With their upcoming double album, Life in the Wires, ringing in my ears, I recently sat down to talk with Frost* conceptualist/keyboardist/vocalist/grinning mastermind Jem Godfrey. Impishly humorous and thoughtfully reflective in turn, he was more than ready to talk about how the new album came to be, where it sits in the grand tradition of prog concept albums, what each band member contributes, the chances of touring behind this record, and possibilities for Frost*’s future. Video of our chat is below, with a full transcript following.

First of all, congratulations on the new album, Life in the Wires!  It’s been three years since the last one by Frost*.  And the first thing I was curious about was, what was the journey between the last one and this one?  How did Day and Age perhaps lay the groundwork for this album?

Weirdly, it created a world, a sort of cinematic universe that the new album is set in.  When John and I were writing Day and Age – I didn’t realize this at the time, but I think quite visually in terms of music.  I’ve started to realize that when I’m writing songs, I can kind of see the world that these people are in.  The Day and Age world was quite cinematic; to me it felt very cinematic with these different places, and the album cover being quite iconic with the five megaphone-holding gentlemen, and the world it was in!  It felt quite cinematic.  And so, at the end of Day and Age, there’s a little bit at the end of the song “Repeat to Fade” where the song fades out and is replaced by static.  And there’s just a voice in the static that says, “Can you hear me?”  Which is how the new album starts.

I quite liked that; I put it in at the end of Day and Age thinking it might be nice to have a little hook.  It’s almost like the sort of thing where they say, “James Bond will return.”  I quite liked that sort of idea.

In my head, it’s set in the same world, like the video game Grand Theft Auto, where you used to be able to be in one city driving around and doing stuff.  But if you wanted to, you could just jump in a car and drive across the bridge to another city, and there’d be another world going on there.  It felt a bit like that to me, the Day and Age world and the Life in the Wires world are the same world.  But things are happening concurrently.  So while in Day and Age-land we’ve got the characters, like in “Terrestrial” and “The Boy Who Stood Still”, these characters similarly over here there’s the character in Life in the Wires and that’s happening there at the same time.  I quite liked the idea that it’s all set in the same universe.  And so, as a result of that, visually and musically, it was quite easy to set a house style, in that respect.

Ah!  OK, that makes sense.  Was that part of the emphasis behind making it a double album as well?

Not really; I think that the story of Life in the Wires, there was enough of a story to tell that it felt like a double album would do it justice.  Cause there’s nothing worse than a prog band – I’m saying this hopefully – there’s nothing worse than being judged as a prog band that’s waffling on.  We’ve always thought that we had enough to say within the confines of a 60-minute CD format previously.

But with this one I very much had a mind, I wanted to do vinyl, as in, it’s four sides of vinyl.  And as a result, each bit of vinyl, the constraint’s about 20 minutes [a side] for optimum audio quality.  What’s nice about that it is gave me some parameters to work in.  And weirdly, when you say 86 minutes that seems like a very long time.  But if you say four 20-minute sides of vinyl, in my head it doesn’t feel anywhere near as daunting.

The double album idea, we’d always wanted to do one, I’d always wanted to do one.  This just felt like the right time to do that fabulous prog cliché of the double vinyl album!

Four sides kind of gives you a structure like a movie structure to play with.

Exactly!  You introduce the characters in the first half, the first act – there you go, that’s the word!  And then the journey happens over the next phase, which is Act Two.  And then you have the third act, where it’s all concluded and the fable is told, the lessons are learned, or whatever.  So yeah, it had enough material, musically, for it to extend over those sorts of formats.  And because I was thinking of it in longer bits of music like 20 minutes –  they’re not all 20 minutes long, but all the songs are connected.  So they’re sort of like a suite of songs.

And so naturally with that, the feeling is “well, the songs need to be more progressive; there needs to be more of a journey.”  Like The Wall is a continuous thing and The Lamb, is quite a lot of it linked.

It just felt like that right, natural thing to do.  I think if I gone into it thinking, “I’m making a CD,” it would have been different.  But my mind said it was four sides of vinyl and it seemed – I don’t know, it seemed perfectly natural this time around.

And that seems to be a shift that’s happened across the music industry.  You can tell that things are being planned more for sides of an LP, if you will, than a single CD.  It certainly covers a lot of ground; I had the chance to listen to it this week, and there’s a lot of sonic difference and variation, and there’s quite a bit of thematic ground that it covers as well.  But you also mentioned, in the press release, that there are deliberate nods to the back catalog; Milliontown was mentioned in the press release.  What kind of facets of your previous albums did you want to bring forward?  And were there any particular reasons for that? 

There is [laughs] – I was thinking about this earlier.  I went on a nice long walk; it’s this beautiful autumn day, and I was thinking about it.  The push/pull for me is that I sort of know why, but what I don’t necessarily want to do at this point is talk too much about it.  Because I don’t want it to be too defined – it sounds like a strange thing to say.  If I say, “well, this is because of that”, everyone’s gonna go ,“Oh, well, fine, I won’t bother!”  I think at this point, there’s quite a lot I’d like to leave up to people’s imaginations and interpretations.

