Q + A EMF
FRONTMAN JAMES ATKIN TALKS RAVING IN THE YORKSHIRE DALES, HIS OTHER LIFE AS A SCHOOLTEACHER AND MEETING ALAN BENNETT DOWN THE SHOPS…
STEVE HARNELL
EMF, 2022-style
EMF – they of the knee-length shorts and clubcentric headgear – have been regulars on the live circuit for the past two decades after an initial split following third LP Cha Cha Cha in 1995. Now the band are solidifying their comeback with their first studio album in nigh-on three decades, Go Go Sapiens. Packed with partystarting bangers and the punk pop ‘tude that made them famous, it’s as if they’ve never been away. Unbelievable? Not in the slightest…
It’s been 27 years since your last album, what prompted the return to the studio for the new LP?
It always felt inevitable, EMF wasn’t something we were ready to put to bed just yet. In those 27 years we’ve all respectively gone off and lived our own very different lives, but it has never been the case that we’ve thought, “Oh I’m not in EMF anymore.”
It’s a lifetime commitment and we’re lucky to have something so positive in our lives.
Were you all working together in the same room on Go Go Sapiens or was it recorded remotely?
The initial writing sessions were conducted between my place in the Yorkshire Dales and Ian [Dench’s] studio in Finsbury Park, quite a contrast in locations. By chance, we discovered this little hidden away recording studio in the next valley from mine in the Dales where we recorded the drums. We mixed the album at mine – the first single was mixed by our friends Vladimir Komarov and Atsuo Matsumoto in New York City. It feels like a true EMF album as we created it solely between us – it was actually completed, mastered and ready before anyone apart from Ian and myself had heard the finished product. Not sure that was healthy, but it definitely gave us the benefit of seeing our vision through without any outside influence.