What does a band do after 30-plus years of existence? If you’re Wire, you remain as elusive as ever. On “Change Becomes Us,” the English rock band’s new album, the group took old, unfinished song structures and used them as raw material. But this isn’t a nostalgia trip — the result is one of the most forward thinking rock albums of the year, and one of the best of the band’s long career. While most bands would cash in on an extensive back catalog of fan favorites, part of Wire’s longevity has been to constantly reinvent and push themselves toward producing the best songs they can at that moment. In the current musical climate, where bands appear and disappear before you even have the chance to dismiss them, the fact that Wire is still here is something to admire. The band is currently on tour and will stop at New York’s Bowery Ballroom on July 16. In a phone conversation, singer Colin Newman spoke with ARTINFO’s Craig Hubert about the creation of the record, how touring has changed for the group, and how to exist as a rock band when you’re not in your 20s.
I understand “Change Becomes Us” began as skeletons of songs over two decades old. Can you talk about the process of creating the album?
When you said skeletons I thought you said skeletons in the closet [laughs]. It’s kind of a classically ridiculous Wire concept. When we finished our first run, in the beginning of the ’80s — I mean, nobody really thought about it very much, but there was probably an album’s worth of material in various stages of genesis, some a bit not really started. For many years Wire didn’t release stuff, and then we found a way we could engage [with the material]. It was timing more than anything. And after the previous album, “Red Barked Tree,” we did some quite, for us, extensive touring. We had a new live guitarist, who would subsequently become a member of the band, and when you do a lot of live work and you get tight, and you get good, you feel like you should do something with it. It seemed that this project would fun to do, not necessarily that hard, and would utilize the energy of the band that had been playing live extremely well. That’s kind of as far as the concept goes. As far as the material, it ceases to have anything to do with the past. We’re not curators of our own museum. We have no idea. There are advertising people who are good at that. We’re not interested in making a record that sounds like it was made in 1980. Once that concept is there, you just have some stuff, it’s just material. In the end, it’s a new album.
Once you have the material, as you say, what is the working process like?
The working process of making the record was done in the initial recordings — the way the guitar, bass, drums work, and the way the vocal goes, that’s all pretty much set, apart from a few things where we wrote completely new vocal melodies. Somebody could have mixed the original recordings and made a pretty good live record, if you like that kind of record. That would work. I think “Change Becomes Us” has a slightly translucent quality, which is what I’m looking for. It should ultimately, to the uninitiated, sound like a bunch of people playing their instruments in a room, which is basically what it is. But there is a subtle process that goes into making that work, which I like. I don’t really like live in the studio records, it doesn’t really turn me on. I like a record that sounds like somebody thought about it a bit.
You mentioned the extensive touring after the previous album. How has touring changed for you over the years?
Something you make in the studio should bear more than one listen and should be discovered. At the moment, Wire has become an extremely good live band. In one way, we’ve figured out how to make it more enjoyable; touring doesn’t feel like something that is being done to you anymore. It feels like something you’re engaging with, and you know why you’re doing it. If you’re going to do it, do it consciously. You’re not there to play a list of what someone has decided beforehand what the songs should be, standing there picking off which ones we played from the list. This is an artistic venture — we’re playing what we think is the best of what we’re able to do right now. That might not relate to anybody’s list of what they want to hear. Now, we’re not stupid; we’re not going to play a whole set consisting of songs nobody’s ever heard before. But it’s important to us that we’re at our best on stage.
The band seems to have a lot more control — you’re producing the record, distributing it, having a more active role in the touring. Is this a reaction to not feeling like you had control at an earlier time in your career?
Absolutely. I think, ultimately, love it or hate it, you have to look at someone like Damien Hirst, who has taken the whole concept of, “OK, I’m going to make art, and make money out of it, and this is how I’m going to do it.” The old fashioned attitude of an artist is someone who waits for patronage, and waits for people who know more about these things to sort out the money for them — and it’s not a very smart way of going about things, especially if you’ve been around a bit. People might be falling over themselves and throwing money at the latest young crop of 20 year olds, but nobody is interested in doing that for a bunch of 50 year olds. It doesn’t exist. So you either figure it out for yourself or you’re going to be in a situation where you’re so grateful that anybody is giving you any attention at all that you’re diminished by it. We’re not the Rolling Stones, we’re not making millions, but it works.
Because you mentioned Damien Hirst, I wanted to ask you about the “art-rock” label that has been affixed to Wire. While many can see it as limiting, in the context of Wire I feel like it opened up the band to experiment more and people accept it.
I agree one hundred percent. Most tags are not useful, and I could be cynical, but it’s fair. To say Wire is “art-punk,” even though I hate that combination — I would just say it’s art.
Because Wire is ultimately just art, do you see it as something that can exist indefinitely, through different permutations? Or do you see the end of the road for the band, a place you want to reach before you want to move on to something different?
Everybody has other things which they do, which is important. So I don’t see any reason, apart from factors like health, why Wire wouldn’t continue to do what they do. I think everyone’s quite well invested in it, and I don’t think anyone sees a reason why we should stop it. There isn’t a feeling of things ending.