Geordie Greep has spoken to NME about the Black Midi split, his new album ‘The New Sound’, and the risks of writing his “bizarre, horrible” love songs.
- READ MORE: Black Midi – ‘Hellfire’ review: intense first-person narratives fuel a genre-gnarling thrill ride
Greep, formerly frontman of experimental rock band Black Midi, released the first song ‘Holy Holy’ from his upcoming solo album ‘The New Sound’ last month (August 20). He described working on ‘The New Sound’ as “the first time that I was very transparent about the kind of music I like listen to.”
“I loved being in Black Midi, but these are songs that lend themselves to playing with different people,” he told NME. “Also, I wanted to start doing something which was more under my own name and try something more versatile. I knew I wanted to it eventually.”
The musician announced his solo album just days after revealing the split of Black Midi on an Instagram Live. Bassist Cameron Picton confirmed the news the next day on X/Twitter, writing: “We’d agreed not to say anything about ‘breaking up’ so I was as blindsided as everyone else last night but maybe in a different way. I guess sometimes all you can say is lol.”
In a further comment to The Quietus, the band’s management said: “After a successful tour including South American dates, they agreed to have a break and do some solo work, with the understanding the Black Midi door [would] be left open.”
Speaking to NME about the announcement of the split, Greep admitted that “if I was to do it again, I probably would have done it differently.
“But in the moment, it felt very important to me that it should be said. We hadn’t really been on speaking terms as a band a while before that, it had broken down in communication.”
He continued: “When we first decided, we’re not going to do [Black Midi] anymore, we had said, ’Let’s not say anything because everyone will just forget’. In a few months it’ll be obvious, and we won’t need to say anything about it. But then it became apparent that wasn’t really the case. People were all the time saying, ’What’s happening?’ I thought… who cares? Let’s just say it. It’s over – I don’t want to string anyone along.”
Greep said the split should not be seen as “a sad thing”, adding: “You do a band for a little bit, do it for three years, have a great vibe, and then finish. Nothing’s meant to go on forever and ever.”
He maintained there was nothing “dramatic” about the split. “Think about people that you were friends with at 16,” he said. “People go down different paths, find out they’re into different things. It’s just a very natural and normal thing, everyone has that experience. And being in a band together, it puts a strain on that especially: you have to be friends. There’s no drama or anything, it’s just how it goes.”
When asked for his response to Picton’s tweet, Greep replied: “I’ve got nothing personal to say to anybody. I will say, if you’re already not so close for a long time before that, it just seems a bit weird to suddenly get annoyed about one thing. I’m just telling the truth anyway. I found that slightly weird.
“But at the end of the day, who cares really? I’m sure he was acting as in the heat of the moment as I was. It was all early hours of the morning activity.”
The frontman turned solo star spoke of his approach to releasing solo music after “Black Midi had already reached its ceiling”.
“It was cool, but the music wasn’t what I wanted to be doing, the live shows got slightly uninspired, in terms of popularity we were doing well, but it wasn’t crazy,” he admitted. “What’s to lose in having a go and doing something you really wanna be doing?”
As a result, ‘The New Sound’ incorporates Greep’s love for salsa music and Latin influences at large. It was recorded partially with a group of local musicians in Brazil when Greep toured the country with Black Midi. “I had a day off, called up the only guy I knew in Brazil, said: ‘Do you know any musicians?’ and just got it all together,” he explained. “It was kind of last minute, and they came in, they just learned all the songs really quickly. It was brilliant.”
He described ‘The New Sound’ as “the model for future albums”, saying: “I’m just really interested in how different musicians can play the same songs and get a different result.”
In comparison to Black Midi’s last album ‘Hellfire’, which was “all about murder and killing and hell” according to Greep, ‘The New Sound’ takes on more sensual topics (although with the usual grisly twist one comes to expect from him: “When I tell you your pussy is holy/I want you to slap me and then kiss me”).
“I always said the next album is gonna be love songs, it’s gonna be passionate,” he said. “The way it panned out was halfway there. It’s not ‘Suavamente’, I’m not Barry Manilow, but I thought it was interesting to try and come up with as many ways of making a really bizarre, horrible love song as possible.”
Greep also said he wanted to try create “passion that feels genuine” which was “both tragic and funny”, speaking about the theme of desperation he often explores in music.
“It’s an easy way to make it passionate,” he said. “This yearning figure, I’ve always been really attracted to it. Even with this last song in the album, it’s a cover: I love the mood of the song and the lyrics of the song, this fleetingness and this thing which you can’t quite get to, it’s interesting. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious throughline or an overarching narrative. It’s more like: if you’re going to explore something seriously, you may as well go for it.”
He went on to describe most of the songs as feeling like “you’re on a night out, drinking somewhere, and you meet these people. They start talking to you, and after a few drinks, they start to tell you more than they want to tell you.”
Greep told NME it was partially inspired by situations he has encountered himself: “I go out dancing and you just meet these random people that, for some reason, really want to tell someone about something. And it’s nice to tell someone that they’re never going to see again, maybe.
“That’s the true desperation of these guys who have no other option,” he continued. “I find that very appealing, in a way. I wanted to make this album where you listen to these songs and you’re in the same sentence repulsed, amused, and sympathetic. It’s all three vying for the main response like a horror movie where you want to look away, but you want to look at the same time.
“I understand that for some people, maybe it’s not going to work. But it’s a risk worth taking because the final result is something that’s quite unique and interesting.”
‘The New Sound’. It was made by the guitarist and vocalist while together with Black Midi, and developed amid the band sharing their album ‘Hellfire’ and touring almost non-stop for nearly five years.
Geordie Greep will release the new sound on October 4 (pre-order here), amidst a headline tour throughout 2024. Visit here for UK tickets, here for international tickets, and dind a full list below.
Geordie Greep’s tour dates are:
SEPTEMBER
10 – Brooklyn,NY Union Pool
11 – New York,NY Nublu
12 – Brooklyn,NY TV Eye
13 – Brooklyn,NY Sultan Room
19 – Reeperbahn Festival @ Knust, Hamburg
OCTOBER
10 – Llais Festival @ WMC (w/ Squid),
19 – Isolation Festival, Budapest
22 – Fleece, Bristol
23 – The Cornish Bank, Falmouth
25 – Storey’s Field Centre, Cambridge
26 – Arts Club, Liverpool
27 – Classic Grand, Glasgow
28 – The Cluny, Newcastle
29 – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
30 – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
NOVEMBER
1 – Les Nuits Botanique Weekender @ Orangerie, Brussels
9 – Pitchfork Festival @ EartH, London
DECEMBER
3 – Point Ephemere, Paris
5 – Lido, Berlin
6 – Bitterzoet, Amsterdam
7 – Doornroosje, Nijmegen
9 – Magnolia, Milan
10 – Bad Bonn, Düdingen
JANUARY 2025
17 – Philadelphia, PA Johnny Brenda’s
18 – Baltimore, MD Ottobar
19 – Raleigh, NC Kings
21 – Asheville, NC Eulogy
22 – Atlanta, GA The Earl
24 – Nashville, TN The Blue Room
25 – St Louis, MO Off Broadway
27 – Minneapolis, MN 7th St. Entry
28 – Madison, WI High Noon Saloon
31 – Chicago, IL The Empty Bottle
FEBRUARY
1 – Kalamazoo, MI Bell’s Eccentric Cafe
3 – Toronto, ON Velvet Underground
5 – Montreal, QC Bar Le Ritz
6 – Brattleboro, VT The Stone Church
7 – Boston, MA Brighton Music Hall
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