The 1975 (Matthew Healy)

0:06Hello, I'm Matt from the 1975 and you are watching MSN exclusive. So let's say I love popular chocolate in the video. Small town, small town boredom tune. That's kind of what it's about. It's, um, O'J

1:06With board place, board kids, certain interactions kind of ensue. Yeah, it was, I never thought about that song. It's been like a hit record. We never, ever projected it, especially for that song. So it's nice that it's been so embraced and that kind of really specific part of our life is kind of out there. It's cool. Where does it sit in a set now that you have this massive hit? Do you try and open it or do you save it for the end? Does it go in the middle? Yeah, it goes near the end. Okay. It's a big song. It's where everyone goes. You've got to save it for near the end. So okay, so because somebody has to open it to get everyone going. No, we have, we're very fortunate that we've got a lot of material. I can say, I mean, this is just the regular city, but the deluxe has what, like, 39?

1:5139 on the day view, yeah. So there you go. And we have a very hardcore fan base. So, I mean, if we open with 80% of that record, kids go crazy. It's good fun. What I'm trying to understand is the EP. So you guys wrote songs around what you felt were going to be the hit songs, I suppose, or the anchor tunes of the record. Yeah. Yeah. So how did you know which ones would be the anchors to write a route? Well, well, I don't know. It was kind of, it was peculiar. We pretty much had this set of songs and then said that we were going to take tracks off it, yeah, to have a single, but we didn't want to just do it, like, single because that's boring and not really reflective of what we're like or who we are. So we just wanted to write records around particular songs.

2:38So we kind of took three songs that were, like, polarizing ends of our identity, kind of sonically, stylistically. So you have the city chocolate and sex, sex being, like, very straight up kind of rock. Yeah, rock team, for sure. And the city's, I don't know, lens, I don't know, it's like big beat, shoe, gay-y kind of thing. But that was the plan. And then we kind of kept ourselves on our toes with these EPs as well because we gave ourselves, like, a week for each E.P. to write and record it. So we wrote and record, faced it down in a week, same with the sex E.P., same with the music, the cars and then IV. So the EPs came out first. So they were kind of like our first album. But we wrote them after we wrote our debut album.

3:25So they kind of like our second album, but they came out first. But here you're already like seven, eight songs into another record. You guys were writing over the summer. Well, we don't really. Do you ever stop writing? Or are you just constantly jotting stuff down your phone or whatever? Well, it's not even like that. That's why I like the whole thing. It's why this whole thing's amazing because this is what we've always done, like, indulgently. It had quite a derogative effect on relationships with people because of our sheer lust to actually create music. Now that's been validated. I don't know what I mean. I suppose if we have a laptop and an evening, then we'll make it a record. That's what we do for fun. So we always find it a bit weird when bands say they went off somewhere at a certain time to record something. Because it feels like it should be more...

4:10Maybe you just have so much to say that maybe they need that release from everything to be able to think of things to say. Maybe you just have a lot to say right now. Maybe so. I don't know what I'm saying. Definitely I'm musically. I've always got a lot to say. I don't know lyrically. I'm a bit more... I take my time a bit more. But musically I could. Are you someone who really scratches out words and really wants every word to mean something? Or do you just let it flow and then... Well, this is what I said. So this is what goes on paper. Yeah. It's very conversational. My obsession with the situation is very apparent in the record and the idea of interaction on obvious conversation. I think that lyrics for me... I don't really know. Like I said, nobody knew about our band for ten years. So when I first started writing lyrics, I wasn't restrained or harbored by any of the questions that am I being too honest or am I being relatable.

5:05It was a genuine form of creative expression. I think that's kind of why people have embraced it to a certain extent. I don't know. It's quite earthy I suppose. Lyrically. George has said, I think it was George, that said the album is a search for identity. I think it is. Well, it's the whole... I think searching... I've said it before a couple of times. Searching within oneself to acquire a true understanding of who you want to project or what you want to project. Were you able to find that? Well, that's something that a lot of people can relate to. So I don't think I needed to find it. I think just the expression of that idea is really, really relatable because people... They know how that feels. They know it feels to not really know who you are or what you're doing. I know how that feels. I think with this record, it's quite sweet because it is a very self-deprecating kind of neurotic...

5:59Searching record in its narrative. But once people started hearing this music and we had all the fans who... now... We have a response from people after 10 years of nothing. We've had eight months of having a number one album. So no response to the biggest response you have. So what's that been like? Well, it really projects your... like, catalyzes a progression in your understanding of who you are and what you're doing and why you're doing it. I think that everybody... everybody who has a career, especially if you're doing it in a band, you have this kind of imaginary ladder of success. So like, where the material things are the kind of sole measure of what you're doing.

