The English rockers have released their fourth studio album, Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, and lead Liverpudlian vocalist and guitarist Matthew Murphy tells us all about it – track by track…
CHEETAH TONGUE: “This was a kind of thought experiment in terms of I wanted to let my subconscious or anxiety do the speaking for what my storytelling couldn’t.”
LEMON TO A KNIFE FIGHT: “It’s about an argument I had with my wife, Akemi, on Mulholland Drive after I had been watching a load of David Lynch. The imagery created an aesthetic before the song was written.”
TURN: “This is a twisted love song about Akemi who is f–king crazy, and I love it!”
BLACK FLAMINGO: “A psychedelic song in the same kind of world as “Cheetah Tongue”. We were going for a Dandy Warhol’s/Weezer vibe with this track.”
WHITE EYES: “Loosely based on a New York party I was once involved in, where I can’t quite remember if it was a dream or if I was really there, this song is questioning whether I would have done things differently if had actually been there… or hadn’t been there if I really was!”
LETHAL COMBINATION: “This song started four years before the album and then somehow came to fruition in 2016. It’s about a load of crazy stuff we have done and decided whether it was a positive or negative thing.”
OUT OF MY HEAD: “This is about a moment of realisation when I was in Los Angeles and became unsure if I could handle the hedonistic celebrity lifestyle of the city.”
I ONLY WEAR BLACK: “This is about my connection to the north of England and my admiration for cynicism. All Scousers are very self-deprecating and I’m as dire as any of them.”
ICE CREAM: “This is to do with other themes that run through the album of growing up and trying to be an adult but struggling.”
DIP YOU IN HONEY: “With this song I wanted to make a classic Merseybeat verse/bridge song. I completely failed but this is the song that came out of it anyway!”
I DON’T KNOW WHY I LIKE YOU BUT I DO: “This is about my relationship with antidepressants. I wrote it after watching a documentary with Stephen Fry talking about his own bipolar and saying that it’s something that he would rather have than not has.”
The Wombats new album, Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, is out now
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