Northern Lights

PITCHED HIGH UP IN THE CALDER VALLEY, surrounded by the Pennine moorlands made famous by the Brontës, Hebden Bridge prides itself on being a last bastion of alternative thinking. Here, big business is being challenged; most shops are fiercely independent and the population is a mix of ageing hippies, ex-punks, poets, activists and deeply-rooted old West Riding families. The town has a radical, do-it-yourself attitude. After recent devastating floods there was little whingeing, no relying on government. Everyone mucked in. Peter and David Brewis, the brothers who constitute the band Field Music, step through evidence of the recent inundation, dodging stagnant puddles of river silt and trying not to slip on Market Street’s slick flagstones. Tonight they will play the town’s Trades Club – established by the local Labour Party in 1923 and still run by committee – kicking off the campaign for new album Commontime four years after the release of their Mercur y-nominated Plumb. Free-thinking Hebden Bridge and the industrious, self-contained Sunderland band seem well-suited, although there are indications that, over a decade since their debut, the wider world is finally catching up with the latter. Witness the reaction to the oddball funk of lead-off track The Noisy Days Are Over, a song that Prince tweeted his love for on the day it was released. “That was strange,” says Peter Brewis, over clinking pots of tea and a shared flapjack in the Old Gate pub, just off Hebden Bridge’s arterial Market Street. “We suspect a friend of his heard the track and passed it on: ‘Check out this weird English band – they’ve done a little Prince

The Moors the merrier: Peter (left) and David Brewis contemplate the possibility of having fun, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, Friday, January 22, 2016.

thing at the end.’ It’s amazing really, because realistically how many record shops in Minnesota stock Field Music?” “First Prince, then the world – and about bloody time,” deadpans younger brother David. “We are the slowest-burning band in pop histor y. Even in Sunderland just the other day, when I was attempting to buy some insurance, I had a woman say how nice it was to see a new local band getting exposure. I was, like, really? Because honestly, I’m so oldIcan’t even remember my age any more.”

POP MUSIC HAS BEEN THE PULSE-BEAT OF Field Music since the brothers wrote their first song – a ditty entitled What’s The Pie Doing In The Sky? – aged four and two, but it’s pop whose architecture is prog’s complexity. The pair are perennially pegged as cerebral sorts, yet litter today’s conversation with references to heartier early interests such as The Black Crowes, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Queen – “A Brewis family fancy dress party always involves at least three different era Freddie Mercurys,” beams Peter. More recent enthusiasms include Justin Timberlake. Field Music make music writhing with contradictions: precise and economical one minute, baroque and lavish the next. Juxtaposition is key and Commontime’s square peg pop is as much Pharrell Williams as Alan Parsons Project. “We grew up with the idea of the ‘classic album’,” says Peter. “Pet Sounds or whatever. We’d read books about them, and would think if we don’t make the best album in the world ever, we’ve failed.” “And long we may continue to do so,” adds David. “Because only an insane person would suggest they’ve made the perfect album; if you think you’ve nailed it thenyou’re a narcissist or a psychopath.” The Brewises talk of their renewed commitment to making pop “without being sniffy about it”. “Stock, Aitken & Waterman was my introduction to music, and I loved it,” says Peter. “Then David got Bad and a black fedora for Christmas one year; he was sort of a budget Michael Jackson. We can discuss Gentle Giant or Steely Dan all day but we’re just as likely to listen to something like Single Ladies by Beyoncé. That song’s odd on every level. With Field Music we try to draw on that underlying pop weirdness.” Dig deeper into Field Music’s catalogue and you’ll hear debts to Thelonious Monk, even Debussy. It’s a singular brew, but one whose influence can now be heard in younger – often more visible – bands. “Oh, do you reckon?” says Peter, surprised. “Some bands like Dutch Uncles would come to see us play and Everything Everything gigged round our way a lot,” says David. “They were kids starting out but I think they’re equally as influenced by The Futureheads, who Pete played in, and who also inspired us massively. I do remember hearing some later Bloc Party and a few other bands and thinking, They’ve nicked our drum beat.” Beside him his brother laughs. “That’s probably what Prince says about us, Dave.”

