Issue 72 / November 2016

Hooton Tennis Club
7
Words: Bethany Garrett / @_bethanygarrett
Photogrpahy: Nata Moraru
Ah that hard, old, oft-fabled nut in the music
biz that is the tricky second album. With the
wonderfully organic, character-driven, colourful
debut that was 2015’s Highest Point In Cliff Town neatly
tucked away in their back jeans pockets, how would
the four best mates collectively known on these shores
as HOOTON TENNIS CLUB cast themselves adrift on the
tide and sail into the sunset with their second offering?
With their trademark ease, lack of pretence and knack
for melody, some added pop sensibilities and the help
of one Edwyn Collins, it would appear, after they washed
up in his Clashnarrow studio at (almost!) the highest
point in Scot-Town, Helmsdale.
“I think there was enough space in-between writing
this one, wasn’t there? Not to be confident, but to be like,
‘Alright, this a new thing, let’s do this’,” James (Guitars,
Vocals) offers when I rendezvous with the four-piece in
Ye Cracke’s leafy beer garden to talk through their second
album, Big Box Of Chocolates. Wary of the tendency of
some artists to take a complete left turn at Avenue Album
Two but equally wise to the perils of making “Highest
Point in Cliff Town squared”, the Heavenly-signed group
have struck a balance between being themselves and
adding a good, healthy dollop of pop to proceedings.
“There was a big effort to be more pop… Poppy as in
out of the sludge of our first album,” James reassures.
Pop here is no dirty word; it entails a world of cleverlycrafted
Beatles references, infectious melodies and
swinging, sophisticated 60s go-go guitars à la Jacques
Dutronc. “Yeah, pop as in classic 60s pop – I think it was,
like, a backlash from sort of being labelled a ‘slacker
band’, which I don’t think we ever really thought we
were,” Cal (Bass) chimes in before Ryan (Vocals, Guitars)
adds: “We all just thought, ‘We’re not like that; we’re
gonna show them!’ We had the idea in our heads that we
were gonna be smart and wear suits and work on it like
it was a proper job. Recently, the hashtag is that we’re
#GoingPro.” Behind the jokes, however, there does lie
a genuine sense of frustration in being tarnished with
the ‘slacker’ brush, as Harry (Drums) expresses: “We try
really hard to play our instruments and record songs
and everyone says, ‘Oh, it’s slack’ – [but] it’s just that we
can’t play! We try really hard; we’re just not that good.”
Don’t let this modesty or their flannel shirts and beatup
trainers fool you, mind. With BBOC, Hooton have
captured some of that 60s pop aesthetic without losing
their trademark fuzz and thoughtful lyricism. When
I observe that the record does sound very Beatles-y
indeed, Cal muses: “I wonder how that happened… I
wasn’t listening to The Beatles for, like, six months,”
before Ryan taunts his bandmate: “Not this story – not
at John Lennon’s favourite pub, Cal! Basically, Cal only
listened to Abbey Road for six months.”
Ah, so is that why the album sounds like it’s been
produced by George Martin – full of texture, imagination
and little quirks? “Yeah, that’s Edwyn’s great gear as
well, isn’t it? He’s probably got stuff that was actually
used by The Beatles; he bought stuff from Abbey Road,”
Harry offers. Gifted with a grotto of retro and analogue
gear – music geeks and freaks and Orange Juice/Edwyn
Collins superfans everywhere, brace yourselves – they
also made use of the BM fuzz pedal from A Girl Like You
and the Mu-Tron pedal from Rip It Up. And, between the
nitty gritty of recording when they could snatch half an
hour, they would devise hip hop alter egos on Edwyn’s
Kaossilator, a Gameboy-like four-track recorder. Here’s
hoping they get issued as B-sides.
As well as being so generous with his “Buckingham
Palace of music recording”, the band cite Edwyn’s ear for
melody and hook, his speed of working and his ability
to minimalise arrangements as integral to the process
of making the album. “There were a lot of times where
he’d just press the intercom button and he’d sing the
melody to someone and say, ‘No, it needs to be like this!
No, like this! No!’ And you’d do the melody again.” The
designated “tastemaster”, he would be the one to have
the final say on each take, keeping everything moving
along swiftly, and preventing the band from becoming
too “dithery”, during their two-week recording window:
“That was also what was so good about working with
Edwyn – we’d do a take and he’d be like, ‘Great lads,
great lads, let’s move on – what’s next?’ Whereas if it
was down to us we’d be painstakingly going over it.”
