THE ANSWERING MACHINE The Answering Machine

Dear all,

June 23rd, 2011

Dear All,
Way back in 2006 we released our first 7 inch single black vinyl, through Manchester indie label High Voltage. Limited to a run of 500 records, it sold out in two days. We were beyond proud and still have that same sense of pride presenting you with this, our final release. This posthumous reissue of Lifeline on vinyl is our way of saying thank you to you guys as fans and of celebrating what we deem to be our greatest achievement. Admittedly, it was a very sad day when the four of us sat down and decided to put The Answering Machine to rest. We’d prefer not to dwell on that however, instead we’d like to be remembered as the band in your collection that didn’t strive to appear on the front cover of every publication, didn’t see the importance of being on heavy rotation on major radio stations, or to be name-dropped by A-list celebrities. We did this to soundtrack the lives of people just like you because you are just like us, and that has to be worth celebrating!
We’ve had the most incredible journey, be it living and recording in New York City, touring with the Manic Street Preachers, playing in Tokyo as guests of the British Embassy or tearing it up in tiny venues with our friends Casiokids, sharing the last beer in the van on the way home or putting on free album shows in backpackers hostels. It feels clumsy to keep saying we’re grateful and we don’t want to overstate this for fear that’ll it’ll lose its meaning but we truly are, and to each one of you individually. To us the ‘music industry’ has always been somewhat of an oxymoron so that’s why our focus has always been fans… nothing has given us more pride along the way than when we speak to you guys after shows and you tell us you’ve started projects and bands inspired by us.
With all that in mind we hope you take pleasure in owning this record, don’t keep it safe or in mint condition, play it… play it until the grooves smooth over and enjoy every second!
All our love,

The Answering Machine.

http://heistorhitrecords.bigcartel.com/product/the-answering-machine-lifeline-lp-album-12-vinyl

Dear Friends

May 16th, 2011

'Over the last week or so we’ve all been doing some soul searching. We are very sorry to have to tell you all that we have decided to stop making music as The Answering Machine. We’d like to thank every single one of you for coming out to shows, buying our records and supporting our band right up until this point. It obviously hasn’t been an easy decision for us and we don’t want to make things harder/more upsetting for us by doing a ‘farewell tour’ or a ‘last ever gig,’ we are happier bowing out on the positive note we started on 6 years ago. That said we’d still like to do something as both a mark of respect to the band we feel we’ve become, and as a mark of respect to you guys for being there with us all the way. So, we will be releasing Lifeline (our second album) on 12inch vinyl very soon as goodbye and a celebration of all that we’ve achieved. We’d like to say a special thank you to our record label Heist or Hit for all their support, for always believing and for being a true indie! Thank you New York, L.A, Austin, Denver, Tokyo, Berlin, Brussels, Hamburg, Ibiza, Luxembourg, Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, Cologne, London and most of all Manchester. Our one regret is that we didn’t write Hard Rain by Shout Out Louds. </p> <p>Cheers,</p> <p>The Answering Machine.

// LIGHT FOR JAPAN COMPILATION

May 11th, 2011

Our track ‘Animals’ is featured on a Charity complialtion titled ‘Light for Japan’ put together by Chinese record label ‘Handshake Records’ with all income donated to the Japan Red Cross foundation.

The compilation features artists from all over the world, has some really cool artwork by designer Kap Cheun and is well worth checking out. For more information and download links visit …

http://www.handskr.com/lightforjapan

The Answering Machine x

LIFELINE ACOUSTIC

April 27th, 2011

RECORD STORE DAY & THE RADIO DEPT.

April 2nd, 2011

First of all thanks to everyone who came to Soundcontrol and the Bull & Gate last week, we had a blast! We are pleased to announce 2 new Manchester dates coming up in the near future.

The first is a free day time gig at Night and Day which is organised by Picadilly Records for Record Store Day, April 16th. The line up includes Dutch Uncles, Brown Brogues, Patterns and Louche FC so it should be a great event in support of a great record shop. The gig starts at 12 and will be finished at 5 so plenty of time to watch  United vs City afterwards. For more information and details of how to get tickets look here.




Last but definately not least we have been invited to support one of our favourite bands, the Radio Dept at Deaf Institute on the 11th May. We litterally can’t wait for this one, tickets are selling fast but you can still get them from here.

Ben

// ‘LIFELINE’ NOW RELEASED IN JAPAN

March 28th, 2011

Hey,

Our second album ‘Lifeline’ is now available in Japan as a 2CD Special Edition (along with debut album ‘Another City, Another Sorry’). If you order it now, you also receive one of our dashing tote bags too!!!

For more information on the release, and to buy the package, please visit our Japanese home (and new friends) at FASTCUT RECORDS.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT FASTCUT RECORDS!!!

We hope to come and see you all again soon!

