London Grammar feel like they’ve released “an old debut record” after sitting on ‘Californian Soil’ for so long.
The indie pop trio – made up of Hannah Reid, Dan Rothman and Dominic ‘Dot’ Major – dropped the follow-up to 2017’s ‘True Is A Beautiful Thing’ this month after what has turned into a long journey in part due to the pandemic
Appearing on BBC Sounds’ ‘Headlines’ podcast, Hannah said: “It was [frustrating], but it did feel like a very small problem to have in comparison to what, obviously, lots of my friends and family were going through and what everyone else was going through.
“So we were more than happy to wait. But it’s been a bit strange putting it out now – it feels like we’re releasing an old debut record because it’s just so old!”
The band actually started working on the album four years ago, and wrapped everything up early in 2020 before the music industry was rocked by the global health crisis.
She added: “The first couple of songs we wrote for it was back in 2017, and then it was finished over a year ago.
“Just before the pandemic hit, we were shooting the album cover and we decided to put it off for as along as felt right to do so. We’ve been sitting on it for a while, yeah.”
Hannah was even “slightly worried” that the way she felt about the songs themselves would change massively given the long wait to get them out into the world.
She said: “I was slightly worried that the meaning of them would become irrelevant.
“But I actually feel like what has been quite nice for me is, having listened to them as they’ve been released or as the album’s been released… I actually feel like the meaning, it means even more now. I don’t know why – to me, anyway, it does.”