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Athlete


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Indie rockers Athlete are back and previewing tracks from their soon-to-be-released third album at a special tour warm-up gig at Morecambe Dome this weekend.

 

It's a beautiful day and Athlete's bassist Carey Willets is in jovial mood.

 

Against traffic noise, he shouts down the phone: "I'm actually on Deptford High Street at the minute, running a few errands so I hope it's not too noisy for you.

 

"You can probably hear all the cars going past. It's a shame you can't smell the fish!"

 

He is outside the Bear pub, the place Athlete know well as they used to rehearse and record in its basement. But they have moved on.

 

They recorded their new album – to be called Beyond the Neighbourhood – in their own purpose-built studio and Carey says it was a great move.

 

He says: "It's actually been a really enjoyable process.

 

"The last place, we had to get rid of it a few years ago because we kind of outgrew it. It was a bit rough and ready but it was great.

 

"We knew we had to get somewhere and it just made perfect sense to build our own place and try and do it ourselves.

 

"You are not worried that you are spending a grand a day in some posh studio and paying a producer £50,000. You just can do it at your own pace."

 

They began writing while still on tour with the last album, Tourist, which spawned the massive hit, Wires, an emotional song about the premature birth of vocalist Joel Pott's daughter.

 

Wires won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song in 2005.

 

Carey laughs: "I couldn't believe it at the time because we were up against the Gorillaz and the Kaiser Chiefs.

 

"We'd spent the last week going, surely it's got to be the Gorillaz?

 

The judges were chatting to us afterwards and said, 'Yeah, we had a big argument about what contemporary actually meant.'

 

"We were like, 'OK, good, well it worked for us!' That was a real shock to get that. But I felt that song did connect to a lot of people."

Perhaps it's the raw emotion it conveys. Is it hard for Joel to share such personal experiences?

 

Carey says: "It's one of those things that if you're involved in writing, every now and again, you do have to share things that don't necessarily feel comfortable– but feel right. I think he's done it enough now that he can cope.

 

"At the time, it was harrowing, I remember the phone calls, but now he's got a great daughter and all's good. You can cope with the fact of one dark night that's led to four and a half years of life."

 

Athlete have always been a band with conviction.

 

All four have been friends since they were 14 and Joel, Carey and drummer Stephen Roberts had an early brush with success while keyboard player Tim Wanstall was still at university.

 

As Britpop band, Cub, they were courted by record companies and had a crucial showcase lined up - when they suddenly decided to ditch everything.

 

Carey recalls: "We were just trying to sound like another Britpop band. But it got quite tired quite quick. We were listening to Pavement and Grandaddy and that was exciting and what we were doing wasn't.

 

"So we just scrapped everything and started again. We had a gig in about three or four days time and there were about six or seven record companies coming.

 

"So we rang up every record company and told them we'd split up. And then we started again and that was the beginning of Athlete."

 

Maybe it was their encounters with fellow hopefuls Menswear that did it. Carey says: "Hahaha. I remember bumping into them in a bar once while we were in Camden. That was a weird experience.

 

"They actually got signed without ever doing a gig, just because they looked and said the right things, which is really bizarre. And then it turned out they were rubbish! Who knew?

 

"Beware of people who tell you they're really good ... We're really good."

 

Their decision caused consternation among their contemporaries. He laughs: "I had a few friends in bands at the time going, 'What are you doing, you idiot?' But it just felt like the right thing to do and in hindsight, it was – thankfully."

 

Indeed, it was. Tim returned to the fold and their first album, Vehicles and Animals, was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize which Carey admits "felt like a real pat on the back".

 

Maybe it's faith that makes the difference – Athlete are Christians but usually refuse to discuss it. Carey says thoughtfully: "My faith is quite a personal thing.

 

"I don't feel I should abuse the position we have of maybe being slightly more in the public eye to try and enforce what I think on other people.

 

"Also I feel like I'm on a bit of a journey myself and I'm still trying to figure out what I think about a lot of things. So I don't feel it's something I want to share."

 

They chose Morecambe after playing nearby Walney on their first tour, supporting Mansun. He says: "It was interesting because nothing ever came through the town particularly and people were really appreciative that people had even bothered to go.

 

"It actually ended up being one of the better nights of the tour because people were really up for a good night.

 

"So doing things every now and again that are not in the usual places actually can be really special."

 

Athlete play Morecambe Dome on Saturday September 1. Tickets are £20 from the Box Office on 01524 582803.

 

http://www.lep.co.uk/entertainment/Athlete-right-on-track.3164892.jp

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ATHLETE - Beyond The Neighbourhood

 

Rating ***1/2

 

 

ATHLETE are the invisible men of music.

 

 

They don’t get recognised in the street and you won’t see magazine photos of them falling out of nightclubs.

