Following the release of their new EP Run, we sat down with Cheltenham post-punk trio I, The Lion to have a chat about it. See what happened below!
You recently released your excellent new EP Run – can you tell me a little more about the writing and recording process?
Elliot (guitars): Writing this EP has been a bit of an evolution for us. We’ve always been pretty techy and playful in our writing, putting different time signatures in and obscenely difficult riffs. But this release marked a step forward for us, so every part of every song has had serious thought go into it. We were lucky to be working with Jason (Wilson, Stakeout Studios), he’s a perfectionist like us so he made sure all the small details were captured in this record.
Was there any tracks that were more of a challenge to perfect?
Elliot: All of us had moment where we spend a long time trying to perfect a certain section. Mine was the verse riff in Icarus, lots of quick hammer on’s and pull off’s as well as fingers leaping up and down the fret board. Major headache but totally worth it. The ending of Hold Strong was a tough one for Nath too. Lots of ghost notes on the snare while bouncing the stick between two cymbals, I don’t know how he does it!
Which song are you most proud of on there?
Elliot: Me personally its Icarus. Big harmonies, silly riffs and huge energy. I know Chris is a fan of Bonny Island, it’s probably some of my favourite lyrics of his.
My favourite track is opener Hold Strong – can you tell me a little more about that one?
Elliot: The way I write is I’ll record loads of riffs in a row to play the others and they’ll pick and choose their favourites from them to use. But with Hold Strong they liked every riff in the order I recorded it, hence why the structure is so unique. It’s the same thing for We Built The Ocean from the last EP, as well as another track from the LP, but that’s another story!
Any interesting tales from the studio?
Elliot: When Nath was recording he played so loud the studio had a noise complaint from someone for the first time in years! It was so loud we put microphones in the toilet outside the room and down the corridor and they still picked up everything clearly, that’s actually part of the reason the drums sound so good on the record.
Chris (bass): Lots of singing ‘a whole new world’ the Peter and Katie Price unedited version.
Elliot: Totally forgot about that! Way too much time was spent watching Katie Price singing without auto tune.
If you could collaborate with any artist or musician, who would it be and why?
Elliot: For me it would be Andrew from Arcane Roots. I really admire his song writing and think our styles are fairly similar, so a huge anthem with silly layered harmonies would be be pretty damn awesome.
Similarly, if you could have any artist to cover one of your songs, who would you want to take on an I, The Lion song?
Elliot: Weirdly a review we had the other day said we sounded a bit like a technical Killswitch Engage which is interesting, so I’d like to see what they did with it! But anyone putting their own style onto your writing is really cool.
If you could replace the soundtrack in a movie with your own music, what movie would you choose?
Elliot: The best fit would probably be something like one of the Bourne films, but I’d want to put it on something ridiculous like Sleepless In Seattle to ruin it for everyone.
Chris: Or James Bond in the future, where James Bond is played by Patric Stewart.
And if I, The Lion could put their name to a product, what would it be?
Elliot: I like these questions! Err that’s a thinker. The most appropriate would be an energy drink of sorts. I think it would suit it pretty well maybe? I’d drink ‘I, The Lion Energy Drink’!
Chris: Chocolate bar, like a lion bar but with meat in it. That’ll sell, right?
Run is out now and can be picked up from here. Check out our review of it here.
