"I get a real freedom in the idea of character" - An Aesthetic History of The 1975

BBC Radio 1, an asterisk story from

1975

with Mattie from the first album from

1975

, okay, the first black and white album, so the album art is the box right on the box, so we wanted something

real

ly stylish, we would call it simple and that's why it was neon. it was kind of an easy reference, it was like you know I didn't want a hanging neon, kind of obnoxious, it was quite chicken broth and that was kind of like the album was like an '80s teen movie that was kind of what which was supposed to be and then we took a photo of each song, like George, my favorite is the one in men's clothing, who was just passed out on the floor, it was

real

skin and the first video was upside down and We made a video for Antichrist , we made a video for a woman, we made a video for the city, all in black and white, we made a video for a song called Sex when it had like 200 players on YouTube.

Sam who had a t-shirt company in At the time he messaged me saying he wanted some t-shirts and I thought they were really cool, we became friends and then I went to hang out with him in Norwich and we started our relationship, that's where We came up with a box. I think I kind of stole it from Chanel, we wanted something to be more like a brand than a song by a band. The first time we used color in a controversial way was in the new sex video we made with Mimei Adam and we have the girls' video.

Everything feels totally wrong. I also want to say that's enough, we're not a pop man, we're not a pop band, it feels like a really pop video, all the settings aren't really what it's about, it has to be black and white to begin with, that was a bit. of a joke that was kind of a game, you know, what people maybe wanted us to be at the time or something. I think we were taking the juice out of being a kind of sexually desired band and I think we were playing with the

idea

that everything was a bit silly and a bit silly, you know, and all the pop bands that were occupying the spaces that we We occupied at that time were doing those kinds of things that we came back to. to black and white after that, but that was just an explosion of color and then the whole black and white thing there was so much

aesthetic

identity with the box and the fun and the feeling and the music that the black and white thing I was looking forward to and I had to change, so there we went.

I like it when you sleep because the reason it was pink was because I had to finish the first album tour. I would go to my tumblr and stuff like that and see. What the fans were doing now that they were bored because they didn't have any new visual information because we weren't in a loop and they had started coloring everything pink, seemed to be that color choice, so we kept the same thing where I had a visual image for each song, this time it was a neon sign in a different place, so the lyrics were when I started collecting typewriters.

I became obsessed with the

idea

of ​​art making people feel personally addressed from my

history

of growing up with video games that had like Easter eggs, you know, books or music with a kind of subtext and layer, having the Internet and presenting a sort of analog way, you know, and something that felt really personal, it's just interesting, so I drew all of that and kind of just wrote it on my typewriter and then it almost became the vehicle to seriously address the people because you know that a tweet or this or that will be heard to a certain extent, but I know that letters have a certain purpose, I know that.

They are more distinguished I will make another letter for notes I imagine I will try and eggs I guess it's also me trying to explain where I am I like her when you sleep she became like a huge dreamy pink like filtered The reality was very of the time because that's how it was Instagram, it was very much like filling your stuff, curating your kind of stuff and now it's a little more deconstructed and raw, which I think we are now, you know I wanted. I loved working with Diane Martel and it was really exciting to have her around, she is crazy so it was really fashion inspiring.

Kakashi finishes a beautiful fish, God, you know, I think the visual element is really important to me because I'm very In music, I think it's fashionable to say that you have synesthesia or whatever. I definitely have a visual paradigm that goes along with making records and once I commit to that in my head, it has to come out, and so do I. I mean, I like when you sleep when it's light everywhere and you meet someone else and stuff like that, but there was this kind of defining neon pink that I think being meta or being self-referential is always a natural conclusion. of being so consumed by the details of everything that you always notice some kind of intellectual inconsistency or hypocrisy.

