“Came from a point of desperation” British India reflect on their defining tracks ahead of WA visit
Having recently been awarded ARIA Platinum and Gold Record status for their songs I Can Make You Love Me and Suddenly, British India are bringing their national tour to WA this month. The Melbourne rockers kick off the run of dates at the Stirling Arms on Friday, February 10, and play Freo.Social, Indian Ocean Hotel, Prince of Wales (Bunbury), and The River (Margaret River), before wrapping up their visit here at Amplifier on Saturday, February 18 (tickets available here). BOB GORDON spoke with vocalist/guitarist, Declan Melia to reflect on the legacy of the two songs, and how they were born out of two very different times in the band’s history.
So, British India were recently awarded ARIA Platinum and Gold Record status for I Can Make You Love Me and Suddenly, due to increased streaming during the pandemic. I guess there’s a silver lining to be had there for the band?
Well, I’ll be reticent to say there’s a clear connection between people listening to those records more and COVID. I don’t believe that’s true, I think it’s more that getting this accreditation over such a long period of time just speaks to me that those songs weren’t part of any one fad and they weren’t part of any one niche movement, they were just good songs and they appealed to people. Whether they heard them when they had just been released or whether they heard them more recently.
I think it’s been a steady stream which has sort of been our modus operandi from very early on. There was a bit of flash of fashion when we first started, but then when that wore off, it just sort of settled and we’ve sort of been constant throughout our whole career.
It should go without saying, but I’ll rub it in. We weren’t really a very polished band, and we never really played the game as much as we maybe should have and as much as we were encouraged to do so.
These songs were from our fourth and fifth record, so it wasn’t a flash in the pan thing. And I’m really proud of that because they stuck around and have that lasting appeal over a long period of time.
As a songwriter it must be good to know and receive confirmation that your songs can last the distance…
Yeah, and I think that’s true of those two songs. Certainly in the studio when we were writing them, they seemed like a high watermark for creativity.
There was a lot of creativity in the room, and it was like there wasn’t really enough hours in the day for Nic (Wilson, former guitarist) and I to get all our ideas on paper in the studio.
But there’s always the risk that with what you think is great, other people won’t really connect with, which has happened with us. I mean, with the benefit of hindsight, there’s been a real tension in British India between what we’re suited to and what we weren’t. There’s a few songs I can think of where we thought we’d written the biggest hit since Sweet Disposition. We’ve written some things we thought could be a number #1 and we could retire on that song and our fans just yawned. They didn’t like them at all, and I think it’s because there was a certain invisible line of authenticity with British India and there were certain things we were suited to. And when we tried to step too far away from that, it didn’t really work. We just didn’t convince our audience.
But I think with Suddenly, maybe more than I Can Make You Love Me, it really pushed the edge of that and what we could get away with. It’s just complex enough and just kind of creative enough and just kind of weird enough that people really went for it. Whereas with some other songs when we were really trying to like cross over, the audience wasn’t having a bar of it. It just wasn’t British India’s strength.
Can you recall how you were feeling or your state of mind when you were writing both those songs?
It was completely different. I Can Make You Love Me was in 2011. We’d just come back from the UK spending some time there and we were broke. Everyone was really miserable, there was a real chance that British India wasn’t going to happen anymore.
It’d been a few years since our last album and the singles hadn’t been as successful as we would have liked. I remember in the writing process, just feeling like I wanted to cry, because it was all so depressing to be in your late 20s and still sort of pushing shit uphill and fighting in the dark for nearly 15 years.
So that came from a point of desperation and it just kind of worked. Maybe everyone in the room was feeling that and they just played their guts out. I remember with the lyrics I was like, “What’s the most depressing words you can think of?” And it was, “if you’re reading this it means I’m dead.” And then it just came from there, as kind of a hook. That tells you everything you need to know about that song.
The only way is up from there, isn’t it?
Yeah, well, I mean, the fact that song caught on plus the clip as well, I’m not sure what it was, but it was it was a nice combination of elements.
But Suddenly was completely different. I mean, I Can Make You Love Me had sort of brought us back and that album Controller was a really huge success and had a few good singles – Summer Forgive Me and Plastic Souvenirs were big on triple j. We were touring again and getting great numbers and making good money and the feeling was, “fuck yeah, we deserve this. We went through the dark times and here we are.” That’s why Suddenly is maybe a bit more joyous.
But with Suddenly, especially if you just sit down with an acoustic guitar and play it, it’s really complex. Much more complex than the kind of standard shit that we usually play. It was a high watermark of quality writing for all four of us.
In the studio, I was really confident with that one. I was like, “this one’s really good.” I remember actually we played it the first time we were supporting the Rolling Stones at a winery in New South Wales. And a couple of people from triple j were there, and Zan (Rowe) said, “that’s going to be a good song.” To hear that, at that early stage. You know, it’s probably still being fleshed out, and for it to connect with such a big audience on the first play, I think we really knew we had something good there.
So it couldn’t be more different with those two songs, but that’s bound to happen with a career that’s 20 years long.
You have the full tour coming up but in the last year you’ve been doing shows around the place and flying to Sydney or Brisbane here and there. What’s it been like to get out and do shows again, and then onward from that getting ready to do the whole touring experience again?
It’s been a bit stressful. It just feels like we have to learn it all again… or I have to learn it all again.
It’s funny I’ve become really anxious about being on stage again. And it reminds me of the start when I was really getting crippling stage fright. The shows have been good once we get up there but leading up to it has been really stressful.
The thing about touring is I’ve been doing it since I was like 18 and to all of us it’s just in our lifeblood. Like I just love everything around it. I love getting on the plane and I love going into the hotel and I love sitting around with the band and partying after. All that aside from just the hour on stage. I love the whole thing and I really, really want to do it again while we still can.
The national tour is a major undertaking for the band, are there plans in 2023 recording-wise?
There are no plans, we will record a couple of couple of songs that I think show a bit of promise but I’m really sceptical about putting work out because I really like the six albums that we did and I would hate for us to kind of stymie that with a back-step or do something that’s a bit past it.
So, for us to do another record we need to write over a long period of time I think, and really feel the hunger again. It would have to be so good for me to bother putting it out. We’re so lucky that we can do a lap around the country and play songs that are 10 years old, but I wouldn’t want to compromise that by doing something average this late. It’d just be too cliché to do like a ‘reunion album.’
We’re such a grotty little punk band and a lot of the emotions in songs like I Can Make You Love Me are really childish, really teenaged, really emo. You know? It’s sad to say but the industry doesn’t really want longevity and songwriting like that is sort of a young person’s game. So I’d be really reticent to kind of get out there and change the game up.
So basically live and onstage is where it’s at?
Yeah, 100 per cent. We just want and I hope the audience wants to come down and hear some songs that remind them of when they were younger and just fucking let their hair down and have a boogie. That’s what the shows are like for us. I’ll probably get sent to the guillotine of rock for saying something like that, but that’s the truth. And so be it. We’ve worked for fucking 15 years to build this legacy and now we’re gonna enjoy it.