THE OTHER STRAND OF FIELD MUSIC’S enduring career narrative is the DIY ethic. Five studio albums, four solo works and one film soundtrack in and they’re still driving their own van, humping gear up dank stairwells, and part-managing themselves. Though this hands-on approach appears quaint, it is, in fact, realistic: a sustainable business model for the post record industry-era that safeguards the Brewises’s autonomy. It’s certainly chiming with the enthusiastic crowd milling outside tonight’s sold-out venue. In conversation the Brewises wear their hearts on their sleeves, but it’s fair to say their music has not always been so direct, and some critics have expressed exasperation with their lyrical abstractions and mathematical song structures. Too academic, austere. Yet with Commontime they appear to be entering a new phase, embracing instinct and optimism. They’re starting to let go. “We’re adults now,” shrugs Peter. “Whereas I guess some other

bands aren’t. Or they’ll have fun for three years, then it falls apart. Content-wise we have always tried to avoid cliché but on this new album I’ve used the word ‘baby’ in a song for the first ever time. I’m allowed to now I’m a dad.” Backstage at the Trades Club, where out front the audience numbers underage-looking kids, prog heads, urbane hipsters and number one fan, ex-Fall man and BBC6Music DJ Marc Riley, Field Music are munching carrot sticks and doing vocal warm-ups, mellifluously chanting “Sally saw Sylvester stacking silver saucers side by side” in strong Sunderland accents. There’s just time to reflect on a theor y that MOJO has posited: that Field Music remain the most creatively free band in Britain. “Obviously I’d love to play to really big venues, wish everyone was getting paid more and that all we had to do was step on stage,” says David, his guitar strapped on. “But at what price? I don’t know what we would have to lose to get to that level and I’m not sure I would like that. We’ve seen plenty of bands turn up in two tour buses, but they’re gone now.” “For us to keep taking our lily-livered version of musical risks we have to keep taking the commercial risks,” adds Peter. “That whole rock star thing was always beyond us. As a kid it never occurred to us that Led Zeppelin actually employed people to do the heavy lifting.” Staying in the north-east – David in Sunderland, Peter in Newcastle – has curbed any potential rock star nonsense and underwritten the band’s durability. Sunderland will not tolerate pretentiousness. “We’re not remotely ‘rock’ or flamboyant,” says David, “but I’d argue our arrangements and how we play are actually completely Led Zeppelin. Football strips, laddish chants and a bit of strutting is the only rock star behaviour that Sunderland finds acceptable. The Liam Gallagher thing – thanks mate. Oasis were of no interest to us, but it was something to work against.” It’s also a place that, they merrily point out, is as cheap as chips, allowing them to maintain their own studio. Here the brothers Brewis are figureheads for a localised scene, dusting other artists’ work with their own production magic. “Festivals were the only time we’d cross paths with much bigger bands beyond our world,” explains David. “Early on we’d turn up in our dad’s estate car and stage crews would laugh at us: ‘Where’s the band? Where’s your gear?’” “We’re here, mate,” says Peter. “Check out me dad’s Mondeo.”

FIELD MUSIC HAVE ALWAYS HAD A strong sense of the right and wrong way to be a band; few decisions, whether creative, aesthetic or business, seem flippant. A previous group of theirs even drew a list of rules that the Brewises taped to the inside of their wardrobe. “It had stuff like, ‘You must drink four cups of coffee before playing,’ and, ‘Everyone must sing, all the time,’” remembers David. “One rule just said, ‘Digital echo’.” “It was like [Brian Eno’s] Oblique Strategies,” says Peter. “For example, a concept doesn’t have to make sense, but it makes sense to have a concept. So on Commontime I might play a guitar solo as someone else, or we’ll use two drum kits simultaneously. It’s a framework that makes decision-making easier. There’s a lot of me and Dave singing round a microphone, just so we could have fun.” Fun. Isn’t that the very reason most people form bands in the first place? Here the brothers pause. David breaks the silence. “Aye, actually,” he nods, as if considering the concept of ‘fun’ for the first time. “I think it is. And we are.”