'He's A Fucking Genius': IDLES On Getting Australia's Warren Ellis On Their New Album

IDLES new album, Ultra Mono, is out now and they've scored an appearance from a much-loved Australian musician on it. 

Frontman Joe Talbot told The Music recently about how the UK group got Dirty Three, Grinderman and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' Warren Ellis on their track Grounds. 

"You can imagine working with Warren Ellis was mind blowing," said Talbot ahead of the album's release. "He actually sings one ‘hey’ on the album… 

"He's a very good friend, Nick Launay, our producer. And he came to surprise us because he lives in Paris, he came to surprise us and he ended up staying for a good few hours. About two or three hours in, I was like ‘Warren, please, we've got to get you on this record. It would mean so much to us’... so we got him in. He’s on Grounds, we were recording Grounds when he arrived at the studio.

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"I was like Grounds is a hip hop tune… It’s like our nod to Fix Up, Look Sharp by Dizzee Rascal, so I just got Warren to do like a grime, hype man ‘hey’. It’s the best 'hey' in musical history. It’s been noted already, we’ve had different journalists say that it's the best ‘hey’ that’s ever been recorded, and they're going to send it into space," he joked. 

"...but honestly as a musician, obviously, The Dirty Three, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, like you probably can't hear it in our music at all, but Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Grinderman more importantly, are huge, huge influences on us - Grinderman especially has been a big driving force on Ultra Mono, because of that sense of violence that they've got, that Nick Launay captured," continued Talbot. 

"We were very excited to work with Nick Launay for those reasons, like we know exactly what Nick Launay can do, and Adam Greenspan - he produced our record with Nick Launay. It was like, we wanted to embody just a tiny piece of what Warren Ellis can do, and capture that energy. 

"There’s no other band like them on the planet, and there never will be. Like, you know, it was a real honour to just have him in the studio. And I don't know, man, it's like, you don't want to be a sycophant to heroes but he's a fucking genius. And it was, it was a real privilege just to be able to hear some stories of his."

Ultra Mono is out now and is The Music's Album Of The Week. Read the interview with Talbot here.