“We didn’t have a lot of time to write it,” says guitarist/vocalist Sam Fryer. “We had all that hype and chaos surrounding the band, we didn’t know really what was going on. We just had to ride it and come through it, and then we still had to write five songs after we were signed in order to fill an album. That was really tough.”
Fryer shares creative responsibilities in the band with bassist Chilli Jesson. In spite of the hype surrounding 180, the pair managed to cook up an LP of relatively unhinged rock’n’roll numbers. While it’s futile to scrutinise whether 180 satisfied media expectations, Palma Violets basically haven’t stopped touring since its release. However, they did take some time away last year to work on album number two, Danger In The Club. The fact this album is already upon us suggests the band didn’t suffer from second-album anxiety. However, before making Danger In The Club, some friendship restoration was required.
“We knew that all we needed to do as a band together was to just go out into the wilderness, find a place and learn how to be friends again,” Fryer says. “On tour, it happens to any band, you lose the connection that you once had. We went out into the wilderness in Wales. I think the most important part was laying down the foundations out there.”
After reconnecting on a personal level, the creative juices began to flow. Danger In The Club upholds the boisterous character of 180, while displaying an even greater knack for rabble-rousing chorus hooks. Evidently, the band felt no urge to attempt a stylistic reinvention.
“We never talked about any directions that we were going to go in,” Fryer says. “The whole Palma Violets thing at the beginning was based on something that was unspoken. The rock’n’roll feeling was in all of us, all we needed to do was play together and it would come out. That’s exactly how we did this album. The only thing we spoke about, really, was making the record sound youthful. We knew naturally that we’d come on as musicians and players, but we just wanted to keep it young and dumb.”
Danger In The Club is packed full of punchy UK pub rock, which guarantees a few mass sing-alongs when Palma Violets show up at this year’s Splendour In The Grass. Still, in spite of the band’s unspoken aesthetic agreement, the creative process wasn’t entirely devoid of stress.
“There was pressure, but that was pressure we built within ourselves – pressure that I put on Chilli and Chilli puts on me,” Fryer says. “Chilli will show me a song of his and I’ll show a song myself, and at that moment where you’re showing each other, that feeling of, ‘Oh fuck, what happens if this is rubbish?’ never goes away. We’ve got to be honest with each other, otherwise we’re not going to get anywhere. When we’d written about ten or 15 songs, there was a sense of trying to get one up on each other. That was actually a very good feeling – Chilli would write two songs and then I’d write another two.”
180 was produced by Pulp bass player Steve Mackey and named after the band’s South London rehearsal studio. The recording approach was really quite simple. “The sound that we were getting in Studio 180, that’s all he wanted to capture,” Fryer says.
Danger In The Club was also created with a big-name producer, John Leckie. Leckie has otherwise been inactive of late, but his career successes include The Stone Roses’ debut LP, Radiohead’s The Bends and a trio of records with The Fall.
“We knew what he’d done before and we’d been fans of what he’d done before, so it was quite daunting meeting him for the first time,” Fryer says. “He hadn’t done a rock’n’roll record in such a long time and you could see he really wanted to get back into just doing rock’n’roll and keeping things exciting. For him to even come down and say, ‘I really want to make a record with you guys,’ was a huge buzz for us.”
There’s no denying that Palma Violets have a penchant for big, memorable choruses. On Danger In The Club,Leckie’s experienced touch has further amplified this side of the band’s personality. Oddly enough, Fryer says he doesn’t consciously “strive for big choruses or anything like that”, but he has no reservations whenever they emerge.
“Sometimes songs are a bit too dark and we scrap it because of that, but never because it’s been too poppy or too pretty. Maybe sometimes we’ll take out a few lyrics that might be a bit too cheesy, but when you listen to our band, it doesn’t matter how atmospheric or beautiful it gets, it’s still got a rough tinge to it. I don’t think any producer could ever make it sound truly pop. That’s just the way I play guitar, it’s the way Chilli plays bass and the way Will [Doyle] hits the drums.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
