London-based ‘Anti-Music Collective’ Moderate Rebels recently released single Beyond Hidden Words,, from their just-completed second album, due out in November on Everyday Life Recordings.
Moderate Rebels follow their debut album The Sound Of Security and Proxy EP, both released in 2017.
Moderate Rebels play Tooting Tram & Social London on Sat 11th August and will have more shows and a UK tour in the run-up to their new album in November ’18. Check out Beyond Hidden Words below!
We caught up with the duo as they talked about their latest release and more!
So how has the release of Beyond Hidden Words gone down with fans so far?
We’re very pleased that people have listened and enjoyed it, that was one of the things that we thought we could feel in the song… a feel-good sense of winning optimism and hope against adversity. People joining together to improve situations they are not satisfied with… we wouldn’t claim to know for sure, but that could possibly be the whole point of the project.
Can you tell us something about the single no one else knows?
The drummer on it has never played any drums on any recording ever before… we wanted a beginners mind on it to see what could happen.
How is this different from the tracks on The Sound of Security?
Good question. One of the things that perhaps was learned by us making the first album, was that songs seem to work best with little to no thought about them, not intending anything helps the music feel natural. And we’ve become more comfortable with that as we go on, hopefully making the music more and more natural. We think as little as possible about Moderate Rebels songs… they appear and then evolve almost by themselves. The truth is that this new album was a bit of a surprise to us as the songs and ideas came together, and before we knew it we had a second album to final mix. There’s no intention or thought in Moderate Rebels.
Can you tell us anything about your upcoming album?
Everyone that’s heard it so far says it’s feels like a continuation of the direction of the first album but with stronger songs and also seems more coherent. Now we’ve no real idea if that’s objectively true or not… but that would be good.
If you could work with any band on a new song, who would it be and why?
Arctic Monkeys actually, I just think they’ve made their best album ever, and that’s amazing on your 6th album or whatever it is. Clearly not afraid to take risks that can have serious consequences. “Breaking news, they take the truth and make it fluid”… that’s great lyrics.
How pumped are you for your upcoming show in London?
We always enjoy playing live, as there is normally a few points in an MR gig where we genuinely don’t know what’s going to happen… that’s makes a real buzz for us, and hopefully for the audience too. Anything to break out of an auto pilot slick commercial performance of tight (and empty) songs. We’re not in this to be a professional corporate festival act, no harm and all that, but that’s not we are about.
What was the first ever gig you went to?
I saw some local bands in a chapel hall at 14, some of which were pretty awful, but quite funny, and one three piece band got the plug pulled on them. Alongside that, was a Stone Roses tribute band… good live players, and I knew even then that the band who got kicked off were just trying much harder to do something that was realer to them, and that was more worthwhile to me than pretending to be in an already big band. Every gig is educational if you can observe it , feel it and reflect on it, I think.
Will you be touring at all this year?
Yes, we’ve got some one off London gigs coming from now until end of Nov, when we plan on doing a short UK tour around the new album. We’ve not been able to play many shows outside London before, so really looking forward to that.