Zoar, things like that, you know what I mean, so I think it was a reference to those types of ideas, we don't have a job as producers. in our records just because it would take more time would not be efficient. I still use directors because you know you asked me. I also have a million things to do. I came up with the ideas and I've been very lucky to make a lot of director friends along the way and then just get them to do it. Now I have like a handful of people. I think you're the one who starts the live show. become a little more of an information type center, so it would be the maximum reference and declaration of 1975, that was the idea and its spirit is now, but I like it when you sleep, it was the first time that my program was colorful, It was the first time in our shows in the music videos, you know, and the music videos were in the show using the sound references and stuff like that and you know, that was fun, yeah, the first time everything started to become a world, you know?

It's bad and it's very self-referential, but people thought it was hacked or why would we want to do that, but it's because it's funny, it was just a reference to David Lynch. I think because it's so peculiar. piece of film is almost like intentionally strange when I finished someone else, you know, I was getting very confused and I think the way it just whitens, I mean, very, very confusing and intense at the beginning and it needed a seam from the last video today , so I come from the change of heart video like a clown, so I get wet in the last video and I go in, I change and I leave them again with all the clowns tied up, they are a bit.

For one reason, I think it's about performance and I think it's about safety, I haven't felt more comfortable in my life than doing the change of mind video when I was like in costume because you lose that self-awareness because you don't. you feel like yourself, you know, so I have a real

freedom

in the idea of ​​the

character

. I tried to be so sincere in my work that I can't do that and then go out and remove that sense of things so I can only play

character

s at certain moments immutably is where it happens so I really enjoy them and then we get into this Braque .

I'm actually in that photo that you can't really see, but I'm on the right. -text messages on the side as a little tribute to a short query oh, they're coming, the phones are coming, little Easter eggs, but it's because when I was a kid and I played video games, I played like Ecco the dolphin and then the Thousands of times that I play it I jump at a particular time and I press later and I go to a different world where the programmers would do that, they would put in all the Easter eggs and I felt like it was talking to me, it's more like a natural conclusion to the way our record sounds mental or whatever it is just because we don't want to get bored and we make music all the time so they have to sound mental so they don't get bored.

I make artwork all the time. I don't want to be. boring, that makes it fun and then we move on to car music / a short consultation, you know, I was in rehab and stuff, try it, videos for the first time, I would like to act in about 18 months, there's all this kind of stuff . reinvention performance that felt really weird. I really didn't know where I was. I didn't really know. I just knew that I had made my best record, so I didn't want to worry too much about how to present it. I did it to be clinical, so it was very raw.

I think you know I love art and typography, so Swiss masters is what it sounds like, it didn't really reference anything else, it was kind of clean and modern. deconstruction of what was happening, yes, Fred Panino, there was a climbing shoe, not a climbing shoe or ever, yes, still, I mean Brian Eno in all of popular music, but he is very much in our type of DNA and I think it was a reference to that performance seen. as a direct reference to that, but I'm also very lucky because I'm very self-referential and I'm very obsessed with references and when I do an interview I reference a million things a minute that I get away with. referencing other people's art because people know what I'm doing they don't think I'm just copying because why should I copy?

I'm so obsessed with go and see you know I love this yeah listen Sam is a monster now you know we've gotten so much better at what we do and we really share a language so very rarely does Sam send me anything and I I mean, no, you know Sam and I as we do very well, Jamie and Ed. We do very little of most things during the first second draft, not because we're geniuses but because this is what we've been doing for a long time. and I really trust Sam's eye because he knows exactly who I am, we live together.

For about three years we shared a dog, so we shared an anesthetic and yes, some notes conditionally now I think it is a deconstruction of what has already been deconstructed, so we are getting into similar fabrics, materials and textures, 1975 is me. channeling who I am interpreting what I am in songs that I like most of the time, but like you saw my house, you wouldn't really understand additional ways, you know, I mean, because it's all very raw, very wavy. Savvy I tattooed it on my mouth, but it's God because it fades, which is the idea of ​​wabi-sabi, you know, I did that, someone will have to believe that you