Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on March 2014

It’s been exactly a decade since Metropolis first interviewed Newcastle rockers Maximo Park. Since then the neo postpunk movement out of which they emerged has crested and subsided, yet here they are, back in Japan with a fresh album for the first time in five years. We caught up with frontman Paul Smith to hear about his secrets of survival and their new disc Too Much Information.

What has changed the most and least over the decade?

The ideology behind the band is still very similar. We still want to make music that connects with people and that has strong melodies and is pop music. We set out with certain ideals and things are still the same at heart. But our working methods have changed a lot. On the new record I sing in a softer voice, and Archis [bassist Archis Tiku] has also done a lot of techno DJing and that feeds into stuff like the electronic songs on this record such as “Brain Cells.” Over ten years if you’re not trying new things out the band will die a creative death. As people we’ve changed and evolved but I still think I’m a similar person. I’ve never had the desire to live a rockstar lifestyle.

Are you still in Newcastle?

Two of us are. It’s a little more difficult getting us together now, but having a base and a studio here is handy. I’ve got a spare room so I often take in Lukas [keyboardist Lukas Wooller], and Tom [drummer Tom English] stays with a friend. In the summer months we’ve been known to camp in our studio. It’s not what I would do personally, but we’re a rock ‘n’ roll band don’t you know.

How have you evolved as a frontman?

I’m much more confident, and don’t care so much about what other people think anymore.  When we first started out everything was instinct, but you come to understand your abilities, and you learn to say no. When you’re starting out you tend to say yes to everything. It seems very obvious now that not everyone’s going to like our music, that’s just the way it goes. As you get older you realize what your priorities are. And our priorities are to sort ourselves out first, and if people don’t like it then such is life. There were a lot of similar bands around when we started out and not many of them are left.

The first time we met you talked about Maximo Park emerging as a reaction to the swagger of Oasis. Where do your thoughts stand now?

From my point of view there needs to be an edge to music. There needs to be a questing quality to it, and I still hold true to that hunger. I don’t want to stand still and resort to rock clichés in order to reach a mass audience. I want a mass audience to come to our music without diluting it. If people are looking for music to wash over them, it won’t happen with us, because there will always be edges that you have to tackle.  Music should ask questions of the listener.

It’s hard to avoid the past as a rock artist these days because there’s so much of it now…

You’ve got to take a postmodern view of it. A collage approach—trying to make something new from the things that have inspired you. I haven’t listened to much Depeche Mode but people say the new album reminds them of Depeche Mode. I’m not averse to that but hopefully it has a new perspective. I look in music for something that feels fresh and exciting that moves me, and that’s what I hope we do with our own music. You can play around with the past as long as you’re not slavishly aping it.

It’s been five years since you’ve been to Japan…

The last time we came was to play Fuji Rock with our third record. We’d love to play one of the summer festivals, but nothing is fixed yet. Hopefully lots of people will come to the show and be excited. We always give 100 percent so hopefully it will create a few ripples and you never know—we may end up back in Japan.

Unit, Apr 3.