‚Everything is involved with music, every day, every hour.‘ (Ralph Pelleymounter)

Welcome to Hamburg.

Ralph: It’s lovely to be back, we really like Hamburg. We had some really good times here.

You also have friends here.

Ralph: Yeah, sort of. They become friends. There’s a group of people that let us crash on our first time here because we couldn’t effort any hotels and then they kind of became friends. And we are seeing them tonight even though we’re not necessarily gonna stay over there. We’re very classy these days using hotel rooms. One of these friends did the video for ‘Gold‘ of the EP.

To be honest we were quite shocked when we saw pictures of you skiing. Are you crazy to risk broken bones in the middle of a tour?

Ralph: Well, I did jam my shoulder so it has been not so great ‚cause it was a bit painful. But it was worth it. It was good fun.

Grant: It was a great day.

Haven’t you learned anything from Taffel’s broken hand on the last tour (For more information, read the concert review of 2014)?

Grant: We were considering locking him up. The general rule is: Just not for Taffel.

You had some changes in your band. Ian and Jon left the band 2013 and now Josh quit, too. Was it important for you and him to wait till the album is finished? Was he still a big part of it?

Ralph: It was an amicable sort of split; we had no influence on the decision, if you know what I mean? It was more like he one day said ‘Look…’ cause he wanted to settle roots as we were traveling so much. It wasn’t really planned in any way. He played the bass when the album recordings began, so he still was part of the process.

So it was only his choice and one day he came and said he’d like to leave?

Ralph: Yeah.

Your album sounds happier than the first one. More optimistic. Is this something that you wanted to do when you wrote it or did the newest members give an optimistic way into it?

Ralph turns to Grant: Did you give an optimistic way into it?

Grant: I’m a really pessimistic person to be honest (laughs).

Ralph: You know after the first album that you gonna be playing new songs for quite a long time so it was a considered amount of having a balanced line of shades. I think with the first album that it was slightly unfairly painted as pessimistic because I think it has more a sense of humour thing than it’s often seen because it’s a dark sense of humour. And with this one I still think it has a sense of humour but it’s painting with a slightly brighter colour.

You released the EP “Exit, Pursued By A Bear” not long before your new album. Why did you separate those two creations? Was the atmosphere of the EP songs too dark to fit the album?

Ralph: I think there are quite a few different reasons why things happened the way they happened. One of them was, for that first album, it got released by ourselves, then re-released by the label, then released in America. So it dragged out for quite a long time really, so for the fans who had been there from the start it was important for us to have something new for them. It wasn’t a hard release with a lot of press but we just did it more for the fans because for them who bought the debut first it has been two years. But also the EP has got one half firmly in the first record and one half in the second one.

Grant: It’s a sort of transitional thing.

You are not a bunch of people who met in school and are playing together for years -as we mentioned before- but you had a few changes within the band. Do you still feel like a group or are you five individual musicians who work on the project To Kill A King?

Ralph: We spend so much time together being on the road that we became a group. Obviously with Pete, we are just getting to know him but already I feel that he is gently with people which is nice. Ben and me know each other for years, Grant and Taffel separately know each other for years but then together we have been in each others pockets for one year and a half where we travelled America and were very close. I think it’s very good, there is a nice balance in the group at the moment and that is quite important. We’re a group but it’s also there is a sense of knowing that it’s a musical group which comes first and that means that there is less issues of people stepping on each other.

That’s the impression that we have when watching you live. You are so into this music that it brings you all together. When you’re on stage looking at each other it seems like ‚Yes, this is so great.‘ So maybe music helps to make you feel like a group!?

Grant: Yeah, that might have been true at the start actually, when me and Taffel were joining. You’re gonna form a relationship very quickly with people that you are doing this with every night. But yeah, from that point on we became friends.

I think that you can see this friendship in the podcast you’re doing. Who came up with the idea? Do you like it or do you regret it already?

Ralph: No, I don’t think we regret it. It was Ben’s idea, he came up with it. We were searching for a new thing to do like Ralph’s Balcony just to keep the communication going. I enjoy doing it but it’s more time consuming than we thought it would be. On tour we thought we would have more time to do it but you don’t really have that much free time on tour. Grant: No, it’s quite surprising. Ralph: And they take maybe one and a half hour to do so finding that time can be tough but they are fun. And there is a nice response from the fans, I think they enjoy hearing a little bit more about the process and stuff.

It’s also interesting that you talk about things, fans would never know. And it’s so funny.

Grant: Yeah, we had a good laugh over Taffel reading out the tour dates with the music of Lord Of The Rings in the background.

In this podcast we could also listen to the first demos of the new songs. Is writing music a natural process that just flows or do you feel a certain pressure that you have to be creative because your management/fans/band members expect new material from you?

Ralph turns to Grant again: Are you expecting new material now?

Grant: Well, I’ve been waiting for ages (laughs).

Ralph: I feel like this album has just come out so I’m hoping they are not expecting new material right now. One thing I do like about the difference between the first and the second album is that – because there was some time – it did allow our sound to evolve and change and I do reckon that it’s gonna be the same for our third album as well. I do like music and bands that do move forward and try to do new things but I don’t know yet how it’s gonna be because my head is very much still in the second album so I think if I was to write a new set of songs now it would be kind of repeating the second album so I think it’s gonna allow us to have a little bit of space and time to tour this to see what works and what doesn’t and then we’ll move on to the next thing.

