It has been three years since "the English ‘Air’" released their million-selling debut ‘Simple Things’. Now Zero 7 are back with a second LP, ‘When It Falls’. Úna Mullally caught up with Henry Binn, one half of Zero 7.
As Zero 7’s first album hit the shelves, Europe had fully embraced all that was ‘chill out’, with bands like Air, Londoners Zero 7 (and eventually Dido) providing the soundtrack to dinner parties across the land. But chill out soon melted, so will Zero 7 be able to recapture their audience as their second record ‘When It Falls’ is released? "I’m about ready to write a thesis on this whole ‘chill out’ thing — which doesn’t exist", rages Henry softly, in his distinct London lilt. "We never intended to make a ‘chill out’ record. It’s just a name that was thrown up to sell records that weren’t dance music. A lot of it was wallpaper music, which I don’t feel a part of at all. It makes for a slightly soulless description of music. If people think what we did was just part of that genre and it’s finished, than that’s unlucky for us, but I hope that won’t happen."
‘When It Falls' is the result of a three year break spent touring, thinking, touring, and, eh, touring, "We went on the road, which was such a major achievement for me. I’m definitely not one for any kind of spotlight and I’m glad we did it and had such a good laugh". Playing in America certainly presented Zero 7 with a new experience. Henry says that it changed the way they "thought about things", as well as offering a few rock and roll moments. "We were in LA doing a gig for this cool, underground radio station. They invited us to this big concert with 7,000 people. And Norah Jones was coming off stage so we were just sat behind stage on this revolving stage. So she was spinning around and so were we — it was very Spinal Tap! We were halfway through the first verse, spinning around on this stage — very funny indeed".
Along with a the blissful new single, ‘Home’, ‘When It Falls’ also features a remix commissioned by The Neptunes’ side project, N.E.R.D., "Those guys (The Neptunes) approached us. I think they’re into what we’re doing, which is nice. They said would we do a remix for them, and yeah, it was interesting for us. Hopefully they’ll return the favour and maybe charge a little bit below a hundred grand".
Zero 7’s live performance has changed too, since their studio break, "the studio was the only musical environment that we’d known. At first we were extremely paranoid about replicating the record as much as we could live, which was good in some aspects, but in other aspects, it didn’t really give anyone much freedom to let go a little bit. It was tough, and I guess that’s why the band was so big — we hadn’t figured out a way of playing the tunes without using less than fourteen musicians! So we might do things a bit differently this time".
