24 September 2004
Glen Hansard is angry. Anger will
flicker occasionally in the course of his conversation. And anger seems
to have subsumed him in the studio. Burn The Maps, the fifth album from
The Frames, bristles with vitriol. On some tracks, Hansard doesn't so much
sing, as rage. He has never sounded this aggressive before. So just what
is eating him?
"For the first time in my life",
he says, "I can stand up and go 'I am Glen Hansard, I am in The Frames
and if you don't like us, it's not my f***ing problem'."
The Frames, as Hansard is only too
aware, excite powerful emotions. You either love or hate them - there's
no middle ground. So, despite the devotion that greets the band every time
they play, there are a lot of people who despise everything they do.
Hansard gets the butt of the jibes,
and although it still bothers him, he's learning to deal with it.
"Personally, I'm in a better place
than I've ever been", he says. "Once you recognise your demons you can
fight them". His demons, he suggests, were the twin prongs of lack of confidence
and an attempt to please everybody all the time.
"I'm 34 now, and there's a certain
point where you stand beside your art and go, 'F*** it - this is what I
want to say and this is how I feel'. I've the confidence to do that now.
Otherwise, you're sort of skirting around the issue".
He says the title of the new album
comes from a desire to cut the ties to the past and move on. "It's a bit
tiring when people ask me about The Commitments. (Hansard had a small role)
and the band's long struggle all the time," he says wearily.
The anger on Burn The Maps isn't
just directed at others, there's self-loathing there as well. Fake, for
instance, is about Hansard himself, stemming from a time where he doubted
his own ability. It is not about Damien Rice, he adds, in an attempt to
finally dispel the rumours about whom the fake might be. The pair had their
disagreements in the past but presumably that's been patched up as The
Frames supported Rice in the US earlier this year.
Last year The Frames had a No 1 album
with their patchy best of, Set List, and are playing far bigger venues
than before, but Damien Rice-like success has eluded them. Hansard says
he is not concerned with big sales. "The Frames stopped wanting to be U2
six years ago. Nobody is trying to go over there and become the biggest
band in the world anymore. There's none of that left in us. We make music.
We make songs. That's what we do".
Yet he wants to reach "the next level"
and he hopes the US label Anti, who've just signed The Frames for America,
can do that. "Anti have a very definite laid-out plan for when we release
our record in America - x, y and z will happen, and if it doesn't, our
relationship with them will go sour. But our contract with them is such
that if we're not happy, we'll walk".
The Frames have unhappy memories
from previous deals with major labels. They've been dropped twice and Hansard
is still angry about the way music execs interfere with the music. "We've
never got on with record companies. I don't know why it is. Maybe we are
difficult artists".
The Frames have been around for 14
years, although Hansard and violinist Colm MacConlomaire are the only original
members. Joe Doyle, who's been in the band for a few years, and Rob Bochnik
- a guitarist from Chicago - make up the quartet. There have been many
departures over the years and the reason has always been the same, according
to Hansard. "Money - it's always been the same and I don't blame them.
For the first ten years we were on the dole. We're better off now but most
of the money we make goes straight back into the band."
Hansard tells me off the record about
his financial situation and how he lives from week to week and it doesn't
sound like the sort of situation anyone in their mid-20s, let alone mid-30s
would want. Let's just say, The Frames won't be rolling up in limos any
time soon.
"For a long time I was hurt by people
leaving", he says, "but being in a band takes up all your time. Being in
a band is like being a fireman. You're constantly on call. The bell rings
and no matter where you are, you're off to do a gig or whatever. When you're
in a band, you take every single offer you get because you need it."
Belfast Telegraph
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