U-N-I Ch. 07

"I think if we lost that connection," I put in, "then everything else would fall apart. But if we think that we're playing well together, then everything else tends to be good. And we just know that the best way to do that is to go into a little room, have Jordan and Rachel, who's a friend, paint it, and just play in it you know. It's not rocket science, we don't want to make things more complicated than that. We just have to find ourselves a great producer that breaks us down to the very root of our personalities and that's what Nigel Smith did on 'A message'"

"Well you know what? I can see you guys have really grown, 23 now? I can see it right now! Are you gonna work with Nigel Smith again?"

"Maybe." I answered. "But we don't know if he wants to work with us again. Rob drove him crazy" I joked.

He laughed,

"I did not! Jordan did."

"Are you impossible to work with?"

"No - maybe," Rob said. "But he pushed us a lot to do things we've never done before, and it can be difficult, you know. 'Cause he's just gonna say, you're just not good enough, go back in there and do it again," he said authoritatively.

"And he does that!" I added. "He makes us work hard and we really salute him for that, because we don't want to enter the safety zone and be in danger of repeating ourselves."

"Yeah we don't want to be in danger of repeating ourselves," Rob repeated twice and laughed.

"Do you feel the pressure? People are expecting a lot from you, the world waits in optimistic anticipation for your third release!" he said dramatically and added," People wanna see what U-N-I still has up their sleeve! Because you have already changed your sound between your first two albums, so...'

"Not dramatically", I answered. "we believe that there'll be a sound shift. We aren't afraid to be experimental and to be daring but we don't want to wander too far from our core sound. We do wanna try new things on every album we release though. I know we might go against what the fans are expecting on a few songs." I smiled.

"Hey, do you guys like piano?" Rob asked. "Well here's a trumpet solo!" he exclaimed.

The host laughed and Rob added. " A message' is a little less personal than our previous work. So, if you're one of our fans who like to lock themselves in a room and cry about how you personally relate to the song "Shiver", you might not be as crazy about our new album. But who knows what kind of songs are gonna emerge in the future? We haven't really started yet. You're right though, we are risk takers musically, but we don't want to take people's expectations in one delicious scoop and toss them out the window!"

The host asked,

"Well, I have to tell you, I think you're not gonna disappoint because I believe the production work on your second album was already a lot better. Things build and fall so smoothly, it flows so well. It's like you're telling a story, which is awesome. A little bit of piano over here, a touch of acoustic, some epic electric guitar work to spice things up, your voice is amazing...there really aren't any bad songs on the album, and really some songs are quite simply phenomenal."

We thanked him and he asked,

"So, when you play together then, how do you approach song writing when you're in the studio?"

"We just play long enough and just wait you know," I answered. "We just play longer than other people. 'Cause I think the great songs are just around, and if you wait long enough, they will just eventually fall down onto you."

"That's a nice way to approach it."

"Yeah," I confirmed.

"Do you realize now, everything that's happened to you so far? Because when your first album went to number one, you just had no idea how it happened. But now you've come all this way, you've done all these interviews, are you in that same mindset of, 'I didn't expect all this to happen'?"

I answered,

"I think the more we go on, the more we know we're gonna have to do lots of interviews and talk about ourselves and what we do in the studio and all that, so we just have to make sure we like what we do and we're enthusiastic about it. But to answer your question though, it's a yes, we realize what's happening now and we're trying not to fall in any traps, like fighting over money or stuff like that, and so far, so good!"

"Yeah," the presenter added, "people say, we do it cause we love the music, I think that's easy to say when you're very successful, right? Do you think, if it hadn't had broken for you guys you would still be doing it, and still trying to break?"

"I hope so," I answered. "I'm pretty sure that we'd be playing on, you know, weddings and hotel resorts somewhere, but we'd probably be the same people."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure." I confirmed. "Jordan might have done something else," I laughed. "He might have said, 'fuck this', I'll see you on Saturday for rehearsals to hang out but I'm not playing in hotel resorts seven nights a week."

Rob laughed.

"Do you get along as a band? I know you're very close-knit, but there must be a bit of eye-rolling and door slamming, you must do each other's heads in sometimes, in the same way that a family does."

"Not really." I said

"No?" he asked surprised.

"No," Rob agreed. "I think on our last album we had one fall out between myself and Jordan, that lasted about three minutes. You know, apart from me and Jordan, everyone else is very calm. So we're really working on it. And we're a lot better, aren't we?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I answered.

"Yeah, would you agree?" he asked again.

"I would agree, yeah," I said and he pushed me with his shoulder because he knew I was lying.

The host added,

"I think that as the lead singer and frontman surely it's your job to not be calm! It's what we call LSD! Lead Singer Disorder!"

"Yeah? LSD? Funny, I like it!" Rob laughed, " See!" Rob turned to me pointing at the interviewer, 'he told me, "I've got an excuse now, it's LSD!"

I laughed,

"That's convenient. What's Jordan's excuse? 'Cause he's actually more hyperactive than you are!" I joked and Rob laughed. Indeed, he and Jordan just loved going out, drinking and partying at every opportunity, always making more friends and meeting new people, they constantly needed to be doing something entertaining when Dylan and me, even Damon, were more quiet and enjoyed spending more quality time together, writing music or just hanging out together.

"But I think it's important that I'm surrounded by people who keep me sane, you know," Rob said. "They can eye roll me and slam the door in my face, and I just have to take it."

" 'Cause you need them."

" 'Cause I need them, yes!" he agreed and smiled at me.

He asked us a few more questions and we wrapped up the interview.

When we left, my phone rang. It was Tom, our manager.

"Mark, are you guys done?"

"Yeah, we're about to leave."

"Ok, don't! A taxi's picking you up, you've got a quick interview with 'The Sun', and then you're done for the day, alright?"

"'The Sun'? Why?" I asked him, a bit startled.

"I don't know, they want to write an article about you I suppose. I'll wait for you two over there."

"That's just weird Tom, why would a tabloid like that want to interview us?"

'The Sun' was like the worst tabloid newspaper in the UK. These people just liked to slag people off.

"Hey, I don't know, just go, it won't be a very deep interview with them, that's for sure, what are you worried about?"

I remained quiet for a few seconds and finally said,

"Well, that they might know something about Rob and me."

"No, I'm sure it's nothing to do with that," he said in a reassuring tone.

"Alright then, see you there!" I told him, but I was still worried.

I turned to Rob who had heard the conversation.

"Don't you find that weird? That the 'The Sun' would want to interview us?" I asked him.

"Yeah, it is weird," he said worriedly.

"Tom doesn't seem to think so... Maybe we shouldn't go," I told him.

"No, we'd better go. I wanna make sure they don't know anything about us."

When we got there, they let us in a room and asked us to wait for a moment. We sat on one of the large sofas. There was orange juice on the coffee table. We had some as Tom asked us a few questions about the interview we had just done. The room was small and cozy; there were a lot of old articles plastered on the walls and I stood up to have a look at them while we waited for the journalist to show up. After a moment, the journalist walked into the room. He was a tall, quite handsome man with a very English attitude and he seemed to be in his thirties.

A big black guy, who looked like a security guard, looking very serious and emotionless, immediately followed him, he stood by the window, looking through it.

I looked over at Rob and Tom, who had the same worried expression on their faces.

Why was there a security guard in the room with him?

We knew why... we just knew that they knew.