Klaxons 'Weren't a Band' on Mercury Prize-Winning Debut

Though the Klaxons debut 'Myths of the Near Future' won the 2007 Mercury Prize, bassist/vocalist Jamie Reynolds has an interesting opinion on the state of the band during its creation.

"We fundamentally weren't a band on our first record," he tells Spinner while walking around in London's Soho district. "We were very much a collection of ideas by three people that reached out and worked with a producer, James Ford. That then allowed us to make these ideas into the realities of being songs and [us] a band. And then we brought in a hired hand to help us make those recordings come to life."

In winning the Mercury Prize, 'Myths' bested efforts by the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Bat for Lashes and Amy Winehouse -- yet when discussing it, Reynolds doesn't sound like he's the least bit concerned with the past. He's relatively uninterested in talking about the glory attendant to winning, or discussing how much he and his bandmates put into it -- and got out of it.

Rather, when he thinks back to when they won the Mercury, he uses the kind of language usually reserved for Freudian dream analysis.

"What happened to us I can only describe as an exercise in wish-fulfillment," he says. "We wished our success into existence and we naively carried that with us. And the spirit carried us to the point that everything worked."

Following up on initial success of colossal size and scope isn't the easiest thing to do, but it seemed especially difficult for the UK-based group. They started working toward a follow-up back in 2008, only to have their initial efforts rejected by their label for being too experimental.

After teaming up with producer Ross Robinson -- who made his reputation with the nu-metal bands of the '90s -- Klaxons put together 'Surfing the Void,' which sees its much-anticipated release this week. A departure from its predecessor in myriad ways, it's the kind of sophomore effort that will elicit an immediate response from fans and critics alike. Some will be attracted to its exploration of new territories, while others, expecting something of a second pressing of 'Myths,' may be more than a little bit lost. As for Reynolds, he's more interested in what the new record represents.

"I think that it's been kind of the ultimate exercise in release for us," he says. "With the methods that we've been working with, and the approach that our producers took to making the record with us, and our experience over the [last] couple of years, I think it's an absolutely perfect snapshot of where we are right now.

"I think it brings us bang up-to-date, and I think it really dives into our personal and professional lives and does that in a very weighty but kind of enlightening and beautiful way."