Please don’t blame me now, I’m not putting pressure onto you.

Ralph: No, it’s fine. But there is a set of new songs that didn’t make it onto the album which I would like to record at some point. Maybe as a bonus thing or something like that. It’s about four or five songs which I think are very solid but we wanted to keep the album short and snappy and we thought they wouldn’t fit into the album.

Yeah, you could do a new EP.

Ralph: Yeah, something like that.

Our blog is called “Herzsynapsen” which is “heart synapses” in English – a combination of how we love music with our “hearts” and how we live it with our “minds”. It’s one of the most important things in our lives. Is music also that important for you and how would you describe your passion to it?

Ralph: It’s a weird one with music for me because when I was younger it was very much how you described but now it’s just very hard to separate it at all from anything. Everything is involved with music, every day, every hour. I probably go to as many gigs as I did before if not more but maybe I’m less excited for it and it takes a special more to involve that feeling. But when it does, it’s amazing. It’s hard to separate music from day-to-day-life. I can’t imagine not having music in my life.

Grant: When you get to the point where you’re doing music every day, it has to become a lifestyle choice. Then it is more like a passion.

Ralph: But it also means to switch off sometimes. I just talked to producers about it and I know some people who don’t listen to music at all on holiday or in their free time, because it is clearing your ears. After that you can objectively look to your music and decide again whether it is good or not. Also, when you’re writing an album you start limiting what you are listening to as well because you are spending so much time listening to your own music. Now we’re coming out of that cycle. Now I’m getting back to listening to new people’s stuff.

Is it to not be influenced by other music?

Ralph: I don’t think that’s intentional, but the amount of time that you can spend physically listening to music is limited.

Grant: I’m definitely the kind of person who gets obsessed with all these things. Making music or listening to new stuff, coming up with notes. Now the album is out I can stop doing that (laughs).

You are also always surrounded by creative people and you do so much on your own like your merchandise has designs of a friend of yours, your artwork was made by Ben’s girlfriend, you are writing the music, Ben is producing it. It seems that everyone surrounding you is talented and creative. Is every person in Great Britain so talented or do you choose your friends by their talent?

Ralph: They are all very, very talented.

Grant: Everyone. Every single person.

Ralph: Whenever we want something to be done I just throw a stone out of my window and whoever it hits, I’m like: ‚Do some drawing!‘ No, but we really got some very talented and very generous friends and that is nice. When it comes to band members leaving and band members arriving it’s a funny thing because for a lot of people and the fans the band is the five of us, but it’s quite an extensive network what the band is and that’s why I think it’s strong enough that if one person leaves, it still continues. Because this network of people puts a lot of work to get us to where we are. We are just very lucky that we got good friends. Some people go for attractive friends, we go for talented friends. They are all ugly.

That fits perfectly to my next question: Some bands make music just ‘regarding the girls’ or ‘for fun’ but according to your lyrics it seems a lot deeper for you. Do you only see it in a kind of profound way or are some songs meant lighter as they may sound?

Ralph: Music has always been that thing that I loved and that helped me out in some way and I always regarded music or artists who were saying something. I also enjoy songs which are not about anything and I quite like some songs that are a bit silly or bizarre but the best ones are coming from a genuine place and are songs people can relate to – but not too obvious. But also I like to do a few jokes for example from our first record I still get a laugh from the line in ‘Cannibals With Cutlery’ where it says: ‚Alcohol’s a lubricant, surely you should use it to slowly fuck yourself‘. It’s a quite sad break-up song about talking to someone you normally open up to about everything but you can’t about this because it’s about the fact that you think you should go separate ways. So in amongst that I think it’s just a funny line. And then in ‘Grace At A Party’ there’s this line: ‘I’m dusting off my coat, I guess I must have fallen down.‘ and for me that is a comic image of someone at a party who just can’t remember that he was falling over. So I think there are a lot of lines that are humorous but maybe in a darker sense of humour.

Grant: In the choruses you go a darker way.

Short Questions:

Musical influences/idols?

Ralph: For me it’s always been Songwriters like Johnny Mitchel and Bob Dylan from that era and then Dirty Projectors and John Grant which I think are really good. Really solid Songwriters and then I also like people with really unique voices like Johnny Cash, Tom Waits or Janis Joplin.

Grant: For me early on when I was learning guitar Pink Floyd and Radiohead were the big changing bands for me. And then it’s bands like The National. The National is one of the best bands ever. (Ralph agrees). Their new album is fantastic.

There are songs that create emotional atmospheres like no other. Some make you cry, some make you laugh. What is the song that made you – as a man- cry? Which one gives you the best mood?

Ralph: I like that you say ‚as a man‘ (laughs).

Grant: It depends on how hung-over I am. Sometimes on tour when it’s time to get in the van.