I know why it is, and the reason is tied up in the name of the character, but apart from that it’s open to interpretation.  In my head, I have a reason why it is.  I will explain it, but maybe not yet.

Yeah, I understand the need to avoid spoilers at this point!

[Laughs] Yes, exactly.

But I did notice that this time around, there’s more – we Americans would call them 16th notes; I believe you call them semiquavers – involved than there were on Day and Age.

Mainly [drummer] Darby Todd was the purveyor of 16^th notes and 32^nd notes on Day and Age.  Yes, with Day and Age we made a conscious decision to not do too much widdle, you know?   We wanted to pull back from that a bit.  Because there’s obviously a danger; you can drown in a sea of hemi-demi-semiquavers [64^th notes].  What we decided on that one is to do arrangements.

But then what I realized is that in the gap between Falling Satellites and this album is, I think, eight years?  A decade is quite a long time to ask your fanbase to put up with you not doing one of the things they enjoy you doing!  Again, also because the album is more progressive in its demeanor and arrangement, it seemed sensible for us to not have any rules this time.  So, we can play and we can do a bit of soloing; we can be a bit cleverer.  Also, as you’ve said, it covers many, many different moods and atmospheres.  And as a result of that, if you take away the ability to solo or to express yourself in musical terms instrumentally, you are over the course of 86 minutes making it more difficult for yourself.  I think one of the things that we all enjoy about this genre and musicians in it is when they can cut loose with a bit of this [mimes guitar shredding].  It seemed fair to have a bit of light and shade, to allow that in the band; so we’ve all had a little moment when we allow ourselves to let go a bit.  I hope it’s tasteful!  I hope it’s tasteful! [Laughs]

Well, sometimes bad taste is the best taste, but …

Exactly. Well, look at my dress sense!  Exactly. [Both laugh]

I also noticed that you are more up front this time around.  On Day and Age, John Mitchell took a lot of the lead vocals.  But again, the synths are more – perhaps demonstrative is the best word, and you are taking most of the lead singing.  I’m assuming there’s no conflict within the band on that, that your fellow Frosties are rolling with that.

I think the reason why I did it was because I’ve written the majority of this album.  It made sense to sing it, really, because a lot of it was written on my own.  Rather than it being a case of “I’ll sing this, and I’ll get John to sing some stuff.”  There have been times when his voice and mine – he has a greater range up that way [gestures upward] than I do.  For example, on Day and Age there were a couple of songs I actually sang that John ended up singing because it suited his voice better.  “Skywards” was one I was gonna do and he ended up singing it.

This one – the sort of circle being completed was, I sang all of Milliontown, and it seems to me that’s the best thing we’ve ever done.  So, I figured I had bit of a green pass to get back to the mike and have a singsong.  I thought this was a good time to do it.

That strikes me as the opportunity to ask you:  what do you see each of the folks you work with in Frost* – it’s obviously a really tight core unit.  For example, what does John Mitchell bring to the party when you’re putting an album together?

He brings his unique, “Johnular” attitude to life!  He has a unique tone – a unique guitar tone, a unique sort of sound, and you can always tell it’s him.  It’s synesthesia when people see music as colors; I don’t necessarily see that.  But for some reason when I think of John’s guitar and his personality in his playing, it’s sort of neon purple!  I don’t know why.  It’s sort of exotic, slightly italic – it’s weird to describe it!  But he has this thing that’s unique, and it’s lovely.  When he plays, it brings this expensive sheen to things. That’s what he brings.  And also, his voice is unmistakable.  You’ll notice he sings right at the end of the album, on the “Starting Fires”.  He’s only gotta sing, “We’re star- …” and you go, “Ah, that’s John!”  What I liked about him on this album is that he’s right at the end.  So, in my head visually, it’s almost like I’m handing him the baton for the next one. [Laughs] “There you go, mate; your turn!”  So we’ll see. He brings “John-ness” to things, and his unique character and heritage.

Craig [Blundell] obviously brings a sort of puppy-like enthusiasm for everything!  He’s just like that the whole time, “HELLO, I’M AWAKE!”  He’s that puppy running around.  “What’s this? What’s that?” He brings that style to his playing.  I imagine that if you’re going [sings and mimes laid-back quarter note drum beat], in his head he’s going [sings and mimes upbeat 16^th-note drum groove] – loads and loads of notes there, he does that.  So, he brings this fabulous kind of energy to the backbeat.

And then Nathan [King] is sort of our dad!  He’s incredibly calm and Zen.  He’s the most talented musician of the band by far; he can play keys, he can sing, he plays bass, he plays guitar – and he plays them all brilliantly!  And he always remembers the music.  So, we’re always going “Nate, how does that go?”  [Eyes rolling:] “Like that; like that.”  He looks over us and keeps us all in line.

