Anathema are a prog/alt rock band from Liverpool, but it has not always been so. Starting off touring with the likes of Cannibal Corpse, they are now better associated with artists such as Pink Floyd or Porcupine Tree. I caught up with Vince at the Kscope acoustic night in London. Here’s what he had to say...

So you have recently released ‘Falling Deeper’, it is an album of old songs, reworked to the sounds of a modern day Anathema. First off, I was wondering, what inspired you to make this album?

The orchestra. It grew in the studio really. Originally it was only going to be an EP, but as it grew, we realised it had to be a fairly big deal and use a full orchestra. I guess we had the tools this time. We had worked with Dave stewart on ‘We’re Here Because We’re Here’ and the London Session Orchestra, so then, we knew what was possible. As this was coming together in the studio, it was an instant decision really, to let this grow and develop into its full potential, to go the whole hog on it. It’s got a 26 piece string orchestra and Dave Stuart has done amazing job, he has put his heart and soul into it, and an incredible amount of effort and technique and it’s paid off.

To me it’s kind of contemporary. It’s classical, but contemporary. The melodies somehow defy time in a way, it sounds like soundtrack music, which is something excellent for us to get into, and personally it’s something I’d love to do. It’s our first foray into that kind of world, which is amazing for us really. I think it turned out better than we could have expected. Just listening back to the orchestra, that was it then, it was just too good.

The band has had its fair share of ups and downs, most recently with the departure of your keyboard player, Les. How do you deal with these setbacks, and what sort of impact does it have on the band?

It does have big impact, it’s never pleasant when somebody leaves, but you’ve got to regroup then, and I guess the focus never changes anyway, were always focused on next thing and the new music and next concerts. So we try not to dwell on negatives too much and push forward in the right way.

I was wondering about your writing process, I know that Danny is based in Norway, and for a while at least you were in New York. Is it a case of writing songs alone and then sending them to each other, or do you just meet up before you’re going in for recording and write together?

Well it depends, if you have something that you definitely want someone to listen to immediately, then you say, ‘you’ve got to listen to this!’ Then we’ll do it by email. But more often than not, when we see each other, we’ll say, ‘well, what have you got?’ Danny basically writes all of his music for Anathema. I write a lot of my stuff for myself. It sounds different to Anathema anyway, so I’m not sure that I would use it in that context. The next album’s already planned out. We’ve recorded more than half of it. The plan is to finish it off by Christmas, mix it in the New Year, and then release it around April. We’ll see how it goes.

Working hard then?

We never stop really. These coming months, I’m finding the time to do my own stuff as well. It’s really important to me. I want to get it out soon, I don’t want to wait. Its more art based. I’m doing music for art exhibitions, the soundtrack to them, that kind of thing. I want to continue doing that which is free and open, not really a band or an album or anything like this. Having said that, I would like to release something as well. I’d like to get it out there and see what people think.

Since the build up to ‘We’re Here Because we’re Here’ you have been touring pretty heavily. Have you any highlights of the tour?

Some of the South America shows were awesome, they always are. For some reason the crowd are incredibly passionate over there. Saying that, we’ve had some stunners in Europe as well; the gig that we played in Paris recently was incredible, the one we played at the Scala here in London. We played in Krakow as well, in Poland. That was stunning. I think quite a lot of this tour. We went to Scandinavia, to Germany, lots of places that we have been to before, but we are getting a much better reception, and I think that the secret to that is having the new set, the new songs. So we are looking forward to getting the next album out and repeating the same thing.

And finally, what song are you most proud of writing, and do you have any personal favourites for playing live?

'Universal'. I had a big, big hand in that song. It wasn’t just playing live, it was in the studio as well. I was kind of on my own for about 4 days. We basically lived and set up a studio in this house, and for about 4 days I was alone. On the 4th day I had created the whole ending of the song. I’d been working on it each day, it was all instrumental at the time, there were no vocals, but the music was spot on, how you hear it on the album. We had no internet at the house, we were in the middle of nowhere, I couldn’t send it to anyone, but yeah, that was incredible. Finishing that off was one of the most special feelings I’ve ever had about music.

Anathemas latest album ‘falling deeper’ is out now on kscope.