mINtSOUTH.com

mINtSOUTHh's Andy Williams, on his lunch break, spoke to Sweet Billy Pilgrim's Tim Elsenburg who was surprisingly also on his lunch break. Tim took a break from painting walls for a chat about the group's second album 'Twice Born Men', which was recorded in a garden shed and received a shock  nomination for 'Album of the Year' at the 2009 Mercury Music Awards.

“You know when you buy a record and you fall in love with it and want to tell everyone about it? Being nominated [for a mercury] provides me with that kind of emotion. That excitement about music- in a day and age where everyone is so cynical about the music industry and the way things are going- it was a vindication for us working so hard to make this record. It has taken us three years to do with our day jobs. To be recognised by an award that is based on a love of music, not what record company wants to sell records, not on all that usual political stuff, it was just amazing for us. It has really changed everything for us.”

“We went DIY because we couldn't afford to go into a studio. When we used to go into studios and record demos, I always found myself short of time. Every detail had to be prepared in advance. You go in, you do it, you spend money and you come out. One day I thought to myself I was tired of shouting over a drum kit and there were a couple of records I listened to- one by a guy called Aden and another by Sufjan Stevens. Both were very simplistic fingers on strings, you could hear the sound of the room- very honest, human records. I wanted to do something like that. More direct, more emotional.”

“I bought a laptop and a microphone and a music programme and for the first time just let my imagination go. Whatever was going to come out came out. I wouldn't have done it any other way. this has given me time to find a voice of what we do. All we paid for really was a laptop and a bit of kit to get music into the laptop- maybe around three grand in total.”

“I mixed the first record we made on my hi-fi speakers. If I'd had too many possibilities in terms of equipment I'd never get anything done. The limitations of it allow me to just get the emotion out rather than just dealing with the technical stuff. If I hear a sound in my head I have to think about how I'm going to achieve that. Not by twiddling loads of knobs but by hitting a radiator with a spanner- on this record there's a dishwasher. It's good to do things in an organic way rather than in a technical way. For three thousand pounds you can have a recording studio that twenty years ago would have cost you a million. The possibilities are all there. It's great because it's evened the playing field.”

“The Mercury's are removed from political concerns. I think it's a wonderful thing that you've got Kasabian and us in the same thing. Music is so subjective- everyone loves different things for different reasons and it's very important that is recognised. The Mercury's seem to do that- they just say “I love this record and think it should be nominated”.

“I love when a record sounds honest. If you have a small set up and know what you're doing, it doesn't matter that you don't have expensive equipment. It's about putting your heart out there. Making a DIY album gives you the luxury of time because you don't have to keep looking over your shoulder at the clock. In the future I would like to move to a live sound where it sounds like there is just a band playing together in a room.”

“The album was recorded in the shed at the bottom of my garden. My father-in-law built it, he's a joiner. Some spiders usually come to join me and I am invaded by ants once a year. Moths also come in and my cats come to visit me because I have to leave the door open to let some light in. It's not perfect but it's important that it's not part of the house- it's my little haven. I get dressed and go out to work.”

“You can hear birds singing and planes flying overhead when recording solos. You can't hear it in the mix but I think there's an element of that in there. You can certainly hear that in the last song on the album which was recorded in my kitchen with the french windows open. You can hear the kids playing in the garden and my rabbit scratching the patio with his back leg. The album closes with those sounds.”

http://www.sweetbillypilgrim.com/