An End Has a Start is the follow-up album to Editors' platinum-selling debut The Back Room. We catch up with bassist Russell Leetch to talk about the band's newer sound.

• Genre: Indie / alternative / rock
• Tom Smith (vocals / guitar), Chris Urbanowicz (guitar), Russell Leetch (bass), Ed Lay (drums)
• Sounds like: Echo & The Bunnymen, Joy Division
• Home: Birmingham, UK
• Editors

Stepping out of the Shadows

When UK indie band Editors first broke onto the scene in 2005 with their darkly melodic album The Back Room, people were quick to compare them to The Killers and Interpol. Maybe it was the keyboard/guitar combination or the hook-laden melodies that inspired this comparison, or the majestic build of their songs. However, it was an easy and lazy comparison at best. Better songs than Interpol and less drama queen than The Killers, Editors more than stood on their own feet.

Now back with the equally impressive follow-up An End Has a Start, from which the soaring first single Smokers outside the Hospital Doors comes from, we caught up with bassist Russell to talk about the new record and the expanding sound of Editors.

My thanks to Russell for taking time out of an incredibly hectic schedule (the band are in Germany for a festival tomorrow, then fly to perform at Glastonbury on Sunday, then back to Germany!) and to Dani Lovett at Cornerstone Promotion for arranging everything.

Russell Leetch Interview

Suite: It's been a hectic 2 years since the release of The Back Room. When you released that record, did you expect it all to take off the way it did?

Russell: Not really, no. We were surprised how many copies it sold, to be honest. It just seemed to keep growing and growing, we kept re-releasing singles – I think that was the thing in the UK, along with a lot of word of mouth, and I think that's what gave us the success with the album. Even when we went to the States, though, we were hoping to maybe play nice-sized places, but then the album stepped up and we'd play bigger shows, so it was really good for us.

Suite: What was it like playing places like Istanbul on that tour?

Russell: It's amazing when you go to places like that and play. I mean, we'd go play a festival in Portugal or in Greece, places we'd never been before, and there you are playing in front of a crowd of about 10,000 or 20,000 people, and they'd seem to know every single word (laughs)! So yeah, that's just absolutely bizarre.

Suite: You have Glastonbury this weekend, as well as other festivals over the summer. Do you now see yourselves as a bona-fide festival band?

Russell: You know, they're funny things, festivals – you turn up, no sound check, wheeled on stage and just go and do it, and that's kind of the fun element. Sometimes it's not – you can't hear what you're playing, things keep breaking and it's just a nightmare, but that's part and parcel. But last year we played second headline slot on quite a few festivals, and playing in the dark in front of so many people was very cool.

Suite: The new record is a lot more expansive sounding. Has the songwriting process changed any since your debut, or do you feel it's a natural growth?

Russell: I think it's a bit of both – I mean, we toured the world for 20 months so we got more confident in playing, and then I don't know, I guess we were just keen to get back in the studio and be creative again. After so much time playing the same songs every night, you want to do something slightly different, but at the same time, not lose sight of where you've come from and why people like you. We do it for the people in the band first and then give our music to the fans.

Suite: The last song on the new album, Well Worn Hand, sounds very different from your normal sound – would you ever be tempted to bring out a purely acoustic album?

Russell: I think we're just trying to keep the door open on where we can go. We have done quite a few acoustic sessions as a band, and there are a lot of things on this record that are quite different for us. But yeah, it'd be nice to do something totally acoustic; or something completely synthetic; or even just something that is all electronic instruments. So hopefully, as I say, we've left the door open to do that.

Suite: Two impressive albums already – do you worry about the pressure that following these up in the future may bring?

Russell: Commercially, we don't really think of it - I don't know, it's hard as a band to think of your success. I think when you're a big business band like U2, it's probably very different from what we're doing at the moment. We're still a young band, and what's really important to us is just putting out really great records. I'm sure that's what's important to U2 as well (laughs). We just don't really think of the commercial value – we just hope we can do this full-time and play music to people.

• Where to Buy An End Has a Start
• Contact Editors

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