Twin Atlantic 2

By Jackie Cular

Scottish-born Twin Atlantic takes a stop while touring with You Me At Six to answer some questions about their new album, Free.

TheCuttingEdgeCulture: “Your band has toured extensively in the US as well as in Europe, how has that travel influenced your song writing?”

Twin Atlantic: “It’s given us this to write about… We spent twenty years of our life sitting at home—not literally because that would be insane.  I suppose once we got out and were being exposed to different types of people, it sort of changed us as people a little bit. Maybe it made us a little less… immature, naïve, spoiled—all of the above.”

TCEC: “Are there any people of experiences that really influenced your writing?”

TA: “That’s a really good question… You’ve absolutely stumped me… I think we got quite frustrated with the music scene in the UK and how shit it got—fuck, I’ll just say it. In about four or five years  we realized there was no music that was inspiring, coming out of our own country. There were a few bands that were massive that came out, but there’s no new bands. We were trying to fill that void for ourselves and for other people like us… I suppose that was sort of a personal thing.”

TCEC: “I read that while you were writing the album you mad a point to look back and sort of rediscover what you like about music in the first place. Why did you make a point to do that?”

TA: “I think when we recorded our first album and went out on tour for a while… it’s not like we started to care more; it’s not as serious as that, but I think we started to worry more about what people thought. So on this next record we stopped doing that and made a record that we are all proud of and that we really like. That’s probably going to do more good than worrying about it.”

TCEC: “Is there one song that stands out as a main message that you want fans to pick up on?”

TA: “I think probably ‘Free;’ that’s why we picked it as our title track. For a number of reasons…. It has a message I think you can take a few different meanings from and it can mean different things to different people. Also it’s the song that’s done the most for us… that’s what’s keeping us out on the road instead of at home.”

TCEC: “Are there any plans to make another music video?”

TA: “Maybe… maybe soon. We might be in the next month. We don’t know which song or which video it will be… we’ve just been focusing on song writing and this tour. If we do, it will be more cinematic—not just us standing there playing.”

TCEC: “Why make music videos now when, at least in the States, they don’t get played on TV?”

TA: “The internet is the only place… well that’s not true, at home there are lots of places for music videos. I wish we hadn’t made so many music videos because it has kind of ruined some songs for us because we hate some of the music videos so desperately. I know that’s sort of odd, not something most bands would say.”

TCEC: “I saw online that you were doing a contest with Instagram; can you tell me more about that?”

TA: “It wasn’t so much a contest as it was an art project. It was a mosaic project, building artwork for a single. The finished project looks really cool—many thousands of photos—a representation of whatever makes you feel or have freedom. People just started posting anything—like pictures of their cat—I think I posted twenty or thirty things of my own.”

TCEC: “The messages said that after so many photos, something would be unlocked. What was unlocked?”

TA: “We went to this theater that used to be a church, on the west end of Glasgow; we did some acoustic songs there. So the audio and video was unlocked… some remixes and some B-sides I think.”

TCEC: “So what’s up next for the band after this tour?”

TA: “We’re going to stay in America until early April and work on some demos; then fly home. We’re doing our first headlining shows, which sounds amazing and fabulous, but it’s radio promotion… moving down the dark spiral of American radio. It is exciting and it is a dream come true, South by South West… it is really cool.”