Music Q&A: Embrace

Brothers Danny and Richard McNamara and the rest of Brighouse band Embrace are back with a new self-titled album out now

Is the new album a culmination of everything that’s happened in your lives or a snapshot of the intervening seven years?

The album feels like the band have come full circle to the band we were before we even got signed, but the clock is ticking much louder than it ever has before so everything feels more do or die now. All our original influences have floated back to the surface. We turned our back on the glory of it all and refocused on what got us into music in the first place.

Danny was involved in Manchester venue Moho and acted as a mentor for a lot of new bands. Did that period make you see the industry differently?

It gave me a really good understanding of how all aspects of putting on a concert really work which has been useful with the secret gigs we’ve been putting on lately. If you want to know what I’m talking about pick up the trail for the next one at www.secretgig.com.

http://www.vevo.com/watch/embrace/follow-you-home/GB4111400230

Danny composed a blog regarding mental health issues that was a brave statement, but does that open the door to be probed on personal matters?

If there had been someone talking about PTSD in NME when I was 19 I might not have gone through hell, because I wouldn’t have felt like I was on my own. When you are open about your weaknesses it inspires others to be more open about theirs. The illness I suffered left me unable to really build meaningful intimate relationships. I was in a shell living an idealistic lie. Songs were my only way to connect – they kind of saved me.

Richard’s vocals and the synths create a very new sound. Was that something you always had in mind?

If you listen to our new album right after our last album it seems like we have taken a big leap into the unknown but in reality it was more like a million tiny steps over a long period of time. I wouldn’t want anyone to think that we are pretending to be something we’re not. If you cut any of the songs on the new album, they bleed Embrace DNA – there can be no question about that.

Lianne Steinberg