IDER have been making waves in the music industry since 2016, with a series of well received singles and a debut album which reached number 23 on the indie charts. Their sound is genre-spanning and fresh, bringing in together electric beats and their trademark story-telling lyrics. We sat down with the duo to discuss their newly released third album ‘Late to the World’.
Q: How does it feel in the few days leading up to an album launch?
A: ‘It feels like it’s our wedding, Thursday night is like the rehearsal dinner, we’re heading to Margate for the album launch, lots of friends and family arriving. Then Friday is the big day! We both lived in Margate for a while, so it’s a bit of a home-coming. It’s funny because we’ve had it the album for long because it was getting mixed this time last year, so you almost forget that everyone hasn’t heard it yet.’’
Q: What can fans expect from this album?
A: ‘It’s consistent with our earlier records in that we are all about the lyrics and the stories first and foremost, and there’s plenty of those on this record, lots of big feelings. But there are definitely some differences. A big one is we’ve recorded with live drums for the first time. We’ve always toured with a drummer but never recorded drums before, so that’s really cool and exciting. Sonically, the live drums are part of the ‘bigness’ of this record, and the sonic landscape feels quite broad. We go from these electronic moments with electronic beats and rhythms to some real live, rocky, more indie moments, so it feels like there’s this really broad spectrum of different sounds. Sonically it feels big and Hi-Fi, but it is still really centred around our vocals. It’s made for driving or running, just for being on the move, for big stages. And the live drums are part of that, and how it differs from ‘Shame’ and the first record.’
Q: What brought the change about?
A: ‘We’ve loved touring with a live drummer, it makes the songs feel bigger., so it just felt right. It came about quite naturally, we recorded the record in this amazing kind of Church-cum-Studio in Wales with our producer Dann Hume. He’s a drummer so he had a kit set up there, so laying down drums for certain songs became part of the creative process. So it really became part of the fabric of making the album.’
Q: What was the process like producing this album?
A: ‘Our label has been very trusting in terms of letting us do what we feel is right for this album, we’ve had a really good experience and it feels like we’re all pulling the same way. Working with our producer Dann Humme on this album is the first time we’ve done a whole project with one producer, and that’s something we really wanted for this album. Working with one person the whole time has allowed it to really grow in the room and become really cohesive. It can be challenging and it can feel like killing your darlings, but you learn so much from the process, about what you are willing to flex on and where you don’t want to be challenged. So it was a really rewarding experience.’
Q: How did you meet Dann?
A: ‘It was really organic, it feels like an aligning of stars! We played a London show in 2022 and Dan was brought along, and it’s worked out so well which is probably quite rare. Dann had recently moved to Wales and he was converting this church into this incredible studio. So he invited us down for a few days, which is the kind of vibe we like, that more informal style, not 9-5 London recording sessions which are super controlled. So we just kind of turned up, had an amazing few days, went back again, did a few trips, and it became really obvious to us that we wanted to record our album like that with him. It wasn’t like we held formal interviews or anything. And this happened before we were working with the new label, so it was a relationship really born in a purely creative space, which is just exactly what you want. And it made the process really enjoyable.’
Q: What kind of music influenced the album?
A: ‘We were listening to a lot of Robyn, we really got into that kind of Synth-Pop-Electronic sound, and Mitski as well, the album ‘Laurel Hell’ was very present. That record was very influential, the production on the tracks especially. In 2023, we were listening to a lot of Blondshell too, and Mazzy Star really came into our collective life as well at that time.’
Q: Do you find you listen to similar music?
A: ‘There’s definitely a lot of crossover, and some different tastes too. It really depends when something finds you, sometimes one of us is absolutely obsessed with an album and the other is not as into it, then months later we’ll switch around when the album just hits you differently.. But there’s lots of crossover, when we really love an artist it’s definitely mutual. It’s never that one of us is super into something and the other can’t stand it.’
Q: How are you feeling about the tour next month? How's the rehearsal process going?
A: ‘We've brought a fourth member into the touring band which has been an ambition of ours for a while. We’ve always toured with a drummer but we wanted more of a band feeling on the stage, so one of our friends who is a great musician is joining us. I think it feels like the right next step especially with the sonic bigness of the new album. Some of the venues are quite big but not all of them are, there’s definitely gonna be some real high energy, bursting out of the room vibes. We’re especially excited to play in Berlin, it’s a bit of a home away from home for us, and really excited to be back at King Tut’s in Glasgow, we’ve played there before and it’s such an institution.’
Q: Is there a particular gig you remember going to which made you realise this is what you want to do?
A: Lil: ‘This is too embarrassing, I don’t want to say! I remember being about 13 and I went to a Daniel Bedingfield concert. I was absolutely obsessed, I loved him, and I just remember thinking that I wanted to do that.’
Meg: ‘I hadn’t thought about this in years, but I went to see a duo called The Civil Wars, they’re this folk-country duo, and I went to see them with my family at the Shepherd Bush Empire, I must have been about 17 or 18. I remember watching them and thinking that I could do this. It sounds arrogant really, but it’s that fire of arrogance that makes you inspired and revved up. The Empire felt way bigger than it actually is, it felt huge, and I just remember thinking this is it, this what I want.’’
Q: What’s one thing you’d like to do this year outside of music?
A: ‘We’ve just thought about the album for so long it’s hard to even think about anything else! But definitely get some winter sun, maybe a beach in Thailand with a book.’
IDER are about to embark on an international album tour! Their Manchester date on 12th March is currently sold out, but there are tickets remaining for the Belgrave Music Hall in Leeds for 13th March, and for some of their other dates in the UK, Europe and USA.
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