Eddie Argos is coincidental.
After forming a band, he and his fellow Art Brut members got together and practically ad-libbed their debut sensation, Bang Bang Rock & Roll.
“It was nerve-wracking this time around,” exclaims Argos. “We had written all the songs [for the first album] live. I never sat down and wrote words, I just sort of sang things and they became songs. Not doing that was different. We became obsessed with equations and maps as well when we were writing. We had big boards and equations working out how to write the best pop song.”
It’s A Bit Complicated is, well, a bit more complicated than the brawling minimalism Art Brut subscribed to from their start. From what can be heard from the five-song advance teaser, it’s full of rollicking melodies and more complex solos that only works to enhance the indie-punk irony of Argos’ lyrics.
“We couldn’t think of a name for it, and the record was a bit complicated, and we kept saying ‘Hang on, it’s a bit complicated!’ That ended up being the name. It is a bit more complicated than the first one, and we can play a bit better now.”
On album and off, Art Brut is without a doubt the biggest proponent of general L.A.-ness in the eternal onslaught of U.S.-touring-U.K. bands (please refer to “Moving to L.A.” off their first album). “I’d love to move to L.A., genuinely! Just today we were talking about it and I was like ‘Ye! I could live here.’”
The night the GC team got to speak with Argos, Art Brut was playing a sold-out show at the Troubadour, while their fellow British band members of Klaxons were on the other side of L.A. playing their own show. “I love Klaxons, and it’s funny because some of us went to college together and we never really imagined that would be happening, Jamie playing across town the same day as us.”
“I don’t dislike English bands, I hate things like ‘English bands together!’ ‘The British are coming!’ And all that shit.”
As can be derived from the tongue-in-cheek anecdotal fist-punch in Art Brut’s music, Argos is a man of stories as well. In fact, he has an online LiveJournal full of them, a rather amusing one being about an encounter during a band interview with a Parisian journalist.
“It was the day after my birthday and I was really hung over and I had a glass of water and he started drinking from it, and I wasn’t quite sure what I should do. I just got really really thirsty. I couldn’t ask for another water because I didn’t want to upset him, but then I started really doubting myself, thinking ‘Is this really my water? What if it’s his water? Is he thinking the same thing I’m thinking now?’ It was very embarrassing. I was worrying about it days afterwards. Was I drinking his water?”
Argos also writes a weekly blog for England’s newspaper The Guardian.
“I write one a week. It’s boring, so I kind of exaggerate a little bit. I was actually thinking of deleting my LiveJournal a while back, but I had an amazing dream I was an old man reading it. I had a really nice life. I wanted to keep it so that once day when old I could look back and read it.”
Evidently, Argos is a sentimentalist as well. While he might be primarily concerned with prankster bordered, his more introspective side penetrates through the band’s first single off Complicated, “Nag Nag Nag Nag.” With lyrics like, “A record collection reduced to a mixtape/ Headphones on I made my escape,” the song takes the humorous escapism of “Moving to LA” to a more desperate respective humour.
“We wrote it about a week before it came out. ‘Nag’ was more like when I was younger I used to leave the house with headphones on, not listening to my parents. I was 17 and I’m exactly the same as always. A little bit of escapism.”
It’s A Bit Complicated is out June 26th on Downtown Records
