Neo-post-punk party on cards for Rockwave tonight
It’s tempting to wonder whether they’re just another hyped-up British rock band following the overall buzz generated by their debut outing. But the Editors appear likely to avoid the trend. The rock quartet’s work is inspired; it carries depth, passion, energy, and surprising maturity considering the act’s young average age. «The Back Room,» the band’s eagerly anticipated debut album, released in mid-2005 following three preceding singles, features appealing songs and atmosphere, inspired guitar work, and meaningful lyrics based on love, life and death. The neo-post-punk act’s lead guitarist, Chris Urbanowicz, spoke to Kathimerini ahead of an appearance in Athens tonight, on the second day of the three-day Rockwave Festival, the long-running annual summer event nowadays staged on the capital’s outskirts, at Terravibe in Malakassa. Guns n’ Roses launched the festival last night. «We met about four or five years ago at Stafford University where we were studying music technology and began hanging out together,» Urbanowicz explained. «We became friends before becoming members of the one band.» Urbanowicz, along with prospective bandmates singer/guitarist Tom Smith, bassist Russell Leetch and drummer Ed Lay, spent countless hours socializing, drinking beer, and jamming before the quartet’s material began took shape. «That’s what it was kind of like, but the four of us quickly began taking the idea of forming a band together seriously. As soon as we completed our studies, we moved to Birmingham because the manager who took us on was based there, and, at the end of 2004, we signed on to the independent label Kitchenware,» said Urbanowicz. The four did not have the luxury of time. «On the contrary, two of us worked at a switchboard center, and the other two at a show store,» said Urbanowicz. «We’d focus on the music after work.» Urbanowicz said the band’s sound was influenced by its locale. «Your mood adapts to the surroundings, so when its gray all around, your mood turns gray, too,» he said. However, the moodiness in the band’s work, Urbanowicz added, is offset by a glimmer of hope. «We’re young. We can’t view everything as being black,» said Urbanowicz. «Our main interest is to make music that overflows with passion and energy and makes both body and soul move,» he added. With their first album, the Editors managed to connect with a considerable number of fans around Europe. «We’re now hoping it will be the same with the second album,» said Urbanowicz. Franz Ferdinand headline tonight’s bill, to also include the Dandy Warhols, Green on Red, Dutch art-punk band Mecano and Spanish act the Sunday Drivers. Tomorrow features hard rock-metal acts Twisted Sister, Celtic Frost, Crimson Glory, and Moonspell. WASP, who had been booked, have just canceled their European tour. Singer Blackie Lawless, who was diagnosed with a heart condition, has been ordered to rest.
