News Track By Track: Empty Pools - Saturn Reruns

It’s enough of a swerving, jolting ride when listening to Empty Pools. To try and grapple at the themes and wild thoughts pouring into the songs themselves is a pretty futile task. That’s unless you’re studying the thing. Which you could, to be honest. There’s so much going on here, theses’ worth of work could be crafted as a response. Either that, or it’s about taking a more gung-ho approach of enjoying the damn thing. On ‘Saturn Reruns’ the Bristol outfit put all their stubbornly scheduled practice sessions into good use. It’s tough to find a more sharp, tightly-wound band in the country, at the moment. What’s profound and downright clever is made to sound like something that’s completely natural. It’s a special debut; one that should, given time, be considered as a cult triumph. Leah and Ben from the band give DIY a guide to the thinking behind each track, as well as the first play of their terrific debut.

‘Saturn Reruns’ is released on 4th November via Battle Worldwide.

Murals

Leah Pritchard: Set at a New Year’s party I did not attend because it was full of school friends I hadn’t seen in years and I didn’t want to remember what a jerk I was then, but I just sat at home remembering what a jerk I am now. Young indie rock fans: you might feel a tingle in an area you weren’t yet aware of. Don’t be afraid, that is Ben hitting a note with a windmill in the solo. It took a while but Tom Knott (of Empty Pools engineering and mixing fame) insisted on cutting that windmilled note from an inferior take. We’re certain you’ll agree it was worth it.
Ben Shillabeer: It’s in this guitar tuning called ‘Taro Patch’ or Slack Key tuning. Which is great for impressing other guitarists but sucks when it means you have to squeeze even more gear into an already overcrowded rusty Vauxhall Astra to schlep up the M4. The working title for this song was ‘Shady Verlaine’. I wish we’d just kept that title. Live it’s always a lot more punk rock and garage-y; the recording brought out the slick Television side, minus the amazing musicianship and Verlaine’s stupendous solos.

Vanderbilt Cup

LP: Roughly based on ‘Just Kids’, about people weighing up the relative values of art and morals and family and love. I wrote most of the lyrics for these songs while I was living on my friends’ floor on a mattress which held so many diseases but this one I wrote while I was staying with some friends in Clifton on a bed and I think that’s why it has a whiff of class about it.
BS: One of our first songs, the album version is different to the recording we self-released in 2012. It wasn’t deliberate but I guess the verses are channelling The Sea & Cake a little bit, maybe ‘Jacking the Ball’? A classic example of the “got three riffs, let’s try sticking them together” approach.

Safety School

LP: This one is about The Wackness.
BS: This was the first song we wrote together. The riffs originally came together via a drum and guitar jam with a loop pedal doing a lot of the heavy lifting. But then Matt joined the band and cemented everything together. When Leah first came for audition she had half the lyrics written already and, well, as soon as she started singing we all knew we were onto something. But we got her back for a second audition just to make her feel uncomfortable and keep her ego in check. Again the album version is a re-recording and gave me an excuse to dust off my microkorg and dig out some glowsticks.

Holding Pattern

LP: This one goes out to all snake-filled-garbage-bag people who are born with the power of deception.
BS: I had the chords and structure kicking around for awhile, so I was pleased when we jammed it and everyone was into the idea. It’s got a capo at the third fret. I love capos (cause I don’t know many chords). I’ve stuck capos on guitars, basses, keyboards, drums; works every time.

Televised

LP: About wanting to forget your eff-ups.
BS: I tried to make the verses as ‘Dreadlock Holiday’ as possible, but that vibe got lost along the way, unfortunately.

Small Talk

LP: ‘I could not be enough of the world for him. A woman could never be enough of the world, I thought, though that was what a man desired of her, though she flap her arms frantically trying.’ The working title for this one was straight up disgusting. And also both morally and legally a little shady. Buy Aaron either four beers or one kebab and he’ll probably tell you.
BS: The riffs were written really quickly at Christmastime 2011. It took a while for us to get round to jamming it but when we did it came together quickly and we all bought new fuzz pedals to celebrate (even Aaron). I wanted the middle 8 to sound like The National. You can imagine the fun we had at rehearsal singing ‘You spill jack n coke in my collar’ in our best baritones over that section. Kills me every time.

Slack Tide

LP: There is no grand ending to some things, just a lull and then a change of direction.
BS: The last song to make it on the album, this time demoed at Christmas 2012. It’s in dropped D. Every band needs a dropped D song. It’s our attempt to channel the classic American songbook despite being British and living in Bristol. The shitty harmonica solo is because I was listening to a lot of early era REM at the time. I managed to get a mellotron sound out of my microkorg too. It’s what YouTube tutorials are there for.

Exploded View

LP: “The Fall” is when the shit hits the fan for everyone you know and the only things you’re allowed to do or talk about is more shit hitting the fan, it’s like a misery competition. That single note riff that comes in after the first verse was the first time I’d heard Ben sing his classic refrain of “Come on girls / feels so good / don’t you like / the way my body looks.” I quickly learned he purposely plays a guitar line in every Empty Pools song that line can be sung over.
BS: Another loop pedal creation but Matt’s basslines really made the song and turned it into something else. It was originally way slower and the middle 8 had a ‘Death of a Disco Dancer’ vibe. Manchester, so much to answer for.

EMPTY POOLS - Exploded View from Empty Pools on Vimeo.

Debris

LP: There is no logic to the fear of avoiding being suddenly nice to someone just in case they realise you think they’re dying.
BS: This one is always fun to play live as it’s frickin’ long so you can work out who the true fans are in the audience or those just too drunk to find the exit.

Medium Wave

LP: You wanna be the final girl but you are probably more of a Gale Weathers.
BS: It was written before we went on tour last November with Menomena. Aaron assumed the outro chord sequence was a direct result of me seeing Blur that year. Its working title was ‘Hommeage’ because it had a stoner rock vibe (LP: We thought that might get us blog hits but then we wimped out, as with all our working titles.)