Eyeballkid talks to The Earlies’ Christian Madden about their Anglo-American connections, Rachel Stevens and recording their debut album.

The Earlies are like one of those signs you pass as you drive into a sleepy English town that proclaims it has been twinned with a village of Bedouin tribesmen in the Ngev Desert. The four men behind the group –two from Lancashire, two from Texas –seem like a mismatched though intriguing culture clash. But as Burnley born Christian Madden points out, there are similarities between the American South and the English North.

He explains in his rugged Burnley brogue how both feel they are ruled from the other side of the country, a consequence of which is they have endured industrial deprivation and population drains. And of course both have played crucial roles in the history of popular music: rock’n’roll was invented in the Deep South by the blues legends and perfected in the Grim North by the Beatles. The Earlies continue this geographical contribution to pop, with their superb debut album ‘These Were the Earlies’. A dreamy and joyous blend of folk, prog rock, electronica and psychedelia, it’s like the Beta Band rerecording Sgt Peppers, but chucking out all the rubbish Macartney songs. Four years in the making the result is as ingenious and unpredictable as the story of its recording.

The Earlies formed when sample-tweakers John Mark (JM) Lapham and Giles Hatton met Christian at a studio in Manchester, where they were studying. JM originally hailing from Aberfeldy in Texas, got to know singer Brandon Carr when they met in their hometown at a record shop where Carr was working. “Brandon had an idea to get together with the first person to come in and buy some decent records”, explains Christian. They recorded by sending music files back and forth online for Brandon to add vocals to, a factor which obviously contributed to the lengthy recording time. “There’s a positive and negative side to working that way. It is inconvenient and you can’t get things done quickly, but there is something to be said for passing things on and having no control over what happens to them. Interesting things happen like ‘Morning Wonder’ actually started life as an instrumental. Brandon wasn’t supposed to do anything on it but he accidentally got hold of the file and added some vocals. If we’d all been in the same place that wouldn’t have happened.” A fortunate occurrence indeed, producing one the albums outstanding tracks. Christian laughs, “It would have made a boring instrumental anyway.”

They finally got together as a unit last October when Brandon came to the UK to prepare for their first live outings. But recreating the expansive sound of The Earlies’ songs live is too much for just four men, so an ensemble of session players were drafted in swelling the band’s numbers to ten. “It came together very quickly actually. We played them the album and they had three days to learn it”. Though they have only played a handful of shows the results are already surprisingly coherent though not without their moments of mayhem and fun, such as their cover versions of Kermit the Frog’s ‘Rainbow Connection’ and Rachel Stevens’ ‘Sweet Dreams (My LAX)’. “The Rachel Stevens song came from a Maida Vale session we did for the BBC. They wanted us to do a cover version and someone suggested that. We dug it out for the live show, but it’s just a laugh, we don’t want to become known for that.” So it may not make the cut when they head out for a full UK tour in October.

Christian is the man who keeps it all together onstage. He acts as the bridge between the musicians and JM and Giles, whom he calls the non-musicians. “When we started out JM didn’t know anything about real instruments, but there’s a benefit from not having the jaded, listless ear of a musician. As a musician you can feel constrained by what you know, and with certain things you think, oh I can’t do that. JM and Giles can keep things simple where a musician would want to put in complex chord changes and middle eights, but as non-musicians they just worry about the overall sonic effect.”

The Earlies also benefit from the range of influences the differing personalities bring to their sound. “Brandon likes heavy rock, I’m into prog rock, myself and Giles have been listening to a lot of country music lately and JM is really into his electronica, like early Warp stuff”. Once again there’s that sense of unreconcilable differences with the rural, earthy rock and country music meeting the industrial noise of the UK north. But with The Earlies it’s a true meeting of minds creating a spatial music packed with sound. A special relationship if ever there was one.

words: Colm Larkin

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