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Well. I suppose I’ll start off with the most obvious first question - who are The Krell?
Well, I’m Spike and he’s Paul. A couple of boyos from Bangor , County Down, in the North of Ireland. A bit like an Irish ‘Harry & Paul’ (UK TV Show), only we make music rather than comedy sketches. Or maybe I’ve got that the wrong way around…
Is the Krell the first time you’ve worked together as a entity
No, we’re like an old married couple - are you alright there dear! (in a wavery old voice). We know each other very well, a long time now. We argue the bit out like an old married couple too, but somehow through it all, we manage to keep things on track.
We’ve been writing, recording and gigging, in many different incarnations over the years, - we’ve had our fair share of success and record companies giving us a sniff, but alas, nothing really significant beyond these shores ever really emerged.
Had you songs already gathered up then for the album then?
We wanted to do something new and fresh for the album, not go over old ground. So we sat down with the scary sheet of blank paper, and then we though, well maybe we could cherry pick a few songs from our past repertoire, just to get us started. It did, but we effectively ended up rewriting them and a new style and sound, for us anyway, gradually emerged. The rest of the new songs followed on.
So the album, a couple of years in the making I believe?
Yea, it took a wee while. A lot of that’s down to the fact that there’s just the two of us. We wrote and arraigned all the songs, played all the instrumentation between us, produced, mixed and mastered the complete album. Even did the artwork. It all takes a lot of time. Plus, whilst you’re doing all that, you gotta go out and earn a crust.
Also during that time, every penny we had was being put into the studio for better equipment. As we got something new, human nature tends to take over, and it often resulted in us re-recording and re-processing quite a lot of elements within the tracks.
We’re heavily into vintage stuff to add a bit of mojo or colour, but technology is what makes it all possible, so we don’t knock it. It can often present you with too many options though, so you gotta know when to draw a line under it. Nothing will ever be perfect.
So, were you intentionally going for a retro vibe?
Sad to say, a lot of what’s now considered as retro, we can remember back to when it was actually new - first time around. Shit did I actually say that out loud!
Anyway, sure you know what I mean, it all goes round in cycles. Nothing much is totally new these days. What’ll it be next month? We tend not to be impressed by the latest rehashed bandwagon to jump onto. You can’t get too caught up in all that crap.
We just do what feels right to us now. So yea, you could say that certain elements could be considered retro, but if it is, we’re not really conscious of it - it’s just our own take. If other people like it, that’s great.
Are a lot of the songs autobiographical - Reviewed and rated for example?
No, not really, though I suppose no matter how much you fool yourself into thinking that they’re not, they’re certainly drawn for personal experiences. There’s certainly a good few wistful songs in there, but living it can only make it all the more real. Your just massage those experiences around a little, to hopefully make good songs.
It’s unusual for a new band to have a couple of gents, well, how can I put it politely, not exactly in the first flush of youth, especially when writing this type of contemporary music.
Cheeky. Yea, I suppose I know where you’re going with this one. Why are we not stuck in our own nostalgia zone? Yea, playing the blues or whatever. Nothing wrong with that of course, it’s just not us.
So who do you think the music will appeal to?
I really think we’ll be the next new teen sensation.
Really?
No… (Laughs)