Art Brut Perfects Its Rock Talk

Considering Art Brut’s charismatic lead sing-speaker, Eddie Argos, specializes in the kind of clever lyrical twists that beg for repeated quotation in the company of friends, it’s no surprise to discover he listens to bands led by similar word wizards—such as the Mountain Goats (John Darnielle) and The Hold Steady (Craig Finn). But these acts also got Argos worked up as he was developing the lyrics for Art Brut’s latest, It’s a Bit Complicated. Chalk it up to the bang bang rock ’n’ roller’s nerves.

“It’s a combination of being obsessive and a compulsive worrier,” Argos says. “I was reading all these interviews with bands on their second albums, and they were saying what a breeze it was. ‘We’re musicians; it’s what we do.’ I was listening and thinking, ‘Wow, how do they do that?’

“[But] I’m very satisfied with the way [the new album] turned out. I’m not forced to move on, though; I can always change it live. Already started doing so, in fact. I’ve a very short attention span.”

Despite its title, Complicated finds the cheeky British band indulging in a few more-straight-ahead pop elements — a horn section here, some eerily recognizable backing vocals there. According to Argos, who doesn’t write any of Art Brut’s music, the band had graphs on the wall referencing The Bee Gees and Billy Joel, amongst others, diagramming specific song structures that presumably influenced the finished product. But when it came time to write lyrics, he found himself going back to the familiar territory of ex-girlfriends and past love.

“I’m trying to write conversational songs as if we were chatting in a pub,” he explains. “If you’d been chatting with me two years ago, it would have been all, ‘I’ve just formed a band. Amazing. Isn’t art great?’ This is just what I’m thinking about at the moment. Also, for purely selfish reasons, I’m using the band as a sort of cathartic therapy. That’s the sort of thing I need to feel better about.”