Aqualung: Not In The Key Of Jethro Tull
Interviewed by: Jenny Francois
Date Published: 05.06.05
Aqualung is not a Jethro Tull tribute band. Aqualung is Matt Hales. He has been called a child prodigy who received a scholarship to study composition in Winchester. A 60-piece orchestra performed his first symphony where Hales conducted. Though having success in other bands such as Ruth and the 45s, it wasn’t until a Volkswagen Beetle TV commercial in the UK, which featured the song Strange and Beautiful, did his breakthrough begin.
The lush pop sound of Aqualung is mesmerizing new audiences at every turn with mellow pianos, haunting and angst-ridden vocals. The North American release of Strange & Beautiful is a compilation of the first two Aqualung albums (Aqualung and Still Life), previously released in Britain. Aqualung performed at this year’s SXSW and will be playing with Cary Brothers at Irving Plaza on May 10th. Embarking on a brief US Spring Tour, somewhere between Indiana and Missouri, Matt Hales was kind enough to talk to us about being a father, his new album and his love for The Police.
Aeki Tuesday: Hello Matt
Matt Hales: Hello Jenny.
Aeki Tuesday: Good morning. How are you?
I’m okay. This is my first morning on the tour bus. It’s kind of like you’ve
been abducted by people who makes moving hotels.
Aeki Tuesday: How’s the tour going so far?
Well I guess fundamentally it’s going remarkably well. It’s surprising to come to these towns. I don’t really know where they are on the map of America. I’m so glad many people wanted to come and check us out. It’s pretty cool.
Aeki Tuesday: It seems that your life always included music. When did you start writing songs?
I don’t know exactly. It just kind of went from just being very small and banging around on the piano like kids like to do. There was a point when I’ll just be sitting there banging away and then I thought wouldn’t it be nice if this bit came up after that bit. That turns out to e the beginning of writing music. It just came from there. I think I strung it together into little piece or a little song by the time I was four or five, which probably wasn’t very good. I was a bit naive.
Aeki Tuesday: You had received a scholarship to study composition at Winchester and you conducted your first symphony with a 60-piece orchestra Were you overwhelmed by it all at such a young age?
Well I don’t know. I was just lucky. I just loved the kind of passion it brought and I was just lucky to get opportunity to pursue it. It was great really because I got this one on one composition tutor. I got to experience music; did some new things. It was pretty cool and it was just the right time.
Aeki Tuesday: Your brother Ben and you have been great collaborators. Both had several bands such as Ruth, The 45s and now Aqualung. Working with family members can sometimes be very trying or an advantageous connection. Where do you say you and Ben fit in that mold?
(laughs) He can be trying. He’s at this very moment filming me doing this interview, which is very trying. We are fortunate that we always got on kind of well, There’s this whole thing you get with brothers when you don’t have to explain the way that it’s meant to explain. It was figuring music together. It’s just a kind of instinctive thing. We just kind of know what we’re all about. That actually helped.
Aeki Tuesday: I read when you were little you both performed Police covers selling them at £2.
Something like that yeah. We made your first album kind of little when I was like eleven. We soon latched on the fact we could make money out of this thing.
Aeki Tuesday: you both were ambitious.
We were just you know greedy.
Aeki Tuesday: After The 45s, you started submitting songs to ad agencies. Did you ever think the Volkswagen Beetles commercial would generate so much interest? Record stores were in a tizzy with requests for “who sings that song?”
It was really remarkable. It was very strange. After the band split up and I started working at home on this new idea of something kind of slow and emotional. I suppose I just got really into it and it was all mostly a relief because I really needed some money and it gave me some money so I could pay mortgage. I just kept on working on this new idea and this new feeling that I wanted to make with this new record. Then it was really kind of wonderful. People just seem to get it. There’s that track that seems to touch people and made them kind of crazy about it. So the Aqualung thing kind of began.
Aeki Tuesday: Did you feel things would have been different if you did not go through that non-traditional route?
I don’t know. I’ve actually spoken, since it wall happened to radio people in the UK and record company people and said, “If I just come to your office with this stuff without any thing else that’s going on what would’ve you said?” You could imagine they all would have to agree they would’ve just have gone: I like it maybe but I can’t do anything with this. There’s no way I’m playing this on the radio. There’s no way I’m going to sign you because I can’t understand why anyone wants it. I can’t understand how to market it. But the wonderful thing about what happened it kind of marketed itself. And by the time it came to talking to the radio and the record companies it was all there. It already made an audience for itself and that was perfect kind of rebuttal for all those questions that labels and radio would normally have.
Aeki Tuesday: Who were your music inspirations growing up?
Like most people I was inspired by my mom and dad and in their taste in music because that’s what was around you when you’re young. Mom and dad had a record shop so there was lots of different kind of music around. Well I guess their favorite records are probably still mine to some extent. I’ve had a eclectic taste. I grew up with Songs In The Key of Life, Pet Sounds, and Still Crazy After All These Years — You know just sort of great classic song writing. I think those things that were sort of articulate complex pop music kind of formed my taste a great deal. That has a lot to do with the kind of music I make now.
Aeki Tuesday: The U.S. release of Strange and Beautiful combines tracks from two previous releases, on Aqualung and Still Life. Did it take you some time to decide which songs should appear on this release?
