Architecture In Helsinki are going to be all up in your grill this year. Not only are they poised to release their first new material in yonks, Moment Bends (which we loved) this week, but they’re getting warmed up for a run of club dates around the country including a headline performance as part of Vivid Festival this winter. We sat down with Cameron Bird and Kellie Sutherland, who do all manner of things in the band including singing, playing keyboards and dancing to find out what the deal is with managing a band where nobody takes themselves too seriously.
You guys recently signed with Modular. How does it feel to be part of that network?
Cameron Bird: We’ve wanted to work with Modular for a while so they approached us before this record and were super-keen. So we played finished the record and played it to them to say ‘What do you reckon, are you feeling it?’ and they were. We’re really happy to be working with them because they’re a label with a refined sense of visuals and music which are very important to us, and a lot of our friends play in bands who are on the roster.
So did you have a contingency plan for what would happen if you said ‘Are you feeling this?’ and they came back and said ‘Nup’?
CB: [Laughs] Yeah, we had a contingency plan. I don’t know what it was, Australian Idol?
I don’t think Australian Idol’s on anymore! you might have had to do the Biggest Loser or something…
CB: Oh Biggest Loser, that’d be good!
You guys have always managed to marry lots of really unique synth sounds with classical instruments but I feel with Moment Bends it blends a lot more. It seems to flow more smoothly, is this something you workshopped when you were creating the record or it just came out that way?
Kellie Sutherland: Well, we didn’t really use any acoustic instruments at all, except for the pan flutes on the first song, ‘Desert Island.’ I guess we’re really influenced by production of the past, and really get off on making sounds sound good.
CB: I think it was also about making a record that wasn’t as much a series of vibey parts as making it a whole so it does have that more melded together, considered feeling to it.
So it’s more like having an overall sound rather than saying ‘On this song we can use this instrument!’
CB: Yeah, exactly.
When I saw you at Playground Weekender, which I think was one of your first shows back together as a band in a live setting, it seemed like there wasn’t as much running around as there used to be on stage?
That was a conscious decision. We really wanted to focus on each person doing their thing and doing it well, rather than spreading yourself to thin-
KS: -Yeah and worrying about if something’s plugged in and if the line’s working, all that sort of thing? It means you can focus more on making the connection with the audience and with other people in the band! but I think it’s more dynamic without all of those things, anyway.
So rather than looking like ‘Fuck I’m going to stack it over a keyboard that’s plugged into a computer that goes through an amp that isn’t even working’ it’s more like having the audience in front of you and the bandmates around you?
KS: Exactly.
CB: It gives us more time for choreography!
Cameron, I was always really interested in your falsetto, which is all over this record in particular. Do you write for your voice like that or do you just work it out on piano and put it up the octave afterwards?
CB: I think by default I usually write songs in a key that I can sing in falsetto to. That’s my natural singing voice. Because I don’t really have a music brain in a classical sense where Id be like ‘OK, let’s do this one in A minor’, I’ll play a riff and then that’s what it is. Nothing is really that pre-determined.
You mentioned that you weren’t the classical musical brain. Is there one in Architecture in Helsinki?
CB: No not really, everyone’s pretty much self-taught. People have more experience and knowledge than other, but I think we all just come from a hack and slash background…
KS: We don’t talk in keys in the studio. We talk more in colours and concepts, that kind of thing.
CB: We’ve always been an ideas band. We’re not really a.. I don’t know, a…
KS: A music band?
That’s the greatest tagline I think I’ve ever heard. ‘We’re an ideas band not a music band.’
KS: [Laughs] I’m happy with that.
Obviously there’s the Vivid line-up which was announced this morning that you’re on, but aside from that, are you doing a run of your own stuff too?
CB: Yeah we’re doing some shows of our own at the end of May, on top of Vivid. Those are our first headline club shows since 2008, so we’re a bit freaked out about that.
Holy shit. That’s a long time in between drinks.
CB: It is!
KS: We’ve been playing a lot of festivals but it’s a very different beast.
Do you like festivals in some way are almost a bit easier? Just because the vibe is already there?
KS: The vibe is there, plus it’s not like it’s your show. Everyone’s there to have a great time and see a lot of bands, whereas when people come to your gigs they’re there to see you. So yeah, you have a more captive audience and you owe them a bit more?
It’s almost like if they don’t have a good time [at festivals] you can say ‘Well it’s raining and the band before us sucked.’ You can’t do that on your own…
KS: There’s no excuses. But I think we’re pretty confident about these shows, I’m excited to be playing in the clubs again.
So when you play shows now, do you find that there’s a mixture of Architecture heads, who’ve been there since the very early days through to the ones who’ve only heard ‘Contact High’ and are like ‘Oh my god, I fucking love that song!?’
CB: Yeah, there’s going to be a mix. Maybe there’s people who liked our first couple of records and ow think we’re a sell-out and won’t come anymore! I don’t know.
I think the fact that you told them you’re not a music band will win them all back
KS: [Laughs] Yeah. It’s just a good cross-section isn’t it, the new and the old? Your fanbase sort of grows and then shrinks and morphs.
CB: I have absolutely no idea what an average AiH fan looks like. If you asked me I wouldn’t know where to start.
You should make a composite. You know, plug all of these characteristics into a computer and it comes up with a model
KS: That would be cool.
It could be weird, though. It could have animal elements, or different time periods. Like a guy in ’80s gear with a chicken head.
KS: And Ray-Bans and a hat with corks on it…and Vans…
This could be the cover of your next single, ‘The Ideal Fan’. You could have a collect them all sort of thing..
KS:..riding a pushie.. over a rainbow…diving into a sea of dolphins….um….
Maybe you should get them for a video. I’ve realised I’m just trying to create your entire promotional cycle here. There’s someone from your record label leaning in saying ‘Fucking cut him o-fffff’…
CB: We love it. We’re talking notes.
KS: Bring it on!
Moment Bends is out via Modular this Friday, April 8.
