Where have Yorkshire’s finest been for the last couple of years? Vocalist Becca Macintyre fills us in.
After two years of setbacks, Marmozets are finally back on a roll and ready to smash the UK to bits once again. Singer Becca Macintyre tells us why they’re...
It should have been a victory lap. In August 2015, Marmozets capped a year of touring their wildly successful debut album, The Weird And Wonderful Marmozets, with a Main Stage slot at Reading festival – arguably the highest-profile performance of their career. Riding a wave of adrenaline and crowd adulation, amped up for a forthcoming Stateside tour with Nothing More and Turbowolf, singer Becca Macintyre headed backstage for a celebratory round of interviews. Instead, something happened that knocked the band’s fast-rising star violently off course.
“It was meant to be the bang at the end of the year,” she recalls. “We were about to go out on a big American tour with all these amazing bands. I went to go and meet the press, and I saw an old friend I hadn’t seen in ages. They were really drunk… and they tackled me to the floor!”
Having experienced problems with her right leg throughout the cycle for The Weird And Wonderful Marmozets – “I’d been pushing to get these tours over before getting it checked out” – this inebriated reunion gave her a broken left leg to complement it. “That was the point where it was like, ‘Becca, you need to sort your knees out,’” she says. “I ended up having two major operations.”
She says this so casually, you might think it was no big deal. But the truth is that Becca was laid up for more than 12 months – unable to perform, practise or play. The band’s US dreams were shattered, and the momentum they’d built up potentially left to stagnate.
“I had to learn how to walk again, and put all my time and energy into fixing my legs. There was a moment when I was in my recovery where I really thought that was the end of my career,” she says.
“THIS COULD BE LIFE-CHANGING FOR US”
MARMOZETS ARE FEELING THE WEIGHT OF EXPECTATION ON ALBUM NUMBER TWO
Then she laughs. “But I’m all good now – I’ve got bionic knees!”
Having lived on the road since they were teenagers, the rest of the band – Becca’s brothers Sam (vocals/guitar) and Josh (drums), and siblings Jack and Will Bottomley (guitar and bass respectively) took this rare opportunity to live normal lives back in Bingley, West Yorkshire.
“The boys tend to play a lot of football, and all of us learned to cook properly. So next time we come back from tour, we can come back to reality like, ‘Hey! We can do normal things! We can do the washing!’” she says. “It was a blessing in disguise.”
Sadly, during this period, Becca and her siblings also lost their grandmother. “That was really difficult,” she reflects. “But we’ve all come out the other side. You get a whole new understanding of life, d’you know what I mean? Of how precious and delicate it is.”
Audibly uncomfortable, she quickly changes the subject to the surprise song they dropped in August. “And then to come out the other side and release a single like Play – the reaction that we’ve got from that is just amazing. We feel so strong and confident in what we’re doing.”
It’s a total non sequitur, and it’s clear Becca doesn’t wish to be drawn on the topic. She is West Yorkshire through-and-through, friendly yet forceful. Every other phrase is, “D’you know
what I mean?” – equal parts checking she’s been understood, and throwaway vocal tic.
She speaks warmly of her bandmates –
Josh is “a very talented boy”, and the boys “treat me like a princess – they look after me.” She constantly talks of being “blessed” by her family’s support, by the quality of the surgeons who repaired her knees, and by the work of legendary producer Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters) who’s just produced their second album.
In fact, it’s speaking about Gil that really seems to focus Becca’s mind. She’s a passionate woman with plenty to say, but oddly (for a lyricist), words sometimes tumble out of her mouth in a seemingly random order. But ask her about working with him, and her entire demeanour changes. She explains how the band have struggled in the past to find producers who understand their vision, but how Gil “completely gets where we are coming from”.
So productive was their relationship – in Becca’s words, “a little slice of heaven” – that Marmozets are already planning to record more material. “As soon as we have breaks in between tours, we’re gonna go straight back into the studio with him,” she says. “When you connect with someone that well, it’s magical!”
despite the fact that Marmozets whet our appetites in August with Play – a fastpaced blast of high-energy party-rock, all thunderous drums and filthy, Queens Of
The Stone Age guitars – their album won’t be released until next year. This gives the band a chance to gauge people’s reactions to the material they put out in the meantime.
After such a lengthy absence, their next move is critical.
“It’s our second baby,” Becca explains, deadly serious. “We’re just taking it easy. This is something that could be potentially lifechanging for us.”
Good things, she explains, comes to those who wait. “The album’s great,” she enthuses. “When it comes out, people won’t have anything bad to say. They’ll forget they waited so long for it.”
That might sound like hot air coming from any number of other musicians, but Becca sounds utterly convincing. And, more importantly, convinced. The as-yet-untitled album will see the band add new elements to their hard-to-pin- down, mathy sound.
“It’s a bit more stripped-back. But the hooks and melodies are very strong, and we’ve been experimenting with electronics. We’re constantly learning new things, and we’re excited to bring them all to the table,” she says. “But it’s still all Marmozets! Since we were kids, we always had the dream of, ‘We’re gonna be the biggest rock band.’ You see that attitude a lot, but we all feel that we deserve a little bit more.”
Specifically, they want to play “huge fucking shows”. And while they may have their eyes on arenas, for now we’re lucky enough to be able to see Marmozets in more intimate settings on their UK tour this October – their first in more than two years.
“That’s what we started for – to have that connection,” Becca explains. “To have people walking out going, ‘I don’t know what happened there, but I feel changed.’ Shows where something goes off, a lightbulb in your head, and you approach life a little differently. Music is such a powerful thing. D’you know what I mean?”
MARMOZETS TOUR THE UK THIS MONTH – SEE P.107 FOR DETAILS.
THEIR SECOND ALBUM IS DUE OUT NEXT YEAR VIA ROADRUNNER