MNZ Interview: CoffeeBar Kid Cuts S02 / E01 : The Veils

Indie/rock band The Veils, fronted by English/Kiwi singer songwriter Finn Andrews, have been constantly evolving ever since Andrews, at the tender age of 16yrs, sent a set of demos to record companies and almost immediate was signed with Blanco y Negro, the very cool indie/major hybrid imprint, led by Rough Trade’s boss Geoff Travis. The singles and debut album, The Runaway Found set them up on a constant course of musical refinement.

Over the course of six albums and various band line ups, the sound of the Veils has changed markedly. Moving from spiny, angular 80’s Goth, Cave-styled death and redemption songs, various notions of total depravity and nods to murder ballads and the occasional softer, contemplative nod to English Folk.

Throughout much of his career, Andrews tell Tim Gruar, a constant theme in his writing has been love and death. Which sits perfectly into the folder of Asphodels, the Veils’ seventh full-length LP album.

When I call him over Zoom, Finn Andrews is sitting in the lobby of a Berlin hotel, awaiting his transport to the band’s next gig “somewhere in Switzerland and then Italy”.

The Veils are on tour in Europe at present, before returning to Aotearoa in early March for gigs in Tāmaki Makaurau, Te Whanganui a Tara, and Otautahi. And of course, a return performance at WOMAD, Taranaki, with classical masters, NZTrio (Amalia Hall – Violin; Ashley Brown – Cello; Somi Kim – Piano). The last time was just Andrews and band, in 2019, promoting his solo album One Piece at A Time.

Tim: In preparation for this interview, I was listening to Asphodels whilst walking around the Auckland Art Gallery.

Finn: Wow. That’s an original idea. What did you see?

Tim: I think the album really spoke to me, while I was amongst the Gottfried Lindauer portraits of the many tupuna of Iwi from around Aotearoa. They were alive in the paintings and memories, and I think they were also, in some way transposed through the songs as well. The music just seemed to fit, songs of love, endurance, eternity.

Finn: I’ve never made such a strong connection, like that. Wow.

Tim: You’ve said that the album title comes from Derek Mahon’s poem A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford‘ which also contains a line from the renowned Turkish poet Giorgos Seferis – “Let them not forget us, the weak souls among the asphodels.” (Seferis, Mythistorema (for J. G. Farrell)).

Finn: Yes. I love that poem (Mahon’s) and the word Asphodels seemed to just resonate.

‘Asphodels’ in Greek mythology were linked to the Underworld, associated with death and mourning.

Finn: I’ve always been a bit of an aspiration poet, as embarrassing as to label myself. But that was certainly the thing I fell in love with first, I think. I don’t claim to be one. But I enjoy bringing some of those sensibilities into lyric writing. It all just seeps in.

I read a lot of poetry and I tend to like songwriters that future the lyrics largely. I think this album was the antidote to the one before (…And Out of the Void Came Love – 2023).

(By that I mean) the last one we spent five years on, there was a lot of hefty production work on it (it was recorded at variously locations including. Roundhead Studios, Paquin Studios, The Lab, Auckland and the Massey Performing Arts Center).

This time I wanted to make something very fragile and direct and live. Like the records I grew up with. Just record it all to tape. Make it very intimate, like you are in the room right there with us.

Tim: And in terms of your subjects…?

Finn: Yes. (back to the earlier question) I don’t know where the subject matter comes from, just this weird processing my life goes through writing these songs. A way to make sense of everything, I suppose.

Tim: There’s a final line from Seferis’ Mythistorema – “We who had nothing will school them in serenity.” Such a beautiful description of the modern dilemma, don’t you think?

Finn: That’s right. I’ve been doing this a long time. And it’s only now I feel remotely comfortable in what I do and who I am. Every album, I’ve felt like a complete impostor, I don’t know. This one feels restrained and gentle and a sort of quiet confidence to it. Sort of hard earned.

Tim: Your band has changed. Your style has changed. Is that you feeling your way through all the directions to where you’ve landed now? Because this album is very much different from the previous ones.

Finn: It sometimes feels like atonement making another album, trying to correct ‘sins of the past’ – that’s harsh – Maybe it’s ‘refinement’ – that’s a nicer way of putting it. I don’t know. You are always trying to work out which parts of yourself are an affectation and which ones are the parts that are necessary and true.

I started so young. I didn’t know who I was at all. At 16yrs. At that age. Well, everyone’s an ‘idiot’ (at that age). Maybe starting so young, it confused me longer. If I made my first record in my mid 20’s, then maybe I might not have always felt like I am trying to repair the past or something.

I wouldn’t want to keep doing this if it wasn’t always interesting. I don’t know why it’s always changing. I guess I am as well. It’s shape-shifting and travelling with me.

Tim: I get that. Because, in the early albums, there’s a lot of influences from the Rough Trade bands of the time and a bit of Nick Cave, etc. The London and UK music scene. All the influences of the times? Do you think you’ve freed yourself for the genre labels.

Finn: People talk about finding your voice. It’s a very difficult thing to do. And a slow process. I don’t know if I have yet. But this is the first record that feels like I’m getting close to something that wasn’t a natural end-result of all those influences mushed together in my brain.