 

With their anthemic and intensely personal songs, they’re up there with the likes of Keane, Coldplay and Snow Patrol.

 

But they’ve avoided drug scandals and alcohol addiction and you won’t read about them with any Hollywood actresses, either.

 

Sitting in a TV studio canteen after a morning of filming for an E4 show, the Deptford four are unassuming — anonymous, almost.

 

They aren’t surrounded by an entourage. Instead they have an air of self-contained, inner confidence and, chatting to singer Joel Pott and bassist Carey Willetts, it’s clear the band has stayed grounded.

 

But that’s not to say their ambitions are modest.

 

Says Joel: “We have our feet firmly on the ground and that’s why we’re invisible, but of course we want to be successful.

 

“I don’t want to live my life in front of cameras. Some people are uncomfortable when there isn’t a camera around — that’s not a normal existence.

 

“With our success came a certain amount of public attention. You have to have confidence and we’ve got that. But we want to keep our private lives separate from band life.”

 

Success for Athlete came at a gradual pace, which meant the four — Joel, Carey, drummer Steve Roberts and keyboard player Tim Wanstall — could take it at their own pace.

 

Debut album Vehicles And Animals reached platinum and was nominated for the 2003 Mercury Music prize.

 

But it was the follow-up, the double-platinum Tourist, which elevated them to a higher musical stratosphere, selling 700,000 copies in the UK.

 

Beyond The Neighbourhood is set to take things further. More upbeat than Tourist, it has a chirpier, lighter tone and enters new territory with the electronica of tracks like Airport Disco.

 

“We are generally optimistic people,” smiles Carey. “The last album was a heavier record, but we’d been away a lot and there were a lot of stories on it. Some of the stuff which had happened was quite heavy.

 

“There are less narrative songs on this album — it’s more pictures and impressions of things we think or have talked about.”

 

Joel adds: “One song, It’s Not Your Fault, is quite weighty so we purposely put an upbeat, happy tune to it. It’s almost like you can only cope with the subject matter because the music lifts it. If you put that with a slow piano, you would be slitting your wrists by the end of it.”

 

The change in musical mood was aided by the band recording the album in their own studio, without a producer.

 

Carey says: “It’s been great having our own studio. It’s a big difference if you don’t have a producer sitting there being paid a grand and a half a day.

 

Joel adds: “It was like a new start for us. We’d finished touring and we had this great new studio of our own so all our ideas just ended up being cheery songs.

 

“You can take time and you get to creatively play around with things. We try and push ourselves as musicians and as a band.

 

“All the electronica and the guitars are all stuff we’ve always been into.”

 

Joel wrote one song, Best Not To Think About It, after watching the documentary Falling Man about people who jumped from the World Trade Center on 9/11.

 

But he says: “It’s not directly about that.

 

“It is more about a relationship coming up against something awful and choosing to try and cope with it together rather than give it up”. Then there is stunning track The Outsiders, the best on the album. It is about identity.

 

Joel says: “I wrote that when we were staying in some Hicksville town — like something out of My Name Is Earl. It’s about struggling to find where you fit in.”

 

The pair laugh when asked about people writing them off as bland.

 

Carey says: “We always feel like the underdog. Like Marmite, people love us or hate us. Even when we won the Ivor Novello no one expected us to win. When they announced ‘Athlete’, we looked at each other and went: ‘Really?’ ”

 

Joel adds: “It’s human nature. It’s hard not to be influenced by what has gone before.

 

“People might think they’re not Athlete fans but I’ll be happy if they just listen to the record and give it a chance. They might be surprised. I’d rather be making music that some people love and some hate, rather than music people think is just all right.”

 

The band are now looking forward to a full UK tour which kicks off in October.

 

They are also recording a dub version of the album.

 

Joel says: “I can’t wait to start playing again. We have a few little gigs before the tour and then we’re off to America.

 

“It’s how we have done it from day one — we’ve gone out and toured and toured.

 

“Nothing will change us, as long as we keep playing and keep the same people around us.

 

“That way, our lives stay normal and we don’t get lost in any silly fantasy world.”

 

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2007400543,00.html

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Athlete Thread

 

Anyone ever heard of the band?

 

Got their latest CD, Beyond the Neighbourhood, and must say i like 'em alot.

 

The best way to portrait them is to say that they're some kind of mixture in between Coldplay and Keane, with lots of electronic stuff that blends in perfectly..

 

Give it a try, definetly worth it :)

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Saw them on tour in Cardiff, Wales. Fantastic concert. Surprised by how small the venue and how small the crowd. Not as big as I thought. The deserve alot of credit. The new album is a real grower, the more you listen the more there is to love. Tourist was immense but Neighbourhood is deeper and not so immediate. Will probably last longer.

Thanks for the b-side downloads by the way.:D

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