Saturday, May 25, 2013
Sixty Seconds
with Ross Millard, guitarist/vocalist for The Futureheads
click to enlarge
Indy: It seems like everyone is saying The Futureheads' new album, News and Tributes, is more mature than your 2004 self-titled debut. Do you view this as a compliment, or as a backhanded criticism by lonely music critics jealous of your talent?
RM: Mature also, sometimes, has a boring connotation of, like, "a nice mature sound" like you're kind of going for the middle-of-the-road crowd now. And that's a million miles away from how we see it, and, in fact, how we would hope people saw it as well.
Indy: Mature or not, the album does possess a common denominator of optimism throughout. What gives you the right to be so cheerful?
RM: Actually, I think it's a foray into the unknown. Like a lot of bands, we're still trying to get a handle on what it is we're doing and what we're trying to achieve. Those goalposts are constantly changing.
Indy: What shouldn't fans expect from your upcoming live show?
RM: We're not ones to take our tops off, and we do sweat. And there will be no Townsend guitar wind-milling. We prefer to lift our instruments in the air, Hendrix-style.
John Benson
Wednesday, Aug. 2, at Denver's Bluebird Theater.
