NOAH AND THE WHALE

Noah And The Whale return with their second album, The First Days Of Spring.  Gone are the female vocals from the first album and instead there are sweeping orchestras and a choir on back up.  An astonishingly honest album of heartache and loss, Charlie Fink from the band has also created a stunning visual accompaniment to album with a 50-minute film that parallels the music.  WONDERLAND asked the lead singer of the band (come film writer and director) a few questions to find out how the music became visualised.

The film accompanying the album is gorgeous. At what point did you decide to create a visual accompaniment to the album?The idea for doing an album and a film together came first, before anything was written. I had the concept before I had either narrative.

Was the album making process influenced by the film, or vice versa?While I was writing the music, I tried to keep the images in my head all the time. Obviously the music was going to lead the way and dictate the pace of the film but I was always trying to be sensitive to the narrative of the film. Lyrically the album was completely uncompromised by the film but I made sure there was references in the music for it.

How did you go about casting for the film?Other than Daisy [Lowe] and Ben [Lloyd-Hughes] who plays young Ethan the rest was through conventional casting. Ben is an old friend of mine.

How did Daisy Lowe get involved?I met Daisy in New York while we were mixing the album. She was the first person I’d approached about doing the film and she was almost immediately interested by the project. I gave her a copy of the album but all as one 45 minute track because I told her ‘this is about making something that people will listen to as a full record. Its about more than just a collection of songs, you have to listen to it in full’. Then a few weeks later I got an email from her detailing her exact experience listening to the record, writing as she listened. Every note and lyric. That email is very valuable to me and her unbelievable support and enthusiasm on the project helped me carry the weight. She is now one of my best friends.

You and the guys don’t feature so much in the film (save for a fleeting glimpse of one or two of you in the garden party scene). Why have you decided to omit yourselves?We’re not actors. Although Urby was once in a film with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Clive Owen. I’m not in any of the scenes but I thought it would be fun to have the other guys do a little cameo.

How long did the whole project take? What was the process? Where was it filmed?The process was best summed up by our producer Olivier Kaempfer as ‘shooting a near feature length film for the budget of a short in eight days.’

When singles are released from the album, will you be using the relevant scene from the film as the music video?The first video for our first single is a trailer for the film.

Love of an Orchestra is a fun highlight. What was the inspiration behind that track?It is the centre piece both of the film and the album. The divide. The change from desperation to redemption.

Is film something you want to pursue? Will you be quitting the band to take on Hollywood?Right now I’ve started to write some songs again and it feels very right. I’m also working on a script called The Quartet for The End Of Time but that is a project that I want to simmer a while.

What is your favourite film?Buffalo 66 or anything by Paul Thomas Anderson

[Originally published on wonderlandmagazine.com/blog, Aug 2009]