Architecture In Helsinki: ‘It’s Just A Case of Evolution’

Staying in one time or place doesn’t appeal to Architecture in Helsinki, who’ve reinvented themselves repeatedly and refuse to look backwards. Interview by DOUG WALLEN.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] For a band that’s changed so much over the past decade and a half, pop music remains the resounding constant for Architecture in Helsinki. It’s just that their version of pop music has shifted from the bedroom to the festival, evolving from timid and cute to slick and danceable.

After the game-changer that 2011’s Moment Bends was for the Melbourne ensemble, the fifth album Now + 4EVA continues on the path of bright, clean, rubbery bubblegum that sounds more like Prince and early Madonna than it does like Belle & Sebastian. There’s no whiff of indie rock restraint or opacity in maddeningly catchy singles like ‘In the Future’ and ‘Dream a Little Crazy’ – the latter sounding like a young Hanson covering The Archies – and the album embraces everything from reggae (‘U Tell Me’) and R’n’B (‘April’) to soul (‘Before Tomorrow’) and John Hughes soundtracks (‘Born to Convince’, ‘2 Time’). It doesn’t all succeed completely, but the discipline and workmanship is impressive throughout: it’s a pop party album sculpted with laser precision.

Those last few sentences alone will be enough to keep some listeners far away, but that’s what’s so interesting about Architecture in Helsinki. Under the leadership of Cameron Bird, they’ve stepped their game right up with each album, even if it’s meant a high turnover in their fanbase. Speaking ahead of their local launch for Now + 4EVA, Bird weighs in on the challenges of AiH specifically as well as those of any act that’s been around for a handful of albums.

Most of the songs on the new album are around the three-minute mark, which made it sound like an album of singles when I first heard it. Was keeping them short and snappy intentional?
The focus was very much on each song as an island. So we went into the studio and intensely worked on each song for an extended period of time. I think with that OCD attention to detail on the arrangement and writing of each song, they all got [that individual attention]. We were really into the pop format, so that probably leaned it towards having that feeling. Rather than it being a concept album or anything like that, it was very much about making each song as good as it could be.

Was it easier or faster to do than the last record, since it’s a similar sound?
I think we developed a working method on the last record which we continued, even though we were in a new space and with different personnel and different levels of outside involvement. It was definitely an easier record to make as far as logistics, and the fact that the last record took us two years and this one was just over a year. We worked more consistently on this one, with structured working hours, but the outside involvement was less, so that actually made it quicker for us to make.

So when you worked [again] with [producer] Franc Tetaz, that was scaled back this time because of him being in LA?
Yeah, yeah. Our contact with him was much less frequent, so we would have like a month to work on songs and then we’d send him everything and he would give us really thorough notes. I think he came out [to Melbourne] three or four times during the making of the record, and we would spend a day or two with him in the studio, just going over all the arrangements and lyrics and everything. Whereas last time he was coming in about once a week.

So it was definitely a different dynamic for us, but then when we mixed the record, we spent about six weeks with him just fine-tuning the songs. Which was mixing, but it was also production and arrangement. Franc’s role is always quite … he’s such a versatile guy that I think, inherently, when we work with him, it ends up being everything at once. Rather than him just saying, “Alright, I’m going to mix this song today,” it’s like, “Y’know what? We should record the vocals here and the outro needs this part.” It was just a different dynamic, this record.

“There’s very, very few people that like our first record [as well as] our fifth record.”

The last two albums have really changed from the sound of your earlier records. Do you ever hear from fans that aren’t happy with that direction, and are you reconciled with the fact that some people will come along and some won’t?
Yeah, that’s always been a thing for us. When we made our second record [2005’s In Case We Die] there were people whinging about that. [Laughs] I think we’re just used to that. We make music for people but we also make music for ourselves more than anything. We make the music that we love and that we’re passionate about at that particular time in our life. Each record is essentially a diary or snapshot of yourself at a particular point in your life, so if I was the same person that I was 10 years ago I’d be worried. And if I was making the same music, I would feel like a fraud.

