Interview - The Veils - September 2016
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The end of August saw London based band The Veils release their long awaited fifth studio album Total Depravity.
Fronted by Finn Andrews, The Veils have unveiled (excuse the pun) a phenomenal recording of songs. We had the chance to catch up with Finn to discuss the new album, how life in the UK is treating the band, and about their music being used on the new Twin Peaks series.
Total Depravity has been a couple of years in the making, where did idea for the album come from?
I guess it’s just been a slow accumulation of weird thoughts and ideas that began pretty much when we finished the last record.. So sort of ploughed straight from the last one into this one and now here we are.
Is there a theme behind the album?
It’s hard to say, it usually takes me a few years to kind of get any sort of perspective on it in that way. But yeah, I think there is. The songs sit together and flow for me, and they’re held together by a thread certainly.
How did you decide on the title of Total Depravity?
I wrote the song first. I think I had been reading too much online news. It was the first title I came up for actually for the record years ago, and wrote many other variations. And then ended up going back to the beginning again.
The cover works really well for the album. Who was behind that?
It was mentioned to us that there was an artist called Nicola Samori that we should check out. You’re always kind of terrified approaching people when you’ve seen the image that you know would make a good cover - and I thought that image would be perfect for it. You never know if someone is going to let you use it or not, so we were very lucky… he was very accommodating with it. But it’s a beautiful image which was scratched away at and stripped back . It really fits.
With this album you have reunited with producer Adam Greenspan. Do you enjoy working with him?
Yeah, very much. He’s a long time friend and colleague now I guess. This will be the third record of ours he’s worked on now. He really holds the whole thing together. I was traveling around a lot with bags full of hard drives between London, New York and LA,.
The album was recorded in various locations around the world?
Yeah, we didn’t really go anywhere fancy but we went to a lot of different places. Really just as virtue of the people involved living in different towns. We ended up in Portugal and hired a room for a few days. But it was glamorous for about 20 minutes but then you know there was a lot of running around (laughs). Just trying to pull everything together you know?
And your music has been part of the Twin Peaks reboot. How did that come about?
We recorded one of the songs ‘In The Night Fall’ which was recorded at David Lynch’s house through meeting Dean Hurley, who is a producer / engineer. So we played some music at his house and we were invited after that.
How is everything going in the UK for you guys?
It’s a weird time here. The Brexit nightmare is a strange thing to behold. London has been a base for so long and we spend so much time touring around Europe and the States, but the relationship with Europe is so fucked now. I don’t really know what happened, there’s on odd mood here. But we’re keeping busy. We just did a press trip to Europe, and it was the first time I had been over there since the Brexit thing.
We’ll we be seeing you back on NZ shores anytime in the near future?
Oh yeah, for sure. Definitely in the New Year I’d say… January or February, around then. You can’t hold us away for long!