Far Out Meets: Editors on their new album ‘EBM’ and being indie survivors
Not only is the musical landscape a considerably different place from what it was when Editors emerged in the mid-2000s, but the band are incomparable too. They’ve added new members along the way and are now a six-piece following the recent arrival of Benjamin John Power, AKA Blanck Mass, who produced their last record, Violence.
The band are in their third decade and third phase, following a previous re-incarnation in 2012 when Justin Lockey and Elliot Williams joined the group. Editors have continued to evolve innovatively throughout their tenure, which is one of the primary reasons they have outlasted most of their peers.
Their new album, EBM, is an acronym for electronic body music and stands for Editors/Blanck Mass. Although it’s a dance-friendly record, and on tracks like ‘Kiss’ they express their inner New Order, the project is still accomplished in Editors’ unique atmospheric style, which unsurprisingly isn’t appropriate for Ibiza.
Speaking over Zoom from their rehearsal space in Bristol ahead of their tour, keyboardist Elliot Williams and bassist Russell Leetch explain the circumstances that led to EBM’s creation. “It came about in quite a strange way at the beginning of lockdown,” Williams explains. “We got booked to do a festival slot where we supposed to do two headline shows, one as a traditional Editors show, and the other as something special. We were discussing doing something acoustic. Then we thought we could maybe do something with Ben (Blanck Mass), that’s club, electronic, techno led”.
“We thought we could reimagine Editors songs in a club environment, but then the pandemic happened, everyone went into lockdown, and that show didn’t exist. We were still throwing ideas around and began discussing the idea of making an original song with the bones of ‘Karma Climb’. It was like, ‘This is exciting, and we don’t have anything to do, let’s try some more. It progressed in that way over six or seven months.”
Making it to your seventh album is an achievement in itself, but impressively, Editors have done so with a renewed vigour and without growing stale. Leetch puts this down to their recently acquired member, saying: “It has Ben’s stamp all over it, he wrote all of the chordal progressions, and it’s the first time that’s happened where it’s coming totally from somebody else.”
Interestingly, even after the group began building a collection of songs, they still weren’t sure what the project would be. Williams adds: “We weren’t really making an Editors record, but as things progressed, and as the songs developed, it did begin to feel like it could be, and I think the natural evolution was to ask him to join the band.”
As Editors went into making EBM without a concrete plan of making an album, this allowed them to think freely and experiment without looming deadlines. Once they decided it was the avenue they wanted to go down, the six-piece began getting the wheels in motion, and it gave them a creative focus during a time when gigs were off the table.
Williams explains: “It was massively important to have something to get stuck into because I don’t think at that point, anyone knew whether festivals would happen again, and when concerts would happen again, or in the way that we know it. It was also a strange process because it was quite isolated and like talking to a pen pal. Everyone would work on a session and then send it back. It was strange because we are a band, but Russell and I didn’t come into the process until a bit later, and that’s the first time that’s ever happened to us. I don’t think we necessarily want to do that going forward.”
Editors are set to tour their new album across the UK and Europe this winter, and unlike most British bands, they are playing in bigger rooms across the continent. Additionally, they performed at various festivals throughout the summer, including a headline set at Hear! Hear! in Belgium, which saw Pixies, Liam Gallagher, and Wolf Alice support the group.
Speaking about their fame in Holland and Belgium, Williams admits: “It gets very bizarre, we’ve done shows with Depeche Mode below us or the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. You do get imposter syndrome, but at the same time, when we go out and play, and then you walk out on stage, it’s kind of like, you’re home.”
Their summer schedule was jam-packed, and lead guitarist, Justin Lockey, made the brave decision to prioritise his mental health ahead of touring. It had been over two years since he’d spent significant time on the road, and Lockey knew it was an unsafe environment to be in while battling anxiety.
Recently, Sam Fender and Wet Leg both shelved plans to tour America, citing burn-out, which has raised new question marks over the safety of the music industry.
Williams pontificates: “There’s an element of hedonism in rock ‘n’ roll that’s gone throughout history, but if you look at bands from the ’70s and ’80s, they never toured as hard as bands have to tour now because your bread and butter comes from playing live. The schedule, especially if you’re a new artist whose breaking through, there’s a lot of pressure to tour constantly, and you can burn out.”
Leetch then casts his mind back to Editors being in a similar position to Fender and Wet Leg following the release of The Back Room in 2005, and he recalls: “I remember, the first time we were away on tour for nine months, we only had three days at home. That was something that rattled you about because it changes your behaviour. It’s such an odd thing being surrounded by people and then be back on your own in the house with your cat”.
Adding: “For a lot of people, it looks from the outside that touring is amazing because you do a show every night, and that adrenaline rush is what we do it for, but that’s only an hour and a half of your day.”
Following his sabbatical in the summer, Lockey is thankfully in a better place and has since returned to the live-fold with the group ahead of their tour kicking off in Valencia on October 1st.
Although Editors are excited to integrate EBM into their sets, and the sheer rush of playing live is an unmatched high, Williams remains nervous about the future of live music due to the cost of living crisis. The keyboardist concedes, “As much as people are trying to say the musical landscape is back to business, I think we still got a rocky couple of years ahead of us navigating this new world that we’re living in.”
Contrastingly, on a personal note, Editors have reason to be optimistic, thanks to the inspired EBM. Similarly to the music industry, they have continued to evolve, the only difference being the band’s has been a progression rather than a regression, and the horizon looks bright instead of ominous.
Editors’ new album EBM is available to buy now, and their tour dates can be found here.
