Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Life’s shoe looking up
Big Glasto weekend for band who started out sitting down and gazing at their feet ’I’m not trying to be Freddie Mercury but looking at your shoes and playing isn’t good enough’
Alt-j’s return to Glastonbury this weekend, combined with the launch of their brilliant third album Relaxer, will surely see their star soar even higher.
Formed at Leeds University in 2007, the one-time ‘shoegazers’ hit the big time by winning the Mercury with their 2012 album An Awesome Wave.
These days they headline venues such as London’s O2 and may be the most gifted but least recognised outfit of their generation. Yet that anonymity might be useful for keyboard player vocalist Gus Unger-hamilton as he makes his post-set Glasto explorations. “I absolutely love it. I went for the first time in 2009 with my brothers,” he says.
“The thing about Glastonbury is not to make too many plans, just wander round and take it in.
“See some really random music, go to the healing fields and check out the yurts. Take it all in as one big experience.
“Don’t worry about getting to the John Peel stage to see a band at half four, just take it easy and stay up as late as possible in the Shangrila tent.”
As their profile has grown globally, Relaxer is poised to follow predecessor This Is All Yours into the US Top 10. And Gus, rather than lead vocalist Joe Newman, has come to the fore live. “When we started out playing live we were pretty shoegazey,” he says. “The first year of gigging we used to play sitting down.
“Our songs are quite complicated. There’s not a lot of space to mess up when you play an Alt-j song live. But now I’m the person who talks to the crowd. Joe doesn’t do that now.”
“It’s still difficult to do the ‘how you guys doing?’ or getting everyone to clap... so embarrassing. But if you look like you’re enjoying it and do it with confidence, people like it. There’s got to be a certain amount of showmanship. I’m not trying to be Freddie Mercury but looking at your shoes and just getting on with playing the songs isn’t good enough.”
Watching Gus, Joe and drummer Thom Green negotiate newly minted masterpieces is bound to be a highlight of Glastonbury.
“Their speciality is the art of the musical segue,” says Gus, “fusing two songs to make a sumptuous, seamless whole, as in The Beatles’ A Day In The Life.
“It’s funny we do that a lot. I didn’t really know much about The Beatles until I watched the documentary about Sgt Pepper recently. I thought this is similar to us making our recent album – a lot of similar approach to writing and recording.” Relaxer out now. Alt-j headline The Other Stage, Glastonbury, June 24 at 10.30pm