Zero 7

Some records tell stories, paint pictures, develop characters, have a plot. Other records have stories behind them, the tales of their creation. Speaking with Sam Hardaker, one half of Zero 7, it becomes clear that his band’s latest, Yeah Ghost, is definitely one of the latter.

Working for the first time without longtime collaborator Sia, Hardaker and musical partner Henry Binnis embarked on their fourth album as Zero 7 with a whole new set of challenges. Choppy waters awaited, but the resulting album, the abundantly soulful Yeah Ghost, does anything but betray its difficult creation.

Hardaker took a break from an afternoon watching a cricket match – England vs. Australia – to answer some questions and delve into the story behind Yeah Ghost.

SSv: The new album, Yeah Ghost, comes out September 8th, so I guess do you have any anticipations for it or are you just looking forward to getting it out there?

Sam Hardaker: Um. I don’t know. Huh. It’s kind of hard to say. They tend to just kind of take on a life of their own a bit once we let go and it goes off into the world and we just start putting a show together and people start responding to it in a thousand different ways, and they’re doing their thing and we’re doing ours. I do hope it’s kind of well received, but in a way it doesn’t really matter what I think, does it?

SSv: That’s true. You can’t control what other people think.

Sam: But I feel like I’ve thought about it enough and I just need to move on to something else.

SSv: And it follows The Garden, which was pretty well received and Grammy-nominated. Did you two feel any added pressure when going in to record Yeah Ghost?

Sam: Umm, I don’t know. There was a kind of pressure, I guess, mostly a self imposed kind of thing of us wanting to get excited about whatever we’re doing and come up with something that we felt was really great, and then it’s such an unpredictable process that you never really know how its going to run.

And actually it was quite difficult. For one, we weren’t writing with Sia, which was a big change for us. I mean it was quite difficult for us to find somebody who we kind of got into it with and felt they could really help lead where we wanted the record to go in terms of vocals and stuff, and that took quite a long time before we kind of hooked up with Eska [Mtungwazi], so in that time that we were looking it was quite difficult, you know, there was a lot of soul searching done between me and Henry.

SSv: You mention working with Eska. How does the songwriting process work with you and Henry as well as your collaborators?

Sam: Well, it varies, and we generate quite a lot of material, not all of which ends up making up an album, so some tracks we would work on and get much closer to completion prior to anyone else coming into it, and other tracks were just these, like, ideas maybe that we played for Eska and she responded positively to them and then that would dictate, “This is something she feels strongly about, let’s go with that.” And other things maybe that we felt were perfect for her, she would go “Nah, I’m not really so into that one”.

So you never really know until you’re in the room and you see what people go for, so there was a lot of stuff that we wrote together and that happened quite quickly with her, with just the three of us just kind of vibing on whatever we were doing.

SSv: Can you talk to me a little bit about the recording process for Yeah Ghost and how it compared to recording your previous albums.

Sam: Well, now that you mention it, it was kind of difficult, actually, whereas the last one [The Garden] was relatively kind of smooth in its creation, I suppose. We just kind of flipped into it and Sia was there and we didn’t really plan anything and just hit the ground and we were just running.

And this one, we went all over the place. We tried a lot of different things and through the course of making it, we thought that it could possibly be a number of different records. We did a lot of different changes in direction, [Laughs] which was quite worrying whilst it was happening, to think we were into something and then actually we weren’t. We’d realize that actually we don’t feel great about that, things weren’t developing as we’d hoped and so we’d have to try something else. And that was really unsettling.

But to me it just shows that you can’t really predict because the minute you think “Oh, we’ve just gotten the hang of this record making thing!” and you know what I mean? You get thrown something that knocks you, and suddenly you feel like shit. I’m no more hip to this process than I was on the first record.

And that to me is what is really kind of interesting, perhaps, the challenge. The unpredictability of it, it can really turn you inside out and, like I said, be quite unsettling, but reaching that satisfying end is really, great.

SSv: Definitely. It has to feel good to be finally finished and have this nice little package when you were afraid that everything was going to fall apart to begin with.