Yes, it was actually quite a head scratcher because it was really enjoyable. I’m really pleased the label would allow me to do this. I wouldn’t accept it in any other way. It was an opportunity to think where I wanted to go with Aqualung that was the main thing that was interesting about it because you could combine the two previous record to make so many different types of album and choosing these particular songs and making this kind of album it really was about me deciding the direction I wanted to take the project. That was a really useful thing to me because I’m about to make a new album I think every one should just make compilations before starting a new one. It’s quite a different approach.
Aeki Tuesday: Who did you work with the remixes for the release?
Well I did a lot of it myself. I produce my own stuff. Once I chose the songs there it was a question of how do we make this flow from beginning to end and not seem like it’s a compilation. It’s been nice that people who have bought it don’t realize that it a compilation. That it’s a surprise. That’s kind of what I wanted. I wanted people to think it’s a proper album. It was just a question of tweaking the way that some of them sounded to make them more line up to make some kind of sense. There was a remix by a friend of mine, Jim Coppperthwaite, who is a DJ/Producer who sort of imagined one of the songs on the first album as this kind of grand Isaac Hayes track; type of a deep soul track. I thought it was finally time to use that version of the song “Falling Out of Love” that was great. That fit in there so well with the others. It was really cool because it actually made a unique record. I’m really pleased that it’s not just cut n
paste.
Aeki Tuesday: What initial differences did you note from your home recording process rather than recording at Real World Studios?
I noticed it was a lot more expensive recording at Real World Studios. It was cool that was partly just me going to the absolute extreme. I made the first album in my hallway with an old computer. I had an opportunity to go anywhere I wanted. Real World was one of those places I always wanted to go and record. It was just really lavish and wonderful week we spent there and it’s amazing. What was cool was even those shinny and incredible details of recording I then brought them back into my hallway and kind of fucked them up into my computer. It always ends up back at home whatever I do. That kind of protects it from getting too studio-ish and fancy.
Aeki Tuesday: Some of the songs on the album Still Life were co-written with your wife Kim Oliver, did this come about organically?
She also co-wrote the songs from the first album. That was one of the things that characterize Aqualung from the word go was that in a way. It sounds simplistic. I’ve been working with boys all the time my band before always with men. Aqualung began and I worked on my own and I worked with Kim and she’s a woman. It immediately brings a different flavor to the sensibility to the thing. And I think that’s part of what’s always worked with Aqualung. These lyrics, which were written by her, which are wonderful, beautiful heartfelt word but there are also feminine. I’m singing them and I’m a man. There’s this particular quality that’s subtlety there. It was a real big moment when we realize we can work. We have written together before but not that much. This was the first time we’d work intensively together.
Aeki Tuesday: Is she currently on the tour right now with you?
She’s at home with our son.
Aeki Tuesday: Are you looking to move a little bit away from your past releases?
Of course. I think an artist should try to do new things and learn new things. I’m not sure where I’m going to go next. I’m writing at the moment and I’m really excited by the stuff. It’s quite significantly different from what I’ve done so far. I don’t know really. I couldn’t tell you yet whether it’s gonna turn into this kind of long talk-talk album or maybe some weird kind of electronic symphony. You’ll just have to wait and see.
Aeki Tuesday: Besides Aqualung and producing Melanie Blatt’s (All Saint) solo album, what other projects are you currently juggling?
Being a father, that’s really my main project currently. That’s all I’ve had time for. I’m just finishing up Mel’s album in gaps between touring. I’ve been approached for film scores. It’s something I’d love to do but I just really have no time. I guess really the main thing I want to do is to find time to finish writing my new album and get into that and then eventually in 100 years when I get some time off. I’ll turn my attention to those other interesting things that’ve come up.
Aeki Tuesday: What albums are currently in heavy rotation while touring?
What have I got going on? I’ve been listening to the Police album; which I haven’t listened to in ages. Which is called Ghost In The Machine. It wasn’t one of the ones I was into when I was young but it’s a very weird record it’s been quite fantastic. It’s been quite nice to remind myself of how strange a mainstream pop record could be. What else have I got in my little box? I’ve got a lot going on. I’ve got an extremely rambling Elton John album, which is brilliant in places and not so good in other places. I’m listening to Cornelius’ Point. It’s one of my favorite records. It’s just a treat to have that on your iPod if you travel around. It’s perfect airplane music because it’s sort of serene, clean and beautiful. A little bit of that. I got the new Rufus Wainwright album, which I find irritating. I think he’s great so I guess I’ll work with it.
Aeki Tuesday: Your album is well received in America. Rolling Stone gave it 4 stars. Do you have any anxieties when playing to American Audiences?
No. Fortunately the thing I do is just kind of me really. It’s not an effort. It’s not like I’m trying to pretend I’m something else that I’m not. It really just comes how I sound or I sing. It’s just what I sound like when I sing. The whole idea for me was trying to do something that would be just natural and feel like it came from a very real place and it does. Thank God, it’s not an effort and it’s wonderful the people who are into it are into it so much. It’s been amazing meeting people on the road and seeing the beginning of a little kind of Aqualung community in the states. I’m actually just really enjoying it.