6:46And I think once you start to require those things, like number ones and all that kind of thing, it's amazing and it's very flattering and it is very validating. But it's quite brittle in regards to the stuff that I'm talking about on here and the kind of salvation that I want to find. I'm not... you think it's going to change as a person and it doesn't. And what it's made me really do is embrace our little fans. Because that's all that really matters. You can talk, you can have so many statistical things, you can have so many... I'm not trying to be like, really, like a hippie. But I genuinely believe that like, the only thing that's actually going to happen is like this. Regardless of whether you're religious or whether you're in fear or you live in...

7:34The only thing that's ever going to happen is like a genuine human connection, a human interaction with somebody. So that's the only thing that I really care about now. After everything that's happened. Which is quite a nice place to be because I'm allowed to make music now without hurting anybody and it's kind of being endorsed. Talking about your fans there, I just need to make your Eager story. Because that's insane. Talking about the craziness and all the highlights and everything. So he's standing on the side of the stage, singing along to your song and taking photos of you? Yeah, like getting his wife to take photos of him with us in the background. Photo bombing your set. Yeah, essentially. I didn't have my glasses on. So I just saw this figure and I thought, no, it's not Jagger. I'll be saying I turned around to look at George. And I saw him like mouthing to me. It was funny man. That's one of those moments that you just...

8:25You really think that you can take it in at the moment but you can't be searching and saying things like for weeks after I was like wow. Because he asked for us to support them. I was in Philadelphia the day that I got that phone call. I was actually there yesterday. I had to go. I walked past the same place where it happened and I remember that actually the day we got that offer to support the running stand. It was amazing. I mean what can I say of course. It was as rewarding as you would imagine it in. I was looking at the tour dates. You're literally playing the world and your schedule is mapped out into March. I think you have two weeks to go home for Christmas and you're having a moment again. It's mapped out to December. The only one we've revealed is up until March. So what's that? That's a big change from ten years when you say nothing. That's a massive change. Then a year of non-stop. So are you enjoying life on the road?

9:10I'm very much enjoying life on the road. Especially the fact that it is so on the road now. And where the book, where the name comes from in on the road. You talking about Kerouac? Yeah. Well Kerouac was a big deal for me. Well that's the whole 1975 story. I don't want to get you to talk your band name story again but okay go for it. Very, very quickly. I got given a copy of which I think was on the road. I can't remember if it was that or if it was Fuzz Against Jump. But I think it was on the road and somebody used it as a diary. Somebody gave it to me. And then I just acquired it and somebody dated this diary first of June, the urn in 1975. So that was the story. But so when I, yeah like the whole Kerouac thing when I was at 19.

9:57I was very impressionable, very naive. You kind of think you want to be as decadent as that. It's just that whole thing. You know everything, nothing behind me, everything ahead of me as is life on the road. And that's genuinely how it feels now. It's funny because a lot of the time we're just like really making sure, really finding solace in our relationships with one another. Being really kind to each other, expressing it. Making sure that we're always aware of how amazing it is that we've come this fast. And it's also just ridiculous. Like the new video for girls, people are probably going to freak out about it. Why because it's in colour? Well not just because it's in colour. The last one was in colour and then everybody started saying like, are they conforming to a major label? They're not staying true to the aesthetics. I thought, right, I'm going to make a video about that.

10:49Okay. So we made a video about how ridiculous everything is and how the fact that when we came out, everyone takes things so seriously. People take our band like so seriously. It's a great thing about that. It's a great thing. We do. We take our music very, very seriously. But the industry that we're in, we just wanted to make a video that summed up exactly what we would never do. That's good. It's kind of weird. It's funny now. I kind of want to go off that but you also said something that I want to and I know we don't have too much time. If I can't dance or cry then we can't finish a song. It's the whole thing of like, my idea of a perfect song, right? I always say it would sound like I want to dance with somebody by Whitney, but convey the conviction of Leonard Cohen.

11:43That juxtaposition of an amazingly uplifting, danceable piece of music that really, really gets into your core in the way that certain pop music does. Jockstoppose is a narrative that provokes you to be more introspective and that kind of thing. That's my idea of a perfect song. If I don't feel like we're acquiring that to a certain extent in different ways, then we should leave it and then maybe evolve. But there's no point. The piece of music doesn't take you somewhere immediately. It's simply just going to be lost in you. Let's get there. We do something called five questions. Five quick questions, one word answers. Road or studio? Studio.

12:29Leonard McCartney. Leonard. When you hear a song what usually hits you first, lyrics, melody or rhythm. Rhythm. If someone's never heard the 1975 before, what song do we start with? Chocolate. You sure you look at it? I don't know. I'm obviously sure. I was genuinely trying to do that thing of not thinking about it. Okay, cool. In one word, the 1975. Awesome. Nice, man. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.