Always on the look out for a sonic adventure, Paul McCartney has re-united with his producer pal Youth for a new Fireman album, Electric Arguments. The pair, who released two trance albums under The Fireman moniker in the 90’s, have reconvened for a project that has now been described in the British press as a hybrid between Led Zeppelin and Arcade Fire.
To record the album McCartney and Youth, who’s previous production credits include everything from Crowded House to Killing Joke, set about improvising a song from scratch on a daily basis. Youth handled the desk, while McCartney is credited with composing each tune.
“We wanted to go somewhere else to keep it exciting,” explains McCartney in London, “and, because I hadn’t written any songs for the album, we had to improvise them each day. Even though it was slightly scary it was really exciting to walk that tightrope.”
In keeping with the random nature of the project McCartney ‘lifted’ the album title, Electric Arguments, while scanning an anthology of American beat poetry. “The truth behind the title is that it’s a phrase I pulled out from an Allen Ginsberg poem,” he continues. “It’s as simple as that. It seemed to fit the spirit of the album.”
“People have always read into my lyrics and found in them more than I ever intended. This time around I dipped into poetry books, mainly those of the beat poets of the 60s, and looked for inspiration and words that I could take and make my own. Eventually this process would lead to a full song.”
Unlike previous Fireman experiments, the pair decided to feature McCartney singing on this project. “[That] was a conscious decision. Having made two albums [without vocals] we decided it was time to change. Youth suggested [it] to me. We made one or two decisions like that, which led us towards the song aspect of the album. Each day we would look at what the day had brought and incorporate those feelings into the track. Sometimes we wanted to get heavy and sometimes we were more in sea shanty mode.”
The one song per-day rule wasn’t enforced entirely through the recording. “It wasn’t a strict rule,” he admits, “it was just that we were working so fast that things only seemed to need a day to get done. It did mean that it was exciting coming in the next day and looking at what we had done the previous day. Then we just spun off that.
“The original idea of The Fireman was to feel completely free in a studio atmosphere and this is something I’ve been interested in since [The Beatles’] Sgt Pepper, where we gave ourselves alter egos to achieve the same effect. It gives you the feeling that anything is possible and stops you being too serious.
“We had the freedom to make this album any way we wanted and it could have been very carefully considered [and] very precise, but that wouldn’t be The Fireman. The whole idea behind Sgt. Pepper was to create a band, and we could pretend that we were that band and not The Beatles, so we made that record with that in mind.
“When John would walk up to the microphone some part of his brain would be conscious that he was doing a John Lennon vocal. And sometimes that was a little bit of a pressure so we created this idea with Sgt. Pepper’s...’ that you’re not ‘John Lennon’, you’re ‘Dirk’. So he’d go up to microphone and he’d sing how he wanted to sing and not how he thought people expected him to sing.
“It’s an old trick. We were doing it in 67 for Sgt. Pepper’s... and there were people doing it before us. But it’s very free – it’s a very joyful way to record. Sometimes it can be pretty scary but that’s OK. And it’s very quick. But I enjoy the process because it’s exhilarating. So it’s something I like doing; pushing the boundaries, keeping it fresh.”
Highlights on the album include the raucous opener ‘Nothing Too Much Just Out Of Sight’, the more melodic ‘Sing The Changes’ and the ambient ‘Lifelong Passion’. All of these tunes were available for download prior to the albums release.
“It’s weird for me because I’m not from [this era],” considers McCartney. “I’m from the times when you went into a record shop and you bought a 45rpm, so that’s kind of how I understand it. We’ve gone through vinyl, tape cassettes, CDs and downloads, and, to me, it’s sort of all the same, except now it’s this weird thing where people don’t pay for it (laughs). It is a bit of a surprise, but I don’t mind actually. It all kind of works out. [Even] the Radiohead thing of paying what you think it’s worth works.
“I didn’t actually download In Rainbows. I was thinking of downloading it and giving them my LP and telling all my friends I paid ten quid for it – I think a lot of people did that too. It’s part of life now.”
The Fireman’s Electric Arguments is out now through One Little Indian/Shock.