At the end of the day, it’s weird because we really do feel like we do lack a core fanbase in a way. It seems to always change. There’s very, very few people that like our first record and like our fifth record. But that’s part of the territory when you do what we do.

I do hear a continuum though. The horns on ‘Dream a Little Crazy’ reminded me of the earlier records, and some of the guitar in another song. It’s interesting to get those snatches that connect the dots a bit.
Yeah, exactly. Those elements are always gonna to be there, because essentially as a writer or as an artist you had the same genetic makeup and there will be times when your melodic sensibilities [persist] through the records. We don’t intentionally go out and say we need to do something so different that people don’t recognise us anymore. It’s just more a case of evolution.

The newer material is more extroverted. Did you have to overcome something personally to put yourself out there more?
No, I think that came to us quite naturally because, over the last five years, our audiences in Australia really grew and we played a lot of festivals. So if you’re playing on the main stage at a festival at 10 o’clock at night, unless you’re Bon Iver, you’ve gotta project energy. For people to really want to come along for the ride as a live band, you need to be able to have that extroverted and commanding energy. So I think for us that’s probably more a reflection of what we’ve become as a live band.

“Our live show is always a work in progress.”

How much has the growing focus on synthesisers and electronics changed the makeup of the live show for you?
Our live show is always a work in progress. [Otherwise] it would just stagnate. We really love those electronic elements [but] we put really little backing tracks in our show. We really pride ourselves on that: that, as a band that plays a lot of dance music, we really don’t want to have that lack of dynamic in our show that comes with backing tracks. We really felt like those sounds – the drum machine and the more synthesised drums and things – really translates. Being DI’ed [direct input], in every venue we know exactly what we’re gonna get. So it’s great for consistency for live show, because we know the setup we have as a live band can slam in a 150-person club or in front of 10,000 people at a festival.

How does the sharing of vocal duties work with Kellie [Sutherland] these days?
Well, the [lyrics for] the vocals are all me. I’ve always written all [of those]. There’s one song on this record that Gus [Franklin] and I co-wrote: ‘April’, which is the first song he’s sung [lead on]. He wrote the vocal melody.

Generally I’ll bring in a song, and I know what keys Kellie sounds great in and what style of songs suit her. Usually we will both sing a take of the song. When we’re demoing I’ll do it and she’ll do it, and we’ll live with versions of us both singing. Then it’ll be like, “There’s no way I should sing this. It’s totally a Kellie song.” It’s essentially like you are getting two bands in one, with both of us singing. It’s such a different vibe.

Do you ever release those demos of the other person singing?
No, we’ve never done that. I don’t think we’ve ever really [considered it]. I’m pretty decisive in the studio, so I’ll do something for half an hour and go “No.” I don’t like to record something and then live with it for six months. We don’t usually have a huge amount of presentable demos because I’m pretty anal in the studio when it comes to spending time. If I don’t think something’s working, I’m not gonna spend five days working on it. I’d rather just cut it off.

With that said, were there many songs that made it to completion for this record that didn’t end up on it?
Yeah, quite a few actually. This record more than usual. But it became very clear which 11 songs were really working.

“People are interested at the start of your career and then, invariably, that interest wanes.”

Are the other songs ones you’ll play live or consider for a future record?
No. I don’t think we’ve ever gone back to the well in that respect. I’m very much a believer in a song being of a time. That’s where it exists, so I don’t know that I’d ever feel the need to go back to the past record and go, “Y’know what? This song’s relevant now.”

It goes back to the diary thing. If each song is a snapshot of your life, to try to use one from several years ago wouldn’t really fit.
Yeah. It’s like wearing flares in 1987: it just wouldn’t be quite right.

I wanted to ask about parting ways with Modular and going off on your own. How did you decide how to release this record, versus the last record?
I think it was a pretty easy decision for us in the end. We’ve got ownership of all our records, but with this one a few things transpired and it just seemed like a really obvious thing for us to do – to go out and release our own records. Because we’d funded it and we’d A&R’ed it: there was no label input on it. As anyone will tell you, it’s very much an uphill battle trying to make money off records these days, so I think that when we were in the position to release it ourselves, it felt like the obvious and the safest and the smartest thing to do.

