Breaking Boredom

Editors break out of their comfort zone.

By: Matt Conner

Chris Urbanowicz is bored with his own music. And when you’re stuck playing the same songs night after night, that becomes a bit of a problem. For the Editors guitarist, that meant something had to change when recording their third full-length, In This Light and On This Evening.

But change can become a bit problematic. After all, Editors were only two albums into a burgeoning, successful career — not exactly prime time to switch things around. But a bored musician is simply not acceptable, so Urbanowicz and the rest of Editors — Tom Smith, Russell Leetch and Ed Lay — went back to the drawing board.

“For me, it was a case of it being a bit of a mess,” explains Urbanowicz. “It was just okay. I remember watching Some Kind of Monster, that Metallica movie, and I remember they kept using the word ’stuck’ saying things like, ‘Well, it’s okay, but it’s a little bit stuck.’ I remember thinking that was true. I felt like we got to the end of the road with what we could do and needed a bit of a change.”

Enter some new instruments. Rather than rely on the rhythmic guitars and familiar dark strums of previous releases like The Back Room (2005) or An End Has A Start (2007), Smith & Co. decided to take a different approach, even if it meant completely abandoning the actual instruments of choice. It was a drastic difference and something that ended up sparking new life for the band.

“Once the synthesizers came out, everyone felt excited again,” says Urbanowicz. “It felt like 2004 again. It took us out of our comfort zones, so it felt like when we first got together and we didn’t know what we were doing. Something exciting was happening and it was that moment of discovery.”

Helping out with that discovery was uber-producer Mark “Flood” Ellis, whose production credits include everyone from U2 and Nine Inch Nails to Depeche Mode and Sigur Rós. As Urbanowicz describes, the English foursome had already developed the new technique and style, but Flood became an all-important guide through such uncharted waters.

“Flood’s a bit like us in that he likes dark and scary music. If anything’s a little too pretty or a little too sweet then he’ll want to change it. Or if anything was a little too weak, then he’d make it heavy. It was just one of those things where something you might not spot would come up and he’d change this or that.

“His influence wasn’t huge since we’d already decided where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do,” he continues. “Instead, he was just the guiding light to tell us we were going the right direction that we’d already chosen to go. There were a lot of new instruments and things could go really wrong.”

It’s the new direction that should excite fans of Editors and garner new ones as well. Urbanowicz notes that the new material is already polarizing in many ways, with most enjoying the developed sound. Also, an insane tour schedule in the first half of 2010 should carry the band further than ever before.

“I think I’ll be in Tasmania,” reflects Urbanowicz when asked where he’ll be with the turn of the new year. “We’re playing in Australia and New Zealand. Then we’re in Japan for a week. Then we’re in London and a bit of recording. Then we tour the States. Then we tour the UK. Then we tour Europe again. Then we do the festivals and then I think that’s August or September and I might just go home.”

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