What are the plans for the promotion of the record over the next while? “Well, we’ve just finished first bit” he says. “The album came out a little later than we’d be planning so we only had time to do a UK and Ireland tour before festival season started. So we did that and now we’ll be doing festivals all summer, but we’re about to announce a big European tour for the Autumn and Winter. So we’ll probably be out until Christmas and then we might try make another record. That’s kind of the year stitched up for us really.”
With such a constant touring schedule, some band tension must surely arise now and then? “Aww yeah! I think everyone deals with it differently. Sometimes there’s like massive, huge tensions and stuff but everyone has their wee ways to deal with things and as long as you get a bit of time to yourself it’s fine.”
Of course, touring as a band on their second critically acclaimed album is somewhat different from their original state. “Touring now is very different from when we started when it would be the four of us in a car for weeks on end,” he says, sounding very glad of the change. “Now at least, we get our own space in terms of having somewhere to crash and have a shower, maybe having a hotel every now and again to have a bit of alone time. We’ve always said it would be interesting to have a psychologist for the band and have him analyze us and tell us how fucked up we all are. I’m sure it would be pretty interesting!”
Friers’ fellow guitarist in ASIWYFA, Tony Wright, has carved out a little side-project for himself in the form of his solo acoustic act, Verse Chorus Verse. Has Friers or anyone else in the band gone down that route? “To be honest, right now I’m writing so much so ASIWYFA I don’t really have the head-space to think about doing anything else. It takes a lot work and mental time to make an ASIWYFA record happen. So, I wouldn’t say I’ll be announcing a side-project just yet but I do a lot of my own stuff. Who knows, maybe some day I’ll be happy enough with some of it and I’ll release it.”
In the end, it comes down to the simple fact of making music, something which, after six years as a band, seems to keep ASIWYFA going; back out onto the road again, back into the studio again, always searching for the next step in their artistic and personal growth. “I find it really important to be not worrying too much. My main love is writing music, that’s really what I live for and I suppose the past few months have been really good because there hasn’t been any stress with writing a record, it’s just been writing music for the sake of writing music. I think it’s definitely important to remember that music exists beyond a band or a group of people, that it’s something that’s in you and exists no matter what.”
And So I Watch You From Afar play the Indiependence main stage on Sunday night.
http://www.myspace.com/andsoiwatchyoufromafar
http://indiependencefestival.com
