Young Fathers on playing with Depeche Mode and upping their game on 'Heavy Heavy' | Mercury Prize 2023 - video Dailymotion

NME

Watch Young Fathers on playing with Depeche Mode and upping their game on 'Heavy Heavy' | Mercury Prize 2023 - NME on Dailymotion

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00:00 Good afternoon, young fathers.

00:01 All right. How you doing?

00:02 How are we doing today?

00:04 Good.

00:05 Heavy, heavy, amazing album.

00:07 And now the Mercury Prize says so, too.

00:10 How's it feel?

00:11 Good to be here.

00:13 It's positive.

00:15 It's positive. It's good.

00:17 Amazing.

00:18 So all...

00:19 I wanted a nice one.

00:20 You wanted something different.

00:22 You wanted something different, didn't you?

00:23 No, no, no, that was great.

00:24 What did you want? Delighted?

00:25 Delighted. Is that good?

00:26 Delighted is even better.

00:27 Sweet.

00:29 Well, I love the record.

00:30 And all the records on the shortlist

00:33 tend to say something about kind of life over the last year.

00:35 What do you...

00:36 How would you describe the character of this record?

00:38 What it tells us about life in 2023?

00:40 I think there's a definite communal aspect to the record that,

00:43 you know, when we were making the songs, we were...

00:46 We recorded a lot of music.

00:48 And the kind of thread that brought this album together

00:52 with all the songs that we had made was this communal aspect and...

00:56 Sense of togetherness.

00:58 Yeah, I think, strangely, you know, we recorded this in a studio

01:02 with no windows in a basement, just the three of us, no one else there.

01:05 And I think that helped us kind of punch out the way,

01:08 you know what I mean, and try to make a record that sounded like

01:11 a bunch of people being together

01:14 and kind of reacting in moments.

01:16 And rather than the kind of typical songwriting avenue,

01:21 we really leaned into our

01:24 kind of comfortability with each other.

01:27 And the years that we've been together, you know, we've known each other

01:29 over 21 years now, so like it's...

01:32 We're all very comfortable in telling each other

01:34 something's good or something's bad, but also we're not shy

01:37 and we can all be spontaneous.

01:40 And that's all we wanted to lean into with this album.

01:42 It wasn't a thing that we didn't really talk that much, you know,

01:45 and we always usually leave it up to the...

01:48 I think if we talked, maybe the album wouldn't have been made,

01:52 you know what I mean?

01:53 So all the talking kind of comes out of the music.

01:55 And so that's how we wanted it to be.

01:58 And it wasn't like a planned thing.

02:00 We just wanted to see what would happen.

02:02 And this is what happened.

02:04 Well, the live show has been amazing.

02:07 The atmosphere of those gigs has been next level.

02:09 I mean, do you feel as if kind of the community around Young Fathers

02:11 has kind of gone up a level on this record?

02:13 Yeah, more people are on board.

02:16 I think translating the music into live, it's like you hear the music,

02:22 but it actually has life when you see it live.

02:26 And as much as we can see through in the recording process

02:30 of being together and having a bond and this telepathic communication

02:33 that we don't have to speak in the studio

02:35 is what translates when we're on stage as well.

02:37 Are you telepathic off stage?

02:39 Can you be like, make me a cup of tea with your eyebrows?

02:41 Well, look at us, look at us.

02:43 We never planned this.

02:45 We never even spoke to each other before coming.

02:47 I was just in bed last night, just told the guys.

02:50 Just all ended up in the same Uber.

02:51 We're all going brown.

02:53 We're all going brown today.

02:54 And one amazing show in particular was you guys supporting Depeche Mode.

02:58 Yes.

02:59 That must have been pretty sweet, pretty surreal.

03:01 Aye, it was an experience playing in front of a stadium full of people.

03:06 Some of them not really wanting you to be there, but it was all right.

03:09 It was like, nah, it's good.

03:12 It's like our first time playing to crowds like that.

