Tell me a little more about working with Greg. After you’d had those conversations about the direction you wanted to head in with The Clearing, why did he feel like the man for the job?

Ellie Rowsell: I think it was because he’s worked across quite a large range of genres, so it left things open for us. He’s a bit of a chameleon and he can kind of do anything. Plus, we had met him briefly before, and he’s just very nice. He has a nice temperament and has been in lots of bands himself, so he understands the dynamic, which is important to us.

Oddie: He’s got a very British sense of humor as well, which helps.

I read another interview where you spoke about not being afraid to be ambitious this time around, or not seeing ambition as a dirty word. Did Kurstin’s work in the pop music space have anything to do with your decision?

Rowsell: I don’t know—I’m not sure “ambitious” necessarily means making pop music for us. I feel like we’ve always tried to make pop music. Maybe we just failed. [Laughs.]

Oddie: Yeah, we’re just bad at it.

The subject matter of the record covers a lot of the prosaic stuff around entering your 30s, but the sound of the record is, at times, pretty bold and bombastic. Why did you feel you wanted to tell those stories with that more theatrical energy?

Rowsell: I think a lot of the themes throughout the album are about taking stock of what’s around you and finding joy in the little things, and maybe it’s quite fun to sing about those things with a certain bombast, like, “If this is all I’ve got, then let’s really enjoy it and make it great.” The little things are important, and so they need to sound important, really. I feel like that might have been more of a subconscious decision, though.