alt-J

I was twenty-seven, in grad school, obsessed with carved lines and light.

My friends told me I looked like every Alt-J cover band lead singer: thin glasses, black hair, pale as printer paper.

I'd always been fine fading into the background until she walked straight up to me in that coffee shop, the one off Charles, the perpetual tables and dripping espresso machine.

"You look like you know where the outlets are," she said, not even smiling yet.

Go on

... an Alt-J.

Okay.

'Cause I think that in an afternoon-

... you bring them on.

They've got the back catalog now.

Their second album, Maybe Not Tonight, is one of my records of the year, a concept album conceived as a night out from start to finish.

Produced by Charlie Andrew, who has worked with Alt-J and Wolf Alice, and described by the band as their most ambitious and personal work to date.

You can watch video clips from our conversation on Instagram and YouTube at Scared to Dance, and if you're listening, do please like, subscribe, and leave us a review, as it helps the show.

Hey.

You just know when it's, when it's good enough or when you feel like it represents you enough to be a single.

And Charlie Andrew produced the album.

He's worked with Wolf Alice and Alt-J.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

And I remember the first time I heard Alt-J, where Thom Sonny Green has no cymbals and his main snare I think is, it's like a 10 by 5 Tama popcorn snare essentially, and it's cranked.

But it still sits in this like low mid heavy synth band.

I mean, sure, sure, I'm sure you guys know, um, Alt-J.

And like that is not the snare that I would immediately go to, but I was like, "Oh, there are no rules." And I remember that, that record was huge for me.

I would say anything that Brian Devendorf came up with in The National, because prior to listening to that group, I mean, I guess in the '80s you, you had Joy Division and Stephen Morris and, and these guys who were, came from this tradition of like art school guys who weren't, quote, "slamming drummers," but were rather sort of art-minded compositional dudes where-

Yeah, I'm thinking about all of the music videos I stayed up late and snuck out of my bed to watch as a kid that inspired me to want to be a choreographer.

But what's coming to mind the most recently in this new part of myself is The Actor by Alt-J.

I don't know this.

It is the most nuts music video.

I'm just obsessed with Alt-J.

They were like the pipeline actually into RKS for me.

I was listening to Alt-J obsessively before I found RKS.

And to find out that Ethan is such a big Alt-J fan as well, I was like, this makes so much sense.

So maybe that's part of it.

But I was like, oh, yeah, I like all this sort of like, I don't remember all the artists that were on it, but the stuff that sounds like the Alt-J and the XX or

whatever.

I

Okay.

Because I remember there was a night where we just missed Alt-J.

And you're like, oh, fuck, I would have loved to seen Alt-J.

But I remember Snoop Dogg was on.

I think we missed him.

Now I think if you're a band that you feel like a band can compliment our opening, like opening act or whatever the case might be, then you go for it.

Like Alt-J does some crazy stuff where they'll have a random ass band.

Alt-J's fire.

Yeah, they're fire.

But they'll have random ass bands open up for them.