around.’
And I kept reading from this one book and thought, even if the record isn’t gonna solve anybody’s problems, I just have to use that title. The kind of thing that Buddhism talks about is that you’re perceiving everything with your mind. It’s a very powerful notion that your problems don’t exist on the outside. Your problem isn’t your car breaking down. It isn’t your lack of money. It isn’t even your physical health or your relationships. Your problem is that you react to all of these things and if you react well to all these problems, if your mind is in a peaceful place, you’ll be happy, no matter what was going on on the outside. It’s quite radical.
Yeah, it does sound like a return to that old notion that you can’t control the world around you, but you can control how you react to what happens. As far as solutions go, that’s a pretty good one.
I think you’ve got it in a nutshell there. I think also that this would help in a general sense, because we’re bombarded with so much information these days and everybody is online all the time, and everybody is taking in all this stuff and everybody is reading all these stories about how everything is happening to them, to their community, to their country and all around the world and I think they’re feeling frustrated and people are getting angry. People don’t need to get so angry, especially about the things we can’t do anything about. They’re actually being very hard on themselves because the anger tends to hurt them. I think people need to learn to have a peaceful mind and then we can do something positive instead of remaining angry.
Do you see your music as a kind of salve for that anger? Maybe as an escape for some people?
Traditionally, I would have said that and I think I still do. Basically, a lot of what I like to do in the group, I don’t like confront people too much with lyrics or ideas. I like the notion of whispering in a person’s ear. I like the idea that the songs might be a consolation to people in hard times, or that people might be able to relate to something inside the songs. I have to laugh though, because one of the nuns in the Buddhist center I go to, she is often saying how disgusted she is with pop music. I don’t even think she knows I’m in a group or anything, and I always smile to myself because she’s right in a way because it’s usually selfish people who are grasping after things that are usually pretty selfish and usually pretty desperate. It’s very un-Buddhist how most pop songs come across. Maybe that doesn’t count for our music 100%.
I swear I’m not name-dropping, but I recently spoke with Robert Plant who described the act of creating music a selfish act. Do you feel that’s true in yourself? Do you make music for the outside world or is the primary goal to satisfy yourself?
I have to admit that first and foremost it’s something we need to do. We’ve always said that, even back in the day when we would do Q&A’s with our fans. They’d pester us in a nice way, saying, ‘Why don’t you make record like you used to?’ Or, ‘What happened with [founding member] Isobel [Campbell]?’ And we have to say to them, ‘Well, we love you, and we’d love to see you when we’re out on tour, but we’ve got to make precisely the record we have to make right now. You will like us for that. If we tried to make the record you wanted us to make, it would be a disaster.’
You can’t chase tastes and I think it sounds pretty obvious when that happens.
Absolutely. We just have to make the music that we like. We’ve never really been in fashion, so it’s not like there’s any pressure to stay in fashion.
From a sonic standpoint, what were you aiming for on How To Solve Our Human Problems? Was it a reaction in anyway to your last record?
Generally speaking, and especially in the last 10 years, we’ve been super happy with the records that we’ve made. We’ve had amazing experiences in Atlanta and making music with different people. It’s never a case of dusting our heels off, it’s a case of, ‘Okay, we’re here, what do we want to do?’ It just felt appropriate to take control back over the sounds and get closer to the music again. Get more intimate. Almost strip down the barrier between ourselves and the actual recordings. Also, getting into the studio super fast with a song and trying to hash it out there and then. That’s a luxury you don’t really get when you’re working on a whole album project.
How did going back home to Glasgow affect or inform the process?
It speeded it up in some ways. We were back in Glasgow at the end of the tour and I just felt like getting back into the studio without any fuss. We got off to a good start and just sort of jammed out a few songs and realized we could do it ourselves. Then it sort of… a few people had kids and I had my second child and also shows came up, so we lost focus for a while, but it was fun to have time to live with the songs before we put them out.
At what point did you decide you were going to break this up into three separate EPs rather than, like, one gigantic double-album?
