“People felt we were great live but that the records didn’t quite convey this and weren’t up to par. “There was definitely a lot of criticism of us back then,” agrees Jones of the period running up to their second album. “We became a bit more assured, partly due to being a wee bit older, but also we were starting to feel that we could do this, we could be an interesting band, bearing in mind that after Hope Is Important, quite a lot of people wrote us off.”
Idlewild a distant history rare windows#
“With Windows I started to sing in my own accent,” explains Woomble of the Yankee snarl he had previously adopted. That may seem a bit harsh on debut EP Captain and 1998’s Hope Is Important, yet listen to early single and fan favourite When I Argue I See Shapes for example and you might mistake Idlewild as an angsty American post-punk band rather than the more rustic, familiar indie-rock outfit they would soon become. “The minute you take a break from something, what quickly comes into focus is why it was important to you” – Roddy Woomble Generally speaking, for me it starts at 100 Broken Windows – from then on I can listen to our stuff without getting embarrassed.” Nowadays though it’s hard for me to get excited about playing some of it. “Musically speaking, a lot of it is pretty rudimentary as it was heavily influenced by what we were listening to at the time but those are the things that people like about it of course. “I think some of the songs on our early records are still quite strong,” begins Woomble when asked whether the session is an indicator that he is comfortable with Idlewild’s legacy and where each release stands within it. It’s the last of these points that finds us chatting with lead singer Woomble and guitarist Jones ahead of their new album Everything Ever Written, on the occasion that they've recorded a new session for The Skinny, comprising seven specially selected tracks, one from each of their album releases thus far (which you can find collected here).
Amazingly, since then the somewhat-amorphous quintet have managed to tick a few other boxes on the rock 'n' roll itinerary, namely the classic album tour, followed by the ‘indefinite hiatus’ and subsequent reunion.
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