It’s been a roller coaster couple of years for Athlete. Not only have they had a number one platinum selling album in Tourist, sold out a three night run at the Brixton Academy, played at just about every major music festival going and been nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize but they were handpicked to support U2 on their European tour earlier this year. The boys have done good.
Michelle Annable spoke to keyboardist Tim Wanstall to find out if he’s feeling dizzy yet.

How’s it going?
It’s brilliant, we’ve had an absolutely amazing year and there’s no sign of it grinding to a halt just yet so it’s all good. We’ve just done our first tour of the United States and we’re playing different festivals almost every weekend this summer. It’s incredibly satisfying. I mean, we were never one of those bands who were on every magazine covers every other week. We were never really hyped up as the next big thing. With our first album, Vehicles and Animals, we spent a long time playing toilet venues up and down the country. It all kind of crept up on us, quite slowly gathering momentum. Then the single Wires really catapulted us into the spotlight and that brings us to where we are now.

It must have been a bit of a roller coaster for you. Are you ready to get off yet?
No, not at all. I’m enjoying myself too much. It’s a lot of hard work and there are ups and downs, but it’s fun so that makes up for it..

You’re playing a lot of festivals this summer. Why should Joe Festival-goer take the time to see Athlete rather than anyone else on the bill?
There’s nothing flashy or gimmicky about us. What you see is what you get. The thing we have which I think sets us apart is melody. We hold incredible importance in melody. Whenever we start to write a new song we begin by getting together and having a discussion about how we want it to sound, about the kind of melody and hooks we want to use. The most important thing is melody and we apply that principle to everything we write. By doing that, when we get to our live show we can play anything, maybe one of our lesser known songs, one of the album tracks, something that isn’t an instantly recognisable hit single, and in a festival environment it can take on a whole new entity and become something incredibly anthemic. So that’s why people should come and see us.

You opened for U2 on their European tour earlier this year. Did Sir Bono of Stadius Rockus have any words of wisdom to impart to you?
No, we didn’t actually get too meet him which was a bit of a disappointment. All of the dates we played with them were the ones where they were getting whisked off in big cars and helicopters because they had other things to do so I’m yet to have that honour. It was inspiring just watching them play though. They’ve been doing it for twenty years and have been at the top of their game for all that time. That’s a difficult thing to do, especially these days when people tend to only get excited about what’s new. It’s always about the next big thing but it rarely lasts for very long. By the time a lot of bands get their second album out the public have moved on to something else. We’ve been fortunate to have a second album which has outsold our first and to have had people stick with us. To look at someone like U2 who have managed to stay at the top of their game for over twenty years is absolutely awe inspiring.

You’ve spent a lot of time in muddy fields recently. Are you looking forward to getting back to smaller venues on your UK tour this Autumn?
This is going to be our biggest tour to date, excluding festival crowds, and I’m really looking forward to it. Every venue on the tour holds around four or five thousand people and it’s amazing to think that we’ve grown to venues of that size so that really excites me. I still remember the first show that we sold out. It was to about two hundred people in Manchester. It was incredible to think that two hundred people, who weren’t from our home town so didn’t include any family, friends or friends of friends, people who didn’t know us at all, wanted to come and see us play. It was an amazing feeling and I’ll never forget that.

Can we expect any surprises on your UK tour? You’re playing Brighton on Halloween. Are you planning anything special for that?
We’re playing Brighton on Halloween? Really?

Yes. You could wear fancy dress, maybe a zombie costume; go with a Night of the Living Dead theme. What do you think?
No, I don’t think I’ll be wearing fancy dress. I’ve never really been the trick or treat sort of person so I don’t think we’ll be doing anything special to mark the occasion. However, we may be using some visual media in the new show so who knows? Maybe we’ll put a massive pumpkin up on the screen or something like that (laughs).

Will you have any new material ready in time for the UK tour?
I really hope so, although I can’t make any promises. It’s exciting for us to have new songs to play because we’ve been promoting Tourist for over eight months now and playing the same songs. We played a gig at Somerset House in London recently and a new song Our Love was played live for the first time there. I think we may include that in the set for the tour. I have a real hope that we will have a new song for the tour. We’ve got a couple of things we’re working on and we’ve got ten days of rehearsals before the tour starts so something may or may not come out of that.

When can we expect the follow up to Tourist? Have you made any plans to head into the studio?
I don’t know, we’ll have to see what happens. We’re going to America again in September and then after the UK tour we’re going to Japan and New Zealand. We’ll have to see how things go over in America, a lot will depend on that. We’ll probably find a couple of weeks here and there to start working on things. We always have our laptops with us on the road so that we can play around with a few ideas while we’re travelling. When you’re on the road and playing the same songs every night you start getting itchy feet. You can’t wait to start doing something new. Personally I can’t wait to get back into the studio and see what we come up with but I can’t see it happening before Autumn next year.


