Tom Clarke states The Enemy have fallen in love with music again after turning their backs on the industry completely at one stage.
The Coventry band enjoyed success in the 00s on the back of the release of their debut record We’ll Live and Die In These Towns, but struggles behind-the-scenes ultimately took its toll.
A year after their fourth studio album It’s Automatic in 2015, the three-piece called time on their journey.
Over the past decade, The Enemy have worked their way back. Clarke initially undertook several solo tours, before being joined again by Andy Hopkins and Liam Watts.
On the back of their return to the live scene, the trio are now preparing to release a new record, with Social Disguises available from February 20.
“It’s quite intimidating – there’s some really nice things in terms of the way we’ve done without the industry involvement, because there were a lot of things we hated during the ‘glory years,'” Clarke said.
“There was a lot of unpleasant stuff, so it’s nice in that respect to release a record on our own terms.
“On the other hand, we haven’t done this for quite a long time. It’s always quite an intimidating thing to do to release an album, but you kind of get into the swing of it when you’re doing it every few years.
“This one has been much heavier to carry because we’ve invested more into it – emotionally, time, energy, as well as money. It’s a bigger thing for us compared to any of the records before.
“We wrote that first album in the mindset of wanting to get signed and to be successful, and that happened really quickly.
“Every subsequent record The Enemy made felt very difficult, it was a totally different experience, because it was the industry saying ‘create us a product now’ – which I hated.
“This one was different again because we had to play both parts. We wrote the songs organically, and from the outset I didn’t want any time pressure because I had struggled with that before, but then it reached the point where we are also the record label now.
“I wanted to pick the day after we wrote the first record. I thought if we had just done We Live and Die In These Towns and there’s no music industry pressuring us to make another record, what would the record we would make sound like.
“I spent a lot of time listening to it, dissecting it. There were surprises there. The bass carries a lot of early Enemy sound and how it interacts with the vocals.”
The Enemy – Not Going Your Way (Official Video)
Clarke admits it was never the plan for The Enemy to return after their initial break-up in 2016.
“We were done, and I was done with music,” he stated.
“I can’t believe I was done with music because I’d been studying it since I was four-years-old. I was taking exams before I was 10.
“It’s everything I’m about, but by the end of The Enemy, we had had such a horrible time in the music industry, I was done. I was going to find another profession because it wasn’t nice.
“It was the 10 year anniversary of We’ll Live and Die In These Towns, and I know that record meant a lot to people, so I went out on my own and did some acoustic gigs.
“I did it without the music industry, and it was amazing. There was a moment of clarity of ‘this doesn’t have to be horrible, you can go and play music and there doesn’t have to be vile people crushing creatives up and in a machine to churn out cash.
“When I started that, I just wanted Liam and Andy to know we had it bad and it can be better.
“We had a bad time, but you can go and do it in a way where it doesn’t feel horrible. It took me a while to convince them to get back together to do one tour.
“We planned that tour, and it sold really well. We said going into it that there was no expectation beyond it, but we had so much fun, and we all came away from it wanting to sustain it.”
The Enemy will embark on an in-store tour around the release of Social Disguises, including a date at the Jacaranda Baltic on February 26.
“I’m not looking forward to them at all – I’m absolutely terrified,” joked Clarke.
“It’s been a while since we played new music. We threw a couple of new songs out there on the last tour, and it went well.
“There’s two things that worry me, and it centres around remembering lyrics to new songs.
“I don’t remember any of the lyrics to our old stuff, they’re just there, it’s just muscle memory.
“I’m a bit older and I think it’s older to remember lines and lines of text now. The second half of that problem is, we wrote the songs very differently.
“When we wrote songs for The Enemy before, we would all go into a rehearsal room and the lyrics would come as we were writing it, and we’d practise over and over again.
“These songs were made in my home studio where I’d make the music and put the vocal down, and we’d live with it – listening to it a lot but not practising it a lot.
“Then we’d go into the studio, put the final parts down and I’d sing it again. That is the second time I would’ve sung it, while with the old process it would’ve been the 200th time.
“Rehersals for these shows was the third time I’ve ever sung these new songs, so I don’t have the muscle memory to lean on. It’s a lot more intimidating just because of the way the process has worked.
“I think it’s gone in, but it feels way scarier. I’ve been revising my own songs.”
The Enemy
Thursday 26 February
Jacaranda Baltic
Tickets