Sam: Yeah! And I think this record it had never really felt, like, not to dismiss what you said, but it never really felt like a tiny package of stuff. It felt like a really quite strange collection of things that have come together in a haphazard way, and quite a difficult way.

And weirdly in the title is this kind of feeling that it had been quite a haunting process for us, and a lot of those songs had become quite difficult for us to realize, to finish. And then actually reaching a point where we did kind of overcome that and somehow positively reflecting on the quite haunting period of time. I guess in some strange, not very logical kind of way that’s what the title is about.

SSv: So what happened?  How did you guys reach that point where it did all come together?

Sam: Uhhh…[Laughs] Just trying everything. Just trying as much as we could to reach a point where we had a body of work that we felt positive about. And there was a lot of omissions from the final album that right up to the end we thought were going to be really integral parts of it, and actually for one reason or another they didn’t make it or didn’t get finished or we didn’t manage to get the vocal thing happening that we wanted, so we just gathered together what we did have.

In a way, even at the very end of the process, when it comes to kind of compiling things together, there was this moment where I slightly crossed my fingers and I think, “I hope all of this shit does actually kind of form something kind of cohesive” because of the way that this album comes together was quite desperate, a little bit.

SSv: That’s crazy. When I listen to it there’s definitely different sounds and depth there, but I never would’ve thought you guys were scared because it was all over the board.

Sam: Does that detract from the overall experience for you in any way?

SSv: No. I don’t think so.

Sam: I just wanted to check because if I’m going to start saying that for weeks on end…

SSv: I think it’s just interesting to hear that you had that experience with it.

Sam: I know, yeah, I guess people don’t, as they say, it just kind of arrives on your desk and you just kind of see it as you will, and there is a story behind each thing, and this one is particularly kind of jumbled, you know.

SSv: Like I said, I think something your music always has is different sounds and depth, yet you’re always kind of placed in that electronic/dance category.

Sam: Especially considering we don’t make dance music.

SSv: Exactly. That’s what I was going to ask you, if you ever feel you’ve been mislabeled because you don’t sound like Cut Copy or Daft Punk or something, which most people think of when they think of dance music.

Sam: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I feel like we always have done since the beginning. We never quite fit the title. We never quite fit the section of the record store that we’re in. I guess that seems neat to be categorized for convenience, but, yeah, it may be arrogance on my behalf, but I do feel that it is slightly misleading or just wrong.

SSv: You’re one of those bands where I wouldn’t know where to put you, but I do feel that is incorrect.

Sam: Yeah. I don’t know either. That’s the thing. People have always asked me and I have no clue. Know what I mean? You give it a name. Whatever you want. Whatever works for you, really. But it is kind of frustrating sometimes. Does it really have to be that kind of lazy sort of label?

SSv: It’s cool that you don’t think you belong there because you’re certainly not limiting yourself to trying to fit some niche that somebody else made up.

Sam: And that’s the thing. I don’t think that anybody is really. I don’t know, but I don’t think that anyone really plays to how they are labeled. If anything people are trying to grow out of the tag they’ve been given, and just sort of evolve or experiment a little bit.

We’re not particularly kind of out there, but for our own sort of experience of it, we’re looking to evolve. Each time we go into make a record, we want to try and approach it in new ways and be aware of how you might fall into doing similar things and try to experiment a little more in the process.

SSv: You mention trying to evolve and your sound has definitely evolved over time, and I think the newer records are a bit brighter than, say, Simple Things. But what do you look to for inspiration when you’re trying to evolve your sound?

Sam: Um. I don’t know. It’s anything. It changes all the time, just what we’re listening to. It’s a constant kind of, in terms of music that you’re listening to, in terms of whether it’s old stuff or new stuff. I don’t really know. There’s nothing specific, but we listen to a lot of music and definitely kind of get off on a lot of the same stuff.

But, also, me and Henry have very separate tastes in music. Sometimes between the two of us, you might not expect to find something that we agree on. There’s a lot of stuff that Henry’s into that I don’t really get as much as he does, and it goes the same the other way around.

