Interview With Manchester Orchestra

Manchester Orchestra released their first full length album last week, promoting it with a very short tour of the UK.

Strangeglue were able to meet up with the band earlier in the week and chatted amongst other things about the new album, tour plans and the bands influences.

"We've been really pleased with the reception on this tour, we've only done a few dates but the last few nights the crowds have been fantastic, for the first time there's been plenty of people who know all the songs on the album which has been really great for us."

The band were of course over in the UK last month for the Reading and Leeds festivals.

"We do really like playing the festivals over here, they look after the bands well. At Leeds we were scheduled to come on after the Kaiser Chiefs played their 'secret' set. We didn't know about it so one minute we were setting up our equipment and suddenly people with VIP passes and a TV crew appeared."

"We signed up at the Nokia 'Rock Up and Play' stage, [the tent allowed anyone to get on stage and perform], with Jesse from Brand New, we played a couple of songs, we did a 'Neutral Milk Hotel' cover and also Weezer's My Name is Jonas. We really sucked, and there was only about 15-20 people watching who clapped very politely afterwards."

The next big thing on the Manchester Orchestra horizon is the support slot on the Kings of Leon tour, they've already played some US dates, but play in the UK in late November and early December.

"We're really looking forward to the tour, these are going to be the biggest shows we've done. When we supported Brand New they always preferred to play smaller shows so we were playing to about two or three thousand. The Wembley Arena show is going to be about 11,000.

"When we played Manchester last night our hotel was over the road from the venue we're going to play with Kings of Leon and it looked really big."

Most of the band are from Athens, Georgia and despite their youth, average age 19, have been playing together for a while.

"Most of us grew up together, although we've played in other bands, Manchester Orchestra as a band have been together now for about a year and a half. Jeremiah was actually working as a studio engineer before he joined the band, the last thing he did was engineering the Bubba Sparxxx album."

Before the final lineup had all joined the band there was an as yet unreleased album 'Nobody Sings Anymore'.

"We would like to release it at some point, it would be interesting for people who are really into the music to see how we've developed. The band that made the record was different to the band now, so it probably won't get released for a while yet."

A lot of the tracks on Manchester Orchestra's debut album seem to be built around Andy Hull's strong lyrics and vocals, the rest of the band gave an insight into how they write.

"We do usually start with an idea that Andy will bring in, when we're sound-checking the rest of us will then start to build around it. There's usually quite a big change from those initial demos to what the finished sound is like."

We move on to plans for the next album.

"Obviously with the UK release of the album, although it's been available in The States and on download for about a year, we're touring a lot and we've got the Kings of Leon support. We have already got a few songs that we've been playing in the sound checks on this tour so hopefully soon we'll be able to start recording and get the next album started."

With that Manchester Orchestra left to prepare for the penultimate show of their tour. With a great album under their belts and some high profile major tours to accompany, the next few months are likely to see the band pop their collective heads well above the radar.