Music
Interview
Temples: “People want another 12-string song… I can’t work like that”
James Bagshaw on new album Bliss, its Balearic influences and refusing to stand still
There was a time when the 12-string electric – its resonant twang reminiscent of 1960s psychedelia – was synonymous with Temples. These days, James Bagshaw, Thomas Walmsley, Adam Smith and Rens Ottink are more interested in expanding their sonic reach than repeating old formulas.
More than a decade after their debut album Sun Structures, Temples continue to evolve, with fifth album Bliss filtering the euphoria and melancholy of turn-of-the-millennium dance music through the band’s kaleidoscopic palette. Released in June, the record opens with a high-velocity blast that should make for an intense addition to the band’s live set when they head out on a UK tour this November.
Ahead of that, frontman Bagshaw reflects on reinvention, experimentation and why every Temples album has to feel like the start of a new chapter.
Before we get into the new album, it’s been three years since Exotico. What was the transition like from touring that album into getting down to work on this one? Were you already on a roll creatively, or did you need a bit of a reset?
Yeah, I think it’s always a reset. We all write individually before a record anyway, but I’m personally not prolific in the way that I write. I write in bursts. Usually, after working on a record, that creative outlet dries up, and I quite like that because it gives you the space to make sure the next thing you do isn’t attached to the thing you’ve just done. So certainly it was a bit of a reset. We’d also had some changes in management and things like that, and that’s really helped us. I think we got into a bit of a… what’s the word? I don’t want to say we’d stagnated, because that’s not really fair, but having fresh people together for this record aligned with our own fresh perspective to create something new.
What spurred the decision to move towards a more dance-inspired sound? The album nods towards the golden era of dance and electronic music. Is that something you’ve always been into, or was it inspired by playing festivals around Europe and seeing more of that scene?
It’s kind of always been there to some degree. If I think back to B-sides, even from our first record, like ‘Ankh’, there’s already something quite dancey in the chorus. For us, there’s something really euphoric and melancholic about late-’90s and early-2000s Ibiza dance music. Even folk artists can’t even get that same sense of melancholia, and certainly not that the euphoria. So I thought it was an interesting genre to dissect a little and put our own spin on. This isn’t an electro record, it’s got elements of that, but it’s still very much a band doing it.
From a production point of view, it’s always been an interest of mine: creating builds, suspense and then hopefully delivering after that. Not having the false build that never really goes anywhere. It’s been a fun experience and a really enjoyable studio experiment.
Lyrically, a lot of Temples songs seem to focus on creating a feeling, often through visual imagery rather than straightforward storytelling or love songs. The lead single, ‘Jetstream Heart’, immediately places you in the physical impact of standing in front of a speaker, which perfectly matches what you’ve just been describing. Did you know where you wanted to go lyrically across the rest of the album? Were you trying to capture that contrast between euphoria and melancholia on paper as well?
Yeah. Like I say, we all tend to write music individually before a record comes together. We never really ‘start’ a record, it just sort of happens. Generally, whoever brings the musical idea will write the lyrics as well, although sometimes we’ll collaborate on the lyrics as well. Answering from my own perspective, we’ve never really been ones for telling a kitchen-sink drama style thing. It’s more about painting pictures that complement the melody. You’re almost letting the music influence the lyric, as opposed to sitting there and writing a load of lyrics and then writing a song to it. I feel like I can always tell when somebody’s written the lyrics first, because of the way the lines are delivered and how they overlap and things like that.
I think it’s about trying to capture a feeling. And trying to be quite simple, really. This is not as abstract as we’ve done before, lyrically. There are still surreal moments, but it’s more about trying to capture the essence of a feeling.
Since the debut, you’ve always been described as a psychedelic band, which most people tend to mean as psych rock, but electronic music can be just as psychedelic in its own way. Who were you looking to for inspiration in that respect?
I think psychedelia does get pigeonholed into the garage-rock psych thing. I’d argue that a band like Air are pretty psychedelic, but they’re nothing like what people usually expect. They’re not The Electric Prunes, do you know what I mean? Dance music is psychedelic, as well. There are Faithless tracks that, if you replaced the synths with guitars, would sound be a pretty trippy song. With the writing process, I didn’t really listen to anything else when we were working on the record. That came after. It’s when you’re missing that final five per cent.
Even the Kylie Minogue reference, which is ridiculous, because that’s not what we’re talking about here, but something hypnotic and dancey like ‘Padam Padam‘. I went back to that for ‘Jet Stream Heart’ and there’s something pumping about it, whatever that is. I think we ended up redoing the bass at that point. So it was influenced by that a bit in the finishing touches. But I’m always wary of getting too involved and obsessed by a certain album or artist, because once again I think you can hear it in people’s work. You can hear it when when a singer-songwriter has gone through their Carpenters phase. I can hear what you’re trying to do, you’re trying to do the 70s. Weyes Blood did that brilliantly, and now there are lots of artists making records that sound like they’re doing Weyes Blood doing The Carpenters. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s just not how I roll.
You also mentioned wanting to move away from some of Temples’ own established tropes for this album. What’s the process of acknowledging what those are and not relying on them?
