The Automatic frontman Rob Hawkins discusses returning to the fold and ‘international mystery cheese’ ahead of their Dubai gig – and inadvertently trashes a fellow Sound City act

AS SOON AS they hit it big in 2006, The Automatic became both darlings and punchbags in the British critical circle. 

On the one hand, the Welsh band were praised by the likes of the BBC and NME magazine for their hyperactive and ultra-catchy pop tunes, with singalong smash Monster helping propel their debut album Not Accepted Anywhere to number three.

On the other, many dismissed the teenagers as an irritating new blotch on the charts. “The UK’s answer to Linkin Park,” declared one sniffy reviewer, while almost all naysayers criticised the headache-inducing screech of keyboardist Alex Pennie throughout the record.

However, the band began to flounder commercially with last year’s follow-up This Is A Fix, which failed to dent the top 40 after being hampered by distribution problems and record label politics.

With Pennie long since gone from the group, citing that old chestnut of musical differences, Paul Mullen from Yourcodenameis:Milio has hopped on board. For the past year, The Automatic have been holed up in their manager’s Cardiff studio preparing for a conquering return to the mainstream with new album Tear the Signs Down.

Rob Hawkins spoke to City Times before the band’s show at Dubai Sound City tomorrow night.

How has it been living and recording in Cardiff over the last 12 months?

Our manager’s studio is about a five-minute cycle from our house, where I live with (guitarist) Frost, (drummer) Iwan and a mate from school, then Paul lives round the corner in our old soundman’s house with his girlfriend. To be honest it’s all pretty sedate. It’s usually just computer games and meals in.

No wild parties then?

We did have a party when we first moved in. It was fairly catastrophic – we had neighbours threatening to use shotguns on us, so we haven’t repeated it!

Can it drive you crazy being around your fellow band members 24/7?

It’s alright, we’ve been mates for so long. I’ve known Frost since I was four, six times as long as I’ve known my girlfriend, and we grew up with Iwan in a posh little village called Cowbridge outside Cardiff. Even Paul we’ve known for years; if we were going to get bored it would have happened by now.

Do you still go by the name The Automatic Automatic in the USA due to legal issues?

It just changed recently – there’s a fellow who went under the name Automatics and objected to us using it. The label didn’t want any trouble so we changed the name. We couldn’t change it that much, so we just repeated it – it sounded awful in fairness, but it was a needs must thing. But we’ve successfully gained the legal right to use it now, I believe.

How frustrating were the difficulties with your record label over the release of This Is A Fix?

(Laughs). Well you can imagine – you put a year of your life into making a record, then the label doesn’t tell anyone it’s released or distribute it. It was very frustrating – we had a complicated deal where we were signed to B-Unique but releasing through Polydor. We suspect that the two parties involved fell out, and we were the child of the divorce, so to speak.

And how are things different these days?

We’re doing things ourselves now. So many bands are jumping ship, because the music industry is going the way of the Titanic. It’s huge and bloated, and it’s only adapted to times of good economy and no internet. The industry has failed to adapt quickly enough to downloads and free music.

How have you found going it alone?

Everything is suddenly on a shoestring, but it hasn’t affected the music at all. We’ve been more experimental, if anything. We’ll get a record out however we can. I don’t want to work with a label and have an intractable network of people who all make decisions for you. I’m being a lot more reserved about it than I’d like to be…

Was the split with Pennie amicable?

Yeah, by that point. There had been difficult times – otherwise obviously there would have been no reason for him to leave – but it was just a case of his musical tastes developing in a way that he wasn’t happy doing what we were doing and playing to the audience we were playing to.

So he wanted the music to be less poppy?

He did, but ironically he joined a band who I think are more pop than we are now. By the time he left, we knew the band couldn’t carry on as we were, so we wished him good luck.

Was it a relief to remove the screechy vocals in your music? Surely you couldn’t have continued with it, album after album…

I couldn’t put it any better myself. You can only have so much of that – it’s not a nice sound. My mum put it quite well actually, she said it’s like salt on food. You want a little bit, but you can’t have it all over everything all the time.

Has the critical animosity towards the band reduced since Pennie left?

Yeah, to be honest. In the press certainly – he was a figure of much derision.

Is the new album finished?

It’s 99% done. It’s the most diverse album we’ve done yet. We’ve got a lot of synths involved – that’s not to say it’s super-pop but there’s stuff which is like Soulwax or The Knife. But I wouldn’t call it prog, because you don’t get three-and-a-half minute prog songs! The first single is called Interstate and it’s really upbeat and cheerful pop.

You guys have had a few fights in the press with other bands over the years – do you regret any?

We slagged off The Horrors in the NME, and that kept coming back to bite us over and over again. I stand by what we said though, they aren’t very good.

Which other bands have got your back up?

Ocean Colour Scene angered us once, so we’ve made it our mission to wind them up. We played a student ball, and we shared quite a large room with them. As soon as we got there they said ‘that’s your side, you’re staying over there’. And they started taking some of our rider. Totally uncool.

Errr…do you know they’re playing Dubai Sound City? And on the same day as you?

They are, are they? Oh yeah, I think I might have seen that actually! I think (OCS guitarist) Steve Cradock wants my head on a plate!

Does the band still demand a David Hasselhoff shrine be built backstage before every show?

No that’s gone. It had a good run – we must have had 50 shrines – but we’ve been off the road for a year so we need to think of more things for the rider. We had ‘international mystery cheese’ for a while, but we just got loads of nasty smelly things. We kept getting sticky toffee cheddar, which is vile, so we got rid of it.

EVENT DETAILS

What: Dubai Sound City, featuring The Automatic, Ocean Colour Scene, The Happy Mondays and more

Where: Irish Village

When: Friday November 6

Cost: Dhs249 per day, or Dhs699 for a three-day pass

Tickets and more info: Visit www.dubaisoundcity.com