Collins would, though, follow this up with a booming
“and one more time for Jesus!” and have them play it
again, just in case. Collins’ catchphrase was of such
significance that they came very close to christening the
album with it, but were wary of its varied connotations
and it feeding into their rep as ironic, sonic slackers;
instead, you’ll find it etched into the sweet, shiny black
platter on the run-out groove of the vinyl release. Quite
literally making a mark on the album, Hooton assure me
that, “If you listen on some of the tracks, you can hear
Edwyn at the end going, ‘Wahey, that’s the one; it’s great
lads!’, dead quiet because he’d leave the tannoy on and
the engineer would be like, ‘Edwyn, you’ve just spilled
into the track!’ He still had that enthusiasm for some
songs that took 20 takes.”
The band absolutely glow with adoration and
appreciation as they assimilate their experience of
recording there. To hear them describe the studio itself,
perched overlooking the Moray Firth is a marvel: “His
house is at the bottom of the hill, and then you walk
these 50 steps or so up this hill and there’s the studio
and the artist accommodation that he’s built with it, and
then behind is a shed, a big, huge outhouse, which is
his equipment base.” Ryan likens it to Tracy Island from
Thunderbirds, while James reinforces that, “Basically, the
whole strip from the sea up into the mountain, he owns.”
An immersive experience, when things were getting
a bit cabin fever, Grace, Edwyn’s wife and Helmsdale’s
resident angel, would take them on trips out in the
community minibus that she drives for residents of
the village. Cal recalls: “There’s a documentary about
Edwyn, The Possibilities Are Endless, and you know
where he goes down the big steps – Whaligoe Steps –
she took us there, and it was just like my life-affirming
moment; it was like looking around like, ‘Why am I here?
What’s going on? Why do I deserve to be doing this right
now?’.” Escorted down the steps by “Davey, the local
eccentric and master of the steps”, a friend of Grace and
Edwyn’s who invited the band to his garden and had
them attempt to ride a bike with backwards handlebars
successfully for 50 quid (“You’d steer right and it goes
left – he doesn’t tell you that the handlebars are the
wrong way round – and everyone falls over”), perhaps
the experience mirrors the profundity and playfulness
to be found in the album itself.
Growling, existential opener Growing Concerns and
gorgeous, emphatic closer Big Box Of Chocolates are
both very much on the profound end of this spectrum,
questioning the value of making art – although the
album perhaps answers this for itself. Bootcut Jimmy The
G, sounding like a character who’s just strutted straight
out of The Beatles’ Get Back (read: Loretta’s ‘high-heel
shoes and low-neck sweater’), is definitely on the silly
side – you won’t be able to un-hear the Lennon and
McCartney in James and Ryan’s vocals either, nor on the
go-go groovy of Statue Of The Greatest Woman I Know.
The album is awash with Big Star guitars and harmonies
(with a Mersey and Deeside twinge as opposed to
Memphis and the Mississippi) and Jonathan Richman
realism, wit and melody.
Discussing some of their loopy and lovely lyrics,
James explains that, “Usually they’re something that
springs to the top of your head and you think, ‘Oh, that
could be funny to explore’ or, like, a certain character
or a certain time or something you’ve experienced. So
most of the songs are about 30% non-fiction,” before
Ryan finishes his sentence for him, “and then you make
a story around it.”
With a high non-fiction content, the infectiously
playful Lauren, I’m In Love! is an ode to 6Music DJ Lauren
Laverne, so it’s only fitting that it has a melody that’ll roll
straight off the radio, burrow into your brain and make a
little nest next to your pineal gland – a faux serotonin fix
to keep you happy, warm and full-on fuzzed-up through
winter. Sit Like Ravi and O, Man Won’t You Melt Me are
deeply heartfelt and cosmonaughty, and Meet Me At The
Molly Bench and the familiar recent single Katy-Anne
Bellis are heliotropic wonders, shimmering jingly-jangly
golden odes that’ll have you forever leaning towards
the sunny side of things. Bad Dream (Breakdown
On St George’s Mount) sounds like Blur at their best,
Frostbitten In Fen Ditton has a little Gilded Palace Of
Sin about it, while Lazers Linda is fast-paced, fizzy rock
‘n’ roll fun.
All in all then, quite a pretty peach of a second album
and one that is quietly rooted in Helmsdale, their
hometown for a fortnight. But don’t just take it from
me; let them talk you through their take on all 12 tracks
themselves overleaf.
soundcloud.com/hootontennisclub
Big Box Of Chocolates is out now on Heavenly Recordings.
Hooton Tennis Club play the Invisible Wind Factory on
9th December.