MUEN: WHEN I FIRST VISITED YOUR MYSPACE PAGE, I WAS IMMEDIATELY TRANSPORTED BACK TO ENGLAND! THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME TO ANSWER SOME QUESTIONS FOR US. HOW LONG HAVE YOU TWO BEEN WRITING SONGS TOGETHER, AND HOW DID YOU MEET?

Philippe: We were friends at school before we ever started writing together. Ric was writing music even before I knew him and I remember him playing his tracks at parties and thinking that was pretty cool. When I lived in Bristol, I got into music in a big way and started to write my own songs. I was getting really interested in the recording side and when I moved back to London I joined the band Ric was setting up. I started thinking about what kind of job I could get that would be cool and interesting. All my favourite records at the time were being recorded or mixed at Olympic Studios, so I wrote to them and asked for a job.... and they gave me one!
Ric: I was writing music from fairly early on, but to be honest it was pretty lame piano pieces and simple instrumentals on my Amiga! Eventually, I bought one of those keyboards that you can plug a mic and guitar into and started writing with Philippe. We were desperate to do some live gigs so we wrote as many songs as we could in the hope that a few would turn out OK. We had all these ideas but they never came out quite like we imagined which is why we decided to get jobs in studios - we saw it as an opportunity to learn not only how to record songs but how to write them.

MUEN: YOU'VE WORKED AS ENGINEERS IN RECORDING STUDIOS WITH MUSICIANS LIKE DAVE MATTHEWS AND ERIC CLAPTON. WHAT HAS IT BEEN LIKE TO WORK WITH SUCH INFLUENTIAL MUSICIANS, AND WHAT IS THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN?

Philippe: When you get to work with the best musicians and producers you have to try and absorb as much as you can from the experience. More often than not these are the people most comfortable with their abilities and the ones most willing to share tips and techniques. An established and successful musician or band will have much bigger budget and more studio time available to them and you get a much better understanding of how their ideas are developed; you also get to record instruments you've never seen before and choirs and orchestras which is pretty cool. As for the best piece of advice I've been given... that's a tricky one! I remember a particular artist telling me once that when writing you should always give a work-in-progress a temporary silly name so that it'll have no influence on the final song and to this day that's what I do with any song I initiate much to Ric's confusion!
Ric: Ha ha, this drives me mad, because I can't remember which song is called "coconut" and which is called "Macaroon"! One of the best tips I ever picked up was from an artist who insisted on taking home his nightly work-in-progress on cassette tape. We had to scramble to find an old player, but he said that he liked to listen on something that sounded bad so that he would only listen to the song, rather than than the recording. We've never gone quite that far, but we've never forgotten the principle that it's the song that's important.

MUEN: WHERE DID YOU GET THE NAME "TEMPLE SCENE"?

Ric: We spent a long time trying to find a name - it's genuinely one of the hardest things to do! I remember Philippe phoning me up and suggesting "Temple Sheen", the name of an area near to where we do the music; I misheard it as "Temple Scene" and the name stuck!

MUEN: CAN YOU EXPLAIN YOUR RECORDING PROCESS FOR US? WHO PLAYS WHAT INSTRUMENTS�YOU SOUND LIKE A COMPLETE BAND, BUT THERE'S ONLY TWO OF YOU!

Philippe: When we're writing, Ric will usually be on the piano and I'll be on a guitar. On the actual recordings it's hard to remember who's played what because, a lot of the time, we work in a kind of tag-team way where one person works on a song and sends it back to the other who adds their own parts and ideas. It's only when we're working together that a song gets cleaned up and shaped into the final version. Most of the time, any guitar parts I've recorded are replayed by Ric but sometimes there's a particular vibe that we can't recreate and the original part stays in.
Ric: We're both into band music so there's always going to be a tendency for the music to go in that direction, but there's only the two of us and it's all done in a home studio which brings a certain limitation. I think the tag-team way we work for some reason pushes some of the tracks in a more electronic direction and I think that's helped define our sound. It's not quite band music, and it's not quite electronic either.

MUEN: I REALLY LIKE THE LYRICS TO YOUR SONGS. THEY'RE VERY TOUCHING YET PROBABLY EVERYONE LISTENING CAN TAKE SOMETHING FROM THEM. WHO TAKES CARE OF THOSE?

Ric: Usually one of us will suggest a concept for a song and present a few lyric ideas and we'll both try and develop that concept together. Sometimes, one of us will present the other with complete lyrics and concept and we go with that.
Philippe: I'd just like to explain what Ric means by concept - we try and create a situation and a character for each song and write about what they would be feeling. It gives us a way of combining both of our ideas and experiences into one song, without it losing coherence.

