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Wales natives the Lostprophets have ushered in a new era by adding a little more of the pop genre into the mix for their latest release Liberation Transmission – and they are confident it is a musical progression. For a band that has been known to do covers of everyone from Duran Duran to Justin Timberlake, the jump to a more pop-oriented style hasn’t been foreign territory. While reaction from their fans has been mixed to the new sound, Liberation Transmission still debuted at #1 on the UK album charts back in June. Guitarists Mike Lewis and Lee Gaze recently talked to Ultimate Guitar writer Amy Kelly about how the latest record was a result of trying out a new writing methods and essentially becoming bored with playing a heavier style of rock.UG: Liberation Transmission is a departure from the usual sound of the band. What influenced the change?

Mike: We had been listening to the same kind of thing at that point, usually like Joy Division, The Police, The Jam, The Clash. Old stuff like that. I really changed the way I played the parts. I always was like playing guitar as kind of like a punk tune. I’ve always played the guitar that way. I think the band just got bored with playing heavy music. We had done 2 albums of it and it was just a natural progression, really. It was just kind of the way we went. Our drummer (Mike Chiplin) left also and that kind of changed things. He would play drums when we jammed. That was a little different. It was just like a natural thing for this record.

Lee: I definitely think we’ve progressed. We used to be a lot heavier. I think the heaviness comes in a different way now. It’s heavy in one way, but it’s not in another. Heavy can be a lot of things. I think any band that doesn’t do a lot of things stays the same and grows old quickly.

What was the reaction from fans to the new record?

Mike: Mixed. Some people were open to the progression. A lot of our fans have been with us since the beginning. Some listen to stuff like Bloc Party and Arctic Monkeys, so they kind of appreciate where we were going with it. Then there were people who loved our first record and that will always be their favorite record, which is understandable. Some people like a certain thing. They don’t like change. Unfortunately, I think that we’ll always be evolving and we’ll always be changing. We’ve done 3 records now, which every record has sounded different than the last. I have no doubt that our next record will probably sound different as well. We realize that it’s just the kind of band that we are. We’re just kind of always evolving.

Lee: Mostly things have been good. The fans that are really fans tend to grow with the band. Then you always have the people who get hooked on a single or whatever. I think generally things are good. These songs go down as well live as the older stuff, which is cool.

The change has seemed to pay off, given that your latest record hit #1 on the UK charts.

Mike: It was pretty cool. We’re not a band that cares about charts and that kind of thing. The scene we come from is kind of punk rock. We don’t care about that stuff like that. With our first album, we couldn’t believe it when we sold like 10,000 records. It’s pretty unbelievable for us.

I understand that Mike was originally the bass player in the band. Is that true?

Mike: Yeah. Ian (Watkins, vocals) and Lee kind of started the band from like an old band that they were in. They had a guy playing bass and they kicked him out. I was like, “I’m a guitar player and I can play bass. Maybe I’ll come down and jam with you guys, help you write some songs.” I was in a band another band at the time. We had all the songs written eventually, so it was just kind of like, “Well, I’ll just stay in the band.” Then we met Stuart (Richardson, bass) and he was a bass player. He joined and then I went back to playing guitar.

Do you feel most comfortable playing the guitar rather than the bass?

Mike: Yeah. I had always wanted to play guitar. I fooled around on the bass or whatever, but I played guitar since I was like 13 or 14. It’s always what I wanted to play. When I was 14, I was into Metallica and Anthrax and Megadeth, and I always wanted to be a guitar player.

Lee, how old were you when you picked up the guitar?

Lee: I think I was about 15 or 16. I started late, really.

Were a lot of your friends already playing?

Lee: Yeah, there was a bunch of kids in school that played and they were amazing. I always wanted to be a drummer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fit a drum set in my bedroom at my parents’ house. They ended up getting me a guitar and I was like, “Well, second best thing.” And I pretty much never went back.

There was a bit of a backlash from some fans about the length of time it took to make the last record. Did the band try to speed the process along?

Mike: We just kind of realized it took us a long time to make a record on the last one. We did try to, but with our drummer leaving and stuff, it kind of really set us back. Then we found out that we were gonna work with Bob (Rock, producer). We had to wait for Bob to finish his project he had been working on. But with our next record, we really, really want to be conscious that it’s like, “We’re going to write in a month. We’re gonna record it in a month.” We want to just go in there and write. It’ll be like, “Fuck it. Let’s just go in, write 10, 15 songs. Record those and that’s it.” We want to kind of take it back, strip it back more.

What did Bob Rock bring to the new record?

Lee: He just likes getting us to sound really good and play really well as a band together like any good producer. He definitely has a lot of good ideas of what would sound cool. When you get a producer like that, it’s like an extra member of the band. They have a perspective on everything that you can’t have because you’re way too involved with being in the band. We had to sacrifice a lot of things that we really liked, but it was like, “Well, it’s Bob Rock! He’s got a better track record than us!” He’s really cool to work with.

What kind of advice did Bob offer?

