How Idlewild learned that a whisper is often as startling as a scream
Since their inception at the tail end of the ’90s, Edinburgh’s Idlewild have always been a band to operate on the edge of the mainstream, through their music, artwork and imagery. With their third album, the incredible The Remote Part, however, the four piece have made a giant leap – combining their exhilarating rush of white noise (once memorably described as the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs) with a more measured, melodic approach.
Singer Roddy Woomble is aware of the distance the band have travelled to reach their current position.
“When we wrote (debut album) Hope Is Important we were 18 and the whole premise of the band was different,” he reflects. “As the time’s gone on and having travelled, having met a lot of people, seen a lot of bands and listened to a lot of music, your attitudes to what you want to achieve totally change. With The Remote Part we knew we had to have a better version of ourselves, which needed to be simpler and more universal. I think we’ve succeeded and the album’s made a connection with many people who didn’t know who we were before.”
If he could play the album to himself at that early stage, what would the young Roddy make of it?
“I probably wouldn’t have liked it initially but that’s because I was a bit of a dick when I was 18.”
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As the band have developed musically, so has Woomble’s role as their frontman. While early gigs saw him almost crippled with shyness (often performing with his back to the audience), he seems a lot more comfortable these days.
“If you’re the singer in a band, there should be an element of discomfort that makes it worthwhile but I’m getting more confidence with my own voice,” he says. “I never considered myself a singer, I considered myself to be in a band and just happen to not play an instrument. Over the years that’s changed, it’s a realisation of yourself, to come to terms with the fact that you are the singer in this band and people are singing along with your voice.”
That Woomble and his cohorts have now found their voice is clear and, if The Remote Part is anything to go by, it’s a scream that has learnt that sometimes it’s just as good to whisper.
