Coventry based rock band The Enemy have just released their fourth album It’s Automatic, with the hope of it achieving the same amount of success its predecessor UK Top 10 albums received. In a recent interview, these cool Midlanders had a few interesting things to say about what they’ve done, what they’re doing and where they’re going.
Frontman Tom Clarke claims the he is very proud of the changes to their style of music present on It’s Automatic, stating: “For people on the outside looking in, it’s going to seem like a massive departure but for us it’s more of an evolution… Obviously, you always like your new album, or at least you should, but this one is one I really wanted to make“.
Surprisingly, Clarke also explains the connection he has to the blue-eyed soul musician Paolo Nutini and how he accidentally stole the Scot’s idea for a song on their latest album. “I love hearing things like speeches, news reports or radio chatter over music, there’s something hypnotic about it, so I’ve always wanted to do it on an Enemy record. We have this great big outro on What’s A Boy To Do? which is the last track on the album and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get one on there. Our engineer Darren Lawson came up with The Great Dictator and we loved it“.
This seemed like a brilliant idea at the time to only discover later that Paolo Nutini did precisely this for his track “Iron Sky”. He adds “It’s a really good reflection of where we are at the minute, as we used to be a really shouty band, whereas the speech is more reflective and philosophical, which is more appropriate for us now”.
Clarke continues to state that inspiration for their new album came from exploring retro sounds and movie soundtracks, most notably the OST for Drive. He said: “When we were thinking about how we want it to sound, we knew we didn’t want to make a conventional-sounding record… This time, what we’re going for, one of the starting points was the soundtrack for the movie Drive. I’ve been listening to it loads and that world of electronica is pushing the envelope further than anyone else at the moment, with the exception of maybe someone like Kanye who’s really, really pushing it. But on the whole, I found that nobody is doing this kind of thing with catchy songs, so we wanted to take inspiration from the Drive soundtrack but with additional production ideas too“.
The Enemy will be touring the UK this November showcasing their brand new album. Click below to watch their official video for “It’s Automatic”.
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