Lee: He’s one of the most brutally honest guys that ever lived. He’s gonna tell you if he doesn’t like it or if it’s shit. It depends on the part. He’s very honest and there’s no bullshit with him, and I think that is cool. We didn’t give him any and he didn’t give us any.

With the change in the band’s sound, have you also changed what equipment you use?

Mike: The guitars, generally, from this record to the last record, they sound a little bit different on the record, but I think that’s just due to the production with what Bob used. I used a Bogner Uberscall and there was some other stuff. The producer has this amazing collection of amps and guitars. He has like old Marshalls and just amazing stuff that sounded awesome. I use PRS guitars, Singlecut. They sound awesome. Bob has an amazing collection of vintage guitars all of that stuff to record with.

Lee: I ended up finding in love with Soldanos. I have one of those that’s like a custom SLO 100. It has like the extra knobs and stuff on it. Then I use a Fender Twin, a Jazzmaster, and a Tele is my third weapon of choice. I have a huge pedalboard, but I’m not using as much of it as I used to. The MXR phaser is probably my number one favorite. There’s just one knob or one button, and it sounds so cool on everything.

Did you find one particular guitar in Bob’s collection that worked well for you?

Mike: He had this 70’s Les Paul. We used that on a lot of the stuff on the album. I think that was the main guitar I used. It sounded amazing.

There’s an incredible intro on “Town of Hypocrisy.” How did you and Lee work out the parts on that one?

Mike: That’s one of my favorite songs on the record. That song totally changed in the writing process. It started off as almost a Chili Peppers-esqe ballad. We changed it up a little bit. Up until we were mixing the record we were like, “It needs something.” So we got the track, which is eventually the way the song was gonna get mixed. That week it was getting mixed. We sat there and we were fucking around and just came up with that riff. That du-nuh-nuh, du-nuh-nuh. We just kept messing around and came up with a new riff. Then we were like, “That’s awesome!” I was just playing my guitar and came up with a lead line over it. So we just kind of came up with it after we had Indian take-out one night. We laid it down the next morning. I like it because it came together last-minute, right at the end. It’s exciting when you come up with stuff like that.

Do you come up with a lot of your songs like that?

Mike: We’ll change things a lot. But sometimes we’re just like, “Okay, that’s it!” For better or for worse sometimes, right up until the song is mixed it’s like, “Oh, let’s change this vocal. Let’s add this guitar part.” Sometimes it works out for the best, sometimes it doesn’t. But we always mess around with stuff right up to the end.

Lee: It depends on the song. There are some songs that are pretty much pre-written before we get in. Like maybe I’ll have all the guitar parts, lead parts, or vice versa. And we just go from there. If everyone’s happy with it, then we don’t have to change it. But then on the other songs, we maybe just jam it out live. We always play something a little different and only come together on the choruses. If you’re gonna have 2 guitar players, it’s kind of pointless if you both do exactly the same thing.

What made you decide to not include as many interludes on the latest album?

Mike: We kind of felt like we had done it for two albums. We don’t want to do because people expect us to do it again. It was like, “You know what? We’ve done it now. We’ve done it for 2 records.” We kind of just wanted to do a straight album.

Do you feel your live show has changed at all over the years?

Mike: It’s exactly the same, really. We haven’t really changed anything. It’s the way it always has been. Live, the record is going to come across a little bit heavier, a little bit different.

Do you use the same equipment on stage that you do in the studio?

Mike: Pretty much. I think it’s like the guitars come across a little bit heavier live maybe. It just comes across that way. We play the songs a little bit faster live.

Is it true that your new drummer Ilan Rubin is around 17 years old?

Mike: He’s 18 now. He’s just on tour with us. He’s not actually in the band, in the band. He’s an amazing drummer, just phenomenal. We got along with him great, but we have yet to write songs together. You kind have to wait until you try and write songs together to see if it truly fits. When we start writing songs next year we’ll know whether he’s like the guy to be in the band. You know, it’s kind of like you want to date someone for a while before you get married to them kind of thing.

You’ve done a wide assortment of cover songs over the years. How do you all decide on what songs you’ll cover?

Lee: We don’t do covers unless we absolutely have to. And then when we do have to, we’ll kind of get together and decide. We usually tackle the pop side of it like Duran Duran, The Cure, Justin Timberlake. It’s usually something that people wouldn’t expect to played in a rock band.

Do you have a cover that is your favorite to perform?

Mike: I think The Strokes’ one is fun because we didn’t change anything on it. It was kind of like, “Let’s just do a song that’s out right now. Just cover it and do it completely straight.”

Lee: I don’t really enjoy doing them. It’s somebody else’s song. We spend all this time learning that, and I would prefer to be learning our own songs.

Are you planning on making a live DVD in the future?

Mike: We’ve thought about it. I don’t know. I think we’re gonna wait to put out a DVD until we can put like live stuff with candid stuff, a lot of videos and everything. Put it all in one package. It seems a lot of bands these days just put out a DVD because that’s the thing to do. We want to wait. We’ve got a shitload of tapes!