Dots: I'm presuming this is one of the first few interviews you guys have done thus far…
Miles: It's the very first one! We've not had the chance to get tired of them yet, obviously.
Dashes: Although the unmastered versions of the likes of Wax and A Mountain We Love have now been snatched away from Soundcloud, how did you react to the way they were received, particularly online?
Marcus: Well we'd been working on them for four or five months before they ever went up, sort of pottering along with them, and then suddenly thought: "Oh well, let's put them out somehow!" And putting them up on Soundcloud seemed the easiest way of doing just that…
Miles: I think it got to the point where we'd written a lot, without really saying anything to anyone. You go slightly mad when you haven't got any feedback for what you've been doing so it was more just a feeling of impulse, of having to get something out and about, and having to deal with whatever anyone said.
Dots: How long were you sitting on these tracks before anyone heard them then?
Miles: More or less since Christmas time really. A Mountain We Love was written a little earlier, but then we wrote Milk not all that long ago. It's all been written thus far in a fairly concise timeframe, and I think it was a relief for us when people actually took to them after the hard graft we'd put in. Relief plus excitement.
Dashes: When the first couple of tracks came out, there was a fair bit of buzz around the band, although not all that much information was released. Was this sense of vague anonymity quite deliberate?
Miles: We never planned on the whole anonymity thing, and in fact we were aiming for the opposite, for people to get to know us pretty quickly. It just so happened that we didn't really have anyone to take some press shots for us! Plus we didn't have a fifth band member in the shape of a drummer, so it was more that we just weren't quite ready.
Dots: Regarding the dynamic of the band, are you still getting accustomed to how each of you work musically, both individually and collectively?
Oscar: We've been friends for bloody ages - we went to primary school together, but in terms of getting used to the sound, we're all pulling in the same direction, and we all know what it is we want to get from the band, what we want to sound like, all that sort of stuff. That's why I guess it's been relatively easy to write material, and I suppose that's why it ended up being as enjoyable as it has. I don't know how to elaborate on that..!
Miles: I think that because it was mainly myself and Marcus doing the writing of these newer tracks over the past year or so, when we started playing them they were newest to Louis (bassist, today absent) and Oscar and as a result, when we'd rehearse as a full band, Oscar would fiddle around a bit on the guitar to bring something different to the sound. Even if whatever it was that he'd do weren't to end up in one of our songs as they are now, it was clear that we were making progressive steps both as a band, and in our songwriting. It works I think because we all contribute more or less equally to the construction of our songs.
Dashes: With this being your first interview etc., I suppose you may not have had to dwell on this sort of question thus far, but you're sure to be bombarded with the dreaded influence question over the coming months. Several people picked up on the tropical connotations of your tracks that've been heard thus far. Was that something that was quite calculated?
Miles: Not dodging the question, but when I was speaking with Ben (Garrett/frYars, producer) he denoted a relaxing element to the songs, and I kinda agree with him. I suppose that kind of stuff links in with the tropical vibe, of being in a good place. There's hopefully something a little deeper that connects that idea with being in a relaxed environment... But in terms of the sound, there's something quite colourful about them. Wax isn't really a colourful song, but A Mountain We Love is I feel.
A Mountain We Love by Theme Park
Dots: Do you feel as though you've crafted a definitive sound as it were, as of yet, or are the songs still slightly incongruous in your minds?
Marcus: I think there's more of a definitive direction than a definitive sound... The online world has only heard two or three songs thus far and although it's not too dissimilar from the other stuff we're doing, it's not the full picture. It's all moving in the same direction, and that tropical element tends to run through the majority of it.
Miles: Hopefully it'll be like when you're playing Age Of Empires: at the start, you can only see three dots on the map, and those dots are like the songs. I think they do fit together, but maybe at this point in time it's not altogether clear as to quite how they fit together. Then you get that cheat, and the whole map is revealed. Everything will become clear, and everything will fit together! The whole structure behind what the songs mean to each other will become clearer. We hope!
Dashes: Do you think that being based in London has affected the way you are as a band, as well as the way your sound has been moulded?
Miles: The major way in which it's helped us is in getting to meet interesting music people. I don't think we're part of a London scene or anything, but in terms of mingling, and being around other things that sound really decent, that's been really helpful in our development. Lots of our friends and acquaintances are already in bands so it's definitely positive to be able to gaze into the inner workings of it all before diving in, to witness first-hand how they were going about songwriting etc.
Dots: The art of making a record at the moment can probably be said to be on the wane, or undervalued. Do you actively aim to be a band that creates records to be experienced from the first second to the last?