Perhaps you do need to have some sense of yourself to find your voice. I’ve never had any idea of myself, until fairly recently. It’s weird because it’s kind of me, and abstraction of me. But my voice is the most ‘me’ this time.

Tim: I think it’s more confident, maybe worldly?

Finn: I think So.

Tim: The instrumentation is simple, sparse. You made this at Roundhead Studios – in four days. To tape. That’s risky?

Finn: I remember on our first album (The Runaway Found – 2004) we were even more extreme as we recorded and mixed to tape. Very 1950’s approach. But I really liked it. Having to make the kind of decisions you have when you’ve only got three minutes of tape. Something about that suits me. It definitely makes me think better (as a musician). There’s something about a vocal take that’s completely unmolested from start to finish. All of my favourite vocals were recorded like that.

It’s a really healthy discipline. I just never sing the same way if I know I can fix it later.

We did it fast, the recording. But spend the time on the songs. I did a good three years on them. I did a solo tour of America, just a man in a hat, and a piano, with just these songs. And that was really good for them. They were really honed by the time I went in there (to the studio). Yeah, it was great, focusing on the time for writing, rather than the time for recording.

Tim: I read you used Chat GPT?

Finn: Haha! That would have been interesting. No, for the blurbs. The label wanted something about each song, which they give to the streaming services. But it’s the most tedious thing to do. So, I got Chat GPT to do that. Ha ha. No. It was good. Quite educational. Came up with some quite good references and things.

Tim: Let’s talk about the songs on the album. These songs are about self-reflection, private reckoning. You drew inspiration from some of your favourite poets – Federico García Lorca, Ted Hughes, and Louis MacNeice.

Finn: I’m very proud of this album. It’s about love and death, a topic I write about a lot. I hope it might give listeners some solace and insight, as it has done for me.

Tim: Something I think we all look for, especially now, with the current state of the world?

Finn: Indeed.

Tim: The title track, Asphodels, is completely sparse, stripped back vocals and piano. You can even hear the piano pedal banging away. Pins can be dropped. And I think it has a haunting quality, yes?

Finn: And I wanted it to be introspective, like in your head. We filled the piano with felt, which is why it’s so soft. The piano hammers hitting the felt before the strings make it sound almost ‘under-watery’.

Tim: And then there’s The Ladder. Simple – piano, brushed drum and strings and clear harmonised vocals. A softly spoken atmosphere, perhaps. Maybe like the murkiness of an oil painting. A little ambiguous, too.

Finn: Yes.

Tim: Am I right in thinking this was inspired by Greek Mythology – like the River Styx which separates the living from the dead. Is this ladder the bridge that spans between the two worlds? Perhaps metaphorically and in reality?

Lead me to the ladder / Of black amethyst and lead / Out across the water / In the valley of the dead – The Ladder

Finn: I’d seen a lot of religious paintings, concepts of ladders between death and life. Golden ladders, too (like Jacob’s Ladder).

This album is so pre-occupied with death, life, rebirth. That one’s the most obvious example, I guess.

Tim: It’s sort of your brand, I’d suggest. Themes of mortality, human fragility. Is that fair.

Finn: Yes. One can spend a lifetime writing songs about love and death. It’s what keeps the lights on! Ha ha.

Tim: The song Mortal Wound. The literal title and lyrics give me chills. As if a consequence of a fatal blow. I’m thinking of Pietro Perugino’s painting of Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. Dark but the music is a contrast. It’s upbeat, with the piano and strings being expansive, positive, almost a sing-along. Is this about love hurting to see the world’s beauty. Storms and clam after, battles and regrow the in the fields. Love conquering. If feel the message hear is profound, somehow.

Finn: I never really know what I’m talking about (in my music). I guess there was a quiet hope that love will fix us, repair us. It’s, I guess, the ‘relieving’ of a mortal would. Something nice about that. Perhaps, what love can do.

Now I alone know the future that awaits you / And I alone sense the changing of the wind / Sat by your door as that feeling overtakes you / Lost in your thoughts and the love that they bring
– Mortal Wound

Tim: Melancholy Moon seems to me like pure poetry, as if it were Byron or Shelley. It’s so bucolic.

Finn: I wrote that one last, a few days before we went in the studio. I wanted something with a different mood. I didn’t want the whole album to be sombre. I wanted something a little more upbeat in there. I’m a sucker for a jolly song with a sad lyric.

So what of annihilation / And so what if love’s to blame / We all must face our transformation / In this world of ash and flame / Melancholy moon / You always come too soon – Melancholy Moon

Tim: Concrete after rain, I think, is the most beautiful on the album, because it reminds me of the scene of the swirling plastic bag in the movie ‘American Beauty’. There was just this idea of being able to observe something so simple, the beauty of the motion and shape, without judgement or a need to embellish or characterise. Do you know what I mean?

Finn: Yes. No one has really mentioned that song. I was really happy with it. It’s a different kind of song. It’s very rare that I just write this way. Often I’m putting on the ‘characters’ – creatures, axolotls or young mothers. It’s rare that it’s just ‘me’, walking down the street. Something very unaffected and real. I just stood there, staring out at the street. I love that about it (the song).

