Urban Myth Club

After the success of their debut album ‘Helium’, festival favourites Urban Myth Club are back with brand new album ‘Open Up’. I spoke to Mark Desvaux, one half of the duo, about the super sounds they make and why they make them.


How does your new album ‘Open Up’ compare to your debut ‘Helium’?

‘Open Up’ is a much edgier album than ‘Helium’. We were really blown away by the amazing reviews and reaction to ‘Helium’ which represented a window into the world of Urban Myth Club. The second album gives you a glimpse into a broader landscape. Hey, for a minute there I started sounding all artistic!

It still has that ‘epic’ feel and gorgeous female vocals but we’ve turned up the dial in places. We’ve been experimenting a lot more and feel the sound has evolved. In the studio, my music producing partner-in-crime, Ian Sanderson and I like to have a laugh. We’ve been playing with loads of old films as well, and our cheekier side pops its head out from time to time.

We started out with ninety-six tracks in various states of completion, and slowly nailed it down to the thirteen that made the album. You can never quite predict how things will turn out but judging from initial reactions (especially from our mums), we reckon it could be a flyer.

Your debut album was a word-of-mouth success with many copies being sold directly after your live performances, would you recommend this approach to other bands?

Nowadays, any route to selling an album is worth exploring, especially with the demise of the high street record shore. We adore people who buy our music, as they are part of our extended family that keeps the umbilical chord in tact. When fans buy our album, they might not realise this, but they are actually investing in our next album.

I reckon CD’s will become a niche item much quicker then people think, which is a shame because I love them. As independent artists and the price squeeze by supermarkets, they no longer make financial sense. Digital is the future.

So much of our tangible world is disappearing. I walked into a pub the other day and no one was talking. Everyone was just sitting around with laptops and smart phones - probably messaging each other in Facebook. Rob has started a new group called “Want a pint?” Tom “Likes” a pint. Next, they will come out with a ‘Copulation App’ where you put two iPhones together and some DNA is exchanged. We are all children of the Internet, so I’m as sucked in as much as the next person.


What made you want to create music in the first place?

As a kid, I had piano lessons with a ninety-year old bearded nun. Her piano room smelt of cabbage. Can you image a more distressing nightmare for a six year-old? Well, it gets worse. For the first five lessons I didn’t even get to touch the keys. Instead, I had to march around the room to a metronome beat, pretending to be a soldier or gorilla. I never quite recovered and quit after a few months!

After a few years of therapy, I started to venture outdoors again… I then became that kid who spent his Saturday afternoons annoying the hell out of the staff at Dixons, playing those mad little Casio keyboards. Great days! Looking back now, I realise that I was creating some kind of cosmic equilibrium for all those Dixon customers across the country that had to endure the “Graphic Equalizer” lecture by a 16 year-old sales assistant who clearly didn’t have a clue about anything!

Then one day I got to borrow a friend’s drum machine. It had six sounds including a dog bark! (Remember that one, Man Parrish fans?) I was in heaven for many weeks. I smashed the piggy bank, parting with 100 notes for a U20 – not the submarine, but a great Roland keyboard, which I bought via Loot off a Hagrid look-alike Hell’s Angel. I’d also self-taught myself the guitar and spent my teenage years giving the family piano and my parent’s ears a right good bashing.

I then experimented by hooking the keyboard up to a computer and the rest is history. I fell in love with the magic of creating with live instruments and computers, and start writing my own stuff.

Bizarrely, I only picked up a bass guitar for the first time during the making of our debut album ‘Helium’. If you listen to ‘Breathe’, the bass line is still one of the strongest I think I’ve ever come up with and it happened during the first hour of messing around on my new bass!

One thing I have learnt is to pretend you are not really writing. Have fun and that’s when the magic happens (either then, or when you press a wrong button whilst recording and make a beautiful mistake!)


How do you feel about your music being used in film and television?

Ian and I feel very privileged that our music is really popular on the screen. It’s been used all over the world but I’m still like a kid in a sweet shop every time I hear an Urban Myth Club track suddenly start playing on the TV. It pops up in the most unexpected places – like on Top Gear the other day.

