In recent years the band has lost two members, and trimmed down to the three-piece we have today. "Without being bad to the other people in the band, it works so much better now that we’re a three-piece," says Cadwell.
Rachel picks up the discussion. "The dynamic definitely changed when we went from a four piece to a three piece," she says. "And I think because we’d had so many people leaving; we’d had so many things as well like Paul got tendonitis and he couldn’t play drums for six months…We’ve had so many things. I think though that we developed a real group mentality of: ‘Right we’re going to do this; nothing else can stop us’. I think that comes through on the live show and it comes through on how we work a bit now – we work a bit better."
"We were so conscious that we’d lost someone," says Paul. "That we’d lost someone, an instrument or a noise, that we worked really hard to build the noise from the three piece, to make it, to fill that void." Rachel nods. "And it worked really well I think," she says.
"We’re not as nervous now about experimenting, whereas before it might have been like ‘you’re the bass player, you’re the rhythm…’" says Cadwell. "Rachel plays keyboards and guitar, I play bass, now on one song I’m playing guitar instead of bass; there might some songs where I’m doing little bits of keyboards as well. The one thing we’re not doing is letting Paul sing!" he laughs.
"Now it’s like, if you have an idea, rather than trying to fit the idea to the person, you fit the person to the idea."
Listening to the band on record, it’s hard to realise that they actually are a three-piece – with bass, drums, guitar with numerous effects pedals, and keyboards, they’re like rockier version of My Bloody Valentine kicking up quite a melodic racket. "I find it bizarre that with the three piece we’re louder," muses Cadwell. "With the three piece we’re more…we’re tighter and we’re louder and we’re more solid." To get that tightness, the band make sure they practice, practice, practice. "If we have an idea we’ll keep at it till it’s done, we don’t…there’s a band who said in an interview recently that the gigs just get in the way of the partying. And that’s like the exact opposite to us," says Cadwell. "It’s all about doing the gigs, doing the records, getting things right, getting the songs right, and that kind of comes first over everything. And if we can enjoy ourselves doing it, great…"
"That’s the basic element of it – playing live, recording records, putting them out, you know," explains Rachel. "A lot of bands lose sight of that. But we rehearse every Saturday from 2pm in the afternoon to 8 or 9pm at night."
