The Magic Gang have taken a new ambitious direction with latest single Think, bassist Angus Taylor reveals.
The Northern Soul-inspired track is a wonderful three-minute slice of pop goodness and is set to propel the London four-piece towards a major 2020.
Already backed by Radio 1 power players Annie Mac and Jack Saunders, it provides a mouth watering taste of what’s to come from their forthcoming album – the follow up to the band’s 2018 self-titled debut.
The new record saw them fly out to Atlanta to lay tracks with producer Ben H Allen, who worked on the global mega hit Crazy with Gnarls Barkley.
And with a summer of festivals on the horizon, Think’s release coincided with the announcement The Magic Gang will be performing at this year’s Truck Festival in Oxfordshire.
It’s an exciting time for the London and Brighton based lads.
Daily Star Online caught up with Angus to talk about recording the new album, what listeners can expect from it, and their hopes for 2020.
Hi Angus. You’ve just dropped new single Think and will be releasing your next LP later this year – how have the past 12 months been for the Magic Gang?
“It’s been an exciting time. It was an incredible experience to go to Atlanta to record this next record.
“We spent about three weeks there and a week in New York where we played a show.
“Despite the fact we’ve not been in cycle it’s still been an exciting year for us. The writing of the music is our favourite bit of the whole process.
“We started writing in the winter after the debut came out. We recorded it in summer 2019.
“It was one of those things where we approached it slightly differently. We wanted to analyse what we liked and didn’t like about the last record.
“The main thing was we wanted to expand lyrically, whether it be with a narrative or taking on a character, creating scenarios or reliving scenarios.”
What did you learn from the writing and recording process of your debut album?
“It was such an exciting thing. When the first record came out it felt like the band was our entire entity.
“We all lived together in a big house with old mates in Brighton. We were touring so often, slogging and slogging, it was such an incredible time.
“When the first record came out it felt like the be all and end all. We had some time off to reflect and work on ourselves as individuals and realise we’re more than just this band.
“This has let us take the pressure off ourselves and help us write better.
“Going in this time we knew what we wanted to try and do sonically. We’re more clued up. We were quite young when the first record came out. We’re now in our mid-20s and we’ve slightly more matured as people and songwriters.”
Think came out earlier this week. Why did you choose it as the first from the album?
“It’s a massive track. It’s a step in another direction and shows the progression we’ve made as a band on this second record.
“That tune sums it up. It’s ambitious. It’s an ambitious track. People will listen and think ‘What? This is The Magic Gang?’. It’s what we wanted to achieve.”
What’s the reaction been like to the single?
“It’s been great. A lot of fans like it but what I’ve noticed is a lot of people who may not have been into the first record have been super complimentary about this, whether it’s certain blogs or people tweeting about it.
“I’ve seen proper mods approving of it, which is really cool. We are always scared of alienating people but we’ve always had the pop sensibilities, it’s just done in a different flavour.”
Jack Kaye, Paeris Giles, Kristian Smith and Angus Taylor of The Magic Gang (Photo by Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage)
Can we expect more of this on the new album?
“The record is going to be 10 tracks. It’s not going to be one lane, there are a lot of different influences.
“The way we approached this record was we look at bands like The Clash and the LP London Calling. They are a guitar band, they use their instruments, but they’re not defined by a single genre on that record.
“There’s skiffle tracks, there’s disco tracks…that’s the way we took on this record.
“We dip into different influences and genres but it’s always going to sound like The Magic Gang because it’s us playing our instruments.
“There are soul-tinged tracks on there, essences of disco and post-punk, slightly more angular stuff. It makes it an interesting listen. Because we have three vocalists that sing lead on different tracks should make it a good listen as well.”
The single has been backed by the likes of Annie Mac and Jack Saunders on Radio 1 already. What’s it like to have that support?
“It’s an amazing feeling being a guitar band played on the biggest radio station in the country that’s usually dominated by chart tunes or big pop songs.
“To infiltrate that space and have three and a half minutes to show off what you’ve got is really cool.”
Were you inspired or influenced by anyone else going into the record?
“There’s influences from all over the shop. There are four songwriters in this band, it’s like a songwriting co-op.