That was early on. That was fundamental to the process. We didn’t really know what it was and it felt like less pressure in a sense. ‘Well, I can write a short story, I don’t really feel like writing a novel today.’ We can piece together a few poems, which is what we did. Then, as more songs came along, we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we did three?’ That felt like a nice symmetry with what we did back in 1997. There was a precedent.
Does sense any sort of emotional or thematic kinship between this project and those earlier EPs like Dog On Wheels or 3..6..9 Seconds Of Light?
Not really in a songwriting way or a musical way. The only thing that harkens back is the actual… back then we made a conscious choice to do a bunch of songs and nurture some great A-sides. We were really looking for the A-sides and it made us try things differently. Like, I remember when we did “Lazy Line Painter Jane,” it could’ve been just another song on an album, but at some point I said, ‘We gotta get somebody else.’ So we got my friend Monica [Queen] to sing and she just blasted it and suddenly it became something else. Then we thought, ‘Well, f*ck! This is a single!’ It’s quite exciting when you keep things loose, and that’s what we wanted to do this time. We wanted to see which songs would rear up their heads and be singles.
It seems like the EP as a format is having a moment. A lot of rap artists have been putting out EPs lately, Nine Inch Nails has spent the last year or so putting out a pair of EPs. What’s your take on this new resurgence?
It feels about right. Probably people are thinking, ‘Well, we put an LP out last year and nobody noticed.’ [Laughs]. There’s so much music being recorded and put out. It’s an easy way to change to change things, and it’s also a nice, bite-sized thing for people to consume.
You’ve called touring with Belle And Sebastian one of the greatest pleasures of your life. Could you extrapolate a little more on that idea? What do you enjoy about being on the road with the band?
Well, apart from the obvious, I guess what I’m getting at, for years I’ve struggled with chronic fatigue. I have a long-term energy condition that was really disabling. When the band started, the reason we didn’t travel or tour for the first six or seven years was that I was still very ill with that. So, when we started touring, I was nervous about whether I could do it. I didn’t know if I’d be able to handle it.
But we’ve got a great crew together, and everybody became kind of a family and everybody looks really supportive of me to get me around the world so it just became this thing that I never thought I’d be able to do. I don’t know another job that I could have done that could’ve taken me to the four corners of the world. You can’t swap that experience, and it’s just the little things like standing in the doorway of a theater in Uruguay for instance with the rain coming down and looking at this strange city and thinking, ‘Wow, this is great!’
Earlier this year, it was reported about a bunch that you lost your drummer while on tour in America. I’m wondering how that ranks among your history of craziest road experiences?
I would put that under ‘General Mishaps 2299’ or something like that. There’s been many incidents, that, for some reason, I guess because we tweeted about it and we were trying to get him back and thought our fans could help, that seemed to capture people’s attention for a moment and became this funny story.
I know you’re focused on the new project, as well you should be, but next year marks the 20th anniversary of The Boy With The Arab Strap and I’m curious to know if you have any plans to mark the occasion in any kind of way?
We’re not ones for anniversaries so much, but obviously the first year of the group was a turning point in my life. Forming a group and recording two LPs in the first year. That was the big moment and so we celebrated that a couple of years ago. But, you know, I have nothing but fond memories of those times, though I don’t think we’ll mark it in an official way. We still play those songs.
What’s the biggest evolution that’s taken place within the band over the last two decades?
I think for a bunch of people that just came together to make a record for a college project, a real random bunch, that were introduced within the space of a week, it’s pretty amazing that we’re still together. Nobody, myself included, thought a group was in the cards. So, we had that kind of beginners luck, then it all fell apart for a while. Then, when we all got to know each other and decided we were all going to do this, we all just grew in confidence in every regard. Although, I feel sometimes that we’re charlatans getting away with this, and that we’re not really musicians. We have this group confidence kind of like a good sport team. You know how when a good sports team suddenly goes on a tear?
Yeah, absolutely.
You can’t work it out from the individuals what is happening. I feel like we’re in a good place.
How To Solve Our Human Problems Pt. 1 is out 12/8 via Matador Records. Pre-order it here.
