Rumble Strips (The)

“When we started out I liked the ridiculousness of a small group with acoustic instruments defiantly playing as if we sounded like an orchestra – we were like a team of arctic explorers in t-shirts and normal shoes joyfully pressing on. But this time, we needed to think bigger.”

Charlie Waller, lead singer and guitarist in The Rumble Strips, is understandably excited about the band's second album, ‘Welcome To The Walk Alone’. Recorded in a legendary New York studio with one of the world's most in demand producers, it is the result of a band bringing their big ideas to life. “This record sounds like how we've always sounded in our heads,” Waller says proudly.

In December 2005, before the latest strain of '60's style soul stormed the charts, The Rumble Strips arrived like a band of pop prophets with their debut single, ‘Motorcycle’ – a soulful brass-enhanced slice of ramshackle rock'n'roll. It was thrillingly out of step with the times. “In the early days, our fans seemed to be a lot of middle aged men who'd latched onto the Dexys Midnight Runners comparisons,” laughs multi-instrumentalist Tom Gorbutt. But soon the band had built a far broader fanbase, headlining the NME New Music Tour and gigging relentlessly to promote their 2007 debut album, ‘Girls And Weather’.

“We spent a long time on the road,” says Charlie, “We toured the songs on that record for so long before we were even signed and by late 2007, we were ready to move on but you kind of get out of the habit of sitting around and writing songs.” Tackling someone else's tune kick started the band on the road to recording ‘Welcome To The Walk Alone’. “We got asked to remix Amy Winehouse's ‘Back To Black’ but we'd never done one before,” continues Charlie, “So it just seemed easier to learn it, play it as a band and put her vocal on top. We recorded a version with me singing too but we didn't want to use it. The record company did.”

Enter Mark Ronson. Having made his name reinterpreting other people's songs, he was impressed with the band's twist on his work with Winehouse. He invited Charlie to sing with him at the Electric Proms and took the band out on tour with him. It was on that jaunt that he first suggested working together. “We didn't have any songs at that point!” laughs Tom. But in January 2008, the band returned to London and began to write new material.

“On the first album, we all did the music but I wrote the basic songs,” says Charlie. This time, he shared the burden, with trumpet and piano player Henry Clark contributing roughly half of the new tunes. The band also swelled to a five piece, recruiting Sam Mansbrige, who had toured with them throughout 2007, as their permanent bass player. Sam had previously played with Charlie and drummer Matt Wheeler in an earlier band, Action Heroes. The move meant Tom could focus on playing sax and additional guitar. “Sam had never even played bass before,” he says, “He actually played guitar and hadn't even done that for a few years!”

Sam also brought a love of French chanson music with him, introducing the band to Jacques Brell and Charles Asnavor. “It's like soul music but very un-American,” says Charlie, “It's passionate but so different from the kind of soul that had become popular again while we were promoting Girls And Weather.”

“The first album was a collection of songs written over a long time,” he continues. “This time we had to sit down and write an album so we were listening to things knowing we were writing. I listened to a lot of Harry Nilsson and The Beatles, who I hadn't properly listened to before. I put on a lot of Paul McCartney's songs and thought to myself, Bloody hell, these boys will do well!”

By the time the band reconvened with Ronson at The Joint rehearsal studios in Kings Cross in October 2008, they had a clutch of songs they were confident to play him. He was impressed, so much so that he told Q Magazine they'd make “one of the best records of the early 21st Century.”

Recording took place over three weeks in November 2008 at Avatar Studios in New York, which had recently played host to Bruce Springsteen, following the band's first headline US tour. While both producer and band have a reputation for horn heavy arrangements, brass is a more muted presence on the album but the introduction of strings has led to a fuller sound. “Before it was exciting to use a lot of brass but we've got over it a bit now,” Charlie confides, “I feel like there's a lot of bad soul music about and I didn't want it to sound American.”

The band had a clear vision for the album: “I wanted a cross between ‘Barafundle’ by Gorky's Zygotic Mynchi, and Adam And The Ant's ‘Kings Of The Wild Frontier’ – achingly sad melodies and baroque brass but with an instant sound,” says Charlie. Though the plan largely went out of the window once recording began, the finished product closely resembles that description.

The album's strings were composed and overseen by Owen Pallett (Arcade Fire, The Last Shadow Puppets) and recorded in January 2009 in Prague. Charlie says of Pallett's startling arrangements: “I'm glad we went with Owen. A lot of people sent us strings that sounded cheesy, like the songs had been dipped in money. His were more inventive.”

‘Welcome To The Walk Alone’ is actually a more anguished album than the band's debut despite the fact that most of the band has settled down (Charlie and Tom are both married and Sam has a longtime girlfriend). “Being domesticated doesn't necessarily mean happy and bored,” sighs Charlie, “In fact, being married has opened up a whole lot of new things to write about.”

Such as giving a glimpse of just how tough his wife can be on future single, ‘Not The Only Person’. Though it's a summery Tom Petty-ish pop song, it recounts a distinctly darker tale – an attempted mugging in Shoreditch. “We were in the middle of an argument and my wife sent the muggers packing. She had a go at them and they ran away!” Charlie felt sorry for them. “It must have hurt their pride. At the end of the song I tell them I'll come back the next night and give them the money anyway.”

Sadness and the city is a theme shared by several songs. ‘London’, with its fizzing strings and galloping drums, finds the Capital getting in the way of love with Charlie plaintively asking, “Why can't I love you in London?”. Meanwhile on the dramatic ‘Daniel’, a song that owes more to the soaring strings of John Williams and Ennio Morricone than it does to old fashioned rock'n'roll, the stars are blocked out by the streetlights. And while he's now settled in Tottenham, Charlie can still feel like an outsider – an experience typified by ‘Douglas’, a song he sings to his Jack Russell.

“Douglas is from Tavistock [in Devon] just like me. We're both country boys out of place living in Tottenham,” he says almost wistfully, “The song is an apology for making him live in the city. He's happy now but moving was a shock for us and a shock for him.”

With striking piano and a beautiful guitar line that evokes Springsteen's ‘Hungry Heart’, ‘Douglas's deliciously sad singalong melody takes up residence in your head and refuses to budge. Elsewhere, the album's anxious and lovelorn mood is lightened by ‘Sweetheart Hooligan’ (which Charlie calls “a proper love song”) and reinforced by ‘Backbone’ (“Paranoid and edgy with twanging guitar and strings that give it a strange quality as if you've just taken bad pills.”)

“People always talk about the 'difficult second album'” Charlie says, “but second albums should be better.” That's unquestionably true of ‘Welcome To The Walk Alone’, with its nagging melodies and soaring choruses testament to the band's big ambitions. “I want this record to mean something to people,” Charlie says, “We've been doing this for a long time and we've put our lives into it.” While the orchestra is real this time, the most important part of any Rumble Strips song is still the passion with which they play it.