Marcus: For me that's definitely the whole point of making a record, yeah.
Oscar: There's no point drawing people in with a song or two; you want people to buy into the album as a whole. It should all be fairly spectacular.
Miles: I feel guilty right now as quite often I might not listen to albums in their entirety. I definitely did before when I was buying CDs, but now I tend to just listen to a band's best four songs or so. Yesterday I went on a marathon walk from Farringdon to Notting Hill with the aim of listening to some stuff the whole way through. I listened to the Tom Vek record the whole way through, and I just felt much better afterwards. I felt much less guilty, as if I'd really got to know him, or at least the album, as opposed to just dipping my toe in.
Oscar: When you know how long it takes to go through the process of making one song, or finding one drum sound, that translates to somebody listening to every last second of the album.
Dashes: The flipside of this is I suppose the blog culture, with people listening to one song here, another song there. Do you feel as though blogs, and similar sites, have a particular contemporary relevance?
Miles: I was saying just last night that there's so much stuff about musically at the moment. It's nice that music's such a communal thing, with loads of people listening to the same thing at the same time. The blog world having so many blogs, so many tracks, and so many bands however creates quite a diluted musical environment. I don't like how most blogs aim to pick up on things that people haven't heard; I prefer the idea of there being less stuff, with more people listening to it. Saying that, the blog world will be the thing that helps us above all! If we're going to spend quite so much time on a record, we want people to listen to more than just the one song they stumble upon within a blog. When I heard my first Oasis album when I was about six, for that whole day, the whole world was listening to that one record, from start to finish. And I quite liked that sense of community.
Dots: You'll probably be faced with this one a fair bit too: why Theme Park?
Oscar: I can't remember..!
Miles: Louis brought the name to the table... We ummed and ahhed over the name for ages, but we quite liked Theme Park. Some people hated it. Our dad just said: "Nah, that's a ridiculous name", but he's not the best at picking names anyway. He doesn't get the youth, with their peculiar band names.
Marcus: It took ages, and at the end of a long old while we just sat down and said: "Right, we need a name." Obviously we ended up with this one!
Dashes: It's not the most Google-friendly name...
Miles: That'll be the ultimate achievement - to top every last theme park website out there. It's like Bombay Bicycle Club - they grappled for so long with the restaurant, and the restaurant's still holding its own, I think it's one of the top two. But I think, or maybe hope, that after a while, as with all bands I suppose, you start to associate the words with the band rather than Chessington or Thorpe Park in our case... There's some nice syllables in there too.
Dots: Turning to inspirations, are they all rooted in music?
Marcus: I think we're all into books and films but whether or not that creeps in, I'm not sure...
Oscar: We do all watch films... Miles, you're the lyricist...
Miles: Lyrically, it's not entirely down to things I've read although the influences aren't so musical with me. But take A Mountain We Love for instance: all the lyrics are about quite tactile stuff, about physical sensations, and that came from some of the stuff I'd read in Moby Dick and there's loads of passages in there about feeling and touching stuff. The lyrics are basically there to provoke an image.
Dashes: Musically, where does it all stem from?
Oscar: There's stuff that you can quite obviously link it to, but I feel tentative when it comes to namedropping in case it comes back to haunt us...
Miles: I know all the bands I like, but I also know all the bands our music sounds like, and they're not necessarily drawn from the same pot. It's got a rhythm to it, that's one of the big things with us. I prefer bands with a more dance-orientated feel.
Dots: And on the aspiration front?
Marcus: Well single number one, A Mountain We Love, comes out on August 29th, and then we're doing our first live show on the Wednesday at The Lexington, downstairs from the office of the single people. It'll feel like home. We'll do that, and then it's onwards and into more gigs to gauge reaction. We've got enough to flesh out about half an hour thus far...
Oscar: Playing shows is one of the best things about being in a band, and the recording process is an entirely different entity that allows you to play live. You can't really enjoy yourself when you're cooped up in the studio rerecording the same guitar line about a hundred times over...
Miles: I feel ready emotionally to get out and play in front of people, but musically? We're not quite there. We need to do a fair bit more rehearsing to get everything up to scratch, but we're champing at the bit to get on stage now. There's more rhythm in the songs now so people may well dance. Well, probably not dance, but at least nod their heads. We can dance a little bit. They'll be fun songs to play live.
Wax by Theme Park
A Mountain We Love/Wax is released via Transgressive imprint Paradyse on August 29th, before the quintet play their debut live show at Pentonville Road's The Lexington on August 31st. More info on the show can be found here.
