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Another Dimension: An Interview With Zero 7's Henry Binns

By the end of their last tour, for the acclaimed 2002 album When It Falls, Zero 7 had grown into two things its creators Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker probably never expected: an international sensation, and "a vast, super slick, group-like behemoth," to quote the duo's MySpace page. Quite a step up from the duo's old days as recording engineers for people like Robert Plant and the Pet Shop Boys.

While neither development was unwelcome, exactly, it did force Sam and Henry to rethink their approach a bit for their next album, The Garden. At once more expansive and more intimate than anything Zero 7 has ever done, The Garden features stronger melodies, peppier tempos, quirkier lyrics, more guitars, and two new vocalists -- Swedish (yes, Swedish) singer-songwriter Jose Gonzalez, and one Henry Binns, who duets with old Zero 7 collaborator Sia on a few tracks and even sings a few verses solo on "Your Place."

ARTISTdirect caught up with singer-songwriter-producer extraordinaire Henry while he was relaxing at home. He seems blissfully unaffected by the growing hoopla surrounding Zero 7's new album and their impending European and American tour, which promises to be as vast and behemoth-like as their last one. Here's a transcript of our chat:

Hi, Henry, how are you?

I'm good, thank you. I'm just in my back yard.

You're just hanging out at home today, huh?

Yeah, the kids are screaming. Dunno if you can hear that.

You live in London, right?

No, I actually live in Somerset now. In Glastonbury.

So you're right there for when the festival happens.

Yeah and of course, as luck would have it, the very year I move down, it's not on.

Oh, that's right, it's not happening this year.

Yeah, they have to skip a year. The land has to kind of recuperate, you know?

So you're a family man. How many kids do you have?

I have three kids. The third came right at the beginning of [working on] this album. I think maybe I need to have a child every record. Keeps the inspiration going. [laughs]

It does seem like of the three Zero 7 albums, this one has by far the most upbeat tone. Do you think that had something to do with you having a new child and being in a positive place when you were working on the record?

Yeah, and there was definitely an energy about finishing the last tour, the When it Falls tour, which was really good and surprised quite a lot of people, because I think it excelled the record in quite a lot of ways. I think we started to see how important the whole live thing is for us to cut through the way we've been marketed [as a downtempo act].

What's the working process like with you guys? When you're starting work on an album, is it just you and Sam in the studio?

Yeah, basically. When It Falls was slightly different, actually, there were more band tracks on that. This one started off with just me and Sam putting things together, and this time actually getting whole songs together, which is a bit of a first for us. We usually kind of build up these enormous pieces of music and then the singers would come in and not really know where to fit. But this time we got on with it ourselves and Sam was writing some words and it all sort of came together.

Of course Sia is a longtime collaborator, but how did you wind up working with Jose Gonzalez?

Someone gave me his album on the last tour -- I think it was in Scandinavia somewhere. And I really enjoyed it -- I sort of fell in love with it, really. And at some point we decided we'd invite him to meet us -- before we asked him to sing -- as friends, really. So he came to my house and stayed -- it was much more like that instead of this very professional, "meet me at the studio" kind of thing.

And he accepted your invitation, just based on knowing your music?

Actually, it's quite funny, because we asked him [if he knew the music] and he said, quite frankly, no. But one of his good friends said, "Look, they're really good, you should try it." So I think he was just like, "Okay, I'll try it and see what happens." But he's amazing -- he's really up for anything, which is contrary to what you'd think. You look at his album and it's so pure. He's become quite a good friend now.

His voice really seems to fit the vibe of this album specifically, compared to your other records.

To me, his voice is like a reed instrument, like Bill Withers or something. It's got that real poke to it, that tone in his voice, which I love. But it's also very pure, and Sia can be quite acrobatic, so I think it's a nice complement.

Was there a particular reason, or was it just kind of circumstance, that Mozez and Sophie Barker are not on the new album?

I think it was circumstance. Mozez had his own album on the go and it was becoming quite hard to arrange to get together. But also I think, probably slightly subconsciously, me and Sam knew that this would be a very different [record] and we wanted to change things up a bit. And it just so happened that -- we just wrote more and more for Jose, and it just ended up feeling good, so we kept it like that.

Sia's had a lot of success with her solo album as well, so it must have been nice for you guys that she was able to continue working with you.

Definitely. I mean, every time, it gets harder and harder to organize the whole thing -- but I'm very glad for her success and I think her album's very good, and probably slightly underrated. But I think now things are picking up for her over on your side [of the Atlantic], which is great.

Well, her song "Breathe Me" was featured in Six Feet Under and is all over the place now.

Which is great. I think that's a brilliant tune. In fact, we've started working on a little version of that live, which is working out quite nicely.

That's right -- you're home in the garden now, but you'll be going on tour later this summer, right?

That's right. We'll be coming over [to the U.S.] -- Jose, Sia, all of us -- in August. I think it all starts in San Diego and then the second gig is the Hollywood Bowl, so we're really looking forward to all of that.

About the upcoming tour -- I've heard that you and Sam are going to be using more electronics on this tour than you have in the past?

Yeah.

Are you nervous? Excited? Looking forward to having fewer musicians to deal with?

The band hasn't really changed. It's just less singers. But there's a lot of that kind of electronics on the album, and it's an exciting thing to do live, because it just gives [the music] another dimension. There's some very cool samples going on.

I have to finish this up with the obligatory music geek question. What are some musical influences on you and Sam that no one ever catches?

Well, do you know Sufjan Stevens? We've been listening to a lot of him -- whether it's rubbed off on us or not, I dunno. But other than that, we listen to a lot of things -- it all kind of goes in the blender and comes out somehow.

Zero 7's latest album, The Garden, is available now in the ARTISTdirect Store.