INTERVIEW - Embrace by James Ellaby

It's been a great year for Embrace after their comeback album Out Of Nothing revived their fortunes in 2004. They will playing their biggest-ever headline shows on tour in December, including a date at the MEN Arena, while they also have a live DVD and a b-sides compilation album just out, as well as recording new album Exploding Machines. We caught up with guitarist Rick McNamara to talk about these exciting times...

Q - There's a new DVD and b-sides album out at the moment, tell us about them...

A - A b-sides album is something we've been thinking about doing for absolutely ages, everyone's always going on about how good the b-sides are, and that people should get to hear them. Sometimes you do feel like you're under-selling songs by putting them on as b-sides, but it's just a marketing thing to sell singles. So it seemed like an ideal time to do it, and with the DVD, because it was just a big gig in our hometown of Leeds, we wanted to document it anyway, but someone said 'if you're going to film it, you may as well release it as a DVD.' So it all spiralled and turned into something much bigger than we originally intended...

Q - You'll be playing your biggest ever headline shows on this tour, as you looking forward to it?

A - Oh yeah! We've already having meetings about lighting and what songs we're going to be playing and what format we're going to be playing them in, you know, if we're going to do different versions. We're all really excited about putting it on.

Q - When you made Out Of Nothing, did you really think it would be the last Embrace album?

A - Yeah, but it's always like that, I'm feeling like it after doing this one, because I never like doing it! It always starts off being really fun and it suddens turns really sour with all the decision-making, and that's when the proof of the pudding really comes out. But it was really 'shit or bust' at that time, and there's always a point when you think 'I'm never going to do this again', that's just the way it goes, it's a process you've got to go through.

Q - How do you explain its success?

A - I don't know really. I like to think that everyone's in control of their own success and if you're not doing so well, it's because the songs on your record aren't strong enough, I don't think there's any secret in that. So that's why we took so long getting the last album together, writing songs for three years and making sure that it was the best possible record that we could make. And it just turned out great, and then Chris Martin came along with a song (Gravity) at the end and that was like the final piece in the jigsaw.

Q - Is it more difficult to follow-up a successful album or an unsuccessful one?

A - I think it's about the same, but for different reasons. After making the third album that didn't sell so well, you start asking yourself the bigger questions, like 'are we good enough to do it?' and things like that. When you're following a successful one, you're asking yourself 'is this one going to sell as well?' We've got a few mixes of our new album done and people are saying we've got our first number one written, and stuff like that, so it's exciting stuff at the moment.

Q - What can we expect from Exploding Machines?

A - It's more upbeat, a bit more lively sounding. It's more 'arena rock', which is just in time really!

Q - Do you have any specific memories of gigs in Manchester?

A - I remember doing one at the Roadhouse and it was one of those gigs where the buzz was just kicking in around the band and that gig was just fucking random. All you could see was the front row and then just the tops of everyone's heads. We'd been to see a lot of gigs in Manchester, like Ride and the Flaming Lips, and it was where the cool gigs were on. You'd have to drive all the way across the Pennines to get there and there'd be big queues outside the venues, so that gig felt like we'd arrived a place we'd been aiming at for all those years.

Q - What are your hopes for 2006?

A - That the album lives up to what we're all hoping for it at the moment. We've all got our own individual visions of what it's going to sound like, so I hope to god that it sounds like how I imagine it!

Embrace will play the MEN Arena on Friday 16th December. A Glorious Day - Live In Leeds is out now on DVD, while new B-sides compilation Dry Kids is also out now.