Feature: The Report Decodes ‘Everything Life Throws’
How did you come up with the theme?
Jo Rogers and Hugo Allen, and The Report: The theme of this album really reverse-engineered itself, to be honest. We always have a lot of songs on the go, and quite simply these were the ones that felt the most ready, despite seemingly disparate moods and themes. But as we were mixing and mastering the EP and deciding our order, it became apparent that they had a lot in common: a sense in each song that adversity can be overcome by leaning into our deepest human connections to help us through.
Of course, there is always something with any songwriting that comes from a personal place, and it’s been a big year for all members of the band; each of us has kids, elderly parents etc - life is full of big and unavoidable challenges at this age! I lost my father this year and it made me value and cherish the connections that I had more than ever. In the simplest way, those connections got me through the very worst of it and that felt like a lovely discovery. There’s something powerful in the message of this EP for all five of us, as a band in middle age! Whether we are facing loss, or struggling with something, it seemed to all of us that doing it with others – even writing music about it - could help us to face it all a bit more easily. So the title of the EP is taken from a line in the third song, In This Together, about staying optimistic and confident in the face of “everything life throws”.
Frankly, given how much awful news there is just now, it felt like a pertinent thing to be writing about.
Were there any challenges or breakthrough moments during the songwriting process for 'Everything Life Throws?'
With any album or EP there are some incredible breakthrough moments, punctuated with infuriating roadblocks! This certainly had lots of both. But we’re relaxed about that: it’s all part of the process. And the best stuff can come from the hardest moments to figure out, the extra gear you need to go into to find the heart of the song. “What You Don’t Know” and “Not Over” were comparatively easy to write, but we hit some roadblocks with “In This Together” – trying to find the right tone that was poppy but not twee – and on “Voices” we spent a long time working out the chorus to give this sense of cautious relief from the atmospheric insistence of the verse. But these are good challenges to have. Songwriting is not easy, right, and some songs don’t give up their secrets easily. It’s about inviting in inspiration, and it’s about problem solving.
Our songwriting tends to be by just two of us (Hugo and Jo) and then we roll our songs and demos out to the rest of the band to jam. That often leads to new creative breakthroughs and arrangements.
To us, the real magic is finding that liminal space to let the inspiration flow, whether that’s jamming the song altogether as a band or just as a songwriting duo. But it’s also about having the courage to identify the weak spots of the song – melodically or lyrically where it’s just not working - and bullishly going about finding a solution. Time helps sometimes; we can park it and work on something else, and then come back to it fresh. And most of all it helps that our process is a great back and forth - so when one of us is hitting a roadblock, we send a demo to the other and see what we can do to break that. It would be far harder to write alone. Thank God we don’t have to!
What impact do you hope this EP will have on your audience?
Our audience isn’t huge yet! But we hope that our followers will enjoy what we consider a step up in terms of writing and production, and that they’ll keep listening, come and see us, and help us reach a wider audience. It would be brilliant to grow our presence now we’re onto our fourth EP and learning from every single one. We have a growing catalogue of material now, and we’re really finding our feet. We have more to offer now - as a band we’ve really come together on and off the stage.
Thematically, we hope there’s something here for them. Life can be complex for many right now for all sorts of reasons; and we hope this EP is honest about what life throws at us, whilst remaining in its essence upbeat. Given the year we’ve had, it wouldn’t have been hard to write a dirge, but that’s not us. We really want to say “We get it. Life can be a bitch. But let’s get through it together”, if that’s not too glib.
What is your creative vision as a band?
As our name The Report suggests, we enjoy reporting on the state of affairs; writing about the world around us. There’s certainly no shortage of material! In previous EPs we explored ideas that are thematically quite ambitious. But I think that suits our writing style: big ideas seem to give us space for bigger sounds and arrangements. But it’s also an homage to the music we love and have always loved, which is super-melodic, full of harmonies and layered arrangements, from REM and Crowded House to Half Moon Run and the Feeling. We want to make more of that kind of music. We never want to be inauthentic by doing something we’re not comfortable with or writing stuff we don’t personally love.
So we tend to go big on harmonies; we love shoving loads of voices on our tracks, and giving them orchestral fills. We want a big and sometimes adventurous and ambitious sound – maybe to reflect some of the themes we take on. Whilst staying clear of seeming grandiose.
Looking back, our previous tracks kind of reflect our gradual evolution as a band to this point. “The Upside Down” looks at the way the world has gone a little topsy turvy – “the angles have changed” - which was inspired by the 2016 US election and Brexit; “Old Boy” looked at the loneliness and damage of a boarding school education; Meteor at the way lives could be shaped or changed by a missed opportunity or a meeting that never happened. A lot of our writing explores the way that these bigger themes have an impact on life. Culturally, politically, socially; all these things come to bear on the way we live, and often shape our lives, whether we like it or not. I guess we hope people might respond to that idea. But we aren’t preaching or being didactic: we want to create music that engages our listeners, that suggests big ideas, that takes them on a journey.
Foremost we want to make music – wherever our lyric and thematic ideas come from – that entertains!
Are there any specific venues or festivals that you dream of performing at?
Well, all of them, right?! But let’s keep it real. Grass roots music venues can sometimes have the best atmospheres around. And supporting them - especially now - is vital. There is a place very close to our hearts right here in Kingston. Banquet Records, run by the amazing Jon Tolley, puts on shows at the local nightclub called Pryzm – it only takes a thousand or so people, but just in the last year they’ve booked Tears For Fears, Crowded House, Franz Ferdinand, Maggie Rogers, The Last Dinner Party, The Feeling, The Zutons etc - scores of amazing names and all right here on our doorstep in Kingston. It’s totally insane. So in answer to your question – no, it’s not Wembley, it’s supporting a headline act at Pryzm!
That would be a dream come true for us.
(Oh, and maybe Glastonbury).
