The Wombats reject AI and prove indie lives on with “messy and charming” ‘Oh! The Ocean’

Almost two decades since The Wombats broke through with the UK chart-climbing Let’s Dance To Joy Division, we find them releasing a much more introspective album that isn’t interested in the glitzy parties and partying. Singer Matthew Murphy chats to Headliner about how a sudden state of total peace found on a Californian beach set the tone for the new record and how they set out to make the most human-sounding album possible without a trace of AI.

Murphy met Tord Øverland Knudsen and Dan Haggis at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, and in their first three years together as the Wombats, they released several EPs. From 2006 onwards, the band’s singles began to increasingly make dents in the UK charts: Moving To New York, the band’s debut single and still one of their signature tunes, Kill The Director, and then the rest was history with the release of Let’s Dance To Joy Division, hitting a high of number 15 on the UK singles chart, no small feat for such a hyperactive indie-rock song.

That song’s unlikely success coincided with the Wombats’ debut album, A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation, in late 2007, itself reaching number 11 on the UK album chart. 

The band certainly weren’t the only indie band success story of the time; the 2000s saw an explosion of indie rock’s popularity, particularly stemming from bands such as OK Go, the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Razorlight, and many more. 

The era has sometimes been disparagingly referred to as ‘landfill indie’ due to the enormous number of bands labels were clamouring to sign at its peak. 

As that name suggests, many of the acts did not survive the era, but not the Wombats, who continue to be one of the UK’s most successful bands to emerge at that time; their last album release, Fix Yourself, Not the World in 2022, was the first Wombats album to top the UK charts.

Murphy eventually left his native Liverpool for the warmer temperatures of Los Angeles. “I’ve been in L.A. for about eight and a half years,” he says. 

“We came over to Liverpool to rehearse for eight days, and then I went to Berlin for three days and then back to London, then Paris, and then back to London. This is the typical week before the album comes out. It's all pretty mental. My sleeping patterns have been fucked on this trip. Usually, after a few days, I'm fine, but this one has been wild.”

With the band’s latest album touching on themes of trying to be present in life, awe-inspiring moments of connecting with nature, and a strong dislike for certain social events as they mature, it’s fascinating to ask Murphy about that whirlwind few years when he and the trio first broke through. 

Despite Let’s Dance To Joy Division not exactly fitting into any for-the-radio mould (it has a shouty chorus, a BPM almost too fast to nod your head to, and very quirky lyrics), it was a truly ubiquitous song upon its release. It’s also not lost on Murphy that so many bands from that era were not heard from again after the 2000s indie era peaked, with EDM replacing it as the dominant sound as we transitioned into the 2010s.

“2006 and 2007 were kind of a blur,” he says. “I remember not being able to turn on the radio without Let’s Dance To Joy Division being battered at you. My memories of it are still somewhat accurate. I feel like we were almost the last band to make it through before the gates closed on that whole scene. 

"We were lucky that we made a good decision to sign with 14th Floor and work with people who genuinely cared about us. Otherwise, we might have signed to one of the labels that were just signing tons of bands at the time; labels like B-Unique, who had the Kaiser Chiefs, and they then signed 20 other bands that went nowhere. I think we're the only band that still has the same lineup going from that period.” 

If you’re curious about the new album title, Oh! The Ocean, it is drawn from a moment in which Murphy had an experience that went from “a fucking terrible morning” into a “mushroom-esque spiritual experience.” On a family holiday last summer, he spent some time alone on a Californian beach and suddenly found himself dumbstruck and in a state of sheer awe at the surrounding nature and the insignificance of his problems next to it.

“We’d gone on a staycation, and I'd had a crazy, stressful morning,” he says. “We went down to Orange County. There's this really nice beach, the Monarch Beach, and my kids were off with my wife somewhere. I just stood on this beach, staring at the ocean, and it was like the first time I'd ever seen it. All my troubles, daily fears and all the cyclical thought patterns that we all get into, everything just stopped. 

“I remember running to my wife and telling her, ‘I've seen the ocean for the first time.’ She's like, ‘What are you talking about?’ It was a huge moment being connected to life in a way that I've never felt before, being grateful and just being completely bemused and amazed by it. 