Ralph: I don’t necessarily cry but there’s this opening line from the Rodriguez song ‘Cause’ where it says: ‚Cause I lost my job two weeks before Christmas.‘ which absolutely cuts me in. It’s an amazing line to a story that you wanna hear the end of but it’s also absolutely raging.

And the best mood?

Grant: If I wanna get pumped up and feel really great I would be listening to something like ‘I Want To Take You Higher’ by Sly & The Family Stone.

Ralph: ‘America’ from Team America (starts singing aggressively). You can’t sing that without smiling a little bit.

We are 90’s kids. What was better in the 90’s?

Ralph: I think of the 90’s…

Grant: There is this whole 90’s researching thing going on right now.

Ralph: The haircuts were shit. (Grant agrees), most of the music was terrible, even the guitar bands. (Grant at the same time: ‚It was terrible.‘) I was into a lot heavier stuff in the 90’s but the popular guitar bands – you listen to them and you’re like: ‚I don’t even know why they’re playing guitars so light. It might be a harp. Why are you tickling the guitar?‘ And there was this bloody rivalry between Blur and Oasis.

Grant: It was boring.

Ralph: Yeah, it was boring. I don’t think anything was. Food certainly was worse, food got so much better.

Grant: Air pollution was better because it was less.

Ralph: Show me some statistics about that!

Grant: I will look them up.

Ralph: Okay, we’re gonna say air pollution – once I see his report.

Grant: I’ll get working (laughs).

So everything was worse!?

Ralph: Everything was worse. I love how we live now, it’s amazing. Like the access to music is crazy. Grant: I got an air play on my phone that I can listen to everything in the world – it’s amazing.

On the other side, in the 90’s we had to record the music that we liked on our cassette player. So you appreciated more what you had.

Ralph: Yeah, but you got just so much more options. Basically you were listening to all the music your mates were listening to or what your parents owned or what was playing on the radio. And eventually, when I was about 15 or so, we got a CD burner and I used to go to the library and used to rent CD’s and got a collection that way ‚cause you physically couldn’t effort the music. That was the only way I could listen to music. And in that way I listened to bands I wouldn’t have touched ‚cause no one was listening to it. Because my friends used to listen to Echo & The Bunnymen and lot of David Bowie stuff. But the kids today, they got access to all and can listen to everything. Do you know the song by LCD Soundsystem – Losing My Edge?

Yes.

It’s just like that. We had to work really hard to get to music and the kids today, they just got it (laughs).

Festival you like to play someday?

Grant: Fuji Rock Festival. Because I want to go to Japan and see the mountain.

Ralph: That would be good. Glastonbury would be an appeal because we haven’t played it yet but I’d like to go there.

Now that you’re rich and famous, when can we expect the sequel of Ralph’s Balcony Sessions – now called Ralph’s Roofgarden Sessions maybe?

Ralph: (smiles) I moved into a smaller place so I don’t have a balcony anymore. I think I’ll return but maybe with something new, a new concept.

Best newcomer album?

Grant: Um, he is not a newcomer. I was to say Father John Misty but it’s the second album. Um, Sohn!! I listen to him all the time, his record is fantastic.

Ralph: I go with him too, I trust you. (Ralph has no idea.)

The chess figure is your symbol of To Kill A King. How good are you at playing chess?

Grant: So rubbish. I got smashed the other day.

Ralph: I used to think I was good so I could beat a lot of people when I was in school. And then at university I met this friend from Japan and he just thrashed me. But it was like we were playing completely different games: I was playing Street Fight 2 and he was on Tekken 5. It was like: ‚You can go sideways? How are you doing this?‘ He thrashed me three times in a row and then I gave up. But I’d like to get back into it but it’s tough ‚cause you need other people to play.

Grant: Yeah, and it is basically like going back to university to learn playing chess properly. I tried it and had a go for a bit but it completely threw me.

That’s the problem of these times. In the 90’s, more people could play chess.

Ralph: Is that true?

No. I don’t know.

Ralph: So, I’m expecting two reports: One is about the air pollution and one about how many people played chess.

You looked for accommodation on your last tours, now you seem to sleep in hotel rooms. Does the success already separate you from your fan base (Attention: Irony)?

Ralph: We are painted wrongly to say that it’s a massive change. One of the things is that the crew became bigger and I think we can’t ask our crew to sleep on people’s floors. We still do it quite a lot.

Grant: I don’t think there are distances at all. We still go out after the show to do photos and singings. It’s quite difficult to maintain a tour when you’re sleeping on people’s sofas and stuff. It’s getting exhausting for a whole tour.

Ralph: Two weeks on floors is the longest that you can do and then you need a hotel room to get a proper night of sleep.

Grant: ‚Cause you always end up drinking.

What do you like the most on German gigs?

Grant: Lovely German audiences.

Ralph: Yeah, they’ve been very supportive from the start.

Grant: The balloons in Munich were amazing. The pieces of paper in Wiesbaden with the chess piece on it have just been wonderful. And they were very welcoming for Pete with a big sheet that said: Welcome Pete.

Ralph: It’s a nice gesture. And it’s a way of communication. We’re talking to them over the podcast and they talk to us in other ways.

Grant: It makes it feel more personal than just going to a rock show.

Interview conducted by Maria & Susanne