MUEN: YOU'VE JUST RELEASED YOUR E.P. "ANOTHER TOWN" I'M GUESSING YOU PRODUCED AND ENGINEERED IT YOURSELVES. WHERE WAS IT RECORDED, WERE THERE ANY OTHER CONTRIBUTORS, AND WHERE DO WE GO TO GET OUR COPY?

Philippe: Most of it was recorded and mixed at our studio in my house, but the vocals for "Breathing" and "Somewhere In This City" and some of the keyboards were recorded at Eden Studios when Ric was working there.
Ric: The E.P. is available on iTunes and Amazon.com and you can listen to them on our MySpace site (www.myspace.com/templescene). Some of our other songs can be heard on the61 (www.thesixtyone.com/templescene).

MUEN: I NOTICED YOU'RE NOT SELLING YOUR E.P. ON CD FORMAT, WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO GO ALL DIGITAL?

Ric: We decided to release songs as E.P.s rather than albums, because it means we can trickle out releases fairly constantly and build up an ongoing relationship with our listeners. Releasing songs 'little and often' this way is much better suited to downloads.

MUEN: HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT MAKING A VIDEO FOR YOUR E.P.? IF YOU WERE TO MAKE ONE, WHICH TRACK WOULD YOU PICK AND WHY?

Ric: We'd love to make videos but we can't afford it at the moment. If anyone out there wants to use the tracks for their short films or in adverts etc. we'd definitely be up for discussing that.
Philippe: I'd really want to look at doing something with "Rewind", which will be on our next E.P. The whole sound of that song was shaped by a particular image we had in our heads. It's quite a poignant song about a relationship, but both the sound and the lyrical imagery have this electronic, machine-like vibe and it would make for a great video.

MUEN: IS THIS YOUR FIRST RELEASE? IF NOT, WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU DONE AND IS IT AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD ALSO?

Ric: Another Town is our first release. "The Story", which is free to download at our MySpace site, isn't on the E.P. but is the first part of a collection of songs we are releasing for free.
Philippe: And the second free track will be released along with our next E.P. called "Sektor" which is just being finished off and should be out in June 2008.

MUEN: ARE YOU GETTING ANY RADIO PLAY? DO YOU FEEL THE RADIO STATIONS IN ENGLAND ARE SUPPORTIVE OF UNSIGNE BANDS?

Ric: Well, we've been played on BBC radio by Tom Robinson, who specialises in unsigned bands, but certainly in a big city like London it's pretty much impossible to get played on the commercial stations unless you are also all over the TV and magazines.

MUEN: WHAT DECADE WOULD YOU SAY IS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL ON YOU, MUSICALLY?

Ric: That's pretty tricky! Can I cheat and say the decade between 1987 and 1997? That would get in so many of the best albums by people like Tracy Chapman, Depeche Mode, R.E.M., Lenny Kravitz and Jeff Buckley, as well as Michael Jackson's 'Dangerous' which was the first album I ever loved as a kid!
Philippe: I think for me it would be the 60s and 70s.. artists such as Carole King, Sam Cooke, Pink Floyd.. and obviously The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

MUEN: WHAT BAND IN THE UK DO YOU THINK IS HAVING THE MOST INFLUENCE ON THE MUSIC SCENE RIGHT NOW?

Philippe: You know, for the first time in my life I find it hard to pick one or two bands that are obviously the big influencers. I guess nowadays, with the internet and iPods, people are listening to all sorts of different music and and I think that's pretty healthy.

MUEN: MYSPACE AND OTHER INTERNET WEBSITES MAKE IT EASIER FOR BANDS TO BUILD THEIR FANBASE AND SPREAD WORD ABOUT THEIR MUSIC, WHERE DO YOU THINK THE MAJORITY OF YOUR FANS ARE FROM?

Ric: The internet has been really important to us, particularly MySpace because of the sheer number of people you can reach, and it's fantastic being able to interact and chat with people who are into the music. But probably the most exciting new place we've found is thesixtyone.com. It's a site that makes it much easier for people to discover good new music and it's great for bands because they're getting listeners who are not just sticking to what they know. At the moment, it still a relatively small site but it's a really well executed idea, and it's given us a whole load of new listeners so we're very grateful.
Philippe: It's amazing to think that we can finish a song, upload it to MySpace and by that afternoon we're getting feedback from people in Japan and America!

MUEN: THANKS AGAIN, AND GOOD LUCK WITH THE E.P!

Interview by Lissy MacMillan

www.myspace.com/templescene
www.templescene.com