Victorious Festival 2023: alt-j to headline The Castle Stage | Interview

And this weekend the band make their long overdue debut at our own Victorious Festival, headlining the Castle Stage on Saturday night.

Last year the trio released their fourth album, The Dream, which went top three on its release and the band have been touring it ever since. Earlier this summer they played Glastonbury and Truck festivals.

Vocalist and keys player Gus Unger-Hamilton: “It's been lovely to do some UK festivals, we don't actually always end up playing that many. Glasto was amazing, and Truck was really fun too – we took our son who's nearly two and some other friends of the family came down and made a bit of a family and friends camping weekend of it.”

When The Dream came out in February 2022, it was nearly five years on from its predecessor, Relaxer. Part of that was down to a self-imposed break in 2019, but then of course Covid hit.

"I suppose if you'd asked me in 2019 when I thought we'd have a new album ready to release, I'd probably have said 2021,” explains Gus, “so it delayed things by about a year. But we went into the process of making that album with the idea of having no deadline at all, so actually it didn't matter to us that it took an extra year because we basically learnt from Relaxer that setting ourselves a deadline was not a great way to work.

"We worked to quite a tough, unrealistic deadline on Relaxer and we all really feel that it made the process quite stressful. We weren't fully ready to call it a day on that album when we kind of had to. We actually felt very relaxed in the process of making The Dream.”

Does he feel that Relaxer is compromised as a result?

“Yeah, I do. I am very proud of it, and I have to remind myself that it got nominated for the Mercury Prize, but I do feel, we all do, that it could have been longer and had more songs on it had we had more time. But that's the way it goes and I suppose all works of art are products of the material circumstances under which they're created. Maybe if we had more time, then yes, it would have been a longer album, but then it wouldn’t have been the album it is.”

The Dream has seen the band take a more personal and reflective approach for the first time. One of its stand-out tracks is its second single Get Better. Inspired by the pandemic, the story it relates is fictional but still packs an emotional punch.

“It's quite a tough song to listen to, isn't it?” says Gus, who cried when he first heard it. “I certainly found it very emotional when I heard it for the first time when Joe (Newman, guitars/vocals) played it to me just on his guitar. It's quite a potent one, emotionally.”

And while it is not a “true" story as such, Gus adds: “Artistic truth can exist independently of factual truth or events.”

Without any time pressures on them, were the band, completed by drummer Thom Sunny Green, more free to take their songwriting in new areas or directions?

“Quite possibly,” says Gus, pausing to think. “We had a nice place to work – we were in our own studio, which was lovely, and while we couldn't travel and leave the country I think we felt more freedom to try different things out.

“I think it was to do with having the extra time that we had, and not having a deadline and just generally feeling like we had more freedom. Undeniably Covid was a very difficult time, but for us it was a very productive and creative time.”

How easy did they find it to keep in touch over that period?

“It was difficult. Thom has more vulnerability to illness than most people, so that meant we had to take that seriously. But it was fine, it was good to give ourselves that break. Sometimes being in the studio for months on end can be quite intense – it's a bit of a submarine-type environment, so having these enforced breaks was not a bad thing for us.

"It meant we came back every time hungry to get going again and with new ideas and generally just a fresh attitude. Luckily we all live in north or north-east London so it was quite easy for us to all meet up.

"It was very wholesome really! We worked very civilised hours, sort of 10-4, went for a nice lunch every day at the pub or at the sandwich shop near the studio, it just generally felt like a very nice time doing the dream job. This genuinely felt like: ‘Wow, everyone should work like this!’”

With Gus and Joe both becoming fathers during the making of The Dream, has it had an impact on their music yet?

"Time will tell if it becomes a factor in songwriting. I certainly think parenthood makes you think more about the future and the state of the world and your own mortality and sometimes even their mortality. You start to think more about the big questions, it can be quite dark, but at the same time I think our music has been, to some degree, an escape from reality.

"We've never really been a band that's engaged with politics in our songs or current events much, so I think our songs will continue to exist in a realm of the imagination, I think that's where we're most comfortable.”

You're holding a mirror up to the world and the world can be a fairly dark place when you start to look at it.

Last May alt-J played their debut album in full at Brixton Academy to mark its 10th anniversary and this autumn they’re heading to the US and Canada for a belated run of anniversary shows where they’ll be doing the same.

“We just did that one at Brixton Academy because we didn't want the anniversary to overshadow the new album’s release, so we thought we'd celebrate the anniversary a year later. We didn't want to cloud The Dream's year in the sun by talking too much about An Awesome Wave’s anniversary.”

Of course, playing the album in order, means some big favourites are played much earlier in the set than usual.

“It's been nice (playing it in full), but it is a bit strange. Breezeblock has been pretty much the nailed on closer of the encore since we started touring and now we're playing it as the third song of the set, which is a bit weird. Luckily we have written some other good encore songs, like Left Hand Free and things like that – we have a solid encore all the same! But it is strange, people aren't sure how to respond to hearing it that early in the set...”

While some of ...Wave’s tracks are set staples, how has it been revisiting some of those other tracks?

“There aren't any that we've never done before because when we were starting out on the first album tour we were doing quite big venues by the end of that tour and we had to really fill the set. Our manager was saying we had to play for an hour, but we were saying: ‘We've only got one album!’ So we had to play every song on the album and any cover or B-side that we felt reasonably confident playing. There's certainly some songs we've not played in a long time though, like Ms and Hand-made. It's been lovely to revisit those songs and remember how the audience do really like them, even though we basically dropped them after the first album.”

And have they thought past the US tour yet?

“I think we'll be taking some time off. There's always thoughts, there's always ideas going around – we're definitely going to do another album. We're currently an unsigned band – we had a four album deal (with Infectious Records), and that's run its course now so we can have some time to think about where our next home is going to be.

"It's quite nice to know that we're not contractually obliged to deliver anything at any time. We can take our time with it all – with the music side and the legal side and hopefully come out in a really good place. But I'm definitely excited about the future – I'm already feeling quite nostalgic about the fact that touring is going to end in a few months.”

Victorious Festival takes place on Southsea Common from August 25-27, and features headliners Jamiroquai, Kasabian and Mumford and Sons plus dozens more acts. Standard adult weekend tickets are £190, day tickets £70, plus booking fee. Go to victoriousfestival.co.uk.