Extended Play

When you see Editors live, you're amazed at how lead guitarist makes all those squalling sounds look effortless. Then there's Tom Smith, who can barely contain his energy long enough to stay at the microphone stand. The singer/guitarist will often fling himself across the stage while playing a counterpoint riff.

A few weeks ago, I got to watch firsthand, when the British alt-rock band did an all-too-brief half-hour set at Street Scene. Here is a Q&A from my brief chat with Smith backstage at Coors Amphitheatre in Chula Vista.

Q: The new CD "An End Has a Start" debuted at No. 1 back home. Were you pleased with the early reception?
A: Yeah. You don’t expect it. The last record got to No. 2. It’s amazing.

Q: Do you think that chart placing was a direct result of all your constant touring?
A: Yeah. The first record purely went over from word of mouth. It didn’t start high early on and peter off; it built gradually and got more in line with the old fashioned way of doing it. We built that fan base, so we knew when we came out with a new record, ideally we’d built something solid.

Q: Before Coachella 2006, Chris told me you came to prominence in the U.K. by keeping your integrity intact and not selling yourselves out to the press. Do you think that has helped the perception of Editors in the eyes of fans?
A: I think we’re seen as a good, honest, hard-working band who is hopefully trying to do it the right way. The music industry is so full of (garbage).

Q: Flavors of the week.
A: Exactly. For that reason, we’ve done it as much as we can on our own terms.

Q: The band just did the summer festivals in Europe. How were V and T in the Park for you this year?
A: V was really good, but T in the Park was amazing. We were in the tent and 10 minutes before we went onstage, they shut it and said it was full to capacity. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a gig in Scotland, but the crowds up there are totally enthusiastic, singing every word, every note and guitar line at you. The whole tent was jumping. I’ll never forget that; it was amazing.

Q: What was it like working with Jackknife Lee, who has done stuff for Snow Patrol and U2?
A: We worked with him very briefly on the first record. He produced one song that made it to the American version. He really wanted to do it with us. We weren’t sure to start with. We tried him out again and once we got to know him, we realized we’d taken our band somewhere we wanted to go…he has an amazing way of describing sounds using words and expressions that don’t make sense to start. But after two months in the studio with him, you kind of get in tune with what he’s going on about. He makes amazing modern sounding rock records. And he pulled it out of us.

Q: Whose idea was it to use the string arrangements on a couple tracks?
A: We said from the start that we must get some strings on this record. Generally, we wanted to add more colors to our sound. That meant strings and a choir, a piano here and there, other instruments.

Q: You’ve said that death played a role of many of the lyrics this time out. How did you counterbalance the music so the songs wouldn’t be gloomy?
A: I think we naturally do that. Especially on this album. We’ve always tried to make music that’s uplifting and has some kind of sense of spiritual, rewarding feel. They’re not 10 funeral marches. They’re uplifting, alive rock songs of hope. Yeah, some of them deal with death. Even when the lyrics do go with that, there is some kind of redemption and always looking for that light at the end of the tunnel. It comes across in some of the lyrics. The last record was seen as kind of gloomy lyrically, but I think we still make authentic, uplifting songs.

Q: Last time I caught you live, back in Aug. 2006 at Avalon Hollywood, you did a Talking Heads cover. How do you go about choosing remakes?
A: It comes very last minute and naturally. There isn’t too much discussion. Every now and again you have to do one for something.

Q: And you just did The Cure’s “Love Song” was the 40th Anniversary of Radio One FM.
A: Yeah. With the Talking Heads, we did an acoustic version and it grew from that into a live thing. (Touring off) the first record, some of those sets – you play for an hour and you have an album that’s 40 minutes long. It gets tricky.

Q: Notice any changes since Epic partnered with the Fader label to put out the CD?
A: It’s too soon. I hope we’re going to spend a lot of time here with this record. We’re fully aware that it doesn’t happen overnight here and it takes hard work. We’re prepared to do that.

Q: Although Editors have been compared to Joy Division and Echo & the Bunnymen, you and Chris have said you really weren’t aware of them when you made the first album. Did you guys go and look into their music out of curiosity?
A: The Bunnymen were the one band that we really went back and discovered. We listened to them a lot in the recording of this record. Those first four records they made are still unbelievable. The way they’re arranged; different sounds sonically. Joy Division, not so much. I don’t know. I find it hard to get into that band. Obviously, we know they’re amazing and know the popular songs. But we couldn’t sit down with a Joy Division fan and have a discussion about their work because we would feel ignorant.