A couple of weeks later I caught up with Athlete front man Joel Pott following their triumphant performance at the V Festival.

How are you? And what are you up to?
I’m not too bad thanks for asking. I’m in London at the moment, sitting in a café having a coffee and just chilling out.

Is that the end of the festival season for you now?
Yeah, pretty much. We’ve got one more and then that’s it for this year.

Which has been the best?
There have been some really good ones this year. V was amazing last weekend. If I’m being completely honest, I think V was our best performance. The response we got from the crowd was amazing. They were all singing along at the top of their voices and that really lifted us. Some of the smaller festivals we’ve done this year have been really good. There’s one in Spain called Benicassim. It’s by the beach and has a really good atmosphere which was really good. Also, Fuji Rock in Japan was fantastic too.

And the worst?
We had to miss one in Germany. We were flying back home from the States and we missed our flight to Germany because we were grounded in Chicago for five hours. That was really disappointing to miss that one. The worst one we’ve actually been to though? There was a terrible one in France a couple of years ago. I’m trying to remember what it was called. The line-up was pretty poor, it was really badly organised and there was no atmosphere. No, it’s gone; I can’t remember what it was called which is probably a good thing so I don’t get into trouble for slagging them off.

Have you had any Spinal Tap moments?
We’ve had quite a few this year. The funniest one was on our last tour we did in the States with Snow Patrol. It was on the last night and they were just finishing their set. They got to the last song and me and Steve (Roberts, drums) thought it would be a good idea to join them. So, we jumped off this balcony onto the stage and almost got decked by all these big, burly security guys. They were trying to throw us out and the guys from Snow Patrol were like ‘no, no, it’s ok; they’re our mates’ and trying to stop them. The whole thing just descended into absolute chaos. It was really funny.

Tell us an embarrassing story about one of your band mates.
Umm (pauses). Alright, I’ve got one. Carey (Willetts, bass) never used to forget stuff. That was always my role in the band. Then there was this one day when we were in the airport at Frankfurt and we were sitting around waiting for a flight to Hamburg. Carey started going on and on about how he never forgot anything. He was like, ‘I’m the best at remembering things, you lot never have to hang around waiting for ages because I’ve forgotten something’. So, a little bit later they called our flight and we headed off. Just as we were about to board the plane he realised that he’d left his jumper and jacket in the departure lounge and ended up holding up the whole flight. We took the piss out of him for days because of that. On top of that though, he forgot his passport the other week when we were flying out to Benicassim and he had to go all the way back home for it. He ended up missing the flight and had to wait for the next one. He got there eventually about fifteen minutes before we were due to go on stage. I think my forgetfulness has rubbed off on him. All of a sudden he’s really bad for forgetting things whereas I’m doing alright (laughs).

What was the last gig you went to as a paying customer?
It’s really difficult to go to shows that you’re not a part of when you’re on tour all the time. Festivals are really good in that respect because there are so many bands on and you get the chance to catch up on all the bands you’ve been meaning to check out for months but haven’t had the chance to. The last gig I went to as a proper paying customer was in Montreal in Canada about three months ago. We had a night off and Bright Eyes was playing across town so I went to check him out. He was absolutely amazing. I’ve heard that he can be a bit hot and cold but on the night I saw him he was really good.

What’s the best thing on a stick that you’ve seen being held aloft in amongst a crowd this summer?
The funniest one I saw wasn’t at one of the festivals but it’s was really weird. There was this one at the Brixton Academy towards the end of last year. It’s a long story but I’ll try to keep it short. There was an old friend who I went to school with called Russell Harding and I spotted him in the front row by the barrier on the first night. I climbed down and shook his hand and invited him backstage after the show for a bit of a party and to catch up. I hung around for a while afterwards but he didn’t show up. I forgot all about it until the next night when I saw five of his friends in the audience all holding banners that said ‘Where’s Russell Harding?’ They’d disappear for a while and then pop up again somewhere else. It was really bizarre. It went all night. The whole thing was just very surreal.

At Glastonbury the Kaiser Chiefs were upstaged by a giant inflatable dinosaur. What would it take to upstage Athlete?
I think the only thing that could upstage us would be a giant inflatable Jordan. Just imagine how big those things would be. They’d cover up the whole stage (laughs).

If you were an athlete rather than being in Athlete, which event would you participate in?
I think I’d do shot put. If only for the fact that I think it would be really funny to see someone as skinny as me trying to do shot put and failing miserably. Or, going along the more traditional school sports day route, I’d do the wheelbarrow race.

Why the wheelbarrow? I think you’d be quite good at the egg and spoon or maybe the sack race.
For the simple fact that I’m very good with my hands. Although, having said that, I’m not too bad in the sack either (laughs).

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