EDITORS///
VIA PHONE///
TEXT ARYE DWORKEN ///
PHOTOS DUDESWEET.ORG ///
MARCH 29, 2006 ///

I've done my fair share of trash-talking the Editors. For one, I've heard it all before--there's the über-familiar Ian Curtis baritone of Tom Smith, the Edge-y propulsive guitar, the cliché gloominess of Interpol, the shoegazing echo of the Bunnymen...I could go on, but I'll do my best to self-edit.

Secondly, their album Back Room is the first rock release by the Fader Magazine's venture into a record label (um, does anyone own a Saul Williams album?) therein combining editorial and commerce, always a very tricky combination. But I'm not the only one who had (note my past tense usage) problems with the band. It seemed that anytime I heard the Editors mentioned by a member of the hipsteratti elite, there's always been an obligatory eye roll. For some time, I even thought the been-there-done-that look was actually part of pronouncing their name.

But since then, I've seen the band live and they work their post-punk tushes off. While it's easy to edit them out from the great book of rock and roll, there are thousands of fans that think that would be a mistake. And while I was one of the diss-missers, I think I may be coming around based on the strength of their singles "Munich" and "Bullets" and their live show. I spoke to their bass player Russell Leetch about my issues and he did his best to not punch me in the face.

Is there a difference between the reception in the US and the UK?
A lot of people in the US were initially unaware of our band. We're playing small gigs here as opposed to the ones we're playing in the UK. Over in England, we play to about 5,000 people but the UK press has also been writing about us a great deal, so that helps.

What were you studying in college? I'm going to assume it was creative writing.
No, we were all studying music.

So there are no editors in the band? What a let down.
Yeah, we just liked the word. How it looked on paper.

When did you start recording the Back Room?
When we finished university and then we started looking for labels. We are very idealistic about music so we wanted to focus on putting our debut out on an indie. We had various labels tell us that they weren't into our sound.

What was the influence in the Editors' sound. All the press brings up Echo & The Bunnymen and Joy Division. Are you fans of these respective bands?
No, not at all. But we don't mind being compared to them but we really have a separate identity. I don't think we sound anything like them.

You really don't hear the comparison at all?
No, we're quite unique. We knew about those bands but they didn't influence us at all. We knew just "Love Will Tear Us Apart," but that's it. Ian Curtis even died before I was born. Just because we write songs with minor chords...we don't want to write major chords songs. We wanted to avoid the poppy sound.

What bands were you listening to growing up then?
Radiohead, R.E.M., the Strokes, Elbow...

If you're referencing Elbow as a childhood influence, then you must be really young.
Elbow is actually one of our largest influences. We know the guys from the band. We even recorded a song with them called "Let Your Good Heart Lead You Home," a b-side that we put out.

The UK press has a tendency to fall in-and-out of love with bands. What's your relationship with the press right now?
We've never been on any covers yet and frankly, they've all been pretty tame with the Editors. We do in fact read our own press and it's been overall pretty nice which is unexpected because it seems that all bands get their fair share of negative press.

I've heard you guys are animals on stage, that your live show is even better than the record.
We've played over 200 gigs in the last year. That's how we built ourselves up in the UK. We never wanted to perform merely satisfactorily. We dread mediocrity and playing an impressive live show is our priority.

How was your experience this year at SXSW?
I wouldn't go again. It was a music festival for industry people-there were no fans there and that was such a disappointment. We played so many times and it was really, really hectic. When we were going over on the plane, I saw so many bands from the UK that were on small, tiny indie labels and they were flying all that way to play for four people on a crap stage with a crap sound. I didn't like that at all.

Were you able to see any bands worth noting?
On the last day, we snuck away to see some music. We also saw the bands that played the same night as us. I was really impressed by Nine Black Alps, who have improved about ten-fold from the last time I saw them.

What are you thoughts about the Interpol comparisons? Is it offensive to you?
We write music with integrity. We wouldn't want to just copy someone else's sound. I can see the similarities, they also write great sound scapes but they don't have the same pop elements that we have. We both have different identities.

Would you consider their first album as a sub-conscious influence?
I have seen the band a few times in the past few years and they're not that impressive on stage. Unlike Interpol, our strength is in the live show. I'm quite familiar with their songs, I've listened to their music but like I said, we're a band with integrity. We're not trying to rip someone off.