When was the last time you thought about what got you to where you are now? It can be so easy to forget where your passions come from. With every new day and every new song, buried are the memories of how my heart pounded away at hyperspeeds just at the very scent of the old record store in my hometown. However, that rush of adrenaline is the reason I found myself at the beginning of a hectic Monday afternoon talking to Until the Ribbon Breaks front man Pete Lawrie-Winfield before he headed to Austin, TX’s SXSW Festival. For artists like Pete, the thrill of those inspirational memories bleed into every waking moment of life and one 20 minute conversation with him is all it takes to be invited into his world and stare in awe at the emotional journey his work represents.
Until the Ribbon Breaks began from an untainted passion and respect for film and music. After spending time in film school, the UK native eventually started Until the Ribbon Breaks as an organic blend of musical and cinematic expression. Using films as a catalyst for musical creation, Until the Ribbon Breaks has grown into a critically regarded marvel and has released, A Lesson Unlearnt, a debut album that has ensnared me in its one of a kind venture through musical and theatrical influences ever since its release in early January.
A strong believer in the album experience, Pete Lawrie-Winfield and fellow band members Elliot Wall and James Gordon have crafted a beautifully orchestrated collection of songs. A Lesson Unlearnt is a masterful indie album that ranges from more contemporary hip hop and R&B to nostalgic rock and jazz influences. Despite the ambiguous genre lines drawn, each song ebbs and flows into the next so seamlessly that it can be difficult to catch where one song ends and the other begins. In addition, the 11 songs all lyrically carry the same deeply introspective and thoughtful themes that Lawrie-Winfield expertly crafts and delivers with his distinctively soulful voice.
Until the Ribbon Breaks’s strong debut landed them a run of shows last week in Austin, TX for SXSW as well as a coveted spot on this year’s lineup for Coachella in April. Read the full conversation I had with Pete below and learn more about the genesis of this incredible band. Then, don’t forget to check out A Lesson Unlearnt and prepare for the emotional ride it will take you on.
BRM: You are very much inspired by film and cinematic elements, how much of the record comes straight from your own life experiences?
P: It’s always more the music that’s inspired by the film. A lot of the degree of why I use the film is to inspire where the music will go. I find it allows for a bigger world than your own you know? But lyrically certainly I tend to draw much more from personal experiences. Not necessarily always mine but observational you know. As I am watching the world around me and watching people around me. How things happen and how people behave you know, but some about my life to so. But I’ve never been able to -I’d like to more experiment with – but I’ve never been much of a kind of character study songwriter like stories, it’s always much more about a feeling or something that happens around me for sure.
BRM: Going into this record then did you set out with a specific vision or was it more going with wherever the inspiration took you?
P: I think, thematically… It’s funny I listened to the record recently and it’s the first time I’ve heard it for a long time. I find it’s quite difficult to listen to it myself. [Laughs] I did notice like thematically there was a lot of kind of looking forward and I guess kind of existential crisis. It definitely feels like it specifies a time in my life where I was not sure what was happening and questioning a lot of things. There’s a lot of questioning that I think some kind of millennial angst I suppose about everything that’s going on. A lot of kind of questions about the internet and society and where we’re at. So it [laughs] it kind of… I hope the next record will be maybe lighter in theme. That is one thing I noticed when I listened to it.
BRM: A little too dark for you?
P: [laughs] Yeah maybe. You know, it’s like reading a diary entry at a time in your life and thinking, “My god, I was a very serious person at that point in my life.”
BRM: I can imagine that would be kind of jarring to do.
P: Yeah… But you know, also glad. It’s nice to have the snapshot. You know, it’s nice it exists and you can go back in time. That’s what diaries are good for, I guess.
BRM: I noticed the last track on the album – the title track – It’s always been very interesting to me because it feels very personal. It feels like a summary of what your band and what that record is, was that the intention going into writing that song or was it another inspirational experience?
