The great ember enigma

He hasn’t heard them but Noel Gallagher suspects that The Embers are “probably shite”.

Not that the Belfast four-piece mind. “It’s cool,” says vocalist James Smith. “I mean we might have been pissed off if we hadn’t listened to Heathen Chemistry. It is shite.”

Anyone out there worried about the fate of our young turks, now that everyone’s favourite mouthy Manc Weller-ite has tired of crossing swords with the cream of British indie in order to bait those lower in the food chain, should save their sympathy. The band brought it all on themselves.

“I work with a girl who has to update the website for Paddy Kielty’s show,” explains bassist Warren Bell. ”One day she couldn’t do it, so asked me if I could go in her place. I ended up interviewing Dom Joly. We were playing in Katy Daly’s that night and I told him to come along if he’d nothing else on. He didn’t turn up, but we heard that when Kielty was interviewing him he was saying about how his favourite band were The Embers, and how much he loved us, and how long he’d been into us. Lying through his teeth, like. Noel Gallagher was on as well and he just went “yeah, I expect they’re probably shite.” People were ringing us up going Noel Gallagher’s just slagged you off on national TV. Mad.”

One suspects that even if he had heard the band beforehand, Noel’s opinion would not have changed radically. Not because The Embers are shite. But judging by the meat and potatoes journeymen he often champions (and remember please there are currently early-released members of Hurricane #1 and Heavy Stereo in his own crew), there seems to be little room in his affection for the kind of winsome, wide-eyed, space-rock that the boys purvey. That’s his loss.

Despite sounding as if it had been recorded in a landfill site, a three-track demo from last year showcased a gift for touching break-up tunes and short-fuse melodies. Since then the bar seems to have been raised considerably, with some gigs even inspiring comparisons with Syd-era Floyd and virtually every band on Dave Fridmann’s Christmas card list. So, who are the touchstones?

Warren: “Anyone who pushes the boat out a bit - tries something a bit different and takes risks, because that’s what we want to be doing. We love bands who aren’t just prepared to lay tracks down but want to push thing to the nth degree. Bands like Lambchop, The Flaming Lips, Super Furry Animals – they have a real gift for coming up with really imaginative arrangements. You get the impression that they’re decent kind of people – right-minded, self-effacing, interested in the world around them. And out of all that comes great pop music that has a depth that lasts beyond a first listen.”

“That’s the intention,” adds drummer Mark Robinson. “To write songs that last. When we write something, there’s always a lot of ideas and discussion flying around. And you can hear that in the songs – they fly off in so many different kinds of directions.”

New vistas are very much on the band’s mind at the moment. As we meet, they are preparing to return to the studio to record some of the backlog of new material that they claim to have built up over the last six months. Giving a helping hand, though, is someone you feel that would be even less enamoured by space rock than Noel. Why is country troubadour Crawford Bell engineering the sessions?

“Well, he’s my dad,” says Warren, “and he owns the studio. We used to go in there all the time when we were kids and play around on it. It was completely analogue back then. But since we’ve all been away at university he’s had it done up and now we won’t have a clue what to do. So, he’s going to come in and engineer for us.”

So, does this mean the new stuff will be ready for the country?

“Who knows? My dad just buys everything related to country music, so his record collection contains some absolutely appalling stuff, but there’s really great stuff there as well. At the minute, you’ll not hear much country in our music, but you never know, one day we might drag in a bit of pedal steel guitar.”

Will you listen then, Noel?