SSv: You mentioned before that this time you didn’t work with Sia, who was a longtime collaborator, and this time worked with Eska instead. So I was wondering how you found Eska and ended up working with her.

Sam: We were aware of her because she’s been around in London for quite a long time and I’ve seen her play in the past. But mainly it was because a couple of the guys who sort of play in the band with us have played with her quite a bit. And just through that connection.

It was just one of those things where it was right there but we didn’t really think about it until later on in the process of making the record. Then somebody said, “Did you ever think about working with Eska?” And we didn’t know what she was up to or if she would be interested, but then we got together and like I said, it was really very positive.

It was such a thrill to have your music, the things that you’re so excited about, and have somebody come in and take it somewhere that you had no idea it could go. And that’s what she did. Just with the vocals and with the amazing backing vocal parts, she just is so much, all these colors. I don’t think it really even occurred to us, and to watch somebody else’s imagination just kind of take off on it, that’s what we kind of hope for all the time, and it doesn’t always happen, or rarely happens.

SSv: Her voice is amazing. I hadn’t heard of her before, but I was like “Who is this?”

Sam: Yeah, she is really great. I think she just finished her first solo record that she’s doing with Matthew Herbert. He’s a great musician and does a lot of string arrangements and I think he works as more of an electronic musician, but he works on a whole load of really interesting projects. Sometimes working with brass bands, sometimes working with the choirs and stuff, but mostly does, like, straight ahead electronic stuff.

And she did some stuff on a record with him, and he’s now producing her solo album. From the very kind of small, small bits that I’ve heard I think it’s going to be really amazing.

SSv: Because you guys do tend to work with different vocalists and collaborators, what kind of challenges does that present as far as being a band in the traditional sense, especially as far as going on tour and things like that?

Sam: [Deep breath] Sometimes it can just be a real pain in the ass. There’s just so much to organize and logistically things become so difficult that, that was part of the difficulties of making the record. Oftentimes we would be struggling and say ‘why can’t we just do this ourselves?’ ‘why don’t we just get somebody and decide that we’re a band and just hang out and make records?’ but that’s not where we’re at.

This means that there’s a big kind of unknown quantity each time we go into making a record and like I said, that can be quite, if you get into it and you’re not sure about who’s going to fill that gap, it can become quite unsettling. Because we’re just doing all this work and stuff and actually what are we doing? Without this missing person or this missing element to it, where is it going?

I think through the course of doing that, it made us realize that, actually, it was really important for us to start creating different outlets to finish our work, and not for it all to just be about finding the person who is going to help us make the next Zero 7 record. So through that quite difficult experience we’ve started, we’ve gone back to doing numerous projects, small things, to give us a chance to breathe out and let things go and just kind of finish things that would normally just end up waiting around to possibly get on an album. But what was your original question so that I can answer it?

SSv: Just what are the challenges in having those collaborators?

Sam: Yeah, right. Well, as I said, that whole kind of going into things with an unknown quantity is such a gamble because if you start and you don’t have that you can suddenly find yourself a year into it and people will be going, “hows the record?” And I’ll go, “Yeah, we’ve got a loads of good stuff.” But actually in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, “Well, nowhere because we don’t have that person.” You know what I mean?

So that’s what’s kind of unsettling about it. So, like I said, when somebody does come along like Eska did and really breathe life into it, it’s magical.

SSv: After the album hits stores, what’s up next for you and Henry?

Sam: We’re going to tour a little bit I think, up to Christmas. I don’t think it’s booked yet, but we’re hoping to get to the states before Christmas. I’m not very sure yet, but it’d be like November. I don’t know. We’ll see what’s happening next year. I think Eska’s got her album coming out in the new year so she’s going to be pretty busy with that, but it would be nice if we could get a good run of playing it live, so hopefully we can put something together with her and help her tour her stuff, but we’ll just have to see. Play it just how it comes and see how things go and ride it out.

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