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This time it's personal
Athlete frontman Joel Pott tells Jodie Jeynes about his band's hurdles and high jumps
If Joel Pott was an Olympian, he'd be a middle-distance runner. The Athlete frontman and his band have been steadily churning out almost-yearly hit singles since 2002.
With their fourth album, Black Swan, just completed and set for release later this summer, the four-piece from Deptford have proven they can manage more than just a sprint in the charts. But they haven't been charting long enough yet to call themselves marathon men.
After hitting the road for their current 34-date British tour (their most extensive yet), Joel tells me the band are working on their stamina.
'We're completely knackered already and we've only done a week,' he reveals.
'I think it will take a little bit of time to get back into touring.'
The band were due to play at Southampton University last month, but had to reschedule for November.
'We're going through a lot of personal things at the moment,' explains the 30-year-old father of three.
'One of the things is that our bassist isn't on tour at the moment.'
Carey (Willetts] just had an operation on his knee, so we've got another bassist to stand in just for this tour,'
Joel elaborates, assuring me that they'll be at the Wedgewood Rooms next Friday for their sold-out gig.
Athlete's personal problems have been well-documented, not least because they are the subjects of many of their songs.
Recently the band have lost close relatives, seen friends' marriages fall apart and suffered miscarriages.
This is all reflected in the new album, says Joel.
'A lot has happened to us in the last couple of years. There have been a lot of ups and downs and those come out in the record.
'We've definitely experienced the joys of life,' he continues, 'whether it's all those things Athlete have achieved, or the birth of our kids. But, like anyone, we've had really difficult times too.'
These life changing experiences are the reason behind the new album's title.
Joel reveals: 'Myself and Tim (Tim Wanstall – keyboards and backing vocals] read an interview with Nassim Nicholas Taleb who wrote a book called The Black Swan.
'He explained that for centuries and centuries everyone assumed there were only white swans until explorers in Perth, Australia, discovered a black swan and blew the theory out of the water.
'It's a metaphor, really, for unexpected things, those shocks in your life that are really significant and end up shaping you in one way or another.
'It has a second meaning for us as well, because we really feel like there's something special about this record.'
As well as its personal nature, the new album is extra-important to Athlete because they recorded it independently.
The band, now signed to Fiction Records, parted company with Parlophone at the beginning of 2008, after the takeover of parent company EMI saw budgets frozen and most of the team they had worked with for three albums made redundant.
Athlete were luckier than many bands in a similar situation, because they already had their own studio near Greenwich, but the upheaval was a struggle and another episode that is reflected on in the new album.
Joel is no stranger to drawing on personal experiences for his songs' subject matter.
Athlete's most famous song, Wires (which went to number four in January 2005, topped airplay charts, was named Best Contemporary Song at the 2006 Ivor Novello awards and helped the album, Tourist, to number one), is the touching story of Pott's prematurely born daughter, Myla.
Joel thinks the song is so well loved for two reasons: 'One, it's just a great tune, a good pop song. And, two, it's written from a real, personal, honest place that really connects with people.
'It's a weird one really. We were really worried about putting it out as the first single of that album because it's an unconventional choice, but we all believed in it as a song and we ended up being right.'
If Wires gets the public vote as Athlete's best song, what's Joel's favourite?
'I go from one to another. When we're playing live, it could be a different song each night, whatever turns out to be special at that moment.
'I'm really enjoying the new songs right now and enjoying playing them live.'
Joel says that Black Swan is more in the vein of their best-selling album Tourist, than their slightly experimental recent release, Beyond the Neighbourhood, or their Mercury-nominated debut Vehicles & Animals.
'It's full of big tunes. It's a very live sounding album and that's what we wanted. We wanted to capture the vibe that we get at gigs,' he explains.
That 'vibe' is, in part, due to the closeness of the band, who have been friends since they were 14.
'It's not like we were all best mates before we started,' says Joel, who attended the BRIT School, 'but we became best mates through playing together,' he continues.
'I feel really fortunate to be playing in a band with three people who are decent human beings. There are other people I play music with, but no other band I'd want to be in.
'Of course you have moments of tension and disagreements, but because we've been friends for ages there's an understanding that there are more important things in life, such as treating each other with respect and love.'
Noble sentiments indeed and, hopefully, sentiments that will ensure that Athlete keep on running.
Athlete play a sold out gig at the Wedgewood Rooms on Friday, July 10. Their album, Black Swan, is released on August 17 and its first single, Superhuman Touch, is in shops a week earlier, on August 10.
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