Liars: The Trouble With Happiness

Words: Ric Rawlins
Photos: Jonny Wright

Look at yourself in the mirror. Take a few deep breaths. Now repeat after me: I am perfect! I am ridiculously successful! My teeth are beautiful! My ass is beautiful! Everybody wishes they had my ass!
Convinced yet? Nope, neither are we - and neither are cult musicians Liars, whose fifth album ‘Sisterworld’ takes aim at such 'positive thinking' techniques. Liars come from America (with a bit of Australia mixed in), a place that seems strangely happy and Disney-like, until you realise that they gobble up two-thirds of the world's anti depressants. In the US there's a positive solution to every scenario: lost your job? Get a better one! Having brain surgery? Hey, here's a book called The Gift of Brain Surgery! Nuclear war has been announced? Oh... er... Hmm. Taxi!
This mysterious trend of 'ignoring the negative' can manifest itself in everything from the banking systems to the world of medicine and, of course, the demented smile that flashes from the surface of every advert. Speaking of which, Julian does a pretty good job of imitating the adverts.
"Everything's OK! Everything's gonna be great! Buy some Bounce Fabric Softner!"
See what I mean?
For all this perverse activity, it's the effect on the individual human which concerns Liars. The feeling that ‘something's wrong with you because you don't feel as chirpy as everyone else‘. Angus rolls up his sleeves and explains.

"If you go to a place like California or LA, you find it's based on this idea of customer service. When you go to a checkout at a supermarket, the person there is often superficially nice. And in a lot of ways that can be really welcoming - when I first came to America I really got excited by it. But if you're there for a while you realise that that's a constant, a given. And you feel that you're not up to that par of happiness, and you start to feel concern about 'how come everyone else is able to keep this up and I'm not?'"

The band go on to explain that ‘Sisterworld’, though not based around one specific theme, is a kind of acknowledgment that people feel left out, and need their own places to deal with that. "People need to be put at ease, in a sense. I think. At least in the way that we feel there are other people out there that feel equally alienated by the society we're in."
Now seems as good a time as any to bring up Brett Easton Ellis. I'm not entirely sure why - the author of American Psycho has never spoken to or collaborated with the band as far as I know - but being a bit of a smart arse, I've decided that this doesn't matter - and put it to them that their descriptions of successful but screwed up young people share a certain similarity.
"In a sense, sure," says Aaron. "He chooses protagonists in his novels who appear to hold a position that you strive for; they're good looking, well educated, rich, successful... and yet the way they describe everyday events - like the Whitney Houston CD in American Psycho - you really feel how alienated they are. And for me, being a poor struggling musician at the time I read his books, it was like well - what's the deal? You're in a position that I'm starving to get to, and yet your lives are cold and there's not much sympathy.
"So I think a lot of the stuff we wrote on the record also has to do with that. What the ideal of escape is. And maybe the solution is really communicating with yourself as to what is going to solve your problems, and whether or not that's an open-ended journey or not."



Another suggestion that’s frequently posed is that American media networks - and the right wing Fox News in particular - are contributing to the sense of fear and alienation in that country. Liars agree, but also see Fox as a snapshot into other people's lives.
"Yes, creating fear and disinformation is a big part of it," says Julian. "But is it gonna change anybody's mind who doesn't already believe in that stuff? Y'know? It offers a glimpse into the lives of people who believe that stuff. The news is feeding them what they want to hear, and they're so scared. It's about child predators and terrorist attacks - everything is so dangerous.
"It's like in the 60s when the country was really down on itself, so they created this idea that Russia was attacking America. So then you’re having to defend yourself because you think there's an attack. But there's not. It's just there to keep you in check."

More dangerous, suggests Aaron, is a media outlet that you’d assume you could trust, such as Wikipedia. “The news is such a production that you'd have to be stupid not to know that they're selling you paranoia. But with Wikipedia, you're in your house, it looks respectable, it's for the people by the people. But our Wikipedia page has had some pretty incredible rumours, and even flat-out untruths."

ANGUS: “It won't accept where I was born!”
AARON: “And there's this facade that it's a place to check facts. At least on TV you know where you stand - the guy is wearing a badge from a party that you're not part of.”
JULIAN: “And you follow him or you don't follow him. You believe in him, or you're amused. With Fox it's like 'Duh!' I know it's bullshit. But maybe there are more sneaky avenues that sneak themselves in there... it is way more dangerous because you're believing it.”

In this 21st century whirlwind, the old Bowie line of 'you'd better hang onto yourself' seems more relevant than ever. Yet the question of who Liars are, both musically and personally, remains to be answered. With a sound that changes dramatically on each album you could argue that hunting for an identity is one of their great themes.
"That's a fair point," says Angus. "It's never quite being comfortable with what you've surrounded yourself with. There's always a possibility that there's something else, that will make you feel... like you think you should feel! It's been good for us musically."
"It's good to be a bit scared about what you're doing next," agrees Julian. "Push past your comfort zone and see what happens. Because the moment you get too comfortable…that can't be good either."
"I remember when we first came to London," says Angus, "and the biggest thing we were saying then was 'we just don't wanna be cool!' It seemed to us, especially with these London NME bands, that it was all about being a cool rock’n’roll person. And you never want to feel like you're cool because it’s too comfortable – you'd just start to replicate yourself. It's like those visual artists who have this style, and then make 3,000 paintings of it! They get boxed in!"
"Yeah, you wanna snap to that grid!" laughs Julian. "OK - this is good! I don't have to think! Is it good? Does it suck? I don't know what this is!"
"From the beginning there have been musicians and artists making this mistake." concludes Angus. "The most important thing is not to get cornered by your music, because..." he shrugs. "Music means so much".