From Strength to Strength

Interview with Adam Nutter from The Music

by Sean O'Neill

Back from the brink and more explosive than ever The Music return with superb new album ‘Strength In Numbers’. Taking time out from their firestorm tour lead guitarist Adam Nutter (the Peter Parker of the guitar hero world) talks to Liberation Frequency about overcoming the obstacles that nearly destroyed them and how The Music is quite literally his life.

You’re about to release your long awaited third album ‘ Strength In numbers’. How does the band feel about the album?

We feel very strongly about it you know what I mean? We feel very proud of what we’ve done. We think it’s the strongest record we’ve made. It’s the most developed. It’s a big sounding album. We couldn’t be happier with it really. You know it’s taken us a long time to get here. I think it’s a really good reflection of what we’ve been doing.

I understand that you were not completely happy with the second album Welcome to the North. Do you feel the four year gap between albums has given you the time and opportunity to produce the album that you really wanted?

Yeah definitely. Like you say we’ve had the time to think about what we want and create ideas and live with them for a while and change them how we want. I think it’s given us the ideal platform to create this album really.

Is there any message in the title of the album?

It’s kind of about unity really. The fact that we’ve come back together as a band again. You know we’ve overcome certain obstacles and in the sense that people should stick together and that’s basically how humans have advanced over the years. Working together always prevails. That’s what happened with us. That’s where the title comes from.

Can you give us some examples of the subjects that inspired the songs on it?

Our struggle really. Our struggle to get back to where we wanted to be. As well as the other world events while we were writing the record. The main one was battling our inner demons. Trying to make a record that we could believe in and that other people could believe in.

How did you choose the producers for the album?

We wanted to work with someone like Paul because we wanted to get away from the Americanised sound of the second album. Brendan O’Brien wasn’t really willing to embrace the group side of things. We wanted to make sure that we were working with people that would understand what we were trying to do and wouldn’t try and push us in a direction that we really didn’t want to go in.

You went through a murderously long two year tour for 'Welcome To The North' which we know pretty much exhausted the band. How do you feel now about being back on the road?

Feels great. Fresh and excited about doing it again. We’re playing new songs that every ones reacting brilliantly to. You know it’s a really exciting time to be in the band.

The Barfly was the start of the tour. What went through your mind before you went on stage?

A lot of nerves. We were very nervous all of us. In fact we were worried about how it was going to go. It was great when we started playing the first song and we got a really good reaction. It did so much for our confidence.

What steps will you take this time around to prevent you getting into the difficult place that you were in on the 'Welcome To The North tour'?

I think it’s just a case of us being strict about what we want. We’ll be strict about how much we tour. We wont tour past what we’re able to do physically and mentally. We want to focus on writing again so we wont have the massive periods between albums. We have to able to create.

Can you outline the writing process in the band?

It used to be all four of us. When we got back from the last tour and we got together it wasn’t going very well. Me and Robert starting writing songs together. We locked ourselves away in my bedroom studio for a year and a half. We started making music. Stuff that excited us again. That’s the writing process really, we work on songs in my studio. When we’re happy with it we take it down the studio and get the other lads involved and develop it.

What’s the most important thing for you about being in The Music?

Everything about it. It’s my life. All I’ve ever wanted to do is to create music. I really do live and breathe music. It means everything to me.

To listen to the band and find out about the new album and upcoming tour dates click here