Interview: Citizens!

With an extremely catchy rhythm and well cooked, videos that appeal to our undeniable desire to dance and a sponsor of the likes of Alex Kapranos, it was logical that the British Citizens! Attracted the attention of many after the release of their first single, " True Romance "at the end of last year. Since then, the band has been touring throughout Europe and Australia presenting both this issue and the rest of the tunes that make their first album, Here We Are, with which they have come to claim his place as one of the greatest pop groups interesting today. Thus we contacted Lawrence Diamond, keyboardist and guitarist of the group, to learn more about their aspirations, desires, and how was the work behind this first great album.

Cuchara Sonica (CS). - When they decided, along with Alex Kapranos, he would produce his album, was there a particular element of the music of Franz Ferdinand wanted to your music? Or was it rather produce their songs in a different way and have the opinion of someone who did not belong to the band?

Lawrence Diamond (LD). - I think that while all of us are fans of Franz Ferdinand, and spent some time and tried to conquer girls dancing with their music when we were younger, our relationship with him was more to the artist with producer . He really was very involved with the band since the beginning, which is a dream, and what we tried to do is that we defined what kind of band we wanted to be. And truly think together, he and we, as artistically motivated us as a group. We asked questions aimed at us to think about what we wanted to do, what we meant. What brought us together was not what he had done with his band or the work he did as a producer of The Cribs , but we love what we did with them. It was more understanding and artistic commitment he had with us.

(CS). - Did you take a conscious decision about the type of sound you wanted, or this was the result of contributions from each of the band members and their ideas in common?

(LD). - We had very specific ideas about what we wanted to do. Since our meeting in London did a sort of agreement on our sound: the idea was not sound like the Strokes or not as none of the rock bands of the time, if ever, take inspiration from all of them, people like Kanye West or Michael Jackson and the Flaming Lips, to say what I wanted to say about London, about love, relationships, about ourselves. But at the same time try to make our music sound no one else.

(CS). - How was the songwriting process for the album?

(LD). - We had a very intense process of writing. We wrote many songs for this album, trying to find ear hooks for each. There was a lot of improvisation, rather, it was to find hooks and emotions. Thus together a sort of catalog of topics. Now with Alex, had a kind of invisible knife with which we began to cut and destroy, treating the songs as a kind of bad for the bride who does not have any respect. Thus we edit the themes to stay with those who really wanted and only then we could talk about how we wanted to present them to the people, how to play at concerts. I think that's pretty much how we get this record as whatever it is.

(CS). - What about the lyrics?

(LD). - I think, lyrically, when writing the album was a very specific feeling at the time, there were protests, regime change ... And there were many bands doing very depressing songs with lyrics that spoke of hiding in a corner. And I think we try to do something more energetic, to speak of romance and other things that we saw in London in addition to the problems, to invite to party and fly high. I think that was kind of the feeling I had at that time.

(CS). - How would you define the group's sound?

(LD). - What we tried to do was something that sounded like Kanye West will produce an Arcade Fire song with Quincy Jones as the lead singer, but also ensuring that Kanye would not become too crazy. Kanye West, Michael Jackson and The Arcade Fire are people who influenced this record.

(CS). - Many of the reviews I've read mention David Bowie as one of the major influences in his music, and in fact, I think there is much of Bowie on the album What do you think?

(LD). - We are all fans of Bowie, in fact, we did a contest in which each chose their favorite album, then we had a big fight to decide which we all liked. I think for Tom (Burke, singer) was Low, Mike (Evans, drummer) was Tin Machine. So yes, we do like Bowie.

It was expected that a band that has as one of its main intentions of putting people to dance, to include a lot of movement in their videos. Thus, their audiovisual viewing from choreography taken from films like in "True Romance" , to the movements of the members of the group as "Reptile" , all, according to Lawrence confesses, with the sole intention of "fun with this medium" but also with the ambition to "become the British equivalent of Michael Jackson".

(CS). - What song would you say best describes the style of the whole?

(LD). - I think it should be "True Romance" because I feel it's a song that people feel very close to his heart, and because every time we play live is a great answer. But also, there's a song at the end of the disc called "Know Yourself", which was fun in the recording studio, with everyone willing to try anything and giving ideas. It all started with Tom playing acoustic guitar, and then the rest joined to complete the theme, as we drank a lot of red wine and we took many ideas for the final mix.

The result, I agree, is one of the most interesting songs from his first job, not only because its pace has a lot of attitude, but because they can get to dance without much fanfare or fast rhythms.

One thing that quintet can be assured is that the number of people who listens has grown exponentially, not only thanks to its hard but their live shows, which regularly get very good reviews by the energy of its members. And this is evident in social networks for example, in which his admirers, he told us keyboardist, a frequent place of worship posts to the group, in which they talk about the songs that I liked, concerts those who attended, who have been, or where they want to be playing. For him, his fans have a special connection to the songs of their first full length, which is precisely one of the goals that the group wanted to achieve.

And speaking of tours and concerts, our last question was forced to play on future projects in Latin America, a region that have not yet visited. Lawrence's response, although somewhat ambiguous, was quite hopeful:

(LD). - Yes, of course we would like to play in Latin America. We are desperately trying to round up plans to go play there. Our bass player, Martyn (Richmond) spent some time there and was completely in love with the area, he has spoken highly of her so we'd like to see for ourselves. In addition, we have had very good response on Facebook and Twitter, with people inviting us to have a party with them, and we would love to do it. I do not want to make any promises, because my manager would kill me, but maybe later this year we can go visit. We really look forward to playing there.

And while the plans are realized, the only thing left is to recommend to listen Here We Are, an album that I personally enjoyed and in which the dance is guaranteed.