We’ve always tried, especially from the second record onwards really, to blur the lines between what’s a guitar, what’s a keyboard, what’s analogue and what’s digital. It’s very easy for me to want to put a 12-string guitar on things. There is some 12-string on this record, but I’m so aware there’ll be fans saying, “We just want another 12-string song.” I’m sorry, I just can’t work like that. I’d liken it to being a chef who’s known for their crowning dish. Eventually just wants something the same as that but it’s like, I’m somewhere else now and I want to use a different ingredient, you know? It opened up the door, because where you have these gaps in the songwriting process because you’re not relying on your specific go-to, you end up discovering other sounds.
On “Vendetta”, for example, the keyboard part on that that comes in after the first verse is reminiscent of an old Ibiza anthem. It was all a bit too polished and clean, so we sampled it, degraded it and made it sound like it was coming off an old record or something. That became something really exciting across the whole record, because an idea is only as good as what it sounds like. Stripping back things and really letting them breath and muting things instead of having everything going at once. ‘Jetstream Heart’ is a good example of that. Towards the end of the song, the entire master channel is muted twice just to create a bit of drama.
It’s funny you mention the 12-string guitar because I was going to ask about that. I remember seeing you around the Sun Structures era at Concorde 2 in Brighton, and people in the queue were singing ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. There was a really nostalgic, ’60s psych atmosphere around the band. From Volcano onwards, though, you moved towards these bigger melodic lines and incorporated a lot more synths. Was that a conscious decision to avoid staying in that nostalgic lane and stop yourselves from being pigeonholed?
Yeah, I think so. With each record we make, we want it to feel like you couldn’t put something from the last record on this one. It wouldn’t work. Sun Structures couldn’t go outside of it’s boundaries. It was very much meant to feel like a lost 60s record. There are synths on it, actually but they’re just hidden in there. But you know, in the 60s they had synths. Beatles tracks had synths.
But we couldn’t have just done the same thing again. Bands do do that, you know, The Strokes did it with Is This It and Room on Fire, it could be either record really, but they occupy a very similar world. We could have done that, I guess, but I think we all want to see our art in different periods, I think it’s important to do that.
Although there are lots of upbeat, almost club-inspired moments on Bliss, there are exceptions like ‘Blue Flame’. To me, that has an ambient, Balearic chill, which is another side of Ibiza culture entirely. Was it important to acknowledge, that dance music isn’t just four-on-the-floor club tracks and that there’s a whole spectrum to it.
Absolutely! Many years ago I was very much a fan of the whole French electro scene – Ed Banger Records, Errol Alkan’s had the Trash nights, Bugged Out! mixtapes and all that sort of thing. We’re kind of referencing that you’d always have the chilled mix for the morning after. People don’t want their heart racing at 10 in the morning with their coffee, they want something a bit smoother. Bands that we really admire for that kind of stuff are Röyksopp, Air, Moby. That song didn’t quite have the right texture for a while, we really wanted to create a bit more drama in the song, and that came from these big pad synths that were wobbling all around that almost made you feel seasick but were also comforting as a warm wash around the melody.
Visually, you’ve changed as well. Around Exotico you were wearing those flowing ’70s-inspired suits and sunglasses, whereas with Bliss everything feels a bit more relaxed and contemporary, with this hot-pink visual identity. Do you enjoy immersing yourselves in that creative direction around each album?
I do to a point, and then it becomes exhausting. It’s a shame that we have to have such stringent budgets. For instance for the video ‘Vendetta’ was very much tying into the colour themes and this cross processed aesthetic, but I ended up making the video. I knew what I wanted it to be like and it would’ve been costly to get someone else to do it. Sometimes it’s just best to do it yourself, we produced the record ourselves and that’s quite soothing. But I don’t really want to have a Zoom call or meeting about the specific specics of the colour of the logo on the t-shirt. But at the same time if it turn ups at the venue and it looks crap, I’d be like Oh god. I think you have to care about it, it’s all a part of Temples as a whole thing.
We’ve talked about the different directions the band has taken throughout your career. Going back to what we were discussing about the audience in the early days, have you found that your fans have been open-minded as the music has evolved?
I think they have, and that’s what’s really amazing about our fans. We have such dedicated worldwide fanbase over the years. We’re not playing stadiums or massive venues, but anytime we go back somewhere, people are really accepting. It’s funny because we still get invited to play certain smaller festivals that maybe is a bit more of a psychy-type thing, but it’s still accepted that we’re still a part of that even though our music isn’t.
How has it been bringing all of these new songs into the live set alongside material from the rest of your catalogue? Are you at the point where the production is coming together for the next run of shows and festivals? What can people expect from the Bliss tour?
Yeah, I’m currently building my rig at the moment, Adam’s setup is being changed as well. So we’re doing some maintenance of our gear and getting it more powerful for what we’re gonna do.
I might not even be playing guitar during certain parts of songs. I might not even have a guitar in my hands. I don’t know yet, we haven’t rehearsed, but we’re soon to. I don’t know what’s to happen yet, it’s going to be really interested but I’m looking forward to putting them in the set and seeing how they work. I’m really excited to play certainly the singles that are out and see how they go down live, because they’re seriously energetic songs and I’m hoping you can see that from the stage looking out.
