![\"\"](\"\/beta\/\/media.wonderlandmagazine.com\/uploads\/2011\/06\/macabees.jpg\" "\\"Maccabees")
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Lazy entertainers are not something The Maccabees can be guilty of being slandered of \u2013 but fans of poi and juggling had better look away now\u2026
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In May this year, with the release of their second album, Wall of Arms<\/em>, the Maccabees transcended their epithet of just a good-time band with jaunty guitar riffs and some nice songs. Working with producer Markus Dravs, who has helped steer the sound of acts like Bjork, Arcade Fire and Brian Eno, they made a much more melodic album, full of mellifluously epic songs suffused with emotion. <\/p>\n I met the south London five-piece in an east London pub and had a relaxed chat with them while most of the band air-drummed and air-riffed to the Strokes\u2019 debut that was playing in the background on the jukebox. <\/p>\n John McDonnell: What did you listen to when you were growing up?<\/strong> JM: Wow. So you\u2019ve had to take in a lot in a very short time?<\/strong> JM: There is quite a difference between the sound of your first and second album. Do you still enjoy playing the older stuff?<\/strong> JM: What if you play a gig and you\u2019ve got people shouting for songs off the first album?<\/strong> JM: Do you think the influence of Arcade Fire on the second album has been overblown? <\/strong> JM: Why is Mat Horne in the “No Kind Words” video? I\u2019m presuming he\u2019s a fan of the band?<\/strong> JM: Did he cut his fringe totally straight especially for the video?<\/strong> JM: I thought he\u2019d done it especially to tie in with the symmetrical theme of the video.<\/strong> JM: I love the story about your great-grandparents on Seventeen Hands, Orlando. Is your family life and your past something you enjoy writing about?<\/strong> Photography: Ben Rayner A full version of this article first appeared in<\/em> Wonderland #19, Sep\/Oct 2009<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lazy entertainers are not something The Maccabees can be guilty of being slandered of \u2013 but fans of poi and juggling had better look away now\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9419],"tags":[110,111,50,218,225,224],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nOrlando Weeks:<\/strong> I didn\u2019t really listen to music when I was growing up. I first got into music when I was 18. The Fugees is the only CD I can remember buying growing up, really. Then I probably bought Pras because it followed on, it made chronological sense. The only Beatles I\u2019d ever heard was one BBC recording tape that we had on long school journeys. <\/p>\n
\nOW: <\/strong>It\u2019s felt like I\u2019ve been doing a course on it, a refresher course \u2013 but I didn\u2019t know about it in the first place.<\/p>\n
\nFelix White: <\/strong>We\u2019re in a position now we\u2019ve got new songs to play we can only really play a few songs off the first record that will still stand up, you know, and they still work within what we are doing now.<\/p>\n
\nFW: <\/strong>You\u2019ve gotta force what you want to do upon it otherwise you\u2019re doing it for completely the wrong reasons. If you\u2019re not proud of what you\u2019re doing and you don\u2019t feel inside that you\u2019re being the best you can be it\u2019s not worth it because then it becomes the lowest form of entertainment \u2013 like juggling or whatever.
\nOW: <\/strong>I don\u2019t think juggling\u2019s the lowest form of entertainment. Either hacky sack or poi is the worst form of entertainment ever. Entire generations have been lost to fire poi.
\nHugo White: <\/strong>I watched a guy doing poi at Kings of Leon at T in the Park, not even watching the band, just doing it the whole time.
\nOW: <\/strong>It\u2019s one step away from setting yourself on fire.<\/p>\n
\nFW:<\/strong> It\u2019s a compliment. It\u2019s slightly lazy journalism but at the same time it\u2019s not something we\u2019re gonna get offended about.
\nOW: <\/strong>I think they\u2019re one of the best bands in the world and they nail the whole idea of everything working for each other and not requiring there to be solos. The band is a unit and it sounds like a unit. <\/p>\n
\nOW: <\/strong>We\u2019ve known him for three or four years. We met him the first time we played with Interpol and we\u2019ve been mates ever since. We needed someone in the video who could have camera presence, and he\u2019s definitely got that.<\/p>\n
\nOW: <\/strong>I think he had it done for Gavin & Stacey.<\/p>\n
\nSam Doyle:<\/strong> Let\u2019s say he did.
\nHW: <\/strong>The director in Gavin & Stacey was like, \u201cWhy have you got that haircut?\u201d And he was like, \u201cI\u2019ve got to, man. It\u2019s for the Maccabees.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nOW: <\/strong>It\u2019s something that I\u2019m more informed on than anyone else. No one can call me out on it. Also, every family has good family stories, so why not tell mine? I had this Cornish guy, 200 years ago, who sold all his farming equipment and went to South Africa to mine for diamonds so that when he\u2019d made enough money he could buy himself a merry-go-round and then bring it back and be part of a travelling circus. The day before he came back \u2013 I have the letter in my room \u2013 he started saying goodbye because he\u2019s dying of malaria and he\u2019s signing away the rights to the diamonds he\u2019s collected. People have these stories in their lives and they never get used. They\u2019re amazing things.<\/p>\n
\nWORDS\tJohn McDonnell<\/p>\n