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Interview: Finn Andrews from The Veils

The Veils

London-based indie/alt group The Veils have been tingling our spines and stealing our hearts for years. We called up lead vocalist Finn Andrews on the other side of the world to hear what he had to say about their upcoming album ‘Total Depravity’.

For anyone unfamiliar with The Veils, how would you describe yourself to them? What’s your sound?

Well, it’s become increasingly difficult to answer that. I sometimes meet someone and explain the band to them, then they go off and listen to the wrong record of ours and the explanation doesn’t really translate. This one’s different. This one’s sort of strange. It’s a mixture of organic instruments and very aggressive digital warblings, with howling, and bangs, and blips. I don’t know if that’s a genre exactly, but there you go. It’s somewhat of a description.

Your album ‘Total Depravity’ is set for release soon. What can we expect from it? Is the name any indication?

Yeah, I think so. Although I’m probably the wrong person to ask for a description of it. But yeah, it’s a good title. I think it’s apt. It’s all these strange, nefarious characters vying for space in the dark. That’s the vague idea anyway.

How long did it take to put together? And did you have a clear original concept, or did you wing it?

I wing everything. I don’t know what I’m doing at all! I mean I’m just following a sense in the dark and I don’t know where I’m going at any point until the end, and then you go, “Ok, now we’re here. We got here!” Then you start thinking of another one. It’s a pretty perverse activity. I think that’s what keeps it so entertaining and enlivening to be a part of. It remains so completely mysterious. I like feeling lost, I think it’s a nice feeling. You feel very alert when you’re lost, and if you pretend you know where you’re going, you don’t admire the mystery of it.

I‘ve just been listening to your latest track Low Lays the Devil and I have to say I’m impressed. Is there a story behind the song?

Yeah there is, but I suppose I write songs in a weird way. They take me a long time to work out what I’m saying, where it came from. I sort of just write every day and they come out and there they are. And then about two years later I’ll listen to them and go, “Oh, right! I was talking about that, I guess”. But right now, I don’t know.

I mean, you can write a million song about the devil. He’s probably the most fun character to play around with. But the specific meaning will probably become clear to me in a couple of years. Speak to me in a couple of years and I’ll have something to say about it. 2018. Put it in the diary!

Ok, It’s a date. Now, the other single you’ve released from ‘Total Depravity’ is of course Axolotl, with an accompanying video that is unlike anything I’ve seen before. Where did the inspiration for that clip come from?

Well, when I write songs I do these weird little drawings and doodles alongside. All the lyrics to all the songs have these strange landscapes and characters around them. It seems to just be something that I do to occupy my mind while I’m thinking of other things to do with the song. So for that song I did this strange drawing of Charles Darwin sprouting tentacles in the desert and I thought, “Oh, that’s cool!” That was the first idea. Why not get Charles Darwin in a weird exorcism in the desert? And then we sort of extrapolated from there with all these strange B-movie archetypes and lots of weird black goo. It wrote itself, really.

What was it like filming it? were you heavily involved in that process?

Yeah, I love being involved with that stuff. And we had a great director Tu Neill. I was in New Zealand at the time and we filmed it all out on this beautiful West-coast beach, with that sort of black sand. It was filmed over one night, and there’s lots of our friends from high school in it.

There were maybe forty or fifty people, and we pulled in all these favours from everyone. and they all came together to help build these tentacle puppets in this guy’s garage in Auckland. It was really fun, very DIY. And making videos with all your friends helping out, it’s really fun, like being in high school again. I really enjoyed it.

So what can people expect from your live performances? Do you get as freaky on stage?

I should hope so! It’s the point in this whole process where you have the most control over what you’re doing. It’s a strange thing making music because you’re just making things out of the air. There’s nothing tangible about it. I was working on this for three years and there’s nothing you can show. No-one’s really hearing it, you can’t hold it, it’s not a building that’s sheltering anyone, and you can’t tell if you’ve done a good job.

It’s a strange process in which you’re totally isolated with these songs. So to be able to take them out in front of a crowd, you can see immediately the kind of effect it’s having on people. It’s an incredible part of it, and it has its own mysteries separate from writing and recording. I’ve always wanted to make the most of it, really try to push people, an excite people, and confront people. It’s an interesting experience, the live thing. And a lot of these songs haven’t been played yet, so it’s an aspect that is yet to come. It’s very exciting to get to that stage.

Well, you’re touring North America and Europe in the coming months. Is there any chance of seeing you guys in Australia any time soon?

Yeah, we’re working that out right now. Looking at January-February, we’ll be down there!

The Veils’ new album ‘Total Depravity’ is set for release on Friday the 26th of August. Until then, check out our review of Low Lays the Devil HERE