Quietus scribe Julian Marszalek recently hooked up with Pet Shop Boys mainman Neil Tennant to discuss the band’s new album Yes, the state of pop music, and the legacy of perhaps the finest avant-pop group that Britain has ever produced.
While discussing Pet Shop Boys’ recording methods, Tennant marvels at how the sprawling U2 studio operation operates. "Their album is produced by Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno and Steve Lillywhite! I can’t even work out how that all works! And then there’s the four of them!" he said. "I think with us, musically, it still has a freshness and energy about it and maybe it comes to us easier, in that sense."
Tennant added that Pet Shop Boys had once worked with Brian Eno: "We once did a day with Brian Eno – and we know that he really likes us – and one of the great things about Brian Eno is that he comes up with these strategies to help people create songs. Well, we turned up for our sessions with 12 finished songs. So what we wanted to do with Brian was take the Pet Shop Boys sound and go past it, maybe."
He said that the difference between the two groups probably comes in their attitudes. "The thing with U2 is that they want to be the biggest group in the world and I applaud that but we’ve never really [wanted that]," he said. "And it’s not because we’re not ambitious because we are – we’ve had a lot of number one singles and probably more than U2 – but that [desire] is a rock thing, isn’t it?"
