Hot Press meets Noah & The Whale

Noah & The Whale singer Charlie Fink is in fine fettle when Hot Press catches up with him on a (rare) sunny afternoon in Dublin. While this is possibly because he finds your humble reporter utterly engaging – it’s far more likely because A) The band’s fourth studio album Heart Of Nowhere is about to be released, and B) He’s heading out on the razz tonight.

“My friend is having his Stag here this weekend”, the 26-year-old explains. “The timing is funny, because one of the things that set off the writing process of the new album was the fact that he’d got engaged. It made me want to investigate that nostalgic end of adolescence. You start thinking where you’re at in your life, where your friends are at – and you start looking back.”
The resulting album is feelgood 10-tracker Heart Of Nowhere, which showcases the classic Noah summery folk pop sound, teamed with Fink’s typically thoughtful and often melancholic lyrics. Sentiments like, ‘Jennifer I know we were young/And god only knows what we could have become’ (One More Night’) and ‘It was only a few years ago, but it feels like a lifetime/Now you’re getting married while I’m waiting for my life to start’ (‘Lifetime’) hint at missed opportunities and lost love. Having toured and recorded pretty consistently for the last seven years, does Fink feel he’s missed out on some of the everyday twentysomething experiences?
“I suppose so,” he begins. “But I’ve had some amazing experiences that I wouldn’t swap. You notice it most when you’re on tour. You spend a lot of time on the road, then you come back after 18 months and everyone’s lives are so different. At the same time though, it just takes a bit of balancing. The album is about the end of adolescence and a slow acceptance of who you are. ‘Cos that’s basically what becoming an adult is. You accept the person you are and try to be the best example of that person.”
It’s not just lyrically that this album feels nostalgic though. Fink and his bandmates decided on a pretty old-school production process for Heart Of Nowhere; recording the entire thing to tape in just a handful of takes. Why the move away from digital?
“I’ve realised that sometimes it’s the imperfections in a song that become its charms,” he explains. “There’s nowhere to hide when you record to tape – you can’t hide a bad performance and you can’t hide a bad song! When you’re tracking to Pro Tools, you can make a pretty average song sound decent, as you can hide it behind a bunch of stuff. The deal I think you make when you record to tape is that you swap technical perfection for emotional intensity and energy.”
It sounds like a nod back to rough ‘n’ ready folk greats like Dylan.
“Yeah, exactly. Actually, there’s a Bob Dylan/Johnny Cash song from Nashville Skyline, called ‘Girl From The North Country’, where they both start singing different lyrics!” he laughs. “But that take is so human and real that you feel like you’re in the room with them. It’s engaging.”
Technically, it must have been a challenge to get the tracks down? He nods: “We were nervous about it. At the same time, it was so much fun! You go in and do a few takes and come out and listen back. We spent more time than we had before rehearsing and writing, so we went in knowing those songs pretty well.”
In an age where much of what dominates the charts is created pretty quick-smart on Pro Tools, does Fink think that music these days has become too polished, production-wise?
“Yeah, one thing that Pro-Tools can do is breed complacency, ‘cos it’s easy to fix things,” he begins. “We’re not trying to make a treatise on how albums should be made though – there’s lots of different ways to make great records. I feel like, ‘Whatever works!’
“I’ve actually thought about this a lot recently: why does anyone bother to sing a song? And I think there’s two reasons: One – melody and rhythm… it’s exciting to hear. When I was a kid, I’d listen to Buddy Holly the whole time and not give a crap about what he was singing about! And two – you want to express something to somebody. And that can just be that you’re trying to make them feel alive and make them dance. But it can also be something else. So, if your motivation for making that song is decent and you know what you’re trying to do, that’s what matters.”
Another avenue that Fink has been exploring recently is filmmaking, with Heart Of Nowhere’s hitting the shelves accompanied by the premiere of a half-hour short film he’s made, Teenland. A futuristic sci-fi affair, it follows a group of adolescent friends as they work together to escape the island they’ve been banished to. It’s not his first foray into cinema – 2009’s The First Days Of Spring was also accompanied by a Fink original. Is it something he’d wanted to get into from the get-go?
“I’ve always loved films,” he recalls. “The moment I started thinking I could do it was when we shot our first video for ‘5 Years Time’. It was done on Super 8 with a friend of mine, James Copeman. Watching him and helping out made me realise that filmmaking is something actual human beings do! Ever since then, I’ve made a few videos for the band, and a short film with the second record.”
Having cited the great David Lynch as an inspiration, Fink also extoled the virtues of David Byrne’s ‘Burning Down The House’ recently on Twitter. Does he see his filmmaking style going down a more surrealist route in future?
“Ha, yes – all the Davids!” he laughs. “It’s weird, I’m really drawn to strong narrative. It’s important to me. Yet making films, I always end up breaking up the narrative. I like to make it a bit ambiguous. There’s loads of stuff I’d like to investigate with filmmaking; it’s exciting. I’d love to do a feature at some point.”
Charlie pauses.
“Let’s see how people react to this short first though!”
Is he nervous about its reception, given that this is a solo project rather than a group effort?
“When I’m doing it, I get so focused I don’t really worry about it,” he says. “Once it’s done though, I’m like, ‘Shit!’ Today was actually the first time the band and label saw it. I couldn’t make it as I had to come to Ireland, which I was quite relieved about ‘cos of the pressure! It’s had a positive response so far though.”
So will fans get to see Teenland?
“Yep, we’re going to do a load of screenings over the summer, and we’ll definitely bring it over here.”
London fans will get to enjoy the album and film in the city’s Palace Theatre, where the band have a ‘Month of Sundays’ residency.
“We wanted a setting where we could showcase them both in a fun, exciting way, so a theatre made sense. We’re lucky now that we have an audience – it’s good to give them something unique and different.”
It’s an audience that has no doubt become more digitally savvy over the last seven years. In terms of communicating with fans, is Fink online much?
“I look after the band’s Twitter account, but I’m a pretty infrequent tweeter!” he smiles. “I feel very conflicted about it actually. It’s difficult – I like the mystery of bands, but at the same time, I feel like you have to roll with the times. I always try to communicate with people in that I like to share songs with them, or pictures and films. I’d feel weird tweeting, ‘Oh man, I just had the best sandwich!’”
Given the often voyeuristic nature of Twitter, fans would probably be delighted to find out the nitty-gritty details of their hero’s luncheon.
“I think that’s unhealthy though”, he proffers, “because it makes people feel close to people they’re not close to, which will probably make them ultimately feel lonelier. It’s not something I know a great deal about though. I enjoy the interaction we have.”
And with that, it’s back to HP with your correspondent, and off into the night with Fink. Will he and the boys be hitting Temple Bar at some point? He laughs; “Yes, I think that’s pretty unavoidable!”

Heart Of Nowhere gets a live airing when Noah & The Whale play Electric Picnic, which is happening from August 30 – September 1.