For this album we changed our approach in quite a few ways. It really was a
conscious thing as we’d made albums 2 and 3 in the same way – not demoing songs
particularly and recording them block by block. We wanted to freshen things up a
bit, as a bit change is often good – unless it involves electing a racist
misogynistic grotbag or voting to leave the EU…

Mickey in particular wanted to track more than one instrument together and this
formed the basis of most of the tracks – me and Nathan would play the drums and
either bass or guitar together. It ended up providing great energy on most of
the songs – like Hunting.

The other main change is that we worked from a vast pool of songs – normally
songs would get discounted very quickly in the process and we would quickly
settle upon 12-14 that would make up the bulk of the album, if an accidental one
got written along the way then that was good but not really part of the plan.
This time round we had about 30 songs, and instead of choosing the album
straight away we demoed them all and then sat with them for about 6 weeks before
deciding which ones to work on – I was running quite a bit at the time and was
listening to them that way, thinking about tempos and different production
ideas.

Just towards the end of the demoing Mickey was like – what about that Hunting
song… and for possibly the first time ever I thought he was a bit crazy… We had
written this song in about 5 minutes a couple of weeks earlier and it was from
the point of view of a character. He basically loved fox hunting but he had to
stop when the ban came in. After this he worked out that effectively politics
was the same thing – a hegemonic system in which you can play out power
fantasies while persecuting a creature that you think is worthless vermin. Plus
the effects on them, however deliciously brutal, aren’t of consequence because
the confines of the game are so rigorous they can’t do anything about it anyway.
But it was quite a jokey song for us so I had kind of forgotten about it.

Mickey doesn’t really listen to lyrics (I know!!! He gets put off Bob Dylan by
an out of tune guitar… anyway…) but he loved it because it was really hooky
(Mickey loves a hook like) and it had stuck in his head. So he wanted to demo
it. Then he wanted to record it. Then he wanted it on the album.

Now from playing gigs in lecture theatres, to burying ourselves in the sand
(Mickey actually wanted hire a JCB and bury us in a field for the Common Things
video but we just said no), to sending individual emails to 2000 people over
Christmas, Mickey is a hard person to deny – so with Hunting it was inevitable
it was going on.

Our only problem was the length really as the demo was 1:28 long – but we put
off making it longer until it was pretty much finished. For a long time the song
went as far as the “ah oh oh oh oh oh” high vocal section, and then stopped with
a chorus: and this is how we recorded it with Nathan. We recorded the bass and
vocals but it was only when I was putting together the backing vocals that I
added the rising “never get caught, never get caught” coming out of the
screaming vocal section – this gave Mickey an idea so we just got Nathan to add
a few bars of drums and cut the vocal parts up. I changed the chord progression
by only playing black keys on the piano and we had our drop section….

I really like the energy of this song and the really unexpected quiet section –
it was great that we had enough confidence in the process just leave it for a
while and let the song settled than force an answer from it in a couple of days.

It’s also nice to write a song about something I care about without it being an
angry rant – although at the minute it is quite hard to laugh about the
frightening situation our world is heading towards because even though it
provides bizarre and unbelievable material for satire, it is also incredibly
dangerous. We ARE part of a hegemony, beholden to the few, with people (like
David Cameron) playing games with our futures as a finale to some pathetic
cockfight which started in public school. And as for Donald Trump……

I’ll never get caught hunting

I do it on a Sunday

Go out in the west end

I do it with my best friends

It feels so fucking good

To be misunderstood

So even when confronted

I’ll never get caught hunting

 

Last night we found a child

He came from E9

Dressed him up as a fox

Took off his hope and socks

We made him look a fool

Burnt A&E and closed his school

Got bored so privatised the homeless

 

I do it to myself

It’s for the common good

I live in the Ladbroke Grove

But I think it’s Hollywood

I do the same each time

That you let me

You’re just a part of

My hegemony

 

I’ll never get caught hunting

I do it on a Sunday

Go out in the middle of the west end

I do it with my best friends

It feels so fucking good

To be misunderstood

So even when confronted

I’ll never get caught hunting

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