SUPERGRASS are building their own studio in France to work on their fifth album.
The band, who recently culminated their UK greatest hits tour at the Carling Weekend: Reading And Leeds Festivals, plan to return to the studio next month.
“We’ve already found a well outside one of the barns, so we’ll make that into an echo chamber,” bassist Mickey Quinn told Billboard. “I like the idea of making your own sounds and not sounding like you’ve come out of any particular studio. You’re treading virgin territory.”
Fans of the band were treated to new tracks ‘Bullet’ and ‘Kiss Of Life’ with the release of greatest hits compilation ‘Supergrass Is Ten’. Quinn says that the trio wrote another 20 songs at the same time.
He revealed: “We wrote about another 20 songs, but they’re completely unfinished. I know there’s four really strong songs that are big contenders. There’s one that’s like a cross between Frank Zappa and something very heavy, like Hawkwind. It will probably end up sounding really dainty when we get it onto the record, but who knows.”
The band decided to build their own studio to try and recreate the “real rawness” the band have in pre-production. “We want to take the studio to our practice room and try to catch it that way,” Quinn said. “It’s kind of an experiment. If it goes well, we’re in trouble. But it’s worth taking a risk.
“Our management is itching for us to have it (new album) by the New Year, but we’ll see how it goes,” he continued. “I am fully prepared to fight tooth and nail until we’ve got an album we’re happy with. Whether that takes a year, six months or three months, I’d rather fight it out and make sure we’ve got something we really like.”
The group are will kick off their American tour on September 28. . “We aren’t just churning out how it is on the record,” said Quinn. “We’ve put an acoustic slot in the middle of the set, which is really interesting. We’re doing [the breakthrough 1994 single] ‘Caught by the Fuzz’ on acoustic, which sounds quite strange, but actually stands up really well as an acoustic song. It’s like looking back with ten years wisdom behind you.”
However, fans are told not to expect the new material to make it into the set. “The rest is in such a raw state,” he offers. “I don’t even know if we’ve sorted out the vocal melodies. Right now, they’re pretty instrumental. They’re far too loose to unleash on the public.”