Interview: InTechnicolour
I had the opportunity to sit down and ask Tobie Anderson, vocalist of the Brighton-based outfit, InTechnicolour some questions about the band, their music, and what they have coming up the rest of this year. Check out our conversation below!
1. Let's get the most obvious question out of the way first. Can you tell me how InTechnicolour was formed and a little bit of your background?
It’s a long old story to be honest with you, involving old defunct bands myself and Dave used to play in when we where ‘yuts’, old pals, basements in Leeds and plenty of pot noodles! We formed proper as a band, though, back in 2016(ish) and it’s all been a bit hazy since.
2. You released your first album, Big Sleeper, in 2020. It's very riff heavy and loaded with great songs like "Under the Sun" that has a driving beat reminiscent of Queens of the Stone Age sound. Can you tell me about recording that album?
That album was a wonderful project for us to complete, but it took some work to get it out there. We wrote Big Sleeper over a couple of years with a bunch of really talented musicians helping us out. It’s a record we’re super fond off but i think we, as a band, can hear the different stages of evolution the band was going through over those years, so for us it’s a little more fragmented than Midnight Heavyweight is. It still slaps super hard though!
3. You followed Big Sleeper up with Midnight Heavyweight in 2022. The album stayed true to your signature sound but elevated some of the production and got even more technically complex in composition. What was different about this process in comparison to Big Sleeper?
By the time we came to record Midnight Heavyweight we had a concrete line up and a really solid idea about how we wanted this record to sound. It was all written just before and during lock down. That gave us all loads more time and space to really dig into the tunes and record an estimated 1 million ‘bedroom demo’s’ before we went into our final sessions. I think this really comes through in Midnight Heavyweight, it feels less like a bunch of rad riffs and choruses slapped together on an album and much more like a complete journey from beginning to end. It’s still got all the riffs and the choruses are as anthemic as ever, but it’s a much more considered listening experience in my humble opinion.
4. Something interesting I find about your music is how the vocals of some songs like "BloodMoonShine" and "Tokyo Dream" are light compared to the music they're sung over. Is this purposeful or is it just how the songs unfold as you write and record?
I would love to say it’s something I planned before we started writing but I’m afraid to say it’s not. I write the lyrics that come to me when I listen to Daves demo’s. Sometimes I’m feeling dark and moody like a stoner Robert Smith and sometimes I’m much less ‘moody’. I do really enjoy music with juxtaposition within it, so perhaps it was a subconscious decision. BloodMoonShine has some pretty dark ideas within the lyrics though.
5. You recently released the music video for "Eastman." It shows the lyrics of the song against a car driving on a cold and isolated road. It fits the lyrics perfectly, can you tell me more about creating the video?
Again, I really want to say we recorded Eastman and then jumped straight in a car, found some mountains covered in snow and hit record because it just ‘felt right’, but that’s not how it came about.
The final track on Big Sleeper was ‘Tortoise’, a lumbering, ever growing tension breaker that, to us, felt like a long trek in a desert. So we asked Dave to record us some desert footage next time he was in the States and that video ended up being Tortoise.
When we came to think about visuals for Eastman, I had the idea to do the same thing again but with snow and ice. Dave disappeared off to the States with his other band Delta Sleep for a few months and when he returned he had the Eastman footage.
6. Your lyrics tend to be quite thought provoking and discuss relationships, mental health, etc. Do you typically write from personal experiences? Where do you get your inspiration from?
Inspiration is an odd thing isn’t it. I find it comes in waves, I can go months without writing anything of substance, maybe a chorus idea here and there, and then suddenly I’ll have a week of ideas falling onto a page. I wish I knew what conditions and outside influences cause it (I wouldn’t suffer writers block ever again if I knew) but sadly I just have to roll with it.
In terms of the themes, I always write from personal experience. I’ve been fairly open about some of my struggles with my mental health and like anyone, I’ve had relationships break down around me, so yeah, those things are bound to end up coming through in my lyrics. It’s cathartic, ya know? Just to get those feelings out and then arrange those feelings in a poetic way. It just makes my brain smile when I can take a bad patch with my mental health and create something beautiful out of it.
6. You have some tour dates coming up in the spring. Can you tell me what people can expect from your live show? Do you intend to add more dates or travel outside of the UK?
We’ll play anywhere that’ll have us! If you’re in a city with a venue and you want to see InTechnicolour, give us a shout and we can chat about putting something together!
What can people expect from an InTech show? Loud! It’s always loud. Hair! There’s lots of hair flying around the stage. Energy! Riffs! More loud! Just come see us, yeah? We’re really chill and we like a good sit down and a brew.
7. What can we expect next from InTechnicolour?
More live dates this year and some ace festivals. The remix album coming out in full (if you’ve not heard the Jamie Lenman cover of our song The Wave yet, go check it out) and then I think it’ll be time to start knuckling down and working on the next record…it’s gunna be HUGE!