Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch and guitarist Stevie Jackson dropped by Q104.3 New York's "Out of the Box" with Jonathan Clarke recently to discuss their love of film, their brushes with greatness over the past 20 years and, of course, their new trilogy of EPs, How to Solve Our Human Problems, Parts 1 - 3.
While an EP trilogy is an unusual way to release music nowadays, it mirrored how the band first began releasing music about 20 years ago.
"'Anything goes' was the catchphrase for this bunch of recording," Murdoch says. "That's how we went into the studio. In terms of musical style, we just [said], 'Let's make it wide, let's do anything.
Recording for How to Solve Our Human Problems took place in a number of studios around the band's hometown of Glasgow, Scotland.
"We walked into one, which was an analog studio," Jackson recalls, "and it was small and I thought, 'We'll be on top of each other in here!' And then I was like, 'That's where I want to record.' (Laughs) I thought it'd be great, and it was."
The album covers for How to Solve Our Human Problems depict four faces each. Murdoch says the band put out a call for models and got a mountain of submissions.
"We got about a thousand people came back, they all sent a picture," he tells the show. "We went through—you know we could have picked anyone because people are interesting, you know, they're interesting faces. We met them all in London and we shot [all the photos], 80 people, in one day. And then we picked the ones for the sleeves."
Check out the full interview above! Elsewhere in it, Murdoch relates the embarrassing question he once asked The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde. Jackson shares some Beatles trivia and recalls once fetching a drink for Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood.
Get all Belle & Sebastian's upcoming tour dates here.
1 of 4 2 of 4 3 of 4 4 of 4
Here's the music video for "We Were Beautiful":
Here's the music video for "I'll Be Your Pilot":