CHVRCHES Escape the Screen

By Joey Odorisio & Josh T. Landow

CHVRCHES

The Scottish trio CHVRCHES have released their fourth album, Screen Violence, turning their dark indie-dance-pop sounds towards the troubles found on both sides of the black mirror. Band members Lauren Mayberry, Martin Doherty and Iain Cook recently spoke to Deane Media Solutions’ Josh T. Landow and Joey Odorisio about completing the album in a pandemic, working with the legendary Robert Smith of The Cure and the horror movie influence on the record’s aesthetic.

How does it feel to have your fourth album Screen Violence finally out in the world?

Martin: Fourth album. It's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Really good. Obviously, it's been a challenging time for everyone. So the fact that we were even able to make this album is to me, insane, but to finally be putting it out is a really, really big milestone for us.

Was it recorded separately throughout the entire process? Or were you all together at various times?

Iain: We actually managed to start off in the same room together just before the pandemic hit and we had a couple of weeks of throwing ideas around and looking at old demos that had been sitting around for a while. That was kind of what brought things rolling. And then I had to fly back to the UK because all of the border stuff was happening. Then we took a month to figure out a way to do it remotely using various bits of audio sharing, screen sharing and software, and sort of running the two studios in conjunction with each other. There were a lot of technical hurdles let's say. And once we got all of those, we got some momentum under our belts and began, so we're producing and arranging. Then we luckily managed to get together to mix the songs ourselves, which is really fortunate and so much fun.

Do you think that bands such as yourselves that rely on keyboards and samples might have had it a little easier than bass-guitar-drums rock bands?

Lauren: The fact that Iain and Martin can produce has always been a big part of the band. It's been difficult with the logistics, but at least we don't have to rely on getting a producer to put us on their calendar, to get into an external studio and all the safety requirements for that. We're pretty self-sufficient in that regard. I can't do it, but I benefit greatly from the fact that these guys can.

Martin: It's also good because, like Lauren said, we are totally self-sufficient. But sometimes we use live drums, which is the only kind of barrier for the types of studios that Ian and I have. But during lockdown, every session drummer I know was like, “Now it’s the time to get my set up, right? I'm going to have this remote recording setup that we can use.” In our case, Jonny [Scott], who plays with us live, we were able to send him a bunch of stuff and he cut the drums and then sent them straight back. There were a lot of people in the community of musicians that I know that had to evolve during the pandemic, it was kind of interesting. It's definitely not lost on me how lucky we are that we can just make music at whatever time of the day.

Having said that, there is a lot more guitar on Screen Violence than on your past albums.

Martin: Well, half of that is just fake guitar amplifiers that I use. A big part of my pandemic experience was … I started out with learning how to solder cables and graduated all the way to learning how to build guitar pedals, just like random kind of hobbyist things. And all of those pedals ended up finding their way onto the album. So by default, I was making so many guitar pedals that I was playing more guitar. So every time I came into the studio to test a guitar pedal, I would end up writing something on the guitar and tell the band. “I wrote this thing on the guitar. Do you guys want to work on it?”

And I'm also not a very good technician or a very good player. I’d rather be the “sounds” guy over the guy that can shred. Cause I'll never be able to shred on the guitar, thankfully, probably for this band. I can now make nice sounds cause I've got lots of pedals.

Is there a specific song you really love the guitars on?

Martin: On “Final Girl,” I wrote the first time part but then Iain really elevated that with his guitar playing and that's all him on there. And there's some really, really nice playing on that song, really interesting ideas. It's a shame because Iain has always been this good at the guitar for years. He's been kind of hidden behind a synthesizer. It's one of the great tragedies of our band, really. So it's nice to actually have these moments now where you can just hear his skills very much.

On “Good Girls,” Lauren sings “Killing your idols is a chore/But it’s such a f***ing bore.” Obviously, there have been a number of notable individuals who have been held accountable for their actions in recent years. Was this inspired by any personal incident or just the general mood lately?

Lauren: I feel like that lyric is for me about grappling with that and understanding that how other people feel about it. It's never going to be the same as how you feel about it. And I don't necessarily agree with pile-on cancel culture and making people live on top of a mountain if they've displeased us. But I feel like there's a certain handful of things that for me, as a fan, as a listener, as a viewer, are just things I find it difficult to get past. I don't expect people to agree with me on everything, but especially for a lyricist or a filmmaker, where you know that they are in charge of the narrative. I feel it when you take in their art, that's quite a vulnerable place for you to be. And I don't want somebody in my ears that does or says things that I would be horrified by.