“Influences from Northern Soul, I love a lot of disco, there’s classic disco references or tropes in there. We’ve been marinating in this mixed bag of tunes and it’s come out in any way it has.”
What did you think when you heard it back for the first time?
“It feels like a step up for us. We don’t want to disregard the first record because people like it and we like it, it was just different.
“The debut record is a compilation of your greatest hits up until that moment. Now it was for us to write an album, two sides, five tracks on each side, and to think how this would work as a listener.
“We listen to a lot of records in full. It’s good, it’s 37 minutes long, it’s great. It doesn’t need to be an hour long.”
You recorded it with Ben H Allen. What did you learn from that experience?
“It was great to work with Ben. He worked with bands that we adore, like Deerhunter and Animal Collective, the slightly more alternative side but he’d also worked a lot in pop.
“He worked with Gnarls Barkley on Crazy. He is that perfect in-between. A bit vibey and a bit poppy which is where we sit I think.
“He was a maximalist in the way he worked which is something we found interesting.
“We constantly self edit in our writing process because we’re thinking about different things. He threw loads at the wall. He was like ‘we don’t have to use this, we’re just trying it’, which was cool and I think we’ll take that on in the future.”
The video for think was shot at the Moth Club and shows off the band’s dane moves. That must have been a fun day of filming.
“It was a fun day and I don’t really like music videos! The director, Luke Farley, came up with the idea.
“It was mostly about celebrating dancing and the incredible feelings it evokes when you’re in that moment and you’ve gone out dancing, whether it’s a club or a night, or just dancing with your friends. It’s just a brilliant way to express yourself.
“There are Northern Soul twinges throughout that track and we got Lauren Fitzpatrick to play the lead. She won a Northern Soul dance championship and she’s an incredible dancer.
“We wanted nods to that era because it was incredible music to dance to, and was one of the first times that masculinity was challenged in the way of how flamboyant the dances were.
“It was men fully dancing, jumping up and doing the splits and challenging those ideas of expressing your masculinity. We’ll probably release a couple of tunes before the record over the next few months.”
Gus Taylor of The Magic Gang performs on stage at Scala (Photo by Burak Cingi/Redferns)
What can fans expect from the new album?
“Surprises, good songwriting, I think it’s a good, solid LP! There will be something on there for most people.”
Where would you say where you are at as a band now?
“It’s been a long ride. This kind of got out of hand. It was supposed to be a side project but it was the one everyone seemed to like so we made it our main project.
“Going back six or seven years it’s incredible where it’s taken us and what we’ve achieved.
“Right now it’s a funny period because it’s our second record, you worry do people still care. We’re going to find that out in the next couple of months. It’s a funny time, you have to prove your worth at this point.”
You’re going to be playing a lot of festivals this summer including Truck. What does it mean to you to play at festivals like that?
“This will be our fifth time at Truck. It was one of the first festivals we ever went to. It was crazy.
“I will never forget those first times we went there, be it in front of 200 people or 1,000 people.
“We love playing there because the audience is predominantly young. Our fan base is a cool young fan base. For us we think it’s a really cool movement in youth culture.
“We feel so privileged to have anywhere from 15 to 25 years come to our show and go absolutely wild for 45 minutes – it’s exciting.”
You’re playing alongside the likes of Swim Deep and Blossoms and new artists like Lazarus Kane at Truck. Do you think it’s important for festivals like this to give new talent a chance to shine?
“Totally. They are brilliant places to show off, especially if you’re a new band, and road test your set.
“People are going to be there, by proxy, that are going to watch bands. You can stumble into a tent and discover an incredible new artist.
“I think it’s so important that these festivals like Truck give that chance to those smaller artists coming through.”
What does the rest of 2020 have in store for The Magic Gang?
“We have the Blossoms tour, we’re playing Annie Mac Presents with Do Nothing and Lazarus Kane. We will do a load of in stores in the week of release and hopefully we will do our own headline tour later on in the year.”
New single Think is out now. A date for their forthcoming album has yet to be confirmed.
The Magic Gang will perform at Truck Festival alongside headliners Catfish and the Bottlemen, Bombay Bicycle Club and The Kooks across the weekend of July 31-August 2.
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