P: No, I think you’re right. I always said about that song, that it ends the record but not with a full stop, it always feels like a comma. I think the intention for that song was to end that record but also say and… You know it’s almost like a dot dot dot dot dot. It’s like a “to be continued” but it also sums up what’s gone before it. So that certainly was intentional. I like to think of records as whole pieces of music still you know. Whole bodies of works that have a reason, that is ordered in a certain way and I still believe in the idea of an album rather than just singles. So it definitely… It serves that purpose for sure. You’re right, I think.
BRM: I definitely noticed going through all the songs on A Lesson Unlearnt that as different as they sound musically, they’re also very connected in a sort of traditional album kind of way, so how do you approach creating such a cohesive collection?
P: I think, well it’s interesting because we’ve never been one of those bands that writes you know 30 songs and then picks the best 10. It was like we… it came together as it went. So it was more about filling in gaps and feeling where the record should go next and where it could go and it definitely happened organically in that sense of it it just kind of built itself until it told us it was finished, you know? Until there were no gaps left, until everything had been said and musically we felt like there was, it wasn’t lacking a down moment or a more upbeat moment. It just was what it is you know? And at that point I think it was finished.
BRM: What comes first for you as far as creating the record, is it the lyrics, the music or the feelings you want the listener to get from it?
P: Normally, it depends on the song, but lyrics is the one thing I’m always writing. You know whether it’s just jotting down an idea or title or a concept or just a couple of lines that I don’t know what they’re gonna be. My kind of notebook is full of just half songs and thoughts. And then, it’s like if I come back to… If I come to sit down and write a song a lot of times, I’ll just pull words and lines from 20 different pages that I never thought would make one song but then it seems like that they do. It’s like a copy and paste kind of thing for me a lot of the time. Or some songs like the first song on the record, “The Other Ones,” was written kind of in the vocal booth and I have no idea what it’s about and I wrote one line, sang it, wrote the next one, sung it, and it was much more of how the words sound next to each other. So sometimes it’s about nothing at all and you only start making sense of it once its done you know months later and you think oh maybe I meant that but at the time I got no idea. So, it just depends on the song. Or something like “Revolution Indifference” where I knew exactly what I wanted to talk about. Then I sit down and like spend a couple of hours just going over every line but I know what the theme is you know so with that it’s more like I give myself the words you know, but sometimes it just happens.
BRM: Now that you’ve had a little time to reflect on “The Other Ones,” do you actually know what it’s about now?
P: No, because I don’t listen to the record [laughs]. So that song will forever remain a mystery. I’ve no idea. I’d be happy to… But something like that’s exciting because people can interpret that however they want. You know maybe someone thinks it’s about something, it can be about whatever you want it to be that song.
BRM: Is there anything you hope people take away from listening to A Lesson Unlearnt?
P: I just hope the element of kind of, that it’s more of a world than it is just a collection of songs. You know that’s what I always intended setting out with this project. Which was that it was a kind of marriage of music and film and its kind of a multimedia project and if you come and see us live or watch the videos, maybe you get a sense of that. It was more just that it was… It’s a world that I hope is slightly bigger than a couple of songs you know. It’s like conceptual, but it’s got places it can go… And maybe even some fun in there too, who knows? [laughs]
BRM: I think it’s a fun record to explore, I’ve definitely had a lot of fun with it.
P: Thanks.
BRM: In terms of your reimaginings of other songs – I know you re-did Sam Smith’s “Nirvana” and The Weeknd’s “Wicked Games” – How does your creative process doing those differ from going to the studio and creating your own original material?
P: It’s nicer sometimes because I have no personal pressure and expectations you know. So it’s nice to get back to the idea of just making music for music’s sake because it’s someone else’s vocal – and we only ever take the vocal. That’s why we call them ‘reimaginations’ because we like to not even reference the original track and just kind of see what kind of worlds you can create around the vocal whether it’s a new emotion or new feeling that you can pull out of it or a new harmony you can put underneath it. So, they’re exciting and they’re different because they’re far more experimental you know we can… There’s a kind of higher pressure I put on myself when its my own song but that means its a more kind of slightly harder process. Not in a bad way, but it’s just a bigger process I suppose.
