The Human Condition

Profile: The Temper Trap

Words: Harriet Gibsone

Photos: TomOldham.com

It’s a bizarre experience when you’ve spent months listening to an album that radiates the sort of tender intimacy that The Temper Trap’s debut does, with its secret, sacred love-inflicting sadness, and then suddenly its four creators are in front of you and, umm, they’re a bit tired. The Aussie four-piece are certainly looking a touch battered when we interview them before soundcheck at their sold-out gig at
London’s regal

ICA. Dougy, Toby, Jonny and Lorenzo are a fickle bunch, quick-witted and playful one minute and subdued and distracted the next, possibly down to the fact that they’ve been working flat out since they touched down on

UK shores earlier this year. The quartet seem a little overwhelmed by their sudden change of pace with life, playing an unrelenting succession of live shows, doing interviews and travelling to ten countries in 15 days – before, most of the band had hardly even ventured from their hometown.

“Jonny said he was ‘destroyed’, which is not a word that would normally come out of his mouth,” guitarist Lorenzo laughs as we’re huddled around a darkened coffee table at the venue. The four piece should get used to it; they’ve just completed a remarkable debut album and have shipped their lives across the world to embark on a charm offensive of the

UK.

“We’re excited about being here,” their boyishly charismatic singer Dougy admits, “but the industry is different. You’re doing all these shows back to back and when you have a day off you’re doing like two acoustic sessions – in

Australia nobody does acoustic sessions. That’s why I’m drinking espresso and I’m about to pass out! I guess [being in the UK] has put pressure on but in some respects it’s given us more freedom – I mean I don’t have my mum on my back anymore!” he exclaims.  

Last time The Fly spoke to Dougy, the band were about to leave the synth heavy musical minefield of
Australia for a more rock’n’roll-welcoming
East

London. Was this difference in the musical landscape why they left their homeland?  

“Well, you could tour for about two weeks in

Australia and be done! Plus it depends what you’re focusing on, I think the attention there has been on electronic bands rather than four-piece rock bands,” guitarist Lorenzo states. “We’re not trying to escape it though, we’re just trying to expand our fanbase,” bassist Jonny cuts in. They might have only touched down in

London four months ago, but they’ve been making music together for about five years and evolving their sound, mainly thanks to one unsuspecting gig-goer.

“We played this show one time and this girl leant over to me and goes, ‘Hey you guys were really good tonight,’” Dougy re-enacts earnestly in a gentle female accent, “‘You sound like Jet!’” His face grimaces. “So that was a wake up call! We started exploring and we got a sampler which let us do whatever we wanted to do on stage,” drummer Toby reveals. Although debut album ‘Conditions’ as a whole speaks with the same emotive tone, each song shines with its unique take on their personal influences; ‘Down River’ is an Arcade Fire bustle of cathartic chants and rumbling drums, ‘Sweet Disposition’ is an overwhelmingly magnificent romantic declaration of U2 proportions, ‘Resurrection’’s vocals revel in an operatic, almost Pink Floydian stature, whilst ‘Fader’ is a blisteringly bright pop hit – the genre, perhaps, that the band finds most natural? “We could have released a straight pop record with some of the songs that we’d written. Really cheesy bubblegum pop,” Lorenzo admits. “We were rehearsing four times a week so when you’re in a room making music all the time you have that time to expand, and that’s good when you’re thinking about where we could go with the next album.” With these pop foundations grounded in their composition making skills, The Temper Trap’s music is certainly accessible, with ‘Sweet Disposition’ already used to soundtrack FA Cup sequences, although they’re not worried about being too commercial – they want as many people as possible to hear their songs.

“We can’t afford to be too idealistic with things. Seriously, we’re literally nobodies,” Dougy states matter of factly. “We are nobodies – I think one of our main goals at the moment is just to get to the right market. We want to share it, we can’t be too cool.”

Once The Temper Trap had found their definitive sound, fortune saw their demos fall into the hands of producer Jim Abbiss (knob-twiddler for Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Noisettes and UNKLE) and it was whilst driving with his

wife he went through a stack of demos to soundtrack their journey when a particular song – ‘Soldier On’ – ignited Mrs Abbiss’ ears.

“Apparently, they had this moment where she looked at him and said ‘I’m really into this song’. And he said, ‘You want me to produce this band don’t you?’ And then began these months of how-do-we-align-these-calendars,” Toby explains. “It got to the point where we were like ‘This isn’t going to happen’. We were cooped up in this little room, and we started getting cabin fever. And then he flew over to

Australia.” “It was like here’s another member of the group. It was a real collaboration between both parties,” Toby continues. “The first thing he said to us when we got into the studio, he goes, ‘This record is not only going to be your record but it’s going to be my record. We can come out of this as friends – but most of the time we’re going to come out of this hating each other’,” Lorenzo recalls. Thankfully, they came out friends, and so did the band despite an intense recording relationship. “I think there’s a healthy tension with creative differences but we can all learn, we’ll work it out, it’s give or take,” Jonny explains.

