The Band Explains: Glass Peaks - 'Architect'
Glass Peaks give us a taste of our potential dystopian future with new single ‘Architect’, which see the London three piece get psychedelically political with their sound. Vocalist Alfie Jefferies took a moment to explain the track in more detail to us.
Your new track ‘Architect’ is out now, can you tell us what the track is about?
The track is just a bit of a two fingers up to the pantomime show that is the British government at this particular moment in time. With everything that's going on with this idea of 'Brexit' and the absolute nonsense unfolding around it; we wanted to throw our two-cents in a bit. We're just sick of it. It's all anybody is talking about for all the wrong reasons and it's being used to cover up far more important issues that are being swept under the carpet.
Is there a certain reason why it is called ‘Architect’
I remember writing the first line "I'm a trained architect, built solely in benevolence" and the word just jumped out at me. I suppose it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek. Architecture can be defined as 'the complex or carefully designed structure of something'. The things we're talking about in this track are being dealt with in a completely shambolic way. Brexit, our economy, the imminent selling off of our wonderful National Health Service etc... there's no justification or rational explanation for the lies that have been uncovered. There's nothing carefully designed about our next steps; it's all a bit tiring and draining.
Is there a reason you chose to release it on the 31st October?
Yeah, that was purely because it was the date that the UK was supposed to leave the European Union. It's funny now because there's been yet another extension into January 2020. We've delivered our single on time, what's your excuse, Boris?
It’s quite the political song, do you feel yourselves as a political band? Or is this a one off track?
I don't feel like we're necessarily a 'political' band. I think we all share similar political views as a band. We all have strong set of shared values and believe that positive, peaceful change is necessary in so many different areas of our existence; but I wouldn't say we're a political band. I've never really felt compelled to write anything of this nature before because I've been a bit disengaged with it, but it's important to have an opinion and to voice it - so I suppose that's what we're doing with this. I don't think it'll be a recurring thing for us - we'll probably stick to what we know and go back to writing songs about being sad about not feeling validated enough on social media.
Should music and politics be mixed? And if so, should there be more of it?
Absolutely. As I said, I think it's important to have an opinion and to voice it. It's a hard one because you can't afford to be too direct or too vague and weak messages create bad situations. But it's important to talk about what you believe in with passion - especially when in your heart you know that it's the right thing. Also, we're well aware that not everybody is going to share the same opinions as us, and that's fine! Not all tories are bad people, I just wouldn't be caught dead kissing one.
This track sees you going more psychedelic, however it still holds the Glass Peaks sound, what is your creative process like as a band at the moment.
I'm really excited about our sound at the moment. We've kind of reached a point where we've stopped caring about the small silly things like 'does this guitar part sound too much like that part in that Foals track?' or 'hmm maybe we shouldn't open up and go as heavy in that moment...' We're purely writing and playing what we enjoy. If we love how something sounds, why change it? A good friend once said to me 'Write music that you would want to listen to yourself' and that's exactly what we've been doing. We feel like we have a bit of a 'sound' but we don't tie ourselves down to that. It's all very exciting. I'm proud of our output this year and I'm excited for the next releases. There are so many different elements to our bands sound - we can't wait to hear what everyone thinks.
You have a headline show at the beautiful St Pancreas Old Church coming up in January, how are the plans for that coming along? What can we expect from it?
Oh yes. We do indeed. We're really busy making sure that all the fine details for that show are covered. We're fine tuning everything right now; really tightening the screws. We're blowing the dust off of some very old songs and re-working them a little bit as well as injecting some brand new material into the set. We're very, very excited about that one and we're also very excited to announce the supports for that show soon. It's going to be a belter.
GLASS PEAKS LIVE DATES -
31st January 2020 - St Pancras Old Church, London