White Lies im Interview

Hi Jack, how are you?
Thanks, I'm in bed right now. We had a day off yesterday so I went back to London. We're on the NME tour right now and tonight, we're playing in Sheffield. So I'm gonna take the train later. The tour is going really well and we're having lots of fun.

Why did you change your name from Fear Of Flying to White Lies?
We started writing songs when we were about 16 so a lot of the old songs got pretty irrelevant. And Fear Of Flying didn't go anywhere. So we decided to change the name and the songs. It was like a new start for the band which made us enjoy it again.

The media compare you to Joy Division and Editors.
Well, comparisons are fine. Bands always get compared. The problem is that the media write that we are influenced by these bands but we're definitely not influenced by them. We are influenced by lots of bands and everyone in the band likes other bands, so that's pretty good to be different. The most important bands for us are Talking Heads and Secret Machines. We listened to them long before there was White Lies.

"To Lose My Life" just came out. How would you describe your current sound?
That's a hard question. I would say the sound is cinematic and orchestral, we got loads of strings, yeah, grand rock music.

Your lyrics a pretty dark.
We think that dark lyrics are just more interesting. We're not really dark or depressed but it's the best way to write music.

The album went to Number 1 immediately, did you expect that?
No, not really. It would have been stupid to assume that. We thought that we might be in the top ten, though. We were in Russia when we found out that we were Number 1. It was kind of bizarre, but also nice, of course. It's a pretty cool start. Obviously, there are some people that like our music, there's an audience for us and we can go on tour now and play for them.

Are you under pressure now?
Well, probably there's pressure on ourselves. We're perfectionists and not easy to please. So I would say that we always have been under pressure in a way.

You're supporting The Cure and Snow Patrol soon.
Yes, that's pretty exciting. We got offered The Cure support ages before our album came out. It's pretty cool to play to 20'000 people and more. Right now, we're playing about 3'000 capacities and the big shows will be an amazing experience and also a good preparation for the big festival shows in the summer. But also nerve-wracking.

What are your plans for this year?
Well, it's pretty much touring. We're playing the NME tour now, then we're going to the USA for a month, then we have our own tour in the UK, then festivals, Australia and Japan.

Will you come to Switzerland?
Yes, I think we're playing some big festival. I can't remember the name but I think we're definitely coming sometime. It's always cool to visit new places. We've never been to Switzerland before so we got a lot of stuff to learn.

That's it, thank you, Jack.
Thank you.

Das Album "To Lose My Life" ist seit dem 19.01.2009 in digitaler Form erhältlich und erscheint am 27.02.2009 in physischer Form bei Universal Music.