But I know that I'm a lot more hardline about that than other people. And it was just written after counting up the number of times we've all been in a pub having these kinds of conversations. And after a while, I realized it's very easy for a certain kind of dude to sit in a pub and wax lyrical on Woody Allen, when what Woody Allen was accused of, has never, and will, never affect him. You know, like things like that. I feel that's kind of what I mean… that we're spending more time talking about how important their art is and how important they are then we're talking than we are spending time talking about the reasons that they might be contentious in the first place.

I know that it's different for everybody. One of the main things I took away from the R. Kelly documentary was people talking about how profound and important someone's art is and why it's so difficult to let that go. There's a lot of people that wouldn't want to defend these people, but their music or their films or their books or whatever is such a huge part of your emotional life. When somebody points out to you, “Hey, this man does terrible things,” it’s hard to grapple with that because it feels like people are being accusatory of you and you haven't done that. So you get more upset with the people that are the go-between than you do at the original guy. I realize that it's not very fun for people when I'm like, “Umm, do you know that guy’s a piece of s**t?” and they're like, “Can you not just enjoy anything ever?” And I get that's annoying, so I'll keep it to myself and just write a song about it, that’s fine.

Robert Smith of The Cure appears on “How Not to Drown.” Did you reach out to him first or did you write a song that sounds like it belongs on Disintegration and then send it to him?

Martin: We have written many songs, many songs that [sound like they] belong on Disintegration and this particular attempt to get the attention of Robert Smith. Of course, we contacted him, like the Scots people that we are. If you don't ask, you don't get. Why the hell not try? Now we've just started trying lots of things. Like John Carpenter, you know what, let's try? That worked - also amazing.

The Robert thing is really humbling and really profound to me. Honestly, I feel like it's a peak for me as a musician and as an appreciator. Disintegration, Seventeen Seconds, Faith, Pornography, Head on the Door… those are some of the most important work ever to me. I'm still having trouble believing that it's all true and that's months later.

Also, the guitar, the six-string bass is actually Robert playing as well, which maybe not everyone realizes. There is a lot of guitar playing in that song that maybe sounds like an approximation of what Robert may have played and that was there before he was involved. And then when he then heard the music and was like, “Um, do you guys want me just to play on this as well? I mean I might as well. If you're going to rip me off, you might as well go to the source.” [laughs]

The overall visual aesthetic for Screen Violence flows together really well, especially with the videos. Those were all the same director, correct? Are the songs linked as the visuals are?

Lauren: I think that there's a common thread going through the record in terms of the mood and the time period that we're talking about and the things that we were writing about. I think the thing that ties it together more is the imagery that we were using, cause it's not like a horror concept album necessarily. It's more about that kind of imagery in that landscape to put the stories in and all the lyrics are still very personal. I called Scott Kiernan for all the creative direction and he is a really talented artist in his own right. But he was the person that wrote these three concepts and we filmed it all. The three of us filmed all our stuff on green screens in one day.

Then he built a little warehouse in New York and filmed all the rest of it and superimposed us into the universe. He was the person that linked everything together, laid all those Easter eggs. And it was really exciting to work with him because we love his work anyway, but he really had the same vocabulary about what we were trying to do. And he loved all those movies that we were talking about. Like that kind of era of screen violence, Cronenberg kind of stuff. I feel like putting songs which are quite heavy in a lot of ways in, in a visual universe that was more fun and possible for people to just escape into, I think was important because right now, you know, people want to escape from something and not necessarily like escapist, sugary, superficial stuff, but something. And we've been really blown away by how invested people have gotten in the world. It's been a really very wholesome horror time.

The cover is clearly a Poltergeist reference and those individual horror movie posters you made to go with the songs look great too.

Lauren: Thanks, man. We're big, big merch nerds. I get really excited every so often and I'm like, “that's going to be a great piece of merch.” There’re layers to the album title. And what does “screen violence” mean to you? And we had the idea of being watched and that kind of voyeurism that I think we found interesting.

There are a lot of references in the lyrics to going into the screen or already being in the screen, which have multiple meanings at this point.

Lauren: We didn't know, we named the record in like 2019. We didn't know that screen violence was going to be another type of violence. But in a way, these kinds of metaphors were a lot more potent because we were all trapped inside our houses by ourselves with not much to think about other than how to make this album really specific.

You have a big U.S. tour scheduled this fall. Cross your fingers, clearly, as we’ve learned a lot can happen in a short span of time. But assuming everything goes off without a hitch, what are your hopes and dreams for playing live again?

Martin: My hopes and dreams are that actually the tour goes ahead right now. I don't want to say I lack confidence, but my confidence has been knocked a few times recently. Sorry, but if we do, and when we do, get to play these shows one way or another will be a lot of energy, probably the most energy we've ever put into it. To say that we are frustrated at this point would be the understatement of the year. So yeah, I think it will be leaving it all out on the stage every night. They'll be really fun shows.

Lauren: I love my couch, but I've spent way too long on the couch now. Ready to leave it behind for a long time.