Yahoo News 
The 1975 reflects on fame, pop music, but NOT Taylor Swift
It is barely a year since their wildly received Philippine promo tour.
Live, they played with more intensity than their meticulously produced studio work, and literally sweated it out in Market Market.
Tonight, they will play the MOA Arena. On this, their second Philippine press conference, the band seems a touch more serious but just as friendly.
They love their pop, in spite of their looks
Vocalist/guitarist Matthew Healy, sad-eyed, curly coiffed, and trousered too tight for a wallet, intones assuredly when asked what The 1975 finds so fascinating with music from the ‘80s.
They look like they could be the offspring of Joy Division and The Smiths, or brothers to Hurts (all hail from Manchester), their collective image further enhanced by keeping photos on their website and Facebook page in monochromatic tones.
However, the borderline goth image they project visually can be misleading: they love their pop and make no apologies for producing accessible music filled with solid grooves, clean guitars and melodic synth motifs.
Pop music is ‘over-encumbered’
Healy is emphatic with his opinion that in the eighties, “…pop music existed as pop music and then grunge came in and killed it… Nirvana killed pop music. Really. Well not Nirvana but that whole scene…”
He clarifies and qualifies his observation: ”Pop music now is so over-encumbered with self-awareness… people are fearful of expressing themselves in that format whereas in the 80s, you just had huge records that were equally credible and equally successful. ‘Remain in Light’ by Talking Heads, ‘Sledgehammer’ by Peter Gabriel (from the album ‘So’)…”
He adds, “The cultural situation allowed people to make pop records without being judged the same way and you got some truly amazing and innovative forward-thinking pop records… that’s what we constantly aspire to.”
Highly articulate
The 1975 is hardly an 80s retro act: drummer George Daniel was born in 1990, Healy in 1989.
Still, Healy, Daniel, and guitarist/keyboardist Adam Hann are highly articulate about the music they draw influences from, and without nostalgic baggage.
In the band’s musical lexicon, Michael Jackson, Prince, The Blue Nile, My Bloody Valentine, even Rage Against The Machine co-exist… even if the results aren’t overtly obvious specially with the latter.
Not just name-checking
It would be easy to dismiss them as young hacks prone to name-checking but on their latest tune “Medicine,” Healy says they were imagining what the Velvet Underground would sound like if Trevor Horn was in the producer’s chair.
Commissioned for the reimagined soundtrack to 2011 Ryan Gosling starrer “Drive”, it reveals a band, despite the unapologetic love for a pop hook and their good looks, that is unafraid to explore territory that may not necessarily push its rising commercial trajectory.
The result, brooding yet polished and far from “Heart Out, “Settle Down” or “Girls” but hinted at on “Is there Somebody Who Can Watch You” (all from their self-titled debut) shows a band that clearly knew what and who they were talking about.
Deliberate
“Everything is deliberate to a certain extent… we don’t live in the fear of… staying true to our ‘pop’ sensibilities… People started asking is if it is representative of our next album and I kept saying ’No, no, no.’ But I think it is.”
Healy turns to Daniel (they co-wrote the song) who responds, “I don’t know…” and the band laughs.
Healy adds, “He doesn’t know… none of us know.”
In conversation, they are verbose and forthcoming (save for quintessentially quiet bassist Ross McDonald) but Healy offers a contrasting approach to how they create their work with an insight learned from stand-up comedians: “The littlest amount of words to execute an (grandiose) idea is the best way to do it. And I think about that with music as well.”
Taylor Swift was off limits
Healy was rumored to be dating Taylor Swift (which he has denied) but sorry folks, this particular subject was off limits to the press in the Diamond Hotel’s Emerald room.
He’ll write pop hooks but he won’t get hooked by the pop game.
For now at least, the band remains grounded, still adjusting to their growing fame, and still in a place where they can take things in stride. “It’s the moments when you’re on your own and you realize how far you’ve come and how different things are… You get here, when you get this kind of (pauses) ostentatious lifestyle… we’ve got a suite each, I’ve got a martini… We were in a van a year-and-a-half ago…obviously, these (raises martini) are the superficial elements but when you’re in an environment where you can see how far you’ve traveled, that’s when you get more retrospective, more emotional… We’re just the same people.”
