Embrace Interview: Rick McNamara
Published by Matthias July 2nd, 2006 in Interviews.
“Y’know, nowadays, we just like saying yes to things really.�
Embrace headlined the Saturday of Magfest, a new side project of the famed St Magnus Festival. I caught up with guitarist Rick McNamara before the ‘these are our greatest hits from ten years ago aren’t you people lucky’ show.
MM: Is this your first visit to Orkney?
RM: Yeah, we just got in on the propellor plane about an hour ago. The crew came by boat and started out two and a half days ago to get everything ready.
MM: And are you going to fit in some sightseeing?
RM: We’ve got some time for it tomorrow. Steve wants to see the puffins and there’s some wrecks we’ve heard about as well, masts sticking out of the water.
MM: You’ve just come off a tour round a load of forests, and play many unconventional gigs. Is that why you were keen to play up here?
RM: When anyone asks us to do a gig way up North we say yes, because they’re always an absolute bash. We did a gig in Oban before and that was just the craziest Orkney gig that we’d done because people were actually getting off on the music that was in between the bands as well as the bands themselves. I think it’s that kind of Celtic mentality that when you want to go out you go out to have a good time, y’know, and everybody expects everybody to have a good time so it’s self perpetuating.
MM: Most bands, when they leave a major label, revel in the idea of producing their own album and taking things back. Embrace seem to have done the opposite, in that you produced your first four albums yourselves, but have had a lot of outside input on the recent two.
RM: Some people say that producing yourself is like doing home dentistry: you kinda think you know what you’re doing because you do it the least painful way. I think we realised at the end of the writing sessions for ‘Out of Nothing’ that we’d never really done a jam and put it on a record before, and that was a really new approach for us, and a really painless way of coming up with stuff that was great. So we went to the studio again in Spain, working with Youth, because he’s built his own studio out there, and we had four days in, then a Tsunami benefit gig, and then a few more days in the studio. The main bulk of it was written in that first sort of bash.
MM: And at what point did Chris Martin get involved with writing Gravity for you?
RM: It happened quite near the end. Danny said ‘Chris played me this song last night, this new song Gravity’, so we were like ‘aw all right how is it?’ And normally we’d expect him to say ‘ah it’s rubbish, it’s not as good as what we’re doing’, not because he’s an arrogant guy but because that’s kinda the frame of mind you have to be in, like suspended disbelief. But he said ‘actually it’s really fantastic’, so we though oh right he’s raised the bar, we’ll have to try harder sorta thing, and later he played us the song and we thought ‘ah that’s great, sounds a bit like us, but yeah it’s amazing, can’t wait for the next Coldplay album’, and we kinda thought nothing more of it. Then we’d finished recording the album with Youth, and we were in mixing it, and doing a couple like little overdubs and stuff, and Chris came down to the studio to see Danny, and played it again on the piano when he was playing us some other songs. Danny came back to us later and told us he’d offered us the song, and at first we were like ‘uch, we’ve been away for three years, we don’t wanna come back with a Coldplay cover, you’d have to have balls of iron wouldn’t you?’ So we dismissed it originally, but when we all came back in the day after and were kinda going you know what we should really take this gift for what it is. Y’know, nowadays, we like saying yes to things really.
MM: Was there any undercurrent in the band of thinking, well if the likes of Coldplay and Keane can make big albums with this sound, then we should keep on doing it?
RM: Yeah, well we don’t claim to own that type of song, it’s something that we do, but one of the reasons Chris said he wanted to give us the song was that he said it just sounded too much like us. I think he’d had review that said they sounded like us and that’s what had stuck in his head when he gave it to us. In the early days of the band we’d say no to absolutely everything, you know, we’d not do Top of the Pops, we wanted to do it our way and sod everybody else. Danny’s been asked to judge Miss Essex and he’s like ‘no I’m not doing it, it’s cheesy’, but I’m like ‘go on do it man it’ll be a right laugh’. We’ve learnt that you shouldn’t sculpt yourself out as to what you want to show to people.
MM: And was it along those lines that you agreed to do the song for the World Cup?
