Future Of The Left

“Yet most people – especially for the band, as far as I’m concerned – most people are a credit to our band.”

Falkous’ reputation for being a straight shooter doesn’t disappoint. Superbly candid, the Future Of The Left frontman approaches most topics with characteristic sardonicism and wit, including the somewhat precarious issue of fans and their occasional antics. Regarding the Welsh noise rockers’ fan base, he considers it to be made up of “really nice, respectful people”, which for many bands can be a bit of a rarity.

“When you see bands even just a bit bigger, there are more pricks in the crowd. We probably reach almost a statistical level where it’s still proper music fans who come and see us. And it’s not to disparage people who only buy four or five records a year, I only buy four or five records a year … but once you move into that group of people, you get the people that, you know, we might commonly refer to as twats – the kind of people who shout stuff about getting your tits out or whatever, or that kind of business.”

Having crowd-funded both their new album, The Peace & Truce Of Future Of The Left,as well as their previous offering, How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident, Future Of The Left’s fans now have the added distinction of being enormously dedicated. Indeed, the band’s fifth record hit its PledgeMusic target in three-and-a-half hours, beating the previous effort, which made it in five. And while this is nothing short of astonishing, it wasn’t something that Falkous and co. had ever planned to rely on.

“We didn’t really want to go the crowdfunding route,” he says. “I think like anybody with pride, you don’t like to ask for things, you know? You’d rather just do something … and I mean, personally speaking, I don’t have a lot of money, frankly, so I don’t tend to get involved in Kickstarter or Pledge kind of projects because I don’t have the disposable income. And I certainly don’t have that much money to spend on a product, a record that I might not even like, because it hasn’t even been made yet.

“So on that basis alone it’s amazing to me that people are willing to invest that much money in something which is just a hope of something, like on trust, and I think what is also genuinely amazing to me is that people are prepared to give you their money and they might not like the album or it might not be their favourite.”

Being funded by the fans, however, has allowed Future Of The Left to approach their music in a bold, humorous and experimental manner, as well as relish the surreal. It’s arguably something that wouldn’t have been as achievable had Peace & Truce been made within the confines of a traditional record deal. Falkous says this in itself was an “amazing experience”, and that the album is “not just something with your name on it but something which carries a part of you”.

“Generally people like it,” he says, “which is all you can hope for, really, when you do something like that. But it exists. It’s a weird thing to be in a process which involves standing in a room, inventing shapes with your hands and making silly noises. And then, you know, three months later it’s a thing which exists and it’s being played in someone’s living room in Perth or something. It’s mad, fucking mad.”

Named after the Middle Ages code of chivalry, The Peace And Truce Of God, the record opens with the wonderfully wordy lead single, ‘If AT&T Drank Tea What Would BP Do?’. Falkous describes the song as a “mood-setter”. However, it didn’t immediately present itself as the opener.

“I swear on nearly every album except one I’ve worked on, nobody’s even had to have a conversation about the first song. You know, on our first record we started with a song called ‘The Lord Hates A Coward’. I don’t remember a conversation. Our second record started with a song called ‘Arming Eritrea’. Again, that was just obviously the opener straight away. So there was a lot of debate around about what the opener of the album would be, for once,” he says.

“I think in this case we happened to have made the right decision, so it just sets a kind of mood I think. I think any of the other songs would have given a maybe misleading idea of what the album could be about … I suppose it’s probably the nastiest song on the record, right at the start, but it still has some elements which are further explored later in the record – he says now like that was part of this thought process.”

In Falkous’ words, these elements are “a bit more cushier and twisted” than on Future Of The Left’s previous albums. And while the record’s observations about capitalism, politics and class warfare are “quite straightforward and condensed”, the frontman is, all in all, “very, very happy with it”.

[Future Of The Left photo by Sebastian Nevols]