Recently, an employee at the Sundays'
record label in England was reading an article about the top pop stars
of the past. When she got to the part about how the Cranberries were
destined to go down in history as one of the most important voices of
'90s pop music, she bristled. "That could have been the Sundays, if
they hadn't taken five years between albums," she grumbled to
herself, ruminating over how the Cranberries' lilting girl vocals and
gauzy melodies were strikingly similar to songs the Sundays had recorded
half a decade earlier. In an unthinking move, the employee mentioned her
observations to the band she represents.
"She told us that if our timing had been different, we could be
where they are," says Sundays vocalist Harriet Wheeler. "But
to be honest, I think it would maybe feel galling for us to be at that
level. We never wanted to shoot for being the number-one pop act in the
universe, and I think if we can equal what we've done so far, we'll be
delighted."
That the Sundays aren't interested in global domination should come as
no surprise. Since their earliest days, they've been consumed with
making music, nothing more. After their first album, Reading, Writing And Arithmetic (1990), the band begged music papers not to
put them on the cover and pleaded with their label's record promoter not
to plug the record, for fear that their music would become shrouded in
hype. They were even a bit uncomfortable by the forward momentum
generated by their last album, Blind (1992), which explains
why they chose to take some time off after they finished touring for the
record. But while they had hoped to plant their feet for a while and
reconnect with some old friends, they hadn't planned on taking a
five-year hiatus. It just sort of happened. "We write fairly slowly
and we record fairly slowly, and in between it all, there were other
things happening," explains Wheeler.
"It wasn't that we went on holiday for four years, and suddenly
came back and started recording again," adds guitarist Dave
Gavurin, who lives with Wheeler and is the father of her daughter,
Billie. "Things where going on all the time we were away from the
public eye. We set up a home studio and we were writing and recording.
In retrospect, it was good because the time off gave us a chance to
write songs without worrying about how they were going to appear on a
record. It's a shame because in music you always wind up thinking about
whether a particular track is or isn't going to be a single. We wanted
to distance ourselves from that and really just enjoy the creative
process."
The move paid off creatively, if not financially. While the band's first
two records sometimes lacked substance, their new disc Static & Silence is a fully realized album that runs the emotional gamut
from bittersweet reflection to winsome bliss. Instead of creating
diaphanous, textural tracks that rely on atmosphere to carry them
through from start to finish, the Sundays are now concentrating much
more on arrangements, imbuing their layered melodies with buoyant folk
hooks and embellishing melancholy jangle with horns and strings. To a
large extent, the lushness and scope of Static And Silence is a
result of the extra time the Sundays had to record it. But it's also a
product of the way it was recorded. Instead of going into a studio with
a fixed schedule, Wheeler and Gavurin had a digital studio built at
their home, which allowed them to write and record as they wished.
"It was a fuck of a lot easier to do than either of the other ones,
because we were able to do it on our own terms, on our own premises,
with no one else there," says Wheeler. "It was much more
comfortable this time around even though we were quite daunted by the
idea that we didn't have any production experience, other than the four-
and eight-track cassette demos we'd done earlier."
"It's definitely been the most enjoyable record to do," agrees
Gavurin. "That's partially because we were able to work on it until
we were happy. On other records, if things weren't working, we tended to
just try one or two options, and then just settle for one of them. But
this time, in our own environment, it felt possible for us to work on
everything until we were happy with it."
There's no question that Gavurin and Wheeler cherish their time in the
studio, but they're not merely artsy dilettantes who spend all their
time tinkering with tone controls and echo boxes. After all, these days
they've got something much more pressing to attend to: their
three-year-old daughter. "In some ways, having a kid around was
quite useful for us musically, because it meant you could never have a
24-hour period in which we were both going completely berserk thinking,
'Oh no, that's wrong, how can we make it right?'" recalls Wheeler.
"We had to be grounded, and appear relatively normal on a regular
basis, and that really helped us not get too caught up with any one
thing."
So, how has parenthood changed these reflective English musicians?
"Well, there are a lot more toys in the living room, and we have
less time to listen to music because we have to listen to Winnie The Pooh tapes," says Gavurin. "Other than that, I haven't
noticed any real change in my perspective. People think having a child
turns you into a completely different person, but I haven't found that
to be the case."
"Other than the fact that I can never find my Cranberries CDs under
all the mess, I agree," says Wheeler. "We don't get to go the
cinema as much as we used to, but it's wonderful to have a chatty,
sparkly little voice in the house to help you keep things in
perspective."
