Within the butterfly-breaking cogs of the music industry, big numbers can bring big problems. And The Wombats’ numbers got big, fast. A platinum album with their 2007 debut ‘Guide To Love, Loss And Desperation’. Over 300,000 combined sales of their indie dancefloor smashes ‘Kill The Director’, ‘Let’s Dance To Joy Division’ (winner of the 2008 NME Award for Best Dancefloor Filler), ‘Backfire At The Disco’ and ‘Moving To New York’. A two year tour during which Liverpool’s biggest exports in a decade played to well over a million people, culminating in a massive homecoming Liverpool Arena show for 10,000 ecstatic local fans of their dark yet exuberant and infectious alt.pop. “It was such a good way to round it off,” says drummer Dan Haggis. “We had a two day party after that. Obviously you can’t help but go ‘bloody hell, remember a couple of years ago in Liverpool, we’d be lucky if we sold out the Academy downstairs to 500 people.
How did we get to this?’” Big numbers, big gigs, but for a band with the intense work ethic of The Wombats (lest we forget, in the build-up to their breakthrough hit ‘Kill The Director’ in 2007 they played 50 tiny pub and club shows around the UK in almost as many days) they took their toll. Having continued their breakneck schedule for eighteen months solid, they came off a mammoth US tour in 2008 “pretty broken… physically and mentally.” “We did a couple of months too long,” says Dan. “I had problems with my arms so every night going up onstage hurt, so it wasn’t really that enjoyable. I had a gig where I didn’t want anyone to look at me. I sat on the drums at Glasgow and you start feeling guilty because you think you should be having the best night of your life but I didn’t know why I was there.”
The Wombats – Emoticons
The Wombats – Emoticons Lyrics:
It’s tough to stay attractive, baby
With your tongue abseiling down my neck
It’s a bulletproof offer I can’t accept
It’s tough to maintain focus, baby
Now all my elephants are in the room
We crave the fiction when we need the truth
You need to find a different boy’s heart to chew
Chew
And all these emoticons and words
Try to make it better but they only make it worse
It’s tough to feign indifference, baby
Now I’m spending all the money I have
Trying to impress you’s kinda driving me mad
And I don’t blame the pressure or the vultures in the sky
I blame what happened every time I’m under replies
We crave the tension in a room with a view
You need to find a different boy’s heart to chew
Chew
And all these emoticons and words
Try to make it better but they only make it worse
And all these emoticons and words
Fail to make it better, their attempts just make it worse
And it’s everything I want
And nothing I can keep
Behind these metaphors
I want your lips’ release
We crave the fiction when we need the truth
You need to find a different boy’s heart to chew
Chew
And all these emoticons and words
Try to make it better but they only make it worse
But I like it here so much I might stay
The edge of no is such a beautiful place
The edge of no is such a beautiful place
