It’s been three years since indie darlings, The Maccabees played their farewell shows. In that time, Orlando Weeks, the band’s somewhat reluctant frontman, has been busy becoming a dad, writing a book and creating his debut solo album ‘A Quickening’, inspired by the road to fatherhood.
Fans first got a taste of what was to come from Weeks at a series of intimate shows at the end of last year. While some were expecting more of the rousing indie hits that The Maccabees had built their base on, what came was a more intricate, beautiful and complex sound that mixed horns, keys and Weeks’ signature vocals over observations on pregnancy and love. Comparisons were quickly drawn between James Blake, Bon Iver and Radiohead’s post 90s evolution.
“It’s a record about someone who is witness to something and is trying to document that experience. I am conscious about the personal nature of it and I’m still working out how comfortable I feel,” Orlando says, about the process of sharing such a private experience. “But I tell myself it’s a record about things other people make records about. It’s about waiting for something, it’s about what love is and how love can come in all sorts of forms, it’s a record about someone else’s commitment and your own commitment and the physicality and psychology of that commitment.”
From commitment, to a more carefree time in his existence, where all Orlando had to worry about was getting out of bed, on a hangover, to enter a stone-skimming contest, we have a rather meandering chat about work, birds of prey, his Brighton days and what’s next after ‘A Quickening’.
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Orlando’s Trash in the Attic
‘A Quickening’ tour T-shirt (pictured hanging on the door, in the photo below)
A stone-skimming competition badge
A model of The Gritterman story by Postcard Models (see below for a picture of Orlando looking pretty chuffed with his miniature world)
His new book ‘Moon’s Opera’
‘A Quickening’ is out June 12 on all streaming platforms.