So that’s the dynamic is quite interesting in that respect.  I’m basically the noisy one at the front that tells everyone what to do.

Oh, OK; that makes sense.  I’ve been able to interview John a couple of times for his Lonely Robot projects, and you’re right, there’s nothing like him.  And I’ve seen Craig enough live with Hackett to realize, yeah, that’s exactly the energy he brings.

I’ve read elsewhere that, at least at one time, you had a master plan for the overall arc of Frost*.  Is that plan still operative, or did it even exist?  If so, where does the new album fit in?

Well, the original plan was five albums and out, if that’s the one you’re referring to.  And we’re at five albums. So, I don’t know!

It’s interesting because our initial deal with InsideOut was three albums, which we did, and the second deal was two more albums.  So we’re at the fifth album, so, technically, we’re out of contract.  In terms of what happens next, I don’t actually know.  We’ll have to just see.  There’s definitely some energy left in the project.  One thing that’s been nice about this album is that I have, in the back of my mind, had that sort of thought of “Maybe this is the last one!”  And that’s been very interesting to carry with me, that in some respects, [experiences discomfort] excuse me …

Sorry.  Soda water, don’t drink it doing interviews, it’s a very bad idea!

There is a very slight nostalgia to this album; you’re slightly aware that this could be the drawing down of the curtain. Or maybe not, I don’t know!  I quite like that sort of uncertainty, because none of us take the band for granted.  Because it exists while it’s got something interesting to say. 

It’s been quite nice at this point, we’re really into the fifth album, and technically the end of these contracts, to look back at all we’ve done and go, “Wow, it’s been a helluva ride!”  Which is one of the reasons we’ve got our new promo track out at the moment called “Moral and Consequence”, which is the second of three that’ll be released before the album comes out.  It’s a slight retrospective, which is quite nice in a way.  And also, it’s autumn now, so of course it’s that time when we all come indoors and we all think about life.  It’s a nice feeling to feel we’re at the end of this cycle; what happens next, I don’t know.

I know that last time around, you were able to tour the UK and release a very cool album – I think it was through Rob Reed’s label, Island Live.  I realize that predicting live performance these days is harder than ever, but any thoughts about something similar on the horizon in this cycle?

It would be lovely to gig this album, because obviously it’s a double album, it’s our chance to do our Lamb Lies Down moment!  The possibilities for how we’d do it live are, for me, very intriguing and interesting.  But at the same time, we’ll need the right package to come together in order for us to do it financially.  Because personally, I can’t afford to take the band out on multiple continents, doing multiple shows.  It’s just too expensive for effectively, what we are, which is salt traders! [Britishism for retail merchants]

So, I think if we can find a way of making it work somehow, with a tour package or a promoter or something where we’d actually go out and there is a budget for it, absolutely!  Why not?  We’d love to do it!  But as I say, there’s no real point in bankrupting ourselves in order to do it.  It’s a balance at the moment.  As I say, we’d love to do some gigs, and we’d love to do some gigs outside the UK for the first time in ages, cause we seem to be stuck in the UK a bit.

So I’m keeping an eye out.  Hopefully somebody will get in touch, or I’ll speak to somebody and we can make something happen at some point.  I don’t know at this point, but yes, absolutely, we’d love to tour it!

Cool!  It would be great if you could get across the pond, but yeah – we understand it’s harder and harder these days.

Yeah, it is, but the shows we’ve done in the States have always been brilliant; our American fans are so lovely, and we always have such a fantastic time in the States.  We’d absolutely love to get back if we can!

John is doing the [former King Crimson violinist] David Cross Larks’ Tongues [in Aspic; 50^th anniversary tour] project and he’s actually playing my hometown next month, so I’m really looking forward to that.

Oh, cool!

Is there anything else you’d like to say about the new album, or really anything else, to the readers of Progarchy?  I joined about five years ago, but I’ve noticed that you were very much a featured band throughout our history.

Oh, wow!  I’m flattered and honored; thank you very much!  I’m very excited about this album; I think it’s my favorite of the ones we’ve done.  I think it’s possibly – we’ve had time to mature as people; well,  I have had time to mature.  I was a bit of a hothead to start off with.  But as you get older you get calmer, as bits of you start working less and falling off and stuff.  So you start to look at the world in a more wholistic, gentle kind of way.  Anybody who does buy the album and likes it, thank you very much for supporting us. We aren’t anything without people to support us and keep us going and buy the records and come to the shows.  So, I just want to say to everybody, thank you very much!  We don’t take it for granted, and it always goes very, very much appreciated.

Well, you’re welcome!  And we appreciate what you bring with your music.  Yeah, I love the new album, I look forward to getting a copy, and if you come across the pond, we’ll do what we can to get there!  But I do wish you every success with Life in the Wires; it’s a really fine album. 

Well, ta!  I really appreciate that.  Thank you very much, indeed. sir.

You’re welcome!

Life in the Wires is released October 18th on vinyl and CD; preorder from Burning Shed here.

— Rick Krueger