The Temper Trap take their job very seriously. It’s evident in the live show that follows the interview; raw, passion-filled and startlingly succinct, without an overrehearsed sheen. “To the dismay of people who interview us, we don’t drink before the show. We have band rules – well, it’s more like morals. Band morals. What we should and shouldn’t do,” Lorenzo says of their working relationship. “At one point we had a ‘Temper Trap Philosophy’. One of the things I really appreciate was that if you have to listen to every idea – give everything a chance,” Jonny says, enthusiastically showcasing with great pride the Macarena-styled ‘slap dance’ he suggested should accompany some of their live songs (it was, of course, later vetoed). “We don’t have a rule that’s ‘don’t make a mistake’ but we have high standards. If one of us makes a bum note in the show, then the next show has to make up for it,” Jonny continues. “Dougy has ears like a hawk!” Lorenzo reveals, “If you make a mistake, we all know that we have played a bad show – and even though Dougy may get upset I think I’m hard on myself too. We’re a team and you don’t want to let the rest of the team down.”

In person sometimes erratically playful, sometimes withdrawn, Dougy’s heartfelt lyrics expose the sensitive frontman and songwriter as a bit of a romantic. “Well, I think it’s real for everyone,” the suddenly solemn Dougy admits. “Who hasn’t experienced love, or the loss of love? Whether it’s romantic love, or best friend love. I just write. I write about things that I’ve gone through. And yeah, there are songs that are personal to me but I think for now I’d like to keep them personal. I’m not precious about people interpreting it their own way. They might get something out of it that I don’t – it’s just a break for me, like therapy.” Although throughout the interview he appears weary – something to do with his gnat-like attention span, perhaps – onstage he becomes a captivating frontman and shining star, his unique Jeff Buckley vocal operatics combined with a warm, mellifluous D’Angelo-styled timbre matched with marching stomps, impassioned fist clenching and rock star scowls, but in person he’s a little more reserved. “I don’t know, it’s kind of weird. I’m in the business of being in front of people but at the same time trying to keep my cards close to my chest,” he says, his wide brown eyes distantly pointing towards the floor.

With the initial pressure of being a new band in a new country, mixed with the acclaim of working with a top producer and being miles from home, are they nervous about surpassing people’s expectations? “Trying to live up to some of the stupid stuff that people say doesn’t even really register,” Toby admits. “People ask us questions about expectations and I don’t know if we should be thinking about it more,” Jonny says. “If anything we’d see it as a challenge to reach these expectations. I don’t think we can achieve them – but if we go out every night and give our best show to give everyone the best experience, if we keep doing that then people will tell their friends and then their friends will come see us and so on and so forth and that way you can protect yourself from all that crazy expectation and hype that has a tendency to creep up on bands. It gives you that framework and that fanbase that if you put out a  bad song [the fans will] wait for your next song instead of going on to the next cool thing.” It’s clear from meeting the group that their intentions are not some grab-a-piece-of-the-trend-and-run; they’re in this for  the long haul.

“I guess [our aim is to be like] some of the bands who have been able to take control of their career, like Radiohead, or Oasis: another [band] who’ve gone through that major label generalisation and come out the other side with control for the rest of their careers. We’ve been lucky, we’ve been able to find an independent label – a great deal that gives us that control that in ten years we’ll be in a great position to be in complete control and know what we want to do and how we want to do it and do it in the right way,” Toby confirms. “I guess for me, an inspiration at the moment – whether the rest of the band would like this or not – is Kings Of Leon. When you look at the gradual process they’ve taken – now they’re one of the biggest bands in the world. They have a real fanbase and the last record they [released] just smashed it. They may have lost a lot of fans but they gained too. I’d just like to be in a band that keeps building and building.” And as for Dougy? “I think it’ll go full circle – we’ll end up sounding like Jet again,” he says, erupting into laughter.

That night we stand and surrender our emotions to the wave of magnificent sounds that envelop us. From the euphorically touching climax of ‘Sweet Disposition’, the smooth and exhilarating ‘Rest’ and the invigorating ‘Science Of Fear’, their set tonight is an insight into the band’s future. The Temper Trap are bursting at the seams to fill a more stadium-sized venue and we’ve no doubt that they’re set to surpass their ambitions.

‘Conditions’ is released on Infectious on August 10th.