It’s pretty mad hearing your music to completely different images. One of my favourite tracks on ‘Helium’ is ‘Breathe’ – it’s the kind of track you can completely lose yourself in. Then one day I see the New Zealand Rugby team doing the Haka at the World Cup Finals to the music! Would never have expected that!

Urban Myth Club started as a collaboration between myself and Stephen Barton who is a genius film composer – a real prodigy. It was Steven who originally heard some of the electronica tracks I was writing and gave me the encouragement to go for it. He’s gone on to composer the music for tonnes of amazing films, including two Narnia movies, Shrek and ‘Call of Duty 4’ which is the biggest-selling computer game of all time, I think. There’s a really cinematic feel to a lot of our music and we spent a lot of time on the subtle details of every track. People often say to us that they discover more and more on each listen


You have received support from both Rob Da Bank at Radio 1 and Radio 2’s Bob Harris, how does it feel to have such a diverse fan base?

It’s brilliant! Rob and Bob – who would have thought it? I remember getting two bizarre emails a few hours apart - one was from a top DJ in Ibiza saying that 'I Feel It' was going down a storm during his sunset set, whilst a presenter on Classic FM said they were going to play 'Spacewalk' on their evening show. In the same week, Rob Da Bank on Radio 1 and Bob Harris on Radio 2 were spinning tracks from the album. We then did a session on Xfm and it was also all over KISS FM. We even heard that Justin Wilkes of KISS FM chose ‘I Feel It’ as the first dance as his wedding.


Can your sound be categorised?

I guess we tend to get pigeon-holed in “Electronica” which is a bit of a catch-all for anything that has bleepy sounds in it. Our music stretches across many genres, which represents our broad musical tastes. It definitely has influences within the dance culture, in some places downtempo or pop, in others ambient, anthemic and cinematic.

On the new album ‘Open Up’ people have said that the track “We Have Landed” sounds like a female love-child of Thom Yorke and Muse’s Matt Bellamy, whilst Friday Night has a cheeky snippet of Drum and Bass. So where does that leave us?! I’d strongly recommend that if you are reading this, you have a listen and make up your own mind. Not because we want to sell loads of album, but purely to join in the debate. (Okay, and so we can sell loads of albums too :-)


Who would you love to collaborate with?

Are we talking sensible collaborations or the kind of collaborations you sometimes have weird dreams about?

On the rational front, it would be great to write a track with Neil Finn from Crowded House. I think he is one of the greatest songwriters in the world and has an amazing voice. On a personal note, I have always wanted to record with Sarah McLachlan and would love to try some Urban Myth Club fusion with Einaudi who writes some beautiful piano pieces. Hey, what about Muse? Yeah, let’s do a track with Muse as well for the third album!

We are very fortunate to collaborate with a number of amazing vocalists already. On ‘Open Up’ we have three different vocalists - that’s five in total across both albums.


Why did you come up with the name Urban Myth Club?

It was better than “Land of Kebabs”. It was actually my better half who came up with it. She just said “What about Urban Myth Club?” and it instantly felt right.

Funnily enough, I found a piece of paper with a load of ideas scribbled down on it from when were we’re bantering around names. “Spinning Trolley”, “Yah Yah Yah” (long before the “Yeah Yeah Yeahs”!), “Pluto and the Trout “, “Budgie Biker” and in sheer desperation, even “The Band With No Name”. What were we thinking? I bet every group has a list like that kicking around somewhere. It would be interesting to know what bands like The Beatles might have ended up calling themselves with a different turn of fate, or a dodgy pint, down the pub?

Ironically, when we got booked for Glastonbury as our first ever gig and our debut album ‘Helium’ charted, we started to think the name would was going to work against us! We have had so much madness happen to us, I guess the name is a curse or blessing whichever way you look at it.


What is your favourite urban myth?
Do you remember the one about the couple who drove to a make-out point in the woods, and heard the scratching on the roof of the car? That one totally freaked me out as a kid.
The thing I love about a lot of Urban Myths is you never really know whether they are fact or fiction. The world can throw up some of the most bizarre things that we’re never 100% sure really happened.
Gotta dash, that’s my phone’s ringing. I’m late for my lunch date with Oprah.