Hot Press meets Bombay Bicycle Club

The recent Jameson inspired St.Patrick’s Day gig by London indie quartet Bombay Bicycle Club at the Academy in Dublin marked their inaugural show since playing here two-and-a-half months ago. It wasn’t the first in a series of gigs either – they won’t be performing again until they hit the festival circuit in a few months. Put simply, the St. Patrick’s Day headliner in Dublin was, in the words of laconic singer Jack Steadman, “an offer too good to turn down.”

The boys have spent the past couple of months writing the follow-up to their third album, the 2011 hit A Different Kind Of Fix, and have chosen tonight to debut a new song, titled – perhaps appropriately, given the day that’s in it – ‘Carry Me’. How is the new material sounding generally?
“It’s a lot more sample-based than the last record,” explains Steadman, backstage at the Academy. “More electronic. Half of it probably continues the dancier feel of the last record, and the rest of it is a counterpoint to that; a bit more soundscape-y.”
Whilst the past couple of months may have been quiet for BBC, they’d certainly earned their respite after a hectic 18 months. What was the highlight of touring A Different Kind Of Fix?
“We did some pretty crazy things,” acknowledges bassist Ed Nash. “Me and Jack played this festival in India, which was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life. The most kind of disorganised, crazy, fun festival in the world – I think that’s up there for me (laughs). I suppose with the band name, we were top of the list.”
“The festival was called NH7 Weekender. I think it’s fairly new,” Steadman resumes. “It was the first festival in India to bring western acts over and it went fairly well. We had a good crowd actually. We were surprised to see people who knew the band in India. It was just outside of Mumbai, so it’s quite a cosmopolitan scene there.”
I saw Bombay Bicycle Club perform in the Olympia last year – a show fondly recalled by the band – and was also in attendance when they supported Blur at their Olympics-closing ceremony gig in Hyde Park.
“The gig was a bit weird,” Jack recalls. “It was outdoors and the crowd were really far away, which we never enjoy. But being part of the closing ceremony of the Olympics was special and we felt very lucky. It was actually the only bit of the Olympics we got – we’d been on tour in America for the three weeks prior to that. We had to suffer the American coverage of it, which was just godawful. It’s just all about Americans winning!”
Bombay Bicycle Club have developed a bit of a reputation for being tricky interviewees, and whilst they have a certain English reserve, they are far from being the most monosyllabic musicians encountered by your correspondent. Steadman is particularly enthusiastic when I quiz him about participating in Africa Express, the travelling collective of western and African musicians, led by Damon Albarn, who embarked on a rail trip around the UK a month after the Hyde Park concert.
“Africa Express was probably the best week of my life, it was just amazing. We were going around the train, and it was like a crazy circus. It was non-stop, people playing music all day and night. It was completely bonkers. Some of the musicians from Africa included Baaba Mal, Amadou and Mariam, lots of guys from the Congo... it was really amazing even just to talk to them. It was a completely new thing for me. Some of them were just these incredible musicians but completely unheard of. It was a real pleasure to play with them.”
In common with fellow English art-rockers Alt-J, Bombay Bicycle Club have an understated approach which doesn’t lend itself to rock ‘n’ roll hellraising. There was the brief spectre of gossip column prominence when it was rumoured that Steadman was dating the band’s sometime collaborator, the stunning singer Lucy Rose, but both have been at pains to stress they’re not in a relationship. Their unassuming demeanour doesn’t suggest they’re about to embark on an evening of hardcore partying before hitting the stage, so it’s perhaps not a surprise when a query about their American tour last year is met not with tales of hotel room destruction, but merely a measured response from Nash that US audiences are “reserved but attentive.” No Sex Pistols-like outrage, then.
Still, Bombay Bicycle Club now have three hit albums behind them and expectations will be high for their next offering, due in January of 2014. The recent break has afforded Steadman more time to focus on writing, as opposed to A Different Kind Of Fix, which found him dipping into demos written a few years previously.
“I’m not panicking and going back to old stuff this time,” explains Jack. “I’m devoting a lot of time to writing. We’re taking it more seriously than we ever have before (laughs). No pressure then!”

A Different Kind Of Fix is out now.