Return of the mack

You may not realise it but the world has been a poorer place for the absence of Danny McNamara and Embrace.

In an industry full of fakes and whingers, it’s a joy to come back to a band and an individual who wear their hearts so determinedly on their sleeves. Even better, after the quiet introspection of second album If You’ve Ever Been, Out Of Nothing is a return to the kind of assured swagger that we came to associate with Embrace.
“This album kind of comes along and goes ‘here I am to save the day’ and is very rousing,” agrees Danny. “It had to be. I think what we’ve got back is something that we haven’t had since the first album and that’s our ambition as a band. Whenever we make a record we try and be as open and honest as possible; I think that attitude suits our music and helps us make better records.”
The sound of the record certainly suits his claim. From the very first chords of ‘Ashes’ it leaps out of the speakers at you, bursting with ideas and colour. Danny, however, admits that much of this came from outside the band.
“A lot of that’s down to (producer) Youth really. When we started working on the album the songs were much gentler and then he came along and put a rocket up it really. Over the three years we probably came up with about five hundred songs or ideas which we whittled down to fifteen to play to him. He basically stripped out all the clutter that we’d put in there, all the little keyboard riffs and drum fills, then he suggested using the orchestra and choir”.
Not that it was always plain sailing.
“There was a lot of tension there, we spent a lot of time arguing about it. We have got a tendency as a band to try everything with a song before moving on and Youth is really good at getting to the heart of what makes it tick and getting rid of everything else.”
For Danny himself, the experience was also less than easy. “I was having to take tablets to keep my heart beat steady but a side effect is that you can’t really sleep. There was a lot of things thrown, tears shed and jumping up and down on tables. At one point I wanted to leave it all and go and live on the Isle of Man and forget about music. What I realised after about five or six weeks was that ninety percent of the time Youth had been right and I had to just leave my ego at the door. He’s an unpredictable genius, that missing ingredient that we’ve always needed but not realised it. He tests you at every level. It’s a much better record for his involvement, I’m really proud of it”.
Too right. Out Of Nothing is simply brilliant, an album that swells with emotion and feeling and takes you to a far better place for having heard it. It also sounds like a suspiciously happy album, not something you always associate with Embrace.
“There’s a lot of spirit to it and that maybe brings a sense of happiness but there’s a lot of darkness in there as well. I never really get down as a person but I do get really fearful. Bad things come along but I fight them. I get in an anxious state instead of being gloomy. This record is quite claustrophobic and full of anxiety but also a lot of spirit and fight.”
With three years spent out of the limelight and a new record label to boot, there’s a certain air of comeback about Embrace’s return. They have, however, always cultivated such a close relationship with their audience that Danny must feel that they’re not starting again from scratch.
“I don’t know. I’ve always just thought if you make the records as good as you can there’ll be people out there who like them. I think it’s great that we’ve got a really strong following of people who clap and cheer louder than anyone else. We played the V Festival at the last minute and the crowd reaction was absolutely amazing. To come blinking into the light to play in front of 30,000 people and get that reaction was an experience I’ll never forget.”
It’s when he’s writing songs, though, that Danny is at his happiest.
“I can spend months and months trying to write something and then three songs come within a few days of each other. At that moment you feel like God’s knelt down and kissed you on the forehead. You feel really special and important for two minutes and then it’s gone again. We just try and be as open and as honest as we can and anything else is beyond us and out of our control”.

Out Of Nothing is out now on Independiente