Mark Bowen from IDLES on the production of ‘TANGK’ and touring
Idles. Image credit: Tom Ham (@tomhaaam)
Jordan Royal (Sonic Alien 4ZZZ) recently sat down with Mark Bowen from Idles to chat about all things TANGK, experimentation on specific tracks like ‘A Gospel’ and ‘POP POP POP,’ touring throughout 2024 and their January shows across Australia.
Interview aired on Sonic Alien 4ZZZ 15 Jan 2025.
Jordan: The production on TANGK is amazing. You worked with Kenny Beats, who you’ve worked with previously on Crawler, and the insanely talented Nigel Godrich. You yourself have production credits to your name. How was it working with them, and did it change how you approached the production on this album?
Mark: A big thing was having the three of us kind of working in tandem. I think the initial phase was that everyone was a little bit uncomfortable with it. No one quite knew their place or what they were bringing to it. I think Nigel was really anxious about it because he had never worked with producers before. Kenny is quite used to it, working in the world of hip-hop. We eventually all found our niche. Everyone understood what they were doing, and it was great. It was eye-opening, I think. We learned a lot from Nigel, and I think Nigel started to learn a bit from us as well, which was pretty cool.
The whole goal with IDLES is to go against any kind of perceived wisdom or any kind of perception or expectation. That applies to every aspect of what we do. Luckily, that’s exactly what Nigel Godrich and Kenny Beats do too, so it all fits.
Idles. Image credit: Tom Ham (@tomhaaam)
Jordan: During the making of TANGK, you used phrases like “Going full Nigel,” “Going full Bowen,” or “Going full Kenny.” Is there any specific part of the album where you just went full Bowen and completely down the rabbit hole?
Mark: So, there’s the bit in “POP POP POP” where the drums go crazy. Or the end of “Grace.” That's a full Bowen bit, where it just all goes a bit mad and doesn’t make any sense. It’s noisy and weird and less melodic. The noisy, weird, and melodic bits are Nigel; then the noisy, weird, and not melodic bits—that’s me.
Jordan: You have spoken about being drawn to learning new things and exploring things you are “in the dark” about. Was there anything on TANGK that you just had no idea what you were doing or what you were getting into when you first approached it?
Mark: I think the big thing for us was in the writing. I think with TANGK, what we wanted to do was put ourselves in positions that we hadn’t been in before—to write a moody electronic song, or to write a beautiful piano ballad, to work with strings and things like that. It was all stuff that we were interested in but hadn’t done before, so that was really where we were discovering new things. And then I think just with Joe’s singing as well, that was a big thing because he’s gone from being a barking dog to a singing dog, which is interesting.
Jordan: Since the release of TANGK, you guys have been extensively touring. You’ve spoken about IDLES shows as being an atmosphere of love and connection, joy and chaos. How has it been sharing this new material with crowds across the world?
Idles. Image credit: Tom Ham (@tomhaaam)
Mark: Yeah, it's been great. TANGK has really added this nuance to our show—this ebb and flow where we can create this cinematic version of the chaos. An IDLES show is very chaotic. There’s lots of moshing, and it’s a beautiful kind of chaos. The energy in an IDLES show is really good. There’s lots of love. There’s lots of uninhibited self-expression from both us and the audience, but I think what TANGK adds to it is an almost cinematic experience. It’s got more depth. It’s been amazing.
It's a real privilege and a real joy to be able to tour the world.
Jordan: Performing TANGK must be a bit of a shift in a live setting. What have you guys had to change in your live setup with equipment or technology to be able to perform it live?
Mark: Oh yeah, it’s huge. The thing is, even when we get to the point of experimenting and pushing boundaries, it always needs to be played by us in the studio and kind of raw. It’s not something that we have sequenced or edited within an inch of its life so it’s perfect. It always has to have that expression of being played.
There are lots of layers in TANGK, with lots of things happening at the same time, and the last thing we wanted to do was start playing to a track. There’s lots of equipment that splits out and becomes different things, and there are lots of synthesizers and weird stuff on stage to make all sorts of noises. It’s like a live production setup that I have on stage now, where I can take the vocals and do these weird chops with them.
It was a really steep learning curve at the start of the year, trying to play this stuff live. Luckily, we don’t play the songs that were too difficult anymore.
The most important thing is becoming unthinking and not focusing too much on what you’re doing or getting things right. It all becomes a bit of a dance performance. You know where you have to be at a certain point, and you can kind of just play around with it.
Jordan: When you’re in Brisbane, you’re doing a DJ set. You and Joe met through the DJ circuit, so you’ve been doing this for quite some time. Can you tell me a bit about an IDLES DJ set?
Mark: You know, it really kind of depends. From our DJ days, we know to recognise the room you're in and what the right context is. So, if everyone’s there and they want rock music or indie music, then we'll do that. But if they're up for it, we do love playing lots of techno and electro. We read the room and ramp things up. It normally kind of builds via Black Sabbath into some techno.
