Remember when you heard The Enemy for the first time? A young band, full of power and disgust at modern society set to raw, energetic punk. Now open your eyes and bring yourself nine years into the future, to 2015. The Enemy have changed, dramatically. They’re still three lads from the Midlands. They’ve not only changed their hair and their style but this record, It’s Automatic, sees a huge change in sound.
‘I’ve been listening to a lot of soundtracks and I just wanted to know what The Enemy would sound like with some really polished production’ says their frontman, Tom Clarke. ‘Really, it all stemmed from Andy (bass player in The Enemy) doing a lot of DJ sets in his spare time. He bemoaned the fact he couldn’t slot The Enemy into any of his sets because it was far too abrasive. I’m hoping this record changes that. I want people to get in their cars, crank it up to eleven and not have their ears bleed.’
The Enemy are no longer a one-trick pony. Their first album and arguably their biggest commercial success ‘We’ll Live and Die in These Towns’, was full of ‘naivety and energy’ and vastly contrasts this record. The fifth track especially isn’t what you’d expect from the Coventry based band.
‘Yeah I love that song.’ ‘Everybody Needs Someone’s’ pillar that pulls the song together is an emotional violin that could rival the greatest orchestra. ‘Can you believe that’s played by one girl? Hannah came into the studio and she worked out how to play it as we wrote. It’s unbelievable. I was a violin player as kid and I was overwhelmed by her talent’
The artistic beauty of Hannah’s strings may be the obvious diamond of ‘Everybody Needs Someone’ but there’s an unlikely gem hidden underneath it all. When picked apart, the bottom of this treasure hides a small but shocking gem. There’s a synth keyboard that lazily but cleverly drives the song along ‘It’s based on an All Saints track! You’d never have sat around going, ‘I wonder when they’re going to use some 90’s Canadian Pop group because that’s where I want to see them go’ but it works.’ Shockingly, Tom denies he’ll sample S Club on ‘Enemy Album 5’
It’s not only the fifth track that has seen the Enemy take a few steps away from the old, and then powering forward with the new. Tom has become more lyrically aware and ‘It’s Automatic’ is extremely personal, revealing and reflective. It certainly isn’t the balls-out, simplistic punk The Enemy fired onto the scene with.
‘To the Waterfall’ sums up the change neatly. A song that sounds religious, that emanates Tom’s willingness for the band to rise from behind the punk stone for an electronic rebirth. ‘For us, it’s an evolution, a continuation and a beginning. The third album drew a line under that triplet of records. Now we’re coming back fighting with everything fresh. I suppose if you’re a marketing head or someone from the label, they’d call it a rebrand!’
A rebrand is a huge overhaul. The band has taken the challenge on and that has allowed them to begin writing Chapter 2 of The Enemy biography. ‘We’ve come back with fresh new look and new ideas. The media will think it’s very ‘indie’ and contrived just because we’ve swept our hair back but it really isn’t. Diehard fans will see how we’ve evolved and love it. People who disliked us before will be shocked about our adaption and love it too.’
This ‘rebrand’ is similar to one of Tom’s favourite bands. ‘Look at The Who! They played ‘My Generation’ and everyone loved it, then Townshend did a chameleon-esque change and released ‘Eminence Front’ and some were like ‘I don’t get this, I’ll just keep listening to ‘Can’t Explain’’, then there were people like me (and this interviewer) who think ‘Eminence Front’ is a fucking brilliant piece of music. You don’t even realise it’s The Who on first listen!’
The closing track on the record probably represents the Townshend adaptability that Tom talks about in the rebrand. ‘What’s A Boy to Do’ will appeal to old Enemy fans, new Enemy fans, the artistic and the broken,The track, ‘about a messy breakup,’ sounds much like Oasis’ 2008 hit ‘I’m Outta’ Time’ and much like that mournful track, uses a piece of speech dubbed over the closing minutes. ‘We’ve tried putting speech over tracks before but we’ve never quite made it work. We thought we’d revisit it and Darren came up to us with this.’ The ‘this’ that engineer Darren presented to Tom, Andy and Liam was a section from Charlie Chaplin’s legendary film career.
‘We went through tonnes of famous speeches and got shown ‘The Great Dictator.’ I was instantly hooked. It speaks of people, communities and is a glaring look at humanity and its nature. It may be from the 1940’s, but it could easily be from yesterday. It started as a search for something to compliment a rip-roaring finish full of slide guitars.’ These slide guitars on stage will sound extraordinary and mind blowing, a moment that can whisk your mind away on a sonispheric cloud.