RM: When we were first set onto it, similar to the Gravity thing, we thought ‘oh can’t do that’. But then we thought it might work because we’re always on Match of the Day or the Tennis or Cricket and it seems to work when they have an Embrace soundtrack to them. We figured that Embrace doing an anthem, it’s what we do best. It’s just our theory now that life gets more interesting when you say yes to everything. We’ve kind of turned around over the three years where we were without a record deal and it changed our whole perspective of what it’s all about, and now for us it’s about making music and connecting with people.
not forgetting to mention support from Roll Machine! oh fuck yes…
And of course ‘The James Bishop Band’!
I say piss up at Josh’s whilst Roll Machine play, they’ll put everyone out of the slow, chilled Embrace mood with thier “OOHHHH!!”
VERY impressive questions.
he’s ok =) ilike he’s gitare
i play guitare myself
He is okay but nothing special.
Personaly I dont like him but I can hear some of his songs
My favourite quote…..”We’ve kind of turned around over the three years where we were without a record deal and it changed our whole perspective of what it’s all about, and now for us it’s about making music and connecting with people.”
…….. and what exactly was it all about before then??? I think we’ve found the source of why you didnt have a record deal for three years. More importantly “making music”….what the f**k? He only admited several answers earlier to getting slipped a song by chris martin and having serious outside help on their most recent albums. Twat! Nontheless, it was an interesting interview to read, well done Matthias!
Nice interview. I wanted to get an interview with them myself, but I was away. Might have to see if there’s any way I can contact them anyway.
Such a down-to-earth guy, he told everything how it was, I can’t stand stuck-up celebrities that think they are above everybody else based on their job title. I’m looking forward to listening to his music.
Yeah this one seems down to earth enough in the interview but I heard they made a total ass of themselves on the night. Apparently they were horrible to everyone and complete prima-donnas who were rude to everyone and took away the films from the photographer who came along from the paper because he didn’t have written permission in advance or some bollocks. I can’t understand why they would bother coming all the way up here and then act like that. It was a poor show anyway - they’re past it and it had the worst acoustic i’ve ever heard in my life.
Agree. Very down to earth guy. Says it like it is. My style!
Hmm, that doesn’t seem to surprise me, too many artists think they are hot crap after they do a few gigs, and then their ego increases along with their number of fans.
What did everyone think of the Support Acts ‘James Bishop Band’ and ‘Roll Machine’?
Well Roll Machine weren’t really my cup of tea but I still thought it was shocking when I heard they were only paid £100 to play. So 1500 people at £25 a head and the support act only gets paid the cost of four ticket?!?! that was blatant taking advantage of young people
Creature that really is a ridiculous thing to say. Taking advantage? Quite the opposite! Come on, how often do you think that a teenage band anywhere in the country gets the opportunity to support an act as big as Embrace? If this was a gig south the support slot would have been auctioned off to the highest bidder, never mind paying them anything.
I’ve held back in commenting too much on Magfest, mainly because I didn’t want to be too critical just because the acts weren’t my cup of tea. Apart from the awful acoustic in the Picky, the event was a great success and was enjoyed by alot of people. Personally I would have liked to see some up and coming bands (like Cazals or Negative for Francis) but I’ll be the first to admit that they wouldn’t have drawn a crowd like the old faithfuls did. Hopefully if it happens again next year the acts will be a mixture of both established and new bands from south, alongside another strong selection of local bands.
While the festival always faces some criticism, I don’t think anybody could question that Magfest did exactly what it said on the tin: provided something accessible and popular to people who may not have ever shown interest in the regular fesival programme.
Money-wise it doesn’t seem unfair when events like this only happen up here because they get funding from the lottery and things. It’s all stuff like the stage crew and hiring equipment that people don’t think of. I don’t think bands that come up here do it for the money anyway
yeah it’s just the problem of unrealistic expectations. it’s like if you asked a group of people what they wanted and put it all together they would tell you they wanted all the top acts, a low entrance fee, and good pay for the musicians. and you don’t have to be an economist to see problems with that