03:14 And for us, it was just another notch where you go through something

03:21 and you realize the good and the bad of it, you know, and how to work it.

03:25 And we're always kind of,

03:29 we always leave the live show to be open

03:31 for the spontaneity and for things to happen.

03:34 And so when you go into a different environment like a stadium,

03:37 it's the same kind of attitude.

03:39 It's a different, it's a different beast.

03:40 And it really is, especially when you're the support in a stadium

03:43 and no one's really there for you.

03:45 So you, it kind of took us back to how we always operated before,

03:49 where you're always playing to an awake crowd.

03:52 And how do you, how do you make an impact in 30 minutes

03:56 with people who don't know you?

03:57 And that's so for us, that's always good.

04:00 It's always healthy.

04:01 Well, we interviewed Depeche Mode earlier this year,

04:03 and Martin Gore said that he really, really rated you guys.

04:05 Did you get to meet him?

04:06 I think I met a bunch of them, I met them all.

04:09 Yeah, nice. Nice guys.

04:11 Yeah, chilled. Very welcoming.

04:13 And they caught us a couple of times and stuff.

04:16 And yeah, so it was good.

04:17 Future collab. Well, you remixed him, right?

04:19 So, um, no, no.

04:22 All right.

04:23 No, Martin said he wanted you to remix him.

04:25 Ah, sorry.

04:27 Never got that request.

04:28 Yeah.

04:29 Yeah, it's just, it's another, it's another tick for the industry side

04:32 where everyone is working on validation and stuff like that.

04:35 And it's another tick for us that, like, you know, a great band

04:39 enjoys what we do as well.

04:41 Amazing.

04:42 And back to the Mercury's, I mean, what do you make of your competition?

04:46 I don't know.

04:47 No, no, no.

04:48 We just go here, mate.

04:50 I can see.

04:53 And supposedly, supposedly it's like it's actually an award for everyone.

04:57 Everyone's 12.

04:57 Oh, yeah.

04:59 Yeah.

04:59 So it's not, it's no competition.

05:01 It's just, it's our peers.

05:03 So I was going to say, if you were betting, man, who would your money be on?

05:05 But you're not thinking about it like that.

05:07 Um, we're definitely not.

05:10 Always bet on yourself.

05:11 What he said.

05:12 Sweet.

05:14 And what does the rest of 2023 have in store for Young Fathers?

05:16 What does your year look like?

05:17 Yeah, just more.

05:18 Yeah.

05:19 There you go.

05:19 Yeah. More children.

05:21 That's it.

05:22 Like, um, yeah, hopefully have a chance to, like, enter the studio again

05:27 and, like, get these ideas that we've been formulating and grabbing from the air

05:32 while we've been on the road and make something out of it.

05:35 We've been living this record for a bit.

05:36 I mean, what's what's next?

05:38 I mean, have you got a thought about the next album?

05:41 I think I think we all have multiple thoughts all the time about the next album.

05:45 I think we have a lot of songs to play with that we recorded

05:48 and during the process of Heavy Heavy that, like, we still think are great.

05:53 So maybe working with those as well is abundance.

05:56 Yeah. Abundance of ideas.

05:58 Been enjoying working with the live band

06:01 and, like, enjoying working with more people in the band, enjoying kind of

06:05 that sense of communality that we wanted to bring in.

06:09 And it feels quite infectious.

06:11 So it could be something like that or it could be

06:13 the complete opposite.

06:15 So I don't know. We'll see.

06:17 I think we just always leave.

06:20 Whatever it'll be, it'll be.

06:22 That's what happened with this record.

06:23 You know, there was no real overarching concept that we thought about.

06:27 We just we needed to just get back together in the studio

06:29 and see if we could still do it.

06:31 And after like two minutes, we realized that we could.

06:34 So we kept going.

06:36 Sweet. Young Fathers, congratulations, guys.

06:38 Thank you.

06:39 Thank you.

06:40 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Young Fathers on playing with Depeche Mode and upping their game on 'Heavy Heavy' | Mercury Prize 2023

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