Lots of love,

The Answering Machine

// SUPPORTS ANNOUNCED FOR MANCHESTER AND LONDON

March 16th, 2011

Hey,

We are pleased to announce the full line-ups for both our Manchester and London shows. The bands have been hand-picked by us, because we love them so much. And I’m sure you will too! So, without further ado, I present to you:

THURSDAY 24TH MARCH – SOUND CONTROL, MANCHESTER:

THE ANSWERING MACHINE
LET’S BUY HAPPINESS (http://www.myspace.com/letsbuyhappinessuk)
THE KILL VAN KULLS (http://www.myspace.com/thekillvankulls)
MAGIC ARM (http://www.myspace.com/magicarm)

FRIDAY 25TH MARCH – BULL & GATE, LONDON:

THE ANSWERING MACHINE
THE KILL VAN KULLS (http://www.myspace.com/thekillvankulls)
SAFARI (http://www.myspace.com/thisissafari)

GRAB YOUR TICKETS NOW!!!

The Answering Machine x

// LIFELINE INTERACTIVE ARTWORK

March 8th, 2011

Hi Everyone,

We”ve made an online version of Lifeline. It offers everyone the chance to explore the record, listen to the tracks in full, read the lyrics and has some exclusive animated artwork. Please feel free to share this with your friends.

Just click the link below…

(It will need a good internet connection and flash player. Hope your into it)

http://www.theansweringmachine.co.uk/lifeline_digital/

Ben

// 11. The End

March 3rd, 2011

This was written at a time when we’d finished off a batch of songs and were waiting for the next wave of inspiration to arrive. We were all stood in our practise room waiting for each other to make the first move and come up with something. Pat and Martin had previously had a writing session and they had just been messing around and came up with this bizarre bass and guitar hook which they probably didn’t think anything of at the time. They started playing it to me and Ben and we both loved it. Ben put this broken beat to it and seeing as Martin had my bass in his hands I thought I’d pick up his mic and the verse melody came straight away. Usually when we write we’ll fully form the song before we record it but because this wasn’t our usual style of song so we decided to experiment and recorded Ben’s drum part and then looped it and did the same with Martin’s bass line. The song was then written from this, gradually adding guitar parts, working out how long the verses should be, how to make a chorus. A keyboard line was worked out and Martin decided to give it a go on the melodica and we ended up with the only melodica solo that I know of! I went off to work on the lyrics and a vocal melody for the chorus and left the boys to carry on adding synth lines and experimenting. We pretty much kept everything as it was on the demo for the album version but really beefed up the sounds so it almost has elements of a hip-hop crossover. I did come up with the spoken word part for the album, which I was really nervous about as it was so far removed from anything we’d done before and I was just worried it sounded stupid but the others convinced me to keep it in. Lyrically the song is entirely conceptual, it could be sung from a boy or girls perspective and is at its essence a break up song, about those break ups that you just don’t see coming.

Gemma

// 10. SO ALIVE

March 2nd, 2011

‘So Alive’ was the last song to be written for ‘Lifeline’ maybe even only two weeks before we were due to start recording. We were in practice one day and a song we’d just played hadn’t gone very well. Needless to say we were all a bit disappointed and the process of making it right was a long drawn out one which at the time I don’t think any of us could be bothered to deal with. We all messed around on our own instruments for a couple of minutes, then I looked up at Martin and he said something like ‘put something to this’ and he started to play the chords to what was to become ‘So Alive’. After 5mins of messing about I had the main riff, then we moved on to the pre-chorus and chorus in turn and all of us just wrote our parts there and then. It was really easy to write and so much fun to play that we ended up playing nothing but that for the rest of the day. We quickly demoed it there and then adding the glock notes that follow the main riff from a casio keyboard. The demo was really vibrant and exciting. I remember the lyrics were a little more difficult as Martin had already started them, I did a complete re-write and then Martin took the best parts of that and added the best parts of his until we arrived at the final outcome. The song itself is probably the most Shout Out Louds (Swedish indie band) inspired song we’ve ever written with it’s thumping drums and bitter-sweet melody. Lyrically it became a tale of love and loss played out through travel points, airports, docks, trains, boats, maps,

guide books and Sweden itself. To this day I can’t work out if it’s the tale of an actual relationship between two people or if it’s just about those girls that you fall in love with but never speak to for an hour or so at an airport, on a train, on a boat etc. I think there is a lot of romance in travel. When it came to recording the song for the album we lifted the main riff I’d recorded from the demo because other versions we tried just didn’t feel right. There was certainly a moment or a feeling tied up in that demo. I believe we also took the Casio’s glock sounds from the demo too. Ben’s drums, recorded in a studio in Stockport, sound incredible on this track and for ages after the session I had Gamma’s bass part to the chorus in my head. The wind at the end of the track was added by Martin using the Roland Juno synth and makes me think of travel, coast lines and our own time touring Germany, France, Belgium and Luxembourg. ‘On Central European time… We felt so alive’

Pat

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