Stories and background of previous Enemy tracks have been poetically and humorously scathing about society whilst opening up the world of the working class to the musical sphere. With ‘It’s Automatic,’ Tom has closed the book on others and opened up himself, laying himself bare. Conveniently, sixth track ‘Melody’ showcases Tom’s more melodic side. ‘We’ve actually recorded that track many times over the years and never nailed it until this time. It’s my favourite track on the record, probably because I’m so closely connected to its meaning.’
So, maybe this adaption isn’t as sudden as it seems. Lyrics for ‘Melody’ and other main components for other tracks have been in the pipeline for at least 5 years. But isn’t it a bit late for this change? Should the Enemy have attempted this record some time ago? Does Tom, 29 year old, quiff clad and reflective, regret anything that the 21 year old, long haired Enemy had released previously?
‘I’m proud of those records and I don’t regret anything we’ve done. We had to make those records to get where we are now. The first record was where we were when we burst onto the scene and the third was straight out guitars. I feel that I’m always going to be over-critical when an album is released to the public but for me, this record is brilliant and speaks where my heads at right now. Myself and Andy were just bored of doing the straight forward indie thing.’
That boredom was nearly the death of The Enemy, the death of youth, angry young men singing about unemployment, the working class and recession. ‘It was at a festival in Scotland. It was beautiful, but for me, I was nervous that it would be our last performance as a group. I genuinely thought Andy and Liam were loving what we were doing and I was alone worrying about the band becoming stagnant. I was surprised to find we all wanted and all felt like we needed to leave our old sound behind. We weren’t listening to that sort of aggressive music anymore, we’ve grown up and so has the band.’
But how will the lads recreate this broader, more engaging sound live on stage? A three piece band can play punk rock with raw power but how will The Enemy slot angry ‘Away From Here’ alongside title track and lead single ‘Automatic’?
‘We’re starting from a clean slate really. Fan’s needn’t worry that we’ll drop the anthems, but expect a major reworking of everything. The whole show will sound bigger and bolder and the light show will be brighter and better. We’re aiming to move away from a simplistic rock show to a proper live music experience.
So if you’re an Enemy fan you’ll go ‘Wow, they’ve stepped up their game’ and if you’re new, you’ll go ‘Wow, these lads are mega.’’
That ‘clean slate’ was definitely needed. The Enemy have regularly been pigeonholed into indie. A vastly underrated band limited by a media system that only understands its inner circle. Tom has never got on with the media and recent personal attacks have only heightened his hatred for his London-centric critics.
‘People definitely put us into a ‘working class rock band category’ when we arrived and I don’t think they understood the message of our first record. Journalists in the capital were never going to get it and I wouldn’t have expected them too. They were journalists having a whale of a time in Hoxton pretending to be poor, whilst people in Coventry were losing jobs and watching their high streets collapse. Coventry is still struggling.’
1 in 5 people in Coventry are using food banks under a Conservative government who seemingly ignores the fact. This is the grim fact of the matter, but Coventry still has much to excite. Coventry is in the running to be City of Culture 2021 and Tom has his own project in the area. ‘Yeah, I’m opening a venue in the area. It’ll be entirely independent, we’ll aim to give unsigned bands opportunities like me and my mates had previously and it’ll give Coventry a much needed boost. It’s great to give back to a city that’s given so much to me.’
As much as Tom loves Coventry, he’s a Birmingham boy at heart.
‘I grew up in Castle Bromwich, which if you’re a proper Brummie you’ll say that’s Solihull. It was B36, so it’ll do for me. I’ve lived in Coventry now, nearly as long as I’ve lived in Birmingham and I sort of feel like some kind of dual- nationality, if you know what I mean.
But I’ve always loved Brum. If you bump into someone from Birmingham, anywhere in the world, you can bet you always have a good chat with them. There’s no bullshit with a Brummie. It’s what you see, is what you get. There are no frills, nonsense or egos. It’s just honest and that’s why I love it.’
So, Castle Bromwich Clarke and The Enemy really are going through an exciting time. ‘It’s Automatic’ is out on October 9th, the supporting nationwide tour starts November 13th and Tom’s continuing work with unsigned groups and his own venue. But what is next for Tom, Liam and Andy as three lads going into their thirties?
‘We’ve already started writing the fifth record! Normally we’d go ‘fucking hell that was exhausting, let’s have a break.’ But the momentum is up and we’re going to keep going. The last tracks to be made were ‘Some Things’ and ‘Melody.’ So that’s where we’ll pick up from with the fifth album. I’m not saying that’s where the album will be, but that’s our starting point.’
Dan Shorthouse
The Enemy’s fourth album ‘It’s Automatic’ is out on 9th October and the band plays The Institute, Digbeth, Birmingham on 18th November.
