Every thing I examine The Wombats forward of assembly the U.Ok. group’s frontperson and principal songwriter, Matthew “Murph” Murphy, emphasised his introversion, social nervousness, and despair. I arrived ready to ease him into our interview, however it’s Murph who makes me really feel instantly snug at a neighborhood café and bakery in his family-friendly neighborhood in Los Angeles. This courtesy is very appreciated contemplating it’s not been 24 hours since he needed to put one in every of his canine down.
That is the fourth space Murph has lived since shifting to town nearly a decade in the past. He relocated from his native Liverpool through London after assembly his spouse throughout a spur-of-the-moment journey to Los Angeles. Now a household of 4 with two daughters aged 4 and 5, Murph usually brings them up. His life choices are closely weighted in favor of his household first, and his profession an in depth second, with the objective of not sacrificing time away from them. There are a number of pauses when he speaks, his ideas effervescent up slowly then morphing into completely different ideas. However relating to his household, his statements are agency and uttered with out hesitation.
Extra from Spin:
D’Angelo Returning To Reside Motion At Roots Picnic
Paul Simon, Paul McCartney Bookend ‘SNL’ fiftieth Anniversary Episode
Publish Malone Fronts Nirvana, Eddie Vedder Jams With The Roots At ‘SNL’ fiftieth Live performance
Despite the fact that he talks like Paul McCartney, his Liverpool accent softened over time and distance, Murph is an unlikely pop star. The Wombats are one in every of only a few guitar bands from the 2000s who’ve endured. They’ve steadily launched albums, leveling up with every one. A remix of their music “Greek Tragedy” from the 2015 album Glitterbug went viral on TikTok in 2021. Their final album, Repair Your self, Not the World (2022) topped the U.Ok. Albums Chart and The Wombats graduated to arenas on choose tour dates. Whereas the achievements are fulfilling, Murph admits he, “was damaged by the quantity of U.Ok. promo I needed to do.” Having mentioned that, he clarifies that, “I used to be immensely happy with us. I’ve all the time felt we have been on the skin wanting in. However I all the time believed in us.”
In a few days, Murph shall be heading to the U.Ok. to advertise The Wombats’ sixth album, Oh! The Ocean, which releases on Valentine’s Day. Recorded in Los Angeles with Grammy-winning producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen), Oh! The Ocean is Murph’s first sober Wombats album—though he already skilled sober music creation together with his solo challenge Love Fame Tragedy’s 2024 album, Life is a Killer.
“Two years and 4 months,” he replies immediately when requested how lengthy he’s been sober. As for what the motivation was, Murph says, “There was a niggling feeling at the back of my head that I used to be going to be on my deathbed, wanting again at all the pieces with no time on the horizon, pondering, ‘Why did I spend all of it hungover and struggling and feeling depressing? Why didn’t I throw myself at all the pieces extra?’”
Murph’s story is just not unusual. Based on him, he was “very shy, not nice in social conditions.” He used alcohol and “different stuff to intensify the alcohol,” to “flatten the distribution of feelings and make each day finish the identical.”
It was an ultimatum that pushed him to cease. “I assume, in my case, they might say the underside got here as much as hit me,” he says. Murph struggled by way of the primary yr, however concedes that, “It retains on getting higher. Earlier than, I used to be mildly irritated by life, thought I knew all the pieces. Now, I’m fascinated by life, and I’m satisfied I do know fuck all about something.”
Murph’s humorousness, darkish as it’s, threads by way of The Wombats’ observational lyrics. Sober, his narrative is simply as sharp, though there was a time that he frightened it wouldn’t be. That fear turned out to be “Utter nonsense,” he says. “The stuff I write about is a bit odd or goofy and has moments of profundity and moments that contact you. However primarily, it’s all the time a bit bit bizarre. In that respect, it’s helped us keep agency and entice issues to us.”
He isn’t above placing himself in detrimental conditions and self-sabotaging as a supply of inspiration to get a music out of it, working example, “Pink Lemonade” from Glitterbug. “Ridiculous,” he says of his conduct. “I’ve to be aware as a result of I’ve locked myself in a room in London for 2 albums, chain smoking Marlboro Lights and consuming Food plan Coke, going right into a rabbit gap. It took me some time to get again out of it. Now I do know I’ve to provide myself a minimum of a bit little bit of grace and to cease generally and scent the roses.”
To that finish, Congleton was chosen due to his leftfield strategy to manufacturing. He additionally blended Murph’s Wombats bandmates Dan Haggis’ and Tord Øverland-Knudsen’s facet challenge Sunship Balloon. Murph had 40 songs demoed to a top quality by the point The Wombats joined Congleton at his Elmwood Recording Studios in Los Angeles’ inventive enclave of Echo Park. The imaginative and prescient was to make the album as human as potential, what Murph calls, “an album of errors,” because it have been. The purpose was to be the polar reverse of AI-assisted music, as a result of after listening to Ghostwritter977’s “Coronary heart on My Sleeve” which makes use of Drake and The Weeknd model vocals, Murph was horrified to search out it “plausible” and in addition, “not horrendous.”
He qualifies the “errors” remark by saying they couldn’t absolutely lean into that as a result of, “it could have seemed like a shreds video.” However what ended up on Oh! The Ocean is much less the elements of the songs the band toiled over and extra the peripheral sounds that resulted whereas they have been recording.
Murph is well mannered however dismissive of compliments, significantly after I say there isn’t a dud wherever in The Wombats’ catalog. And after I point out their upcoming U.Ok. tour is all arenas (a primary for the group), he has a separation from the idea to the purpose the place it’s nearly like The Wombats’ expertise is occurring to another person.
“Possibly I’m underselling myself, however I’ve a really distorted self-image,” he says. “I not aspire to have the massive Arctic Monkeys or Muse form of success. I now aspire to be in a band just like the Pixies. I additionally need to get to 10 albums of music and songs that I actually meant and suppose are actually good. Nevertheless folks reply to that’s how they reply to it. Possibly I’m already on the level I need to be, however I don’t know as a result of I’m obsessive about the trivialities.”
To see our working listing of the highest 100 biggest rock stars of all time, click on right here.
