ennui

Pronunciation: /ɒnˈwiː/

noun

a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement:

he succumbed to ennui and despair

Who is Ennui/Love?

Right from the top… Ennui/Love is primarily but not exclusively myself Ernest Blake and Alabama Wilde. We have a silent member Shaun Patrick Hand, who is involved in the recording but not live performances, and then we have our band we play with for live gigs.

Are you and Alabama together? In your songs it often sounds like you’re singing about your relationship with one another.

Alabama and I are not together, but you may be forgiven for making that assumption as you are far from the first person to ask. We’ve known each other for a long time, building our relationship through sending each other lyrics and poems and allowing each other to audience the others’ ideas. This gives us a deep insight into one another, and it comes across in the performances of our songs, so maybe that’s why people think we’re a couple. Both of us had performed with bands away from Ennui/Love and for a long time we said we should work together, one day and about 2 years ago we finally started Ennui/Love.

Who wrote the songs on your album ‘There is No God There is Only Love’?

The songs were written by me. I wanted to write songs that were honest, raw but also very poetic and flowering lyrically… it was a manifestation of poems and free writing things I’ve created in the past. I have a blog of poems especially one which sum up the mood I want to get across. The idea that there is beauty to be found in disaster and misery is kind of the driving force for the album. When you are hurt or discontented you often see the world in a very honest way. If you read my poetry you’ll get a better understanding of what’s going on inside my head than this interview.

Who plays what in the band? And how did you produce the album ‘There is No God There is Only Love’?

We recorded our first EP ’el corazón es suyo’ on an 8 track recorder in a tiny little lock up in Birmingham. Shaun Hand, a friend of mine produced the E.P which are the last 3 tracks on our album ‘There is No God There is Only Love’. All instruments are played by me or Shaun on those 3 tracks.

We then went to a small independent studio and worked with producer Chris Fields (who liked it so much he joined the live band) and together with Shaun, Chris, Alabama and myself we turned the bare skeletons of the songs I had written into an album in just 4 days…

With the exception of Ashes which was played by the owner of the studios’ son Sam Higgins, all instruments were played by myself, Shaun or Chris as we all contributed what we thought would work on the track.

Describe your sound, how do you perform live?

I really wanted to direct the album away from just being acoustic, I felt that there was a chance to build a sound from the fringes of both acoustic and electric which explains why there are lots of electric guitar bits and random feedback throughout the album.

The album was mixed by both me and Chris Fields. Performing live, I generally play guitar with Alabama singing, shaking things, and eating lollypops. The other members of the band are Chris, Lee, Daz and Michelle who all play bits of everything. Between them they fill in the gaps, swapping instruments live on stage; as a performance I think this adds to the slightly disorganised sound that the album has.

What’s the meaning behind your band name? Was a broken relationship the inspiration behind the album?

Fire Flood - Ennui Love by freshmusicuk

The name of the band is a deliberate indication to the ideology behind the songs. A mixture of listlessness and restlessness with the entire world, be it love, life, religion, whatever, and then the unavoidable experience of love within that. The album is a collection of moments in my life, the way I felt at a period of time. Sometimes cathartic, sometimes self-pity, sometimes love. I can’t conscientiously sit down and write a song. Poetry just happens when it happens. You need to be natural to get the emotions in there, forced lyrics lack honesty and once that’s gone it’s not worth writing. The moment’s passed.

Not all of them are about a certain girl, some bits are some bits not, sometimes I’ve got myself just into place I need to get out of and song writing helps me do that. It would be fair to say that both me and Alabama have both had relationships that have took their toll.

So using song writing is a way of dealing with emotions in whatever you may be dealing with. As a songwriter do you ever feel exposed, like someone’s reading your diary?

Use My Body by Ennui/Love

Yes I feel that way every time people read the lyrics to my songs. It’s a little uncomfortable, but then the other side to it is that people come, talk to me and say the lyrics mean something to them in their own life. I always find that amazing. Sometimes people get worried about me and think it is all doom and gloom, but I try to explain the songs are generally a magnification of the real world. More often than not writing them down is also moving on, after it’s done I don’t really connect the song to the original source but instead look at it objectively as a song.

You’re first album ‘There is No God There is Only Love’ is quite a statement would you like to reiterate? Is this a spiritual belief that you and Alabama both share?

The album name is both another deliberate indication of the ideology behind the band and also a metaphor for love itself. I want to push a message that we should teach people to believe in good before we believe in a god, our decisions and actions are our own doing, no fate, no miracles, just the world we endure and the universe beyond, all we have is just a collection of acquired knowledge and a sense of wonder for the things we are yet to know. I think that’s a far more exciting thought than religion and I wanted to say that with the title. It is also a metaphor for the blinding distraction that love becomes in our lives when we are in love’s ideal, there is no god, no sun, no moon, there is nothing but us and the love we share…

That’s a beautiful way to look at life and religion. God’s in each one of us, we are God, have faith in humanity. Do you live your life as poetically as you write music?

Well I think the beauty of poetry and music is that you don’t have to live in the real world, when you write a song you never have to do the shopping, or the laundry, you can idealise the world around you and cut out the boring bits. So no, I don’t think it’s possible to live like that all the time as there’s lots of things you still have to do in the real world that tend to get in the way. I tend to think that you have to just live as passionately and sincerely as you can, the world still gets in the way but I think if you make your decisions with good intentions then there’s a point to it all.

I think Ennui/Love reminds me of that song from the Juno Soundtrack. Another friend draws similarity to your band with the XX not in style but subject matter. Would you agree? Also, have you thought about doing something similar to the XX and have your songs remixed by popular Producers?

The XX are a great band but I would agree with your friend that we are more similar in subject matter, and to some degree a stripped down sound but not really in style. I’d say your closer to my world with the Mouldy Peaches and I think we have been reviewed along similar lines in the past. But again I think that’s one side of the music, a few happier tracks that carry the weight of that comparison, but then the darker side of the album is far from that. It’s one of the things I was most pleased with on the album to be honest, I think it has a spectrum of sound and style but at the same time it all sits together as an album.

I am not against remixes at all; I love to see how other people interpret the music. Music is a form of expression, if someone can express themselves using my track then that’s great. Most of the album was recorded with a very open mind to where to take the songs. Sometimes it goes wrong but now and then it takes the track to a better place and that’s the same for remixes, for me as long as it’s kept honest and about expression then I think it is fine.

I love the song Ashes, I can really relate to that song after having been through some personal drama. Who are you referring to when you say you don’t deserve their grace? Some would describe grace as God, others love, who are you referring to in this song?

I like the song Ashes for that reason, it’s almost religious and that’s why it went as track number 1 on our album. I wrote it at a really hard time in my life that I don’t want to go into much, but yeah it’s a cry for help, more to anyone than someone, a lover, a god, anyone.

I like the idea that the title of the album sets up the listener for what they may expect to be a strong 'I’m right you’re wrong’ view of god but then it surprises them that it’s someone at the point of breakdown almost pleading for a God. We are all weak at times, sometimes people doubt their own beliefs in a moment of weakness, more out of desperation than genuine reason but I think that’s something we are all prone to. When you just want to be saved you don’t care how.

When are you touring and when can we expect the second album?

We’re looking to book gigs at the moment for the end of April onwards, find us on Facebook if you want to be kept up to date with the where and when. Album wise, we are writing at the minute so I would say we will be looking to record in the winter.

You can discover Ernest’s poetry here and 'There is No God There is Only Love’ is out on iTunes and available on Spotify now.

Intrigue by Emma Dauris