Written by Mr Urbanowicz for Hannah Booth of the Guardian, this is an insider look at the life of Editors as they were right at the beginning of their musical odyssey. At the time of this article, three of the band lived in the same house together and this is their story as seen from the perspective of the man with the angles. Abandon any romantic notions you may have of the band getting into crazy adventures all the time, like the The Monkees in their TV show, perhaps travelling around in their pitch black Editors' Scene Machine solving mysteries and such. The reality of the situation appears to be far different (and less sexy). Written in Chris' uniquely self deprecating style, it contains a truly slanderous revelation about King Leetch right in the middle of it. Fact? Fiction? Fun! Enjoy ;)
The Way We Live
We haven't had groupies outside the house yet. But I think some of the neighbours know we're in a band - one stopped me the other day and said, 'You're the drummer in Editors, aren't you?' I said I was, even though I play guitar. Sometimes it's easier. And someone came up to me in the store round the corner and congratulated me on our single Blood entering the charts at number 18. Come to think of it, it could have been the same guy.
We only had two days to move in, as we were touring. The house was unfurnished, so we went on a spending spree in Ikea. I never knew beds and sofas were so expensive, and I'd never put up furniture before - I got splinters from the shelves and put the sofa slats in the wrong way, so people kept falling through it. I'd thought these things were idiot-proof; now I'm not so sure.
We had a small house-warming shortly after and an inflatable chair of Ed's [the drummer] perished. Russell [the bassist] says he dropped a knife on it, but I saw him slashing it. I couldn't believe the number of empty bottles the next day; nor could the neighbours. They're sound, though. They look out for the house when we're away. Our fence blew over last week and they fixed it for us.
We live and work together, but we hardly ever argue - we're really old friends from university, so we know when to give each other space. It's a bit weird Tom [the lead singer] not living with us, as we've always shared a house. He's either at his folks' in Stroud or with friends in London, but he doesn't feel left out; we see him every day anyway.
We're quite clean boys: at least, the house was neat and tidy for the first few weeks. Russell does most of the cleaning but his washing-up is pretty half-arsed: you have to wash everything again.
I always try to get home after a gig - it's good to be in your own bed, and it's important to have a constant base with all your stuff in one place. Tom and I slept on our manager's floor for four months a while back. I wouldn't do that again in a hurry.
Birmingham's great as it's easy to reach from most places and a lot cheaper than London - we've got a really nice place with wooden floors and it doesn't cost the earth. Sometimes it's good to be removed from London's music industry scene: when we first moved here, we weren't ready to be signed - we wanted to be sheltered and write the album undisturbed.
We rarely talk about music at home. While we were writing, we rehearsed in our bedrooms, but we're touring a lot at the moment, so home is where we relax with the PlayStation and DVDs. We were home for two nights recently as we were playing in Birmingham. That was a real luxury.
brought to you with lots and lots of lemming-love :) x