BRM: Growing up, what films inspired you to want to really explore them later in life?
P: Growing up. I always… My parents would have a dinner party every other Saturday or every Saturday night and so I always loved that day because I would be taken to the video shop you know VHS’s. And I was allowed – my treat because I wasn’t going to be involved in a dinner party [laughs] was to choose any video I wanted you know. And to just a tiny little kid, a video shop is just amazing. You look at the front covers and you think “what?”
BRM: It was definitely my favorite day.
P: Yeah, it’s amazing. I still remember now seeing front covers like Hellraiser and stuff. And I wasn’t allowed to rent that one, but look at the cover and just think like what is that? You know these things just felt like other, entire other worlds so anything. You know whether it was something like Hook or an amazing film like that and then if my parents would go out I’d raid the kind of older films and I’d watch. You know, I feel like you’re introduced to – well I was definitely – everything through film you know? I remember stealing 9 ½ Weeks [laughs] and watching that as a kid and just thinking okay I do not understand this at all and then equally Pink Floyd’s The Wall, the animated film. I remember my dad let me watch that and that is such a trippy psychedelic [film] you know, there is kind of no narrative in it. It’s just kind of this amazing piece. Again it’s a whole world you get lost in. So it could be anything, but it was just film. I never… Still to this day, I think that’s why our music and maybe the films we choose jump around a bit because I’m really not concerned with genre in film or music. It’s just, my only rule is how it makes you feel. Is it any good, you know? There’s not one type of music I do or don’t like, it’s just is it good I think is the only thing I ever cared about.
BRM: I think it’s a great rule and it’s certainly working out for you.
P: I would hope so, yeah. [laughs]
BRM: If you could write the score for the next Oscar worthy film, who would you want to direct it?
P: Who would I want to direct it? I mean, we were talking about this the other day. It’d be easy to say someone like Lynch of Terrence Malik who’s my favorite director and anyone who does these kind of montage based beautiful artsy things. But I think it’s a bigger challenge to make something, try and subvert a more Hollywood film and make it a stranger score for a bigger film. So I think – and I think Trent Reznor did an amazing job of that with Gone Girl. You know something like that is a big Hollywood picture, but then the score is kind of so weird that it pulls the film back towards a more art house film and I think that’s a bigger challenge. So… Whoever directed Gravity, I would love to. He had such a sense of scope in that film. I forget his name. But something like that. Anything that involves space. Christopher Nolan, you know, I’d love. That’s just so big that you’d be like okay I’ll do something big and orchestral, but maybe it’s more interesting not to. So that’s my answer.
BRM: Okay wrapping up you guys are headed to SXSW, what are you most looking forward to at SXSW this year?
P: You know, it’s been so kind of. We did North America with London Grammar and then Europe with our own shows and then Australia just last week. So if I even think about tomorrow, I start panicking. So I guess my answer would be to just look forward to whatever pops up in our way. I mean, we went last year and it was amazing so and it’s so chaotic and everything’s happening all at once. So I would just say I’m looking forward to not knowing what’s going on.
BRM: How are your SXSW shows going to be different from your typical touring shows?
P: It’s kind of “seat of your pants.” Like you’ve got no soundcheck, you just roll in and just crash away until hopefully some good sound comes out [laughs]. So they’re a lot more spontaneous. You know they’re a lot more anything can happen and so I think you have to play them knowing that. You can’t be so precious about sound, you just have to go with whatever. So they’ve got their own charm I think.
BRM: Are there any artists at SXSW you want to collaborate with down the road?
P: I don’t even know who’s playing. I mean, that’s another thing that’s exciting. I’m gonna turn up tomorrow and look at the list and go, oh my god I can’t wait to go and see that so. Collaboration is a massive part of what we do so I think there’s probably a million people going I’d like to collaborate with.
BRM: Final question, I know you guys are headed to Coachella after SXSW, but what’s next after the festival season?
P: Definitely to start making some new music. I’ve been excited to do that for a long time. Touring obviously takes it out of the picture to some degree. So getting to the studio and making another record, that is my main aim.