It's Not Ever

"I'm staring out to my garden wishing the sun was out. It's all good. It's quite nice actually, I have the afternoon off, so I might get into the garden, it needs some weeding – do something normal, y'know.” Unwinding at home after a couple of recent festival dates in Italy and Switzerland, Jamie Reynolds, bass player and vocalist for East London Day-Glo saviours Klaxons, is ready to get hedonistic once more.

The band have been off the radar for roughly two years since the touring cycle for sophomore album Surfing The Void wrapped up, and although the time has taken most of the band from their 20s to their 30s, and even netted one member a Hollywood wife (keyboardist/vocalist James Righton married Keira Knightley earlier this year), they are not prepared to put an end to the good times and start getting all introspective on us.

A new album awaits, scheduled to land in our parts just as spring crackles into our lives, and the guys have been using their recent sporadic performances to introduce some of these fresh tracks. “There have been five [new songs] of the minute, which seems a bit heavy – it's a bit of a half and half – but we're in this in-between period where we're [in the middle] of what we've done in the past and what we're going to do in the future so we just thought, 'Let's chuck it all in there'. And it's going pretty well,” a chipper Reynolds informs.

The saccharine-voiced Englishman has been loving the reactions of fans thus far, surprised at the instant appeal the new music holds. “It's even a bit weird because it's going down a bit better than some of the older songs,” he proclaims, “and people don't even know them yet. It's surprising but it's going really well. I think that we've basically made a leap into doing what we've always said we were going to do and we've made a dance record,” he continues, “and that makes it a lot easier for people to tap their feet and go mental and jump up and down. We're giving people dance music this time around and they're definitely more than ready for that.”

It almost seems like a strange statement: “we've made a dance record”, coming from a member of Klaxons. After all, this was the band proclaimed as the leaders of the 'new rave' movement in 2007. And considering they've worked with James Ford (Simian Mobile Disco) and been remixed by everyone from Justice and Erol Alkan and even our own Van She, it's assumed they've always had a foot in club culture.

“Yeah, it's always been there, y'know, in the distance,” Reynolds concurs, “and it's always been like our [underage] little brother, and now we're just [connecting with] him, y'know, by taking him out on the town. [In the past] I think we were in denial about what we really are, but now we're fully embracing it. And that's come out really well – it's cool man, we're over the moon.”

And embracing it they are, stepping up by bringing in one of dance music's biggest names for their forthcoming first single, a past collaborator and somewhat oracle when it comes to block rocking beats. “I don't think it will be out... Actually, it might just be out the same time we get down there – it probably will be,” Reynolds begins with trepidation. “[But] being so close and us having not made an announcement yet I'll keep it quiet, but it's a track that we've made with Tom [Rowlands] from The Chemical Brothers, and it's a bit of a dancefloor banger and contains what I'd go as to say is the most euphoric moment I think I've heard in music.”

Indeed, the Brothers Chem have done a couple of bangers in their time, and Reynolds can relate. In fact, he cackles at the sarcastic sentiment: “Yeah, absolutely! And getting Tom on board, he's like my childhood hero, I grew up absolutely loving that guy and now we make records together, it's absolutely brilliant. We loved working with each other so much [on All Rights Reversed from The Chemical Brothers' 2007 LP We Are The Night], he's good fun and [that was] like a dream, [so] we just thought: 'Who do we want to work with on this record?', and we reached out to him and it came back all positive, so it's been incredible.”

When their third full-length lands later in 2013, it will be three years since Surfing The Void first appeared, and pushing on seven since the release of era-defining debut Myths Of The Near Future. On paper, it looks like the quartet are running their own race, changing directions rather than going with the current. It's an assumption Reynolds agrees with.

“Definitely, I think we've probably turned our backs on things that are hot in the past. Last night we listened to a couple of remixes that we had made by people that we didn't put out at the time because like the genre felt like it was new, and there was a dubstep remix that came out, like really early days, and we kind of turned our back on it like, 'Nah, nah, not having this',” he reveals.

“We've been notorious for not having what's going on at the moment, it's pretty silly really. We're just kinda like in our own bubble just writing music constantly, and that's what our existences are, and having a look at the outside world doesn't really affect how we get our [ideas], we just crack on in our own funny little world.”

Luckily for fans Down Under, they have never turned their backs on our country. The band return this July as part of the massive Splendour In The Grass festival, making amends for their cancellation in 2007 – mere weeks out from the event – after Reynolds fractured his ankle during a gig in France. (“We've all had a few beers in our time,” he admits somewhat sheepishly.) And Klaxons are committed to coming full circle, with this show (and a special DJ set as headliners of FBi Radio's tenth birthday party) signalling the start of progress for the future. 

“I hope that we'll be back at the level we were at with regards to festival play, like we were headlining festival stages across Europe wherever we'd go and doing big performances, and I hope that's where we are come this time next year,” concludes Reynolds. “We're back doing club shows, we're back doing smaller shows, we're getting the feeling back. It's not back to square one but it's really establishing ourselves [again] with where we are, and it's perfect. We'll hopefully get to see it all grow over the next year.”