Tim: I also loved the production – the vocals upfront and the piano literally sounds like it out in the car park or somewhere, dis-jointed, echoing, removed a pit. And the notes, almost rain on the concrete themselves.

Was there a special effort put into this? Perhaps some vintage mics, or a layering effect of some kind?

Finn: There’s a slightly more prosaic story. I have an upright piano at home. I just like the way the high notes sounded on it. So I just made a loop of me playing at home. I didn’t have any decent microphones or any good tech. I just recorded it. And then brought that piece into Roundhead Studios and played their lovely piano over the top. So, two different pianos.

Tim: None the less it sounds like you really are outside. It’s so atmospheric.

Finn: I succeeded. Yes.

Tim: Was there a story behind the very evocative O Fortune Teller about a nervous visit to a clairvoyant.

Finn: I’ve said elsewhere that the song might be about the desire to know the future, but a fear from the weight of that information when you get it. Yeah, it’s a about carrying all this fear but also hope about the world around, both together, at the same time, I think.

Tim: This is not the first time you’ve worked with arranger/composer Victoria Kelly (including providing soaring string arrangements for the Veils’ album … And Out Of The Void Came Love – 2023 and strings on the song What Can I Do from Finn’s solo album One Piece At A Time – 2029).

Finn: This is the third time now. Since moving back to New Zealand, I’ve been so grateful to have been introduced to her. We’ve become such great friends. With this album, I was playing her things, songs, very early on and involved in it. Rather than the traditional rock’n’roll approach of recording all the songs and then getting the strings in at the end, overlaying them over everything. She was talking about the strings being like another member of the band. There’s so much space on this album, not many guitars, just the piano, really. So, she had a lot of space to fill. The way these arrangements kind of weave in and out come from how we were working really early on in the process.

Tim: So, how was the album made?

Finn: A few different ways. Some live, some over dubs.

Tim: How do you work together? You and Victoria?

Finn: Usually going around to her house, drinking lots of red wine and playing her stuff on piano. Ha ha!

Then she has some kind of reference in her head, and she’d play me some pieces of music. I’d play some back. To-and-fro. A natural process.

NZTrio – Somi Kim (piano), Ashley Brown (cello), Amalia Hall (violin) – Photo – http://www.nztrio.com

Tim: And for the WOMAD show you are bringing NZTrio back – talk about the ‘dream band’. They are so talented.

Finn: Ashley Brown, the Cellist, is Victoria’s husband, so there’s that connection. All rather neat?

Tim: And will you be playing piano live, given Somi (Kim) will be there?

Finn: Far better than me. Sometimes I feel bad, with having her play such simple material compared to what Somi is so very capable of playing. My piano parts are just so rudimentary. I’m blessed to have her on board. She’s amazing. I will be on guitar or just jumping around. Ha Ha

Finn Andrews at WOMAD 2019 – Photo – Tim Gruar

Tim: The last time you were at WOMAD it was 2019, I think?

Finn: Yes. I was there as part of the solo album (One Piece at a Time) tour.

Tim: Along with NZTrio, who else will be with you this time.

Finn: It’ll be the Veils band. That’s James Duncan (Bass), Dan Raishbrook (guitar) Chris O’Connor (drums). So, with NZTrio, there will be a big group of people on stage.

Tim: The band members have changed over time. Has that influenced the way you play live?

Finn: Yeas. I think it have and we’re the best we’ve ever been, I think. I think we work well as a five piece. I’m playing more and more piano, too. Which is nice. There’s an open-door policy in the band, with people coming and going quite a lot. We have to keep adjusting the live concept, which is great.

It’ll be so great to play that big stage at WOMAD, with the ducks and the pond.

I remember it well. I saw R.E.M there when I was 17. They played Night Swimming. Everybody got in the lake and got dysentery. Ha ha! Not me!

Tim: Good decision. You are touring Europe. You are no longer based in the UK. Is it harder, with whānau here now, to go do that. You can’t just jump over for the weekend.

Finn: Yes. And No. We always had the problem playing down in New Zealand. So, it’s the same -in reverse, I guess. Now I can do New Zealand easily and Europe is a bit of a pain. Ha ha.

It’s hard being away from my daughter and all. They all came along last European tour. But it’s a harder sell to do this in a harsh European winter. Nicer to stay in the warm.

Tim: How do you define yourself. Are you a Kiwi or a Brit? (Finn was born in Kentish Town but spent his teens living with his mother and sister at his grandmother’s in Auckland). Kiwi always claim their own, you know?

Finn: I don’t know. I feel very grateful for New Zealand. I guess the way I grew up I was so split between the two. Not feeling completely part of either of them. Feeling a little detached from both. But also, it’s been very kind to me, New Zealand. And now my family, partner, daughter born there. I guess I feel more of a Kiwi than ever.

Tim: I know you have to check out. So, I’ll let you go. Thank you so much for your time. We will see you down here in Taranaki in March.

Finn: Looking forward to it!