Editors: Writing The Headlines

Editors get political whilst taking Artrocker’s Ric Rawlins under their wing and letting him in on the secret of their success

Words: Ric Rawlins
Photos: Gavin Watson

“We're not an enormous band, but we are a successful touring band. I guess sometimes the mass music buying public jump on board, and sometimes they don't… I don't think just anyone could write 'Yellow' or 'Chasing Cars' - it's not easy”

I'm stood outside the Water Rats Theatre, a kooky little venue by Kings Cross, looking at my notes. Band have done a Twilight soundtrack. Uhu. Band are inspired by the Terminator movies. Check. Band formed in 2002 under the name Pilot. Got it. Band were... er... they were... hang on! What the blazes is this?!
Suddenly I'm in the shadow of a huge silver truck. People in hard hats jump out, shouting "one two! one two!" at each other. Following them comes a huge wire, as thick as a vietnamese python, being unravelled into the venue. The blast of a helicopter causes me to stagger back. Men in black suits whisper undecipherable messages into phones. Jesus! I think. They've discovered extra terrestrials at the Water Rats!
Or perhaps not. The last person to come out of the truck is carrying a flask of coffee with the word 'EDITORS' scribbled onto its side. He looks like a wise hippy.
"You're the journalist, right?"
"Yes sir!"
"The band are downstairs in the grotto. Follow me."
"The grotto? What in God's name is the grotto?" I shout as we walk through the venue, past wires, down some stairs, along a corridor, past several buxom women and into a small cave covered in fairy lights.
"Ric? This is Tom and Russell from Editors." He smiles. "Enjoy!"
I concede I may have exaggerated the intro sequence for my own perverse amusement, but the facts remain: when the biggest underground band in the UK plays a small venue, it's like an alien mothership descending on a countryside village.
"It's definitely a huge challenge for our crew," says singer Tom, looking relaxed and engaged. "The space they have and the gear they have to install just doesn't quite add up... to be honest, I'm not sure how they're gonna do it."
Do you have a good relationship with the minions?
"The road fill? The crew dogs?" he laughs. "Yeah, we do. When this is over we'll go up and say 'well done chaps, you made this all happen!'"
Before today I'd listened to Editors records, but never (to my shame) seen a photo of Tom. From the music, I'd imagined he would sport a curly devil moustache, or at the least wear a red velvet dressing gown. But he doesn't. He's nice, he's normal - and he's offering me a can of coke. Welcome to the grotto.
Tonight, Editors are at the Water Rats to play an intimate competition-winners gig, which will eventually be broadcast on XFM. The band played their first ever tour show here, and since then they've burst across the globe like a black balloon. In Tom's own words: "We're very lucky that we can go all around the world and in most places, play to at least a thousand people."
So Tom, let's get down to business. How the hell did you guys succeed on such a vast scale?
"I don't know! We're not an enormous band, but we are a successful touring band. I guess sometimes the mass music buying public jump on board, and sometimes they don't. I'm not saying I like these songs, but I don't think just anyone could write 'Yellow' or 'Chasing Cars' - it's not easy. Hmm. Why do big bands get big?"
He sits there thinking. Meanwhile, I'm secretly excited. If he tells me, I could sell the formula and retire. Women... cars... pet tigers...
"I like Arcade Fire." Russell picks up the theme. "They've bridged that gap of being an interesting band and writing big tunes. But then there's a band like The National, who we're all big fans of, and people seem to be sitting at home, listening to their record with headphones on and almost... joining a club. It's very special to them - and without the need for radio hits. They've just announced the Royal Albert Hall and I'm sure people will be saying 'I want to be there because they're my band'."
For many people, Editors are their band too. Their third record, ‘In This Light and of This Evening’, has been an unqualified artistic success. It saw the group working with the legendary producer Flood, and the results echo the best records he's worked on (U2's ‘Achtung Baby’, Depeche Mode's ‘Violator’) while maintaining a subterranean edge which is distinctly Editors.
TOM: Flood definitely likes industrial, bleak sounds.
RUSSELL: He's from the city...
TOM: He's cynical...
RUSSELL: He is basically a cynical old man from London.
Aw, they love him really. And besides, Flood's studio approach was integral to the record: he rejected the traditional idea of a band stroking their beards in the studio - and threw Editors back into the rehearsal room.
"There was no covering up. You know?" smiles Tom. "Like sometimes if you're not quite good enough or if the part's not quite there - there was no escaping that. Everything had to be right at a fundamental level before you could build upon it.
"Flood likes to make records which are dark and sometimes aggressive, but he doesn't want to make art for art's sake. He wants it to be melodic and have a song sensibility to it as well - and trying to combine those two things is actually harder than trying to make a piece of music which is purely art. Very few bands can bring those two things together."
Indeed, despite various critical bleetings that the band are "sadists" who "revel in darkness" there is usually a pop hook in disguise lurking in the music of Editors. A song like 'Walk The Fleet Road' for example, surfs a wave of feedback, but with the song swimming just under the surface.
"That's a soulful, almost gospel pop song really," says Tom. "It's very straight forward melodically. But music that moves people, that takes you somewhere, can also be wrapped in other things, like washes of feedback, colour. You could take these songs away, you could have Simon Cowell do something very different with them. But we see it as our job to wrap them up in a way that works for us."
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. That's the sound of skulls being crushed by a massive death machine, in case you were wondering. Editors' new record was partially inspired by dystopian epics such as The Terminator and Blade Runner, and funnily enough the UK might be about to walk into a similarly bleak and doomed future (well, not really, but it does help magazine sales if you confirm people's suspicions that they're essentially fucked).
The Tories are almost certainly our next government, and their poster catchphrase "we can't go on like this" is almost as iconic as its Elvis-inspired graffiti; "...with suspicious minds." The message is simple: our brains are being buggered by spin and propaganda, and we don't like being, er, buggered. Over to Editors.
"I will vote. But I just can't vote for the Conservatives, I can't do it," says Tom. "And yet we're a politically confused country. My parents were teachers and they despised the right and the Tories. But the difference between the left and the right was very clear then - there were two parties speaking to very different groups of people. It's harder to see the difference now."
Strange times indeed. So strange that credit-munched victims flocked to the cinemas last year to escape their misery with a vampire movie called Twilight. Editors were on the soundtrack, along with Thom Yorke. But did they see the film? Did they shit.
TOM: We haven't seen it.
RUSS: I'd watch it on a plane perhaps.
TOM: I'm not sure I'd even do that. It's not really aimed at me!
Still, the song projected the band into the bedrooms of millions of teenagers, and let's face it - the movie may have been pants, but vampires fucking rock.
"They've been around for a while, haven't they?" agrees Russ. "I remember the fascination with The Lost Boys. I just think the edgier girls at school are attracted to vampires. Not everyone wants to be given roses."
"Being bad has always been attractive, whether that means sucking someone's blood or not," adds Tom. "The art that's interesting to us has always been a bit brutal."