Do The Pop

With 2012 so far dedicated to securing an ever-changing four-piece line-up, setting free Pacific Rope – a six-track digital archival release – and recording their third long-player, there hasn't been much time for The Rational Academy to gig. Ahead of a Black Bear Lodge appearance next weekend, Ben Thompson looks back at the explorations of sound that have shaped the band he formed in 2004.

“We didn't ever want to make the same record twice,” Thompson says drily in the midst of negotiating a record deal for The Rational Academy's third album. “And we get interested in certain genres and styles and we move through that and each record is hopefully completely different as a result. When we first started, our first 7” was very cut up folk, a very processed kind of sound, and we've moved through I guess what people call indie pop to a more heavy kind of sound at the moment… We are a pop band, we write pop songs but we just approach them in different ways as we go through. It just seems that simple to me – I like pop music. You could deconstruct all of those songs and play them in a completely different way which is what we do live anyway – it's sort of impossible for us to recreate most of what we actually record.”

The Rational Academy's style has been as fluid as their line-up over the years, a direct result of Thompson's considered approach and unwavering dedication to his musical vision. Though this may seem to be a contradictory explanation, fans won't be surprised by yet another plot-twist when the third album, titled Winter Haunts, is unleashed. 

“This album kind of came together because we put together this new line-up. It really stuck together well; we went and did another tour in Japan and we came back from this tour and decided we wanted to, probably for the first time in our entire career, capture more of what we were doing live at that point. This album is really based on what you will see when you see us live,” he says, fully aware that most bands set out with such an agenda from day one. The Rational Academy have always forged their own path, particularly given a release history of 7” singles and cassettes that have garnered more interest overseas than in their home territory.  

“When we put out our first 7”…at that point there wasn't a lot of people on a local level pressing 7”s so it was sort of a choice between pressing a CD that's not really permanent or make a statement about how we feel about this band and the fact that we take it seriously and that we want it to be around for a long time. Pressing a 7” was sort of like a mission statement in a way – you know, this is vinyl, we're doing this properly…

“I think it helped [with exposure]. For example, by the time our first album came out, we had vinyl which was in shops in different countries. So our first album, I think we had fifty-something international reviews for it all over the world… People knew that we existed because we had come out straight away in such a, 'Hi, we're here' kind of way,” Thompson admits.

With the preparations for the release of Winter Haunts in full swing, Thompson isn't interested in playing the anticipation game. 

“I don't expect anything – I've learnt to never expect anything. We're really proud of it. Bands say this all the time but this is actually definitely my favourite record out of all the ones we've made, so I'm happy already.”