• Interviews

• All
• Music
• Cinema
• TV
• Comic Books

Feb 18, 2022 By Mark Redfern Photography by Ray Lego (for Under the Radar) Issue #69 - 20th Anniversary Issue

To end the week, we ask Joseph Mount of British electro-pop band Metronomy some questions about endings and death.

Mount started Metronomy as a bedroom project as a teenager, in his native Totnes, in southwest England. By the time his debut album, Pip Paine (Pay the £5000 You Owe), was released in 2006 Mount was 23 and living in Brighton. Over the years Metronomy’s lineup grew to include Oscar Cash (saxophone, backing vocals, guitars, and keyboards), Anna Prior (drums and vocals), Olugbenga Adelekan (bass guitar and vocals), and Michael Lovett (on keyboards and guitars, and also of NZCA LINES). The band’s 2011-released third album, The English Riviera, proved to be their true breakthrough, landing on multiple album of the year lists and garnering a Mercury Prize nomination. Three more well-received albums followed—Love Letters (2014), Summer 08 (2016), and Metronomy Forever (2019)—and today sees the release of Metronomy’s seventh album, Small World.

Small World’s infectious first single, “It’s Good to Be Back,” welcomes the return to almost normal life following two years of the pandemic. While COVID-19 is still a present concern, those who are vaccinated can breathe a little easier and live music has begun to return. “Part of me was thinking, ‘What is the lamest platitude people are going to be saying coming out of the past two years?’” said Mount of the single in a press release announcing Small World. “But at the same time, I was thinking how it will be true and how it might feel doing things again.”

Mount added: “I’ve been remembering what it was like as a kid when I’d be sitting in the backseat of my parents’ car and they’d be playing their music and I’d think, ‘This is awful,’ but there’d be one or two songs I would like. I thought it would be fun to make that kind of album, and this is the song the kids might like. This is the ‘cool’ song.”

Read on as Mount discusses how he’d like to die like a famous movie character, what songs he’d like played at his deathbed and funeral, his favorite endings, and why he hopes heaven is a place with less TV streaming choices.

How would you like to die and what age would you like to be?

I would like to die EXACTLY the same way Don Corleone does in The Godfather. However, I’ve just Googled his age at death and Wikipedia says 67. Cause of death is a heart attack. Seems a bit young. So, I’ll say in my garden, something quick and painless, and at least 75 years old please.

What song would you like to be playing at your deathbed?

“Veridis Quo” by Daft Punk.

What song would you like to be performed at your funeral and who would you like to sing it?

“Qué Será, Será (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” by Sly and the Family Stone sung by Sly and the Family Stone.

What’s your favorite ending to a movie?

The mad garden dash in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and even the end credits.

What’s your favorite series finale last ever episode of a TV show?

The final episode of Happy Valley series 2 is genuinely the best season finale I have ever seen. If you’re able to watch it in America I strongly recommend it.

What’s your favorite last song on an album?

“I Am Music” by Timbaland and Magoo from the otherwise patchy album Indecent Proposal.

What’s your favorite last album by a band who then broke up?

The Score by The Fugees.

What’s your favorite way a band broke up?

I’m pretty sure this doesn’t count, but my old housemate Zack got fired from Patrick Wolf’s band because he fell asleep playing the drums during a gig. It’s on YouTube somewhere.

Whose passing has most affected you?

The wonderful Philippe Zdar.

If you were on death row, what would you like your last meal to be?

Mom’s spaghetti.

What’s your concept of the afterlife?

I don’t believe in an afterlife I’m afraid. But it’s enough that I’ll become a home to some creatures and some fertilizer.

What would be your own personal version of heaven if it exists?

It’s a TV streaming service with just one incredible film choice that you’ve never seen before. It’s a smart phone with never ending battery life. It’s a place where Metronomy is number one in the charts all year round. It’s a place where everyone is happy and laughs constantly. It’s a place that is always sunny and warm. It’s a place that is never dark and it never rains. It’s a place where you spend ETERNITY with your close family and friends…ETERNITY.

What would be the worst punishment the devil could devise for you in hell, if he exists?

(See heaven above.)

If reincarnation exists, who or what would you like to be reincarnated as?

I’d like to come back as a dolphin or a great white shark basically.

What role or achievement would you most like to be remembered for?

I had the idea of those Bluetooth suitcases that follow you around airports before the person who now produces them.

What would you like your last words to be?

Flames to dust
Lovers to friends
Why do all good things come to an end?
Flames to dust
Lovers to friends
Why do all good things come to an end?
Come to an end, come to an…
Why do all good things come to an end?
Come to an end, come to an…
Why do all good things come to an end?

[Taken from Nelly Furtado’s “All Good Things (Come To An End).”]

[Note: This article originally appeared in Issue 69 of Under the Radar’s print magazine, our 20th Anniversary Issue, which is out now. This is its debut online.]

www.metronomy.co.uk

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.