Photo by Will Colby
Electronic artists are often a reticent lot, and initially, Rob McAndrews seemed to fit that stereotype. As Airhead, the 24-year-old producer released a few singles over the last couple of years, both on his own and with childhood friend and like-minded sound warper James Blake. For a while, McAndrews' only official press photo showed him hunched over a guitar, face mostly obscured; he didn't give interviews, and the first two years of his Twitter account's existence saw him crafting a grand total of three non-descriptive tweets. "Maybe electronic artists are just used to spending too much time in our bedrooms by ourselves," McAndrews offers as an explanation during our conversation last month. "I always feel awkward in front of a camera, even if I’m on holiday with my girlfriend. She wants to take pictures, and I’m just there going, 'Ahhh!'"
Despite his camera-shy tendencies, when I meet McAndrews at the Standard Hotel in Manhattan's East Village, he offers an eager, sincere smile. Which is understandable, because he's got a lot to be happy about these days: He's currently touring the world as the guitarist in Blake's band, and his debut full-length as Airhead, For Years, is out June 25 via R&S. The album's title possesses a clever double-meaning, referring to how long it took McAndrews to amass the material; the Yeah Yeah Yeahs-sampling "Wait", which came out as a single last year, has existed in finished form since 2009. "I’m not very good at forcing my music into people's hands," he says.
Airhead: "Milkola Bottle" on SoundCloud.
During our hour-long chat in the barren hotel bar, the weather outside toggles between storm clouds and sunny skies, and McAndrews' music shares those unstable elemental tendencies. For Years transitions from distorted samples of Cat Power and Karen O, to molecular techno, to contemplative ambience-- sometimes, all within the same track.
A teenage classic rock acolyte who would spend days watching Woodstock DVDs, McAndrews became interested in electronic music when a friend's older cousin introduced him to the oddly shaped hip-hop of L.A.'s Anticon label, especially the now-defunct avant-rap outfit cLOUDDEAD. Eventually, post-rock groups like Do Make Say Think and Godspeed You! Black Emperor entered his headspace as well. "I used to love listening to that stuff while sitting in front of a computer," he says. "It fits well in that environment, which I’m sure it wasn’t intended for."
McAndrews grew up in the Wood Green district of north London, attending school with Blake and Blake's live drummer Ben Assiter in the nearby borough of Enfield, where the trio spent time bashing out Nirvana covers and the usual 12-bar riffage. At one point, the trio considered themselves a band ("we were called the Scene, which was pretty embarrassing-- although if I had my way, it would have been a lot worse"), performing covers of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" and the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man". "It was right before James' voice broke," he says, grinning at the thought.
Airhead: "Autumn" on SoundCloud.
While attending university, McAndrews and Blake would send each other songs they were working on, a process that resulted in the happy accident of McAndrews contributing the pivotal guitar lick to the centerpiece of Blake's 2011 self-titled debut, "Lindisfarne". During a summer holiday, the pair worked on music together, which resulted in 2010's collaborative single "Pembroke" as well as "Knives", For Years' rustling closer. "It feels very natural," McAndrews says about working with his long-time chum. "We sit in a room and we don’t necessarily have to say too much to each other. It’s nice."
"It took a few years before I realized that I could
bring electronic drum beats and live guitar together--
that’s when I started enjoying making music on a computer."
Pitchfork: Do you come from a musical family?
Rob McAndrews: My father grew up obsessed with Eric Clapton and Cream, and my mother was a piano teacher. When I was five, she was training to become a teacher, so she needed someone to practice on, and I was that someone. So every time I sat down to practice on my own, she would come in and it would turn into a lesson. We ended up getting into so many fights. So I picked up the cello and the guitar and carried on playing those instead. When I first played my father my music, he had no idea what it was, but both my parents have started coming to James' shows. They're starting to understand what it's all about.
Pitchfork: What was the first concert you ever attended?
RM: The Vines, around the time that [2002's Highly Evolved] came out. My sister took me-- she's nine years older than me, so it was practically babysitting for her. She only went because I wanted to go. I don't know what that says about me.
Pitchfork: For someone who works within dance music's confines, guitars appear on your tracks quite frequently.
RM: The guitar's always felt natural to me. When I was younger, it was amazing to listen to something on a CD and then recreate how it sounded. I didn’t really get that with listening to a Bach cello suite. When I first started making music on a computer, I’d make an electronic drum beat and it wouldn’t sound very good, but then I’d play guitar and be like, “Oh, that’s really nice.” It took a few years before I realized that I could bring the two together. That’s when I started enjoying making music on a computer.
Pitchfork: Dance music moves pretty quickly in terms of stylistic trends. Given that the music you're releasing is similar to what you and James were doing several years ago, are you worried about appearing out-of-step?
RM: It’s never been a concern. I just write the music I want to hear, and when it comes out, it comes out. I’m in a very fortunate position to be doing stuff with James, because it means that, in terms of my own music, I’m not under pressure to release stuff and go touring. I’m not sure how out-of-sync my music is with current trends, because it’s hard to keep up nowadays. But the music I've been working on at the moment is more club-friendly, just because I've been DJing more.
James Blake: "Digital Lion" on SoundCloud.
Pitchfork: You contributed to "Digital Lion", from Blake's new album, which also featured Brian Eno. What was it like working with him?
RM: It was crazy. Beforehand, I was like, “God, I can’t believe this is happening.” Then, we walked in and [Eno] said, "Fancy a cup of tea?" He’s just the nicest person. Really friendly and calm, laid back. He guides things in such an amazing way that you don’t even know what’s going on. He'd bring out instruments and be like, “Why don’t you try playing on this?” He had this crazy Moog guitar that made a lot of the sounds on “Digital Lion”. As I was playing it, I had no idea how to control it, but somehow, sound was coming out of it. Through knowing James and being on tour with him, I've realized that the people who are at the top of their game are normal people, which has been really reassuring to see.