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AllMusic: If you could travel back to 2005 and play this record for yourself, what would your reaction be?
Tom Smith: Part of me would have been amazed that we were still making albums. I’d have been curious looking at the cover and seeing two different band members—that would have puzzled me. Musically, I think I’d have been thrilled. On The Back Room, tracks like “Camera” and “Distance” already had an electronic pulse, and over time we’ve swung between guitar-heavy records and more electronic ones. I’d probably have been a little unnerved by the riff in “Hallelujah,” too.
AllMusic: How much of “Hallelujah” was already formed when you brought it to the band?
Smith: What I brought was the way the drum machine worked with the acoustic guitar in the verse—it had an energy that felt really exciting. Getting those two elements to play together smoothly isn’t easy, and I felt like I was onto something. When I shared it with the rest of the group, it began to grow: Elliot [Williams] added arpeggios, and then when Justin [Jockey] came up with that guitar riff, we were all buzzing. That was a key moment in making the album. We’ve always loved drama in our music, and that track felt like our most over-the-top. On our early records, the guitars were often melodic and played high up, but this came from a different place. Justin is a very different guitarist from Chris [Urbanowicz, who left in 2012]. He has his own style, and we didn’t bring him in to repeat the same things, so it was great to see his personality stamped on the song right away and to have it become such a defining moment for the album.
AllMusic: When you push boundaries like that, do you ever feel you’ve gone too far?
Smith: There were a few times during mixing when that song exploded out of the speakers even more intensely, and it reached a point I wasn’t comfortable with—it was just too extreme. If you’re going for heaviness, you still need melodies for it to work for us; it can’t just be noise. So we had to pull it back a bit. Musically, we’ve never had a moment that felt so rock-star, with devil horns and all. We played that song at some festivals last summer, and even though it’s risky to play new songs at festivals, people seemed to get it immediately. That made us think we might really be on to something.
AllMusic: The album title and cover art also feel bold and direct.
Smith: When we made the last record, In Dream, we did everything ourselves with no outside help. We hid away on the west coast of Scotland, and that was a crucial step in the band’s development—this second phase of Editors. Putting ourselves in that environment and producing it ourselves felt like we had achieved something together, like we’d survived a rough patch and could now handle anything. There’s a pop writing sensibility in some of these songs that we’d previously pushed aside because we were a bit scared of it. But we’ve been doing this for a while now—it’s our sixth album—and that brings confidence. If you feel the songs have that quality, why not have a striking image on the cover that represents what you’ve done? And why not call the album Violence if you think it’s important for this set of songs?
AllMusic: “No Sound But the Wind” has appeared in different versions over the years. What keeps drawing you back to it?
Smith: It always bothered me that we never recorded that song properly as a band. The version used in [Twilight: New Moon] was a cheap home demo I recorded with one microphone, and I was shocked they wanted to use that. Then the version I played live took on a life of its own in Belgium and became significant there. The fact that we’d never given it a proper studio recording was starting to annoy me—the song had a life but never had its defining moment. It’s a strange relationship to have with a song; it doesn’t usually work that way.
On this album, many songs are immediate, in-your-face, and brash, with a sonic brutality. We felt the record needed a moment of reflection, a calm space to breathe. I talked to the band about trying to record the song again. There were some confused looks and some nods of understanding, and it came down to finding a way to present it that we all had a hand in and all liked. Why not? It felt good to finally draw a line under that song, give it a full stop, and put it to bed.
AllMusic: Do you think your lyrics have matured significantly since the early days?
Smith: When I look back at lyrics from the early records, I’m not embarrassed, but I can see they were written by a younger man. Like all songwriters, I worry that the tap above my head—where the words come from—might suddenly turn off, and then what the hell would I do? So I’m always grateful when things start flowing, and I think, “OK, there are things I can say here.”
Whether it sounds like the words of a grown man… I don’t feel like a grown man. I joined a band to avoid feeling like one for as long as possible. Being in a band feels like an extension of that longing for eternal youth. Look at the Rolling Stones—trying to stay young as long as you can to dodge the adult issues everyone else has to face. I think these songs acknowledge the times we live in and the world we’re up against: the violence in our world, in society, and how it seeps into our lives and consumes us. That’s present in these songs, and I agree that confronting that is more of a grown-up thing than a lot of other subjects.
AllMusic: This might be the first time I’ve heard the word “mollycoddled” in a song.
Smith: When I sat at the piano to work out that song and that word came to me, I had a big smile on my face because I’d never heard it in a song before. I’d love it if that were true, but I can’t imagine it is. I’m always trying to find words and images that spark something—strong, striking images. Sometimes they’re more important than what the song is actually about; they can hint at the theme. But my songs aren’t message songs with a clear beginning, middle, and end—I’m not a storyteller. I’m trying to trigger emotions that aren’t always easy to describe or explain. So when those words come to me, I feel like, “Ah, that’s a nice moment.” When “mollycoddled” came out, I wanted to call the song that, but the band wouldn’t let me, so it’s called “Cold.”
AllMusic: Is there a particular recording session you wish you could have witnessed?
Smith: My mind naturally goes to the most important records in my life—the ones that soundtracked my late teens, like OK Computer or Automatic for the People. But maybe that would be a bit boring. Perhaps I should pick something more explosive and fun, like being a fly on the wall when they made Definitely Maybe. But no, when they made Be Here Now—when they were doing all the drugs and had all the money—that would have been fun.
