The Horrors: ‘Atmosphere Is In The Spaces Between The Notes’
The Horrors’ frontman Faris Badwan on “learning the value of space” within song arrangements, covering Bowie and unearthing vibraphone for “the next record”.
Words Bryget Chrisfield // Image by Sarah Piantadosi
Releasing six incredible records, topping NME’s Best Albums list (with 2009’s Primary Colours), scoring five-star album reviews, selling out London’s Royal Albert Hall, headlining festivals – The Horrors have enjoyed many thrilling highlights across their two-decade-long career.
Last year, the garage-goth quintet touched down for an Australian-exclusive performance at Dark Mofo in Hobart. “I think Dark Mofo was my favourite festival I’ve ever been to,” Faris Badwan extols over Zoom, from his London base, adding, “They put so much effort into the visual setting.
“It just seemed so ridiculous to be taking that length of trip and only doing one show,” Badwan acknowledges, “but that was part of the contract and so we made it a priority to return [to Australia] quickly.”
Previously, The Horrors had toured with 2012’s Laneway Festival; a long 13 years between visits. Now the time is nigh for mainland Australia to experience The Horrors live. The band’s revamped line-up with three OG members (Badwan, bassist Rhys Webb and guitarist Joshua Hayward) plus keyboardist Amelia Kidd and drummer Jordan Cook is finally heading our way to perform shows in five cities, including Adelaide.
Already long-time friends of The Horrors, Cook (“one of [Badwan’s] favourite contemporary drummers”) and Kidd slotted right in. Badwan met Kidd when he produced 2021’s Happy Days! EP by The Ninth Wave, her previous band that is currently on indefinite hiatus. He also produced the debut EP from Kidd’s solo project, sin.clair in 2025.
“Having new members, we’ve got loads of new possibilities,” Badwan reflects. “But it’s almost like [being given] loads of chances to try and approach things in a spontaneous way, so that’s fun for me… I think I make the best stuff when I’m not thinking about it.
“For me, personally, I feel that being on instinct is where I’m best, and I try to make sure situations lend themselves to that… anything that puts you in that frame of mind where you’re approaching something as if it was the first time, I think that’s always cool.”
Badwan was just 18 years old when The Horrors formed in Southend-On-Sea, east of central London. When asked what his hopes and dreams were for the band during early jam sessions, he recalls, “It was quite intuitive. We met more as vinyl collectors and basically formed a band because we wanted to make our own 7-inch.”
As soon as ‘Count In Fives’, their debut 7-inch vinyl single, landed in 2006, The Horrors hit the ground running. “We were a type of punk band, really,” Badwan reflects. “We did two rehearsals and then did a gig. It was very underprepared, but I also think there’s so much value in that. Then within three months, we were signed to Polydor, so all our lives kind of shifted course and we didn’t stop playing.”
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The Horrors have indulged in genre wanderlust throughout the course of their career, experimenting with post-punk revival, shoegaze, psychedelic rock, industrial techno and so much more. The band’s latest and sixth album, 2025’s Night Life, was their first full-length release in eight years. Described as a deliberate return to their raw, intuitive origins, Night Life debuted the revised lineup of The Horrors.
“The thing that I love about working in The Horrors at the moment, is I think we’ve learnt the value of space a bit more.
“With Night Life, we figured out that often the atmosphere is in the spaces between the notes. And when I think about my favourite music, it’svprobably more the kind of music that creates an atmosphere rather than something that is incredibly complex, structurally. I like stuff that breathes and gives you space and creates a mood when you put it on. So, I think we got a bit closer towards that this time.”
This writer’s personal favourite Night Life track at the moment is ‘When The Rhythm Breaks’. When told this writer felt suspended in time – in limbo, waiting to break on through to the other side – while listening to this one, Badwan responds, “I’m really glad that it feels that way to you, because that was what I felt like when I was making it. My dad was in a coma, I had been in the hospital with him for a couple of weeks, and I came back to London. I had a writing session with my friend, Brendan Lynch, and I thought about cancelling it ‘cause, you know, my head was all over the place. And I decided that probably the best thing for me to be doing was my favourite thing, which is writing songs. So I did. I spent the day with [Lynch], just doing improvised vocals on top of this soundscape that we had. And the vocal take that you hear on the album is more or less the first or second take that I did that day – improvising thewords and the melodies.
“I tried to redo them later, do a proper vocal take, and it didn’t have the same feeling. I think there’s something about being in that particular headspace that made the emotion feel a bit more raw, and I liked that about it.
“I think generally – in life or whatever – it’s cool to try and channel things, whatever they are… that’s just how you deal with negative emotions the best. There’s different ways you can channel them and that seemed to work for me.”
If you’re yet to watch Heroes Never Die, a music documentary created by European public service TV channel Arte, to mark a decade since Bowie’s death, we recommend you do so sharpish. The Horrors tackled a double cover for Heroes Never Die; ‘Heroes’ plus the instrumental ‘Weeping Wall’, and the results are spectacular.
“The two songs are thematically similar, from his Berlin period,” Badwan points out. “We thought they joined nicely and it gave us an opportunity to get the vibraphone out. I’ve had my vibraphone stored away for quite a while now without using it. I’ve used it a lot, but not since COVID.
“I mean, it also helps that Amelia can actually play it, whereas I can just, like, hit it,” he explains, laughing. “The vibraphone will make it onto the next record. So now we’re working on new music.”
Catch The Horrors performing at Lion Arts Factory on April 14. Tickets on sale now at moshtix.com.au.
