“I like to think that this is a more positive, more hopeful album”

Editors They have marked a considerable change of direction with their eighth album. “Surface, Echo & Sound” (PIAS, 2026) is surely the most austere and essentialist work of their entire career, as if the electronic path they took to its maximum expression in ““EBM” (PIAS, 2022) would have been a dead end from which they had to escape.

In fact, at certain moments, the new work sounds like Springsteen’s most acoustic and dusty songs, something we would never have imagined. I talk about all this with Ed Lay (Ipswich, 1981), drummer and one of the founding members of the quintet that is completed by vocalist, pianist, guitarist and main composer Tom Smith, bassist Russell Leetch, guitarist (and this time producer) Justin Lockey and keyboardist Elliott Williams

(You can check their performances in our country at the end of this interview).

This may be the most austere job of your career. Of course, very different from “EBM” (2022). Why did you feel it was time for this pivot?
Various factors. Among them, the producer of that album, Blanck Mass (Ben Power), was not available. He’s too busy. His career is taking off on a massive level. He composes for films, TV series, video games… he couldn’t give us the time he thinks we deserved, nor go with us on tour. He wished us the best. And it was like an excuse to start again from scratch. We recorded in a studio very close to Tom (Smith’s) house, in Gloucestershire, and started messing around with the demos he brought us. A job of being all together in the same studio, with very natural instruments. There came a point where, with the song “Happiness,” we tried to do something with the mandolin instead of the acoustic guitar, and there we saw that there was a path we could follow. Go back to the classic: to those old rock records we grew up with. That’s where this sound was born. We didn’t have to convince each other. With the age we are, the experiences we have accumulated, the desire to go on stage and do something simpler… we thought it was time.

“REM and Depeche Mode are possibly the bands we have never listened to the most”

Do you think “EBM” (2022) was a misunderstood album? None of his songs are in your Spotify Top 10 and it has also been the one that sold the least. I also remember seeing you presenting it in Valencia and your audience reacting with a certain coldness.
Well, if you took fifty fans and asked them what their favorite Editors song was, I think forty-nine of them would choose different songs. Our career draws a very broad palette. My personal taste leans a lot towards those types of songs, like “Strawberry Lemonade” or “Strange Intimacy.” In some countries it was an important album. And the fact that Blanck Mass, who was part of Fuck Buttons, was there, gave him media attention. It was an interesting choice for a more traditional rock group, like us. Indie rock. Or indie electro, I don’t know how to fit it into a label. It’s not that we wanted to become more popular, if that’s what you mean. It was what we wanted then, and now we want to make everything simpler. With an organic, natural, human touch.

I interviewed Tom (Smith) less than a year ago, on the occasion of the publication of his solo album, “There Is Nothing In The Dark, That Isn’t There In The Light” (2025), and it is not entirely clear to me if that album was a consequence of this one, which was recorded during the summer of 2025, or it was the other way around.
They have practically gone hand in hand. Songs like “The Hills We Died Upon,” which is the last one on the album, is one of the songs he played on his solo tour. The good thing about all this is that Tom’s songs never come out exactly how he conceives them after being worked on by the group. And it’s not a negative thing. I think he enjoys that randomness. Obviously, we’re all trying to make the best record possible.

Since you mention “The Hills That We Died Upon”, both it and the title track remind me a lot of Bruce Springsteen’s acoustic albums, like “Nebraska” (1982). That kind of American. A bit in the style of Brandon Flowers’ latest album.
Completely. “Nebraska” (1982) is an album that we had in mind. Recreate the emotion of that instrumental nudity. All of us have listened to American rock since we started in this. REM, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains… they are bands that we grew up with and that we have absorbed things from. Although it hadn’t been noticed much until now: we’ve always had a more angular, darker approach, and we wanted to expand our sound. When I say expansive I don’t mean dramatic, necessarily.

In the press release it is said, with the use of the mandolin, that you sound like Depeche Mode playing REM
I haven’t read it, but I get the idea (laughs). They are possibly the two groups that we have listened to the most throughout our lives. In terms of a long-running, atmospheric sound with real instruments, REM are an example. And in terms of breaking down sound barriers and playing with different textures and technologies, Depeche Mode. We have always admired that. The pinnacle of being like the definitive band combining both concepts, which is what they represent. So, if we approach that, it is to be happy.

“I think this new album is closer to our debut because of how direct it is. It’s not too thoughtful”

To what extent did filming in Gloucestershire influence you?
I think it was more important for Tom (Smith), because it was close to his house, and he already spent a lot of time away recording the last album, and then we immediately went on tour, and I think he really needed to be home more and we also needed to record together. We loved finding the studio, it’s like a hidden gem in the middle of the countryside, next to a horrible industrial estate, but the studio is fantastic. Tom could go home to sleep, walk the dog in the morning, go for a run, and then go back to work. And that made things more comfortable for him. When you have a singer like Tom, who is able to make any song his own, you have to make him the most important part of the group.

You insist a lot on maturity, on how your life has changed since the band started.
It has changed a lot. We all lived together when we started, we rented horrible houses, which we shared. The most horrible and dirty places in Birmingham (laughs). That closeness is important when forming the DNA of a band. Since then, we have lived in places very distant from each other. In different parts of the country. The logistics are more complicated, and we all have families, the goings-on of life, and it would be stupid to deny it, because it is the most important thing. Getting together to play music has become an honor. Among friends. That time we share is shorter, and has become more valuable. If tomorrow dawned with the news that the band was over, I would be mortified but proud of the privilege of everything we have done together. That is one of the reasons to continue.

Twenty years have passed since your debut, “The Back Room” (2005). I don’t know how you see it in perspective.
I’ve always loved it. It was like the purpose of my life, in the sense that everything that has happened since that album has marked who we are. It’s nice to see what it means to people. It’s special. There were people who didn’t like the second or the third as much. For different reasons. I think this new album is closer to our debut because of how direct it is. It’s not too thoughtful. Five guys playing together. In essence, what we were on that first album. I don’t think it was necessarily our best work, but it was the one that connected us with the most people. And he has a song like “Munich,” which propelled us.

I always had the impression that it was the album we were all expecting from Interpol as a sequel to their debut, instead of “Antics” (2004). In some ways, if you’ll allow me, I think you captured that a little bit.
They always compared us to Interpol. But I wouldn’t say we were fans of his, far from it. That comparison lasted for years and years. I respect them, I think they’re fantastic, I saw them last summer supporting Deftones in the UK, but I don’t think they would ever write a song like “Seriously”. I think the comparisons are going to end here (laughs).

The general tone of the album, unlike your previous works, sounds somewhat more serene and hopeful, without anguish, just at a time when the world seems to be worse than it was ten or fifteen years ago.
Everything that happens has an impact. Personally, as a group, in the studio. I’m sure thousands of artists have said this: there is some escapism, to some extent. Of course horrible things are happening. Over which we have no control, and that is one of the worst feelings. Let’s transport ourselves to another place with our music and connect with people we didn’t know before. That’s cool. It’s like a gift we can give ourselves. I like to think that this is a more positive, more hopeful, less obviously dark record than some of our previous material.