Manchester Orchestra Interview by Sophie Polak

Manchester Orchestra released their fourth album ‘Cope’ back in April. We caught up with Andy Hull who started the band almost a decade ago from his bedroom to talk about touring, writing albums and the future.

Cope is your fourth album; how does it compare in your minds to your previous three? I feel like it’s louder, faster, and more consistent than any album we’ve made before. It turned out exactly how we had hoped it would, which can be a very rare thing.

Does it get any easier or harder with every album you write? It gets harder to dig deep and find what is motivating you. You want to make something that is different and better than what you have done before and that takes a lot of time and thought.

Your UK tour was a sell out success and you are coming back in the autumn, what is the best thing about touring? The connection with the fans is the most rewarding part. Seeing that people love this thing that you’ve created is an unbelievable feeling. I am fortunate to really love all of my band mates so spending time with them is the icing on the cake.

Talking of touring, what are your favourite tracks to perform live? It really depends. Songs like Cope and Pride are really heavy and feel wonderful to play but softer and more intimate songs like Colly Strings or Simple Math are really rewarding as well.

Any funny stories you can share from your time as a band? More than I could ever possibly share. We used to play dice to determine who would be the king of the day.

Your name ‘Manchester Orchestra’ was influenced by the UK city and the talent it produced such as The Smiths and Morrissey, who else are you influenced by? Heavily influenced by Built to Spill, Black Sabbath, Nick Drake, and many others.

There have been a lot of changes to your band set-up, would you say this has changed your music? It has changed and stretched our abilities but it hasn’t affected the drive and mission behind the band. We have just gotten better as the years have gone on due to playing so many shows and being blessed with replacement players that are so good that they have helped redefine our abilities.

The video to your latest single ‘Top Notch’ was directed by John Minton and it has been described as a piece of art. It is quite scary in some parts! How did you get the idea for the video? We wanted it to be like a found time capsule. Maybe somebody dug it up and put it in their VCR and found this weird artifact.

What’s next for Manchester Orchestra?
We are going to start working on our follow up to Cope early next year.

Thanks Andy, good luck with everything!

Live dates

September

Fri 26th – Portsmouth Pyramids
Sun 28th – Norwich Waterfront
Mon 29th – Nottingham Rock City

October

Wed 1st – Manchester Ritz
Thu 2nd – Glasgow O2 ABC
Fri 3rd – Newcastle O2 Academy
Sat 4th – Leeds Met University
Mon 6th – Cardiff University (Solus)
Tue 7th – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire

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