Interview: The Stills

by Jon Fletcher

A year ago, The Stills released their second album, 'Without Feathers' in the US. We asked keys man Liam O'Neil why it took a full 12 months to reach the UK

"We weren’t totally happy with our label last time around"

You toured the UK with the Kings Of Leon. How was it?
Fantastic. It’s always a pleasure to tour with those guys. We’ve toured with them before in the States but it was nice to come over here and see what it’s all about on this little island.

This wasn’t the first time you’ve played over here though was it?
No, we’ve played over here five or six times in the past but this was the first time we’ve been over here to support this record. It’s good to come over here and play these songs for people. A lot of them have been waiting a long time for it.

Yeah, why has it taken so long to get the UK release?
We wanted to make sure we came out with the right record label here because we weren’t totally happy with our label last time around. It was 679 but mostly Warners because we had a licensing deal with them. We didn’t want to do another record with them because they didn’t really understand how we should have been pushed. I don’t know how much they were actually into the music. This time around it’s really nice having people who are so on top of it and so into it and so happy to be working for the band.

How did that partnership with Drowned In Sound Records [who are releasing 'Without Feathers' in the UK] come about?
They got in touch with us because they put out some records by some friends of ours, a band called Metric. We asked Metric, “What do you think about this label?” and they were totally happy, so we put two and two together and were like, “Let’s go for it.”

We started talking about it late last year because we came over here and played one show at 93 Feet East in London in November, but it wasn’t until we got confirmed to do this Kings Of Leon tour that they were sure about when to put out the record because they wanted some kind of spring board.

What sort of reception have you had? Being in the support slot’s always a bit tricky isn’t it?
I have to say, Kings Of Leon fans are really open and really love music so it’s nice to play for people who are that open minded and that passionate about music. All the shows had been sold out before we even got added to the bill so a lot of our fans that found out about the shows late couldn’t get tickets. It’s nice to play to people who have never heard you before because it’s like a clean slate – you just start from scratch. The concert itself ends up having a lot more meaning that way.

‘Without Feathers’ has a noticeably different sound to the previous album, 'Logic Will Break Your Heart'. Why is that?
Yeah it’s definitely different. The key difference was just the way we went about making the record. With the last one the pre-production time – the time we spent working on the songs before going to the studio – was a lot shorter. This time we took a long time and took longer in the studio. We all played together more so it felt more like us as a band, in a room, really vibing off each other. I think that’s senses less on the first record, but I guess the production of each record kind of suits the style of the songs themselves.

We went to your Water Rats show which I think you did one night after supporting Kings Of Leon. Which size of show do you prefer?
My favourite is probably between those two. As much fun as it is to play for 3,500 people, if they’re not 3,500 of your fans it’s obviously not the easiest show. Playing to 200 people packed into a club that are sweating and loving the music is also amazing, but my favourite is 500 to 1,000 people. I think those are the gigs that suit us best at this point. That’s the kind of audiences we play to most of the time when we tour North America.

‘Helicopters’ seemed to be very popular with the audience at the Water Rats show. Is that something you’ve seen elsewhere?
Yeah a lot of people are loving that. It took us a roundabout way to get to that song. The original was so different - it’s a song that really shone when we went to record it. Everyone’s little parts that they came up with at the last minute really worked on that song.

What’s it about? There’s some fairly strong imagery in the song.
Tim [Fletcher, The Stills' front man] is really into animals and the environment so a lot of it has to do with that. Tim writes very strange lyrics and a lot of the time I have absolutely no idea really what they mean to him. That’s kind of good – it allows people to get from them what they want.

Do you ever ask him what they mean or is that something he tends to keep to himself?
A lot of times it changes every time you ask him. As much as it can have a different meaning for you as it can for me, sometimes the words are vague enough that it can mean a lot of things to one person.

Given that you guys actually finished ‘Without Feathers’ a while ago, is there another album in the pipeline?
Yeah, we’ve had a few months off over the winter and we’ve been locking ourselves up in our rehearsal space and recording. I think we have about ten new songs now so I think we’ll probably record the new record over the summer. I’m guessing it’ll come out early 2008 in the States and then who knows when here? Obviously it won’t be as big a wait because we have a record label that’s really awesome now and they’re as excited to put out another record as we are.

With thanks to Leanne Mison from Bang On.

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