"This powerful moment lasted for about 10 minutes. I try to go there sometimes when I start getting stressed out about little things that, in the grand scheme, don't make a big difference. I wanted to name the album after that experience.”

The album starts with its brutally honest opener, Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want To Come. While the songs that the Wombats broke through with seemed perfectly conducive for wild parties and drinking, this single sees Murphy savagely laying bare his dislike of social functions he has developed in recent years. In the chorus, he sings, “I’m sorry I’m late, I didn’t want to come / It’s not that I hate you, I just hate everyone.”

Murphy explains that the track is about social awkwardness and social anxiety. “Which all human beings have, to some degree, some more than others. When I first moved to L.A. and was going out and making friends, I’d be walking into parties with a whole host of incredibly good-looking people. And with me growing up in Liverpool in the ‘80s and ‘90s, I was feeling pretty out of my depth and had this fear of what other people may think. 

"That fear led me to imbibe in things, and then you get so messed up to the point that you become the thing that you were fearful of before you got there. I still don't know how people do it today. It's crazy to me that people can go to corporate events and mingle without being either weird or embarrassing themselves. It's kind of shocking to me.”

Hearing this perspective, it makes sense then that Murphy has removed alcohol from his life. “Now the highs are higher, the lows are lower, and the edges of life are sharper. But life feels bigger, and, ultimately, just feels more magical. And odder. Which is great for being a creative person. I guess it's a second chance at life.” This can be heard in the song’s line, “I don’t want to socialise unless I’m getting numb.”

This may sound strange to some, but with AI continuing to encroach more and more into the music industry, the Wombats set about making an album that sounded as human as possible, even if that meant leaving some mistakes in takes, and recording the songs in a much more ‘live’ way than previously.

“I’d heard that AI Drake and Future track,” Murphy recalls. “I remember listening to it and going, ‘Oh, I quite like this. This is scary.’ And I was thinking about how AI is going to be able to replicate anything. It then dawned on me that it's never going to learn how to make a mistake or fuck up as well as a human being can. I don't think it's ever going to take into account human error. So that was when the goal became to make an album full of mistakes and accidents. John Congleton [the album’s producer] loved this idea, as did Dan and Tord.

“John didn't listen to the demos of any songs beforehand; he got me to play each song on an acoustic guitar or on a piano, from start to finish, and that was how he got into the song. Rather than listening to the demos. Then, every song was recorded in full takes from start to finish, rather than jumping to a section or starting with the chorus or anything like that. We've never approached the making of an album in such a raw, organic way as we did with John. It sounds a bit messy, maybe, but in a kind of charming way.”

Another stand-out moment on Oh! The Ocean is I Love America and She Hates Me. The track opens with a gorgeous bassline with ambient synths swirling overhead as Murphy sings an ode to his adopted country and the personal change he’s been through living there as a self-conscious Liverpudlian.

“There are some tongue in cheek elements, but I do love being there,” Murphy says. “I feel like I'm 15% more productive and 10% happier. This is not a moral judgment on gun ownership, but gun ownership, to a person born in Liverpool in the ‘80s, is a mad proposition, so I still can't really get my head around that. It’s also born out of this idea of tall poppy syndrome that we have in the UK, and not to put your wins and successes in life on parade, whereas in the US people are more supportive and get genuinely excited when something good happens for you.”

And, on embarking on the Wombats’ biggest-ever UK and EU tour, including an appearance at London’s O2 Arena, he adds, “It feels like a long time coming. I prefer playing large shows — the small shows freak me out, and I get really nervous. I can see everyone's faces. There's nowhere to hide, and I can see when someone's dragged their boyfriend along who doesn't want to be there. I can just see too much, whereas these big ones feel like more of a show. And as a socially awkward person, I feel like I can hide a bit more.”

The Wombats will be touring Europe throughout April and then returning to the UK for a hometown performance at the Pier Head in Liverpool on the 19th of June. Oh! The Ocean is out now, and who knows, perhaps you’ll experience a little blissful satori moment as you share in that moment Murphy had on the beach.

thewombats.co.uk

Header image photography by Julia Godfrey.