Indie rockers Tellison play Middlesbrough on Sunday. Matt Westcott spoke to lead singer Stephen Davidson about recording the new album, The Wages of Fear, classic films and life on the road.
THE Wages of Fear is a 1953 film about a group of desperate men trapped in a dead-end town in South America, who are hired by a crooked oil company to transport deadly chemicals without the equipment that would make it safe. On the face of it, it’s not the first movie you might think of when looking for musical inspiration.
“Half of the band actually work in an arts cinema in Cambridge and we’re all pretty into film,”
explains lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Stephen Davidson. “For me the title is a lot more personal though. I was taken to see the film in an old cinema in New York a few years ago during a pretty crucial few days in my life. Then when we were thinking of album titles I just wrote down the words and thought they were pretty great.”
For Davidson, the title also mirrored how he felt after the release of the band’s last album, Contact! Contact!
“With the first record I think we felt like we’d come quite close to moving up a step with our band.
We did all the things people tell you you’re supposed to do, we got some stunningly positive press from the right places and yet, for whatever reason, the thing failed to connect somehow,” he says. “Over the years we’ve seen quite a few bands we know take those steps from being part-time pursuits selffunded by minimum wage jobs to suddenly having substantial backing.
“I guess we were, maybe, just guilty of believing our own hype to a small extent back in 2007. We finished touring the album, looked around and realised we all just had to go back to our day jobs.”
Davidson headed off to New York to contemplate all manner of things.
“I just thought I might as well go do something on my own,” he said. “I bought a cheap flight and stayed with a friend of a friend sleeping on their floor and walking around the city every day for a few weeks. My shoes literally disintegrated while I was there. There’s something very calming about travelling alone I always find and I guess I inadvertently set myself up for some self-examination and interrogation.
“I was suddenly at the end of a pretty big relationship and found myself on a rooftop in Washington Heights looking at a lightning storm over the Hudson and I guess that’s going to make anyone step back a little bit. Especially, I think, if you’ve grown up in Scotland and been surrounded by people who never had any ambition for themselves or you to ever get out.”
Davidson returned in a positive frame of mind and that’s reflected in this latest work. “With The Wages Of Fear, we’ve put so much time, thought, energy and patience into it I think it feels to us like a much more complete album,” he said. “We’re positive about it because we like it. We hope other people maybe feel the same. This time around I guess we’re just looking forward to seeing what happens rather than hoping for anything in particular.”
There’s a definite academic strand to the songs on the new album and this is not surprising when you consider where Davidson was at the time of its conception.
“While I was writing the songs for this record I was finishing my degree at university. I tend, when writing, to use the things to hand as reference points and a few different bits filtered into what I was writing. But I definitely don’t think of myself as well-read. Spending three years at university was a pretty humbling experience for me. It mostly taught me the vast extent of what I don’t know rather than giving me any illusions about knowing much about anything,” he says.
Despite the plaudits from music critics and the general public alike, Davidson, still finds accepting praise hard.
“I’m shocked and awed by anyone that champions Tellison’s cause. It blows all of our minds that people choose to invest time and money in the things we make and do,” he said.
By way of a reward for that investment, fans are being promised a night to remember when the band hits Teesside.
“Middlesbrough is a special town for us,” says Davidson. “Every show we’ve ever played there has been memorable for good – and occasionally terrible – reasons and I’d always tip any Tellison Middlesbrough show as a chance to see something you’ll never forget.”
Tellison appear at The Crown on Sunday. Tickets: £6. Doors: 7.30pm. The Wages of Fear is out now on Naim Edge records
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