PHOTO CREDIT: Katy Cummings
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY BEAT MAGAZINE, JUNE 2019
Two Door Cinema Club formed an integral part of many indie playlists at the beginning of the 2010s.
Almost ten years on from the release of their debut Tourist History, the band has made an exciting return with their fourth studio record, False Alarm. The result is a vibrant and confident new snapshot of a band operating at their creative best.
“I think it’s an awesome time to get new music out,” says bass player Kevin Baird. “I think it was a necessity for us to do something that’s exciting and different.”
Well aware of the popularity of Tourist History and the place the album still holds in the hearts of many, Baird is quick to reassure that the importance of their debut hasn’t been lost on the band. However, we’re almost a decade on from ‘I Can Talk’ and ‘Undercover Martyn’.
“Making music and putting out albums, it is a journey,” Baird says. “We’re very different people to who we were when we were writing the first couple of albums. We’re nine or ten years older. The way we write music and what we get excited about has changed.”
“It’s really nice that people have grown up with us. I guess we’ve managed to stay a little bit relevant to those people with that first album, hopefully. It’s a really nice thing. I think we came around at the perfect time when streaming was in its infancy; it started to really kick off around 2013 and 2014, when we started to take some time off. It’s allowed people to go back so much easier to our earlier music and it’s given us the platform to do whatever the fuck we want.”
With False Alarm, the band collaborated once more with Jacknife Lee (The Killers, Bloc Party), a figure who has had a large part in the development of Two Door Cinema Club’s sound since their sophomore effort, Beacon.
“He’s a very inspiring person,” Baird says. “It feels like he’s never negative about anything, especially to do with music. It’s so fun. We don’t just spend time working at the computer on little bits of the song, it’s all about the journey and discovery as well. We’ll be discovering new music and records, constantly listening to new things and being inspired that way as well.”
“Initially it was hard for us,” he remembers. “We were worried about working with a big producer in 2011 and we were reassured by the fact he’s also from Ireland and he wasn’t a big time Hollywood producer who was going to change us. I think we’ve always really enjoyed his honesty and his humility, and his extremely amazing talent.”
Upon first listen of the record, False Alarm puts you at ease. A fun album jam-packed with melody and, if you’ve seen Two Door Cinema Club live, the energy matches that of what you see on stage. The album’s release is timely too, as it comes just after the news of the band’s Australian return for Grapevine Gathering.
The concept of touring this album is one that Baird is particularly excited about. Bringing False Alarm to life alongside their other three albums offers the band a chance to get stuck into four different phases of their creative journey.
“With this album, we’ve almost created a world that this album lives in,” he says. “We’ve put ourselves into that world and that’s become the basis of the music videos and the live shows. It’s so much fun for us to go two feet in with it.”
“We’ve felt like it’s been important to have some level of escapism,” he adds. “It’s always been about pure hedonistic enjoyment. I think sometimes, obviously when the room gets bigger and more people are there, you lose the sweaty, walls are dripping experience, but I think we’re continually trying to replicate that just on a bigger stage with more slick production.”