Feature on The Futureheads

For Manifesto Magazine

By Ryan Pilot

“I like to think that the album was beautifully damned, almost doomed to fail commercially from the beginning.” muses Futureheads guitarist and vocalist Ross Millard about 2006’s News and Tributes; the album that had them dropped from the Warner Brothers label 679.
The band, now cynical of major labels, have responded positively to the setback by setting up their own label Nul Records to release their material on. The new album This Is Not The World is a result of a year’s work and being pushed by new producer Paul Hillier in Spain during recording sessions.

“We went and did this album and we kinda had eight songs when we went out there, and in 16 days we came home with 21 songs,” says front-man Barry Hyde. “If it wasn’t for him [Hillier] I don’t think there would have been a chance of that happening.”

Hillier took a matador’s role once in Spain, making the Futureheads’ bull work hard. He frequently sent Barry and Ross away to write material which they would record instantly. This lead to the conception of current hooks aplenty single Radioheart.

“Radioheart was the most intense of them all … it sounds so fresh, because … literally we just wrote it and then recorded it, and then left,” Barry says enthusiastically.

News and Tributes was notable for not having any real hits, aside from Skip to The End; the only surviving track from their album in their live set. Ross and Barry admit that this perhaps led to its lack of success in comparison to their debut The Futureheads, which of course contained floor fillers Hound of Love and Decent Days and nights.

“We deliberately set out to make a bonafide album, which represents a body of work, which had the dynamics of an album,” Ross says of News and Tributes. “Because of that it’s something we should always be proud of. If that album had of done better, we would still be signed to Warners, which would be awful.”

The band are keen to portray their contentment with their current DIY situation: “I guess we’ve just got more to gain and we can control the other things a lot more, like the way that we do the business, how we tour, videos we make, photo shoots.” says Ross.

Perhaps The Futureheads’ time with Warner was just the first step in their career. Barry looks back at the past few years philosophically: “We wouldn’t have made this next one if wasn’t for the last one…you’ve got to please yourself first and foremost and if it pleases other people that’s just a bonus. We are an artistic group and we have to satisfy our artistic urges.”