2011 was a very good year for Wild Beasts. Their latest album “Smother” ranked high on almost any Best-Of list and a huge tour saw them play everywhere from Australia to Turkey to Mexico. The show in Copenhagen in December is the last of the tour and year, the flight back to the UK is booked for the next morning. We lead Tom and Hayden into the freight elevator that is normally used to get gear up to the main stage. The acoustics is amazing in there, yet there’s always the possibility that somebody calls the elevator and it starts to move unexpectedly and noisily (which of course happens as soon as we close the elevator door). But Hayden and Tom are in a good mood and burst into laughter – and not for the last time during this session. Right in the middle of the first take of “Bed of Nails” a stage worker pops into the elevator with perfect timing. He hesitates for a second before a short “oops” escapes him and everybody starts laughing again. Yet in the end we manage to get brilliant recordings of “Bed of Nails” and “Reach A Bit Further”, with the sound reverberating from the elevator walls and making Hayden’s and Tom’s impressive voices even more powerful.

wild-beasts.co.uk

Photos by Tom Spray