Itโs easy to see why throwing pots might appeal to Michael. The London quintetโs new album Nite Salad is physical, focused, and โ in the manner of recent output from Sex Swing or Chat Pile โ sticky. Over dark, gritty psych rock, Milo Brennanโs growled lyrics are strewn with references to repetitive manual work: โpour water, mix mortarโ he howls on โBronze Again Orโ. The record has also required a good ceramicistโs time and patience, coming four years after their debut Tell Your Friends: a period in which their studio burned down, bassist David Silver suffered a prolapsed disc in his back, and three members of the band became fathers. Did these experiences inform Nite Saladโs grim reflections on the state of the nation, the โnutters of the industryโ described in โThank Uโ as making a life in music untenable, or the wider โWorld Of Moanโ as one song calls it? Not sure โ today weโre making pots.
I visit the band at Camden Art Centre which, like Michael, has โbeen through itโ: a former library destroyed during the Blitz, then resurrected as a community arts hub where vocalist Milo Brennan and guitarist PJ Mountford now work. When I am waved a cheery, grey-handed hello by Brennan, Mountford, Silver and drummer Tamรกs Kiss โ each under an apron, happily working away at making bowls to varying degrees of success โ their pleasant disposition is, again, unsurprising. Iโve been writing for publications like tQ long enough to recognise that, for whatever reason, the darker, more brutal records tend to be made by gentler characters.
Between the runaway success of The Great Pottery Throwdown (a spin-off was launched this year in Silverโs native Canada), the legacy of arts and craftsโ regained popularity that came during lockdown, and a popular shift away from our culture of single-use items, throwing pots is big business. Thereโs also no shortage of fans from the music world, with Nick Cave putting on a new ceramics exhibition this year. While Mountford and Brennan have experience, Kiss and Silver are newcomers like myself. The band grab me an apron, some clay, invite me to sit at a wheel โ the disc is spun by a motor activated by a foot pedal โ and begin my first lesson.
The basics of pot-making
Tamรกs Kiss: You need to make a dense, egg-shaped ball. Whack it down in the centre of the disc, and while the disc is spinning, you compress and centralise it with water on your hands. You squeeze it in, pull it up, and itโs ashtray time.
PJ Mountford: By throwing it down, you create a seal. You want no air in the base at all, because when you fire it, itโll crack. I remember making something really big, which I had to do in two parts so it could fit in the kiln โ the technicians the next day were like โIโm so sorry, it exploded.โ To get it off when youโre done, you slowly spin the wheel, take a wire โ pushed flat to the disc โ and pull it through the base. Then you leave it to dry overnight.
Kiss: You fire it in the kiln in different stages, at different temperatures. These kilns go up to 1700 degrees fahrenheit, it stays like that for half an hour, and that gradually comes down: the next day you come in and itโs just warm. Thereโs a little peeping hole, but you must not look in it, because if steam comes out? My eyes!
Making pots is an important part of Stokeโs history, and a lost art
Mountford: This should be in my DNA, because Iโm from Stoke. I also worked at Armitage Shanksโ Twyford factory making toilets, as summer temping work. I just had to smash the moulds up though โ you need to be skilled to actually build the toilets. We had one sledgehammer between two of us, and we just smashed moulds and smoked cigarettes.
In Stoke, there were a lot of bottle kilns which they fired pots in. A lot got destroyed, so itโs a lost art. But if you go to any terraced house in Stoke, theyโve got these beautiful toilet suites – these brown toilet suites with the bidets and everything. Even the poorest house has a full toilet suite.
The pot industry was destroyed, and thatโs why Stokeโs a shithole now. Thatโs why I came to London โ you do an art degree and just go work at a warehouse. But itโs making a bit of a comeback, and now youโve got potbanks reopening.
Past efforts in ceramics have been a mixed bag
Milo Brennan: Itโs quite shit, but it gets used a lot โ thereโs a little salt bowl that I gave my Mum. Itโs very small and simple, black glaze on the outside and green glaze on the inside. Itโs a bit shonky, but itโs nice because itโs full of salt all the time.
Mountford: I did a BTEC in design, and there was a ceramics course. I had these two teachers: Ron Mitchell who did the graphics โ he made the KP Nuts logo in the 80s โ and his wife Judith Mitchell ran the ceramics shop. I made this art-deco lamp, and stuck bits of corduroy to it for texture. I donโt know why I did that, I was 17.
Making pots is a lot like making music
Brennan: You can feel uncomfortable for a while with songs, you figure out stuff that doesnโt work, then some feeling comes along โ like โah, I can get into this.โ
Kiss: In a band, though, youโre making one pot together, trying to shape it in a rehearsal room. Here, weโve each got one individual piece of clay โ itโs more like a solo project.
Brennan: Itโs quite humbling to think youโre just a little part of a long journey โ this constant dialogue between the universe and people.
David Silver: 50 years from now someone might buy this record, just thinking โNite Salad? What the fuck is this?โ
Brennan: Yes, a record becomes a strange artefact.
Whether pots or albums, itโs important to have an outlet.
Silver: In London I donโt do anything with my hands โ you donโt get much time to just chill out and make something. I come from a little village in Saskatchewan, where people have a little more time to do stuff like this. Thereโs less of a rat race. I miss that.
Brennan: The world is very fucking bleak. To start a band can be a fun thing, but itโs reached a point where Iโm not sure what Iโd do without this outlet โ this way of expressing my feelings about the state of things.
Michael’s new album Nite Salad is out now via Crackedankles
