With success comes anticipation, and with anticipation comes all sorts of crazy, cooked-up rumours. England’s Klaxons can tell you a bunch of them.
For instance, that their second album was rejected by the label for being “too experimental.” Or that their producer Ross Robinson had turned them into a nu-metal band. Or, best of all, that they had entered the studio to record with hip-hop legend Dr. Dre.
“We seem prone to attracting rumours in England, anyway,” explains guitarist Simon Taylor-Davis. “I was never in a studio with Dr. Dre. That could have been a disaster, to be honest.”
Surfing The Void, Klaxons’ follow-up to 2007’s Mercury Prize-winning album, Myths Of The Near Future, is far from a disaster, to be honest. Yes, it was recorded with Ross Robinson, the “Godfather of nu-metal” and the man behind albums by Korn, Limp Bizkit and Slipknot, but Taylor-Davis says they instantly clicked with the producer.
“For us, it was about his character and personality,” he says. “We’ve always been about getting on with people, first and foremost, on a human level, without worrying about whatever cool bands that person has produced before.”
What some viewed as a gamble paid off for Klaxons. Surfing The Void is a metal-free, frenetic rush that marries strokes of mind-melting psychedelia and leftfield, yet accessible pop choruses. The concept may be far out there, but Taylor-Davis says the immediacy of the songs represents both the band’s and the audience’s interests.
“There’s always been a need to work very fast with us,” he explains. “It’s for the short attention spans of our generation.”
