The Physics House Band Interview

We interrogated the lads from The Physics House Band about their weird and wonderful song titles and delved a little into the making of their unique record 'Horizons/Rapture'.

How do you come up with weird song names like 'Abraxical Solapse'?

Adam: It's basically just listening to the music objectively and thinking of the first thing that pops into your head. It's a technique called word architecture where you choose words not because of what they mean or any connotations they may have but because it looks nice written down and does it sound nice? Do the words form together well?

What is your favourite that you've come up with?

Adam: I dunno, it's all just nonsense really! Abraxical Solapse, because it's the least memorable and the one that gets said wrong the most.

Sam: My personal favourite is Hollow Mountain, because it's a really simple name but it really paints a nice picture when combined with the music.

What exactly does Abraxical Solapse and Teratology mean?

Adam: Teratology isn't a made up word in fact, it's the study of abnormalities in animals. It comes from the Greek word Terat which means monster, and 'ology' is the study of. Abraxical Solapse, I just said that out and it became a name...but if you want to look into it, you can spend £35 (laughs) for the special edition of the record...Abraxis is like a high god and Solapse is the sun, the god of the sun was the original god for the Egyptians, it all kind of ties together in a certain way!

The album artwork for 'Horizons/Rapture' is very interesting, where did the inspiration and design come for it?

Sam: The two guys who designed it, Luke and Andy, they run a blog called Musical Mathematics and I invested in them on a crowd funder thing, we got chatting a lot and they had some really interesting ideas to help us out with branding. They had an idea based on the song name 'Titan' which I believe is the largest moon of Saturn, the main layer of it is ice, and the idea formed from that. The cover is basically ice and food colouring, it's very simple!

With the record being instrumental, if you could use it as the soundtrack for any activity in your everyday life, what would it be?

Adam: Kayaking! I'm joking... (laughs)

Sam: I think the music is a good representation of our personalities, just life really.

Adam: I think just exploring and trying new things, doing things differently.

What bands did you all draw influence from when you were writing the record?

Adam: There's a lot of stuff that influenced us that you wouldn't really hear on the record. We're all into very different things, Sam is into electronic music, I'm heavily into classical, and Dave?

Dave: It has to be The Mars Volta, there's no hiding the fact that we all love them, Jagged Jazzist, lots of interesting stuff like that.

Adam: I guess we're into the more interesting side of every genre, stuff that takes more than one listen to digest properly and to sink in. But at the same time a lot of really simple pop is fantastic. Everything in influences you in a little way. As long as you're not trying to sound exactly like your influences, you can create a great mix and go above your influences.

Sam: Fusion is a good word for it, whether it is fusion music or just techniques: like Rick Rubin, the way he produces his records or Flying Lotus and the way that they approach, engineer and produce their records. Production is a big thing for us and we spent a long time working on our record, just over a year, but as an instrumental band that's what we wanted to do.

Do you ever clash when you're making music because you're all into different things?

Sam: Yeah, because there's so many different influences and different directions that we could go down, it becomes quite difficult writing, but in the end it just means that we create a better final product.

Dave: It's a healthy clash!

If you could have any dream collaboration for your band what would you choose?

Sam: That's a hard question.

Adam: If he was still alive, Frank Zappa. I'd like to do some orchestral stuff...

Sam: The Britain Sinfonia Orchestra, they are amazing, they did some stuff with this 10-piece Norwegian jazz band, Jagged Jazzist, we went to see them and it was the best show we've collectively seen.

Dave: Phillip Glass, big fan of Phillip Glass and sort of repeated bits overlapping. That creates a big, massive tone.

Adam: I guess having a large body of musicians to work with would be great. We'd have to be a lot tighter!

Sam: If anybody in pop wants to get a bit weird and work with us, I'd be more than happy to help facilitate their journey into obscurity! (laughs) Lil Wayne or Frank Ocean!

What's your most embarrassing or bad moments at a music festival?

Sam: I think that would be at Reading festival when I was off my face crawling around. Just losing my shit! I probably won't return to doing that.

Dave: I went to Glastonbury 2007, when it proper flooded. It was like an army assault course, getting anywhere was really tricky!

Was that the year when people where floating about in canoes?

Dave: Yeah. Thankfully where I was wasn't that bad.

Adam: I've got one in mind but I'm not telling (laughs).

What is your biggest gig to date so far?

Sam: I think the village underground supporting Mono, a Japanese post-rock band. I think it was a 700 capacity venue and we were the only band supporting so it was filled up to the back, that's the biggest in capacity.

Dave: That was one of the most stressful days of my life. Our van on the day fell through and we got there with about half an hour to spare to set up. It was stressful but definitely worth it!

If you could have any job in the world apart from being a musician, what would it be?

Adam: I would be a film director or an auteur, just direct, produce and control.

Is there any film that you've seen that you wish you could made?

Adam: 2001. I mean, Kubrick, Wes Anderson and Pedro Almodovar are my three big directors who I worship essentially. Something slightly more leftfield focussing on character and use of space, that's really my thing. Something like that would be fun.

Sam: I want to be a producer. I just love working with people and being able to curate what happens in front of you. That seems like a dream job, to just sit in a studio all day where we're most comfortable and work with different people. Or a label boss! That would be good.

Dave: I recently saw an advert, Thomas Cook were looking for someone to be a water slide tester! Go all around the world and test water slides, why not! (laughs)