For a band who plucked their first chords 13 years ago, engineers' eponymously-titled debut album has been a long time in contruction. Bassist Mark Peters tells Kevin Courtney how these architects of sound finally built their dream.
It's probably a good thing that Mark Peters and his mates chose music as a career instead of engineering. Judging from the cover of the Manchester quartet's fab debut album, these guys wouldn't win many major building contracts - unless it was Dali or Matisse doing the commissioning. Who in their right mind would let someone construct three massive octagonal towers suspended precariously over the side of a cliff, supported only by flimsy-looking concrete brackets? Even Bertie would turn that tender down.
This sci-fi architectural drawing is the work of artist David Thorpe and, says bassist Peters, it fits Engineers' ethos like a steel glove. "The reason I think the images suit our music is that even though our music's quite emotional, there's something quite cold and structural - obviously, because they're pictures of buildings - but there's something quite, I can't quite describe it, something impersonal about them that we kinda like, I think that's the reason. There's a new world order that we kinda like, a boy's own vision of the future."
When you climb behind the dystopian vision of architectural insanity, however, you will be drawn in by the plangent beauty of Engineers' music, and welcomed into its big, open sound spaces. This is music that you can step into and walk around inside, getting lost in its lyrical corridors and big, guitar-drenched halls. They've been compared to such sonic artisans as Talk Talk, Eno, Spiritualised and even Cocteau Twins. To this writer, they sound like The Blue Nile built on a bedrock of classic Pink Floyd. It's big music for big buildings, with a warmly beating heart that belies its cold, impassive façade.
Engineers have been together in some form or another for nigh-on 13 years. Peters is a relative latecomer, joining guitarist/keyboard player Dan McBean and drummer Sweeney around a decade ago. Singer Simon Phipps is the new guy in the band, having joined only three years ago. The album was recorded over a 12-month period, but its gestation goes back even further; one guitar track dates all they way back to five years ago. "We're not young men," explains Peters. The quartet prefer to ferret away in the background, away from the glare of the scenesters, but, now that their debut album is finished, polished, and sounding pretty pristine, Engineers are ready to get on the promotional treadmill. They've been doing support slots with The Music, High Llamas and Hope of The States, and played their own prestigious shows in New York, London and, recently, Dublin.
"The way we set out to do things was so that we wouldn't be rammed down people's throats. It would be like a word-of-mouth thing, and people would just get to know about it in a sort of gentle way. It's all working out perfectly really."
Engineers gigs are peopled by fans who have not only been listening to the album, but living it and breathing it as well. They get a lot of couples coming to the gigs, says Peters, attracted by the rainwashed romanticism of Home, New Horizons, Forgiveness and How do You Say Goodbye? Simply Red, though, they certainly are not. There's no room for shallow emotion in their hallowed musical halls - it's got to feel real.
"When we work, it's a real forum, where if one person isn't feeling it, then it gets shelved until everyone is feeling it, which is a great way of working, really. It's quite harsh a lot of the time, but you've got to have some way of working to keep the quality, I think. We do strive to create a visual element to what we're doing, but we never pin it down for ourselves and say, this has to sound like this. I think basically the main thing we're trying to do is spark the imagination of the listener. The fact that our lyrics are quite opaque, they're not literal.
"It's like a mood album - although it's not something that is for dinner parties or for people to discuss."
Because they're not trying to tailor their music to suit current tastes, the album has a retro feel and, like a perennial recipe, it'll go with a variety of dishes: play it after This Mortal Coil's It'll End In Tears or My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, before Radiohead's Amnesia, or in between side one and side two of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here - it'll slot in beautifully.
"It was, let's just make something that we like, and for years we thought, in doing the music we like, we were just so up ourselves, and were kind of in our secret little club. And then we were going, hang on a minute, a lot of really good bands do really well, so let's trust the listener. Never underestimate your listener. I think that's the main thing a lot of bands should do. They shouldn't go, oh, let's play a fast pop song, for the kids. You know, I don't think the kids even want to be treated like that."
Having been studio-bound for so long, the band are discovering a different side to themselves when they play live. Rather than reproduce the album note for note, they've had to find a certain spontaneity.
"I think when people come and see us live, there's actually a really cool, really exciting band in there. And we kind of set it aside when we were recording the album. And now we're touring the album, we're kind of getting to grips with the band and the off-the-cuff side of our nature. It sounds loads different. I mean there are lots of layered vocals on the album, but y'know, you can't reproduce the sound of 10cc on the road. So, the way we've worked has kind of brought us to a new point, which I think is really exciting. We get a lot of different people from different age groups, and you know they haven't come just cos they read that we're the new cool thing in the magazines, but they've come because they've heard the record and they're genuinely into it and they've found their own way there. There's something really unpolluted about that."
Engineers is out now on Echo. Engineers play Oxegen on Saturday, July 9th