I interviewed Franc Tetaz a while back, and he said that not enough people bought the last record. He seemed to wonder if it connected with people the way it was supposed to. Did you feel that way, and was that part of the decision to not do another one with Modular?
No, that wasn’t at all part of the decision. Look, I would be lying if I didn’t feel like the reality of being a band on your fourth or fifth record [works] against you. As an industry, it’s so geared to new and youth. It’s very hard to remain relevant when you’re putting out records. It’s really weird; I was having a discussion with a friend who’s an artist, and that’s a world where it’s the exact opposite: you grow older and your work becomes more involved or developed [and] you get more acknowledgement or critical acclaim or acceptance of you and your work. It’s the exact opposite in music: people are interested in you at the start of your career and then, no matter what you do, invariably that interest and that relevance wanes. So I think it’s just something you’ve got to accept and be at ease with, really, because it’s just the reality of making records.

So as far as whether I think enough people have heard the last couple records, that’s out of our control. You get put out to pasture by people in certain circles, and you’ve just got to deal with that.

“The way music is presented at certain major retailers in Australia is not inspiring.”

I want to talk about the concept store you opened to promote this album. How did that idea come about?
The concept store was a project that I took on at the end of last year. We were talking about ways in which we could present the record to people in a way that we thought was outside the normal and engaged the people in the real-world environment with a tactile, physical experience rather than the anonymity of purchasing records that most people embrace in the current climate. So for us it was about creating a place where people could go to hear the record and buy the record from the band and have an experience. It’s increasingly frustrating as an independent band … if you’re a band that really cares about the way your music is presented in the world, the way it’s presented it’s at certain major retailers in Australia is not really that inspiring.

So I think for us it was to create a place that could reflect what we wanted people to get out of the band visually and hope that it would give them a greater understanding or new experience of how music could be brought into the world.

How were you able to fund it? It seems like it’d be expensive to hire out a shop for even a week.
There was a little bit of sweet-talking on my part, as far as getting the mall [Melbourne Central] on board. As far as funding it, we just looked at it as part of our marketing budget for the record. For us it was much better value to do something like this than to do a line of A0 billboard posters; it was comparative in cost. It was something we felt passionate about. There’s really no rules for the ways you have to approach things in music, so we really wanted to break out of that archaic structure of music retail and try something new. In a lot of ways it was a crapshoot of an experiment, but as far as we know in Australia there was no real precedent for what we doing. It was very much a case of throwing shit at a wall and hoping [something stuck].

How did it go?
It was great. I worked in there a lot of days. It was just really great to talk to people and get their take on it. I had some great conversations with people that were pulling it apart and trying to work out why and how we were doing it, and what it meant. It was really good because I felt like I got my head around it, not only on a business level but on a conceptual level. It was really cool to talk random people in the mall; y’know, I’d get like business-savvy, 70-year-old men coming in who had no idea about the record or the band and just wanted to talk about the idea. It was really great in that respect, having it in such a mainstream mall, because I was able to engage with a really broad cross-section of the public as well as all of our fans that came in to buy the record.

Would you consider turning to crowdfunding, or would you rather keep funding it yourselves and find different ways to do it?
I would turn to crowdfunding if I thought we were actually going to get it. I just don’t know that we would. I mean, it’s a constant juggle financially to try and make things work for any band, so I think it’s just about working out what works for you and being smart with your money and not pitching too much of it away. I think we’ve probably made a lot of mistakes in our time in that respect. I think we’re a little bit more wary of throwing huge wads of cash at something that’s just going straight down the drain.

I think the crowdfunding thing is great, but I just don’t know whether we’ve got the continuity in our audience that would really support that. But I might be wrong. I’m not against crowdfunding; I think it’s a great tool and a way of engaging with your audience, but there’s definitely some question marks that a lot of people have. I’m on the fence [about it]; I’m not sure.

+

‘Now + 4EVA’ is out now through Casual Workout/Inertia. Architecture in Helsinki launch the album in Melbourne this Friday (May 23) at 170 Russell, with World’s End Press and DJ Andras Fox supporting. Tickets here.