New interview with James from The Twilight Sad

Patrick Dalziel has a great interview with James Graham from The Twilight Sad. Lots of Cure Tour & Robert Smith talk. Some highlights:

Everything seems to be going quite well for you guys, after a decade you have four LPs, playing the Hydro and getting asked to guest on other people’s albums. As well as all this you have The Cure support slot on their massive tour! Is that nerve wracking or exciting for you?

I think it’s a mix of everything which is good, cause if you were just terrified about it, then you’d be just worried about it. The one thing I’m more nervous about is playing in front of The Cure. The thousands of people that are going to turn up to see them, if they’re going to like us or not, I’ve kinda decided in my head that we’re just gonna do what we do. But, it’s playing in front of your idol every night. I’m nervous about that, but I’m really excited.

It’s the opportunity that even bands that have money flung at them, that are signing big record deals and all that stuff would love, it’s like the best tour support of all time. And the way that it’s happened as well, that we’ve been asked by Robert Smith to do it. Not just because, someone else knows their management company or they’re on the same label, no this guy like what we do! It’s the best way you can get asked to do something. So, I want to go and prove to him that he’s made the right decision to take us away.

But, we were watching the wrestling back stage earlier on and an old Summer Slam came on, showing a helicopter’s view of Madison Square Garden, and I was just like “God! We’re going to be playing there!” That was scary. It’s a mixture of emotions, but it’s all pretty phenomenal. We’re just a bunch of pals from Kilsyth getting to do this stuff. If you’d told 15 year old me that this would be happening I would have punched you, or tried to cause I can’t fight.

You said that Robert Smith approached you with the idea of touring, he also covered your single “There’s a Girl in the Corner” How did that come about?

We’d been in contact, well Stuart from Mogwai sent Robert an email saying that he recommended our latest album (“Forget the Night Ahead” 2009), and Robert said he was already a fan of us. Stuart sent us his email and I was running about my house like the kid from Home Alone shouting “Aaah!” That was enough for us, we were just like “Robert Smith likes our band, that’s cool” Then we had a remix album (“No One Can Ever Know: The Remixes” 2012), and we were going to ask Robert to do that because we saw he had done stuff with Crystal Castles. He said he was up for it but it just didn’t work out.

So then we thought for our release of “It Never Was the Same” we thought we’d like someone to cover one of our songs. We asked friends if they wanted to, and there were people kind of interested and then we thought “Fuck it, we’ll email Robert Smith and see what he says” Lo and behold he got back to us saying he’d love to, we actually asked him to cover “It Never Was the Same” But he got back saying he’d rather do “There’s a Girl in the Corner” And we were like “You can do, whatever the fuck you want” And then one night after playing San Francisco, Andy (Macfarlene- guitarist) got the email through with the track on it. We listened to it about four or five times kinda speechless, like there’s this guy who’s an icon in the music industry singing the words that I wrote in my bedroom. Pretty surreal. But, it’s the biggest compliment you could ever be paid.

Have you met The Cure yet?

No, not yet. We’ve tried to meet up a few times at some of our gigs, but we’ve not been able to make it happen. If I was them I’d be worried, like he invited us out for the rest of the year to tour with them, and the reality is we’re a bunch of absolute rockets. So, after two days he could be like “What the fuck have I done?” But, I’ve heard he’s a really nice guy. Stuart from Mogwai and him are really good friends, and I’ve only heard that he’s really nice. And, he’s proven that with what he’s done for us on the tour! He’s went over and above to help us out, to make sure everything is the best it possibly can be, and I would never expect anyone to do that. cause once you get on the tour, it should be your own job to do stuff. But he’s looking after us, he’s taken us under his wing.