Doves guitarist Jez Williams gives Qthemusic.com the inside skinny on latest album Kingdom Of Rust, which came out on Monday.
"I don't really know where to begin on this one. It spanned over two-and-a-half to three years in the making. We decided to move to a new studio, a sort of Doves headquarters if you like.
Andy found this gem of a place situated in a field between Manchester and Liverpool, so we moved all the new equipment in, stood back and went something like "right then, what we gonna do??” It’s a strange experience because it’s like looking at a blank canvas and saying “what the f*** are we doing”? It’s very daunting indeed.
I think the first year we ended up with 12 or 13 songs but we sat back from it and realized we might be in some kind of comfort zone. There were a few early songs like Kingdom Of Rust and Winter Hill but as a whole album we weren't even close. We decided to just go away and write; I think it was in a place called Eyam in Derbyshire.
Jetstream came early into this period of writing. It was a chord sequence that had been circling my head for ages. The production to it happened really fast and very naturally. To us it seemed an obvious route to take – “let’s make it sound as filmic as possible”. Key themes were ‘futuristic’, ‘mysterious’ and ‘escapist’. We've always been mad film music heads... it just felt right to let all those influences come out on this song, for me this was a real turning point for the whole album.
Perseverance is a friend we knew well; l guess when you've been in a band for so long you sort of adopt this survival mechanism. No matter what shit happens there's always a way though it. There always is... you never give up, never! And that was the magic ingredient I guess; a sort of stubborn determination. With that the songs started to come a little easier.
Like Jetstream had proved, we knew we had to find different avenues to go down. If we'd been there musically before we would steer the Doves ship away from that path. We didn't know what we were looking for, all we knew was it had to be different. So that’s what took the time. I think the album's turning point was three quarters of the way through it.
The tracks The Greatest Denier and Compulsion were real breakthroughs. Then there came House of Mirrors and, like 10.03, we had to wrestle those mo fo's to the ground! We knew they were good songs but they were dressed up in the wrong gear. Tom Rowland (Chemical Brothers) helped us with the 10.03 arrangement, breathing new life into the track, plus Andy wrote some great lyrics.
We put House of Mirrors through a grinder - all nasty and broken - whilst Jimi brought in Birds Flew Backwards, which we decided to give a Scott Walker-type string arrangement. We also added some Eastern touches which suited the song extremely well.
We did a gig towards the end of the album (Heavenly Record’s birthday party in September 2008) and that definitely helped us finish the album. It gave us that extra bit of energy.
Kingdom Of Rust was a real test for us, but I don't want to break this down to the mundane, hard moments. This album has really some special moments, and it’s these weird moments when you feel some kind of united chemistry. All you have to do is look at each other and you understand ..."yes, I did forget myself for a minute there, but...”. It’s pure escapism and what doesn't kill you really just makes you stronger, right?"
9:45 AM | 09/04/2009
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