And the Welcome everyone to Soda Jerker on songwriting. This is Simon joined as always by Brian and on the

podcast today are two principal members of an English alt rock band from

the northeast of England who first emerged onto the UK indie scene almost two decades ago.

In the years since they've produced an extremely solid body of work and recently released

their seventh studio album, The Tremendous Nature Always Wins, which was recorded remotely

during lockdown with Grammy-winning Atlanta-based

producer Ben Allen. We're very happy to welcome Maximo Parks Principal Songwriters,

Singapore Smith and guitarist Duncan Lloyd to the show.

Paul and Duncan joined us for a chat over Zoom in early February 2021, a couple of weeks before the album dropped,

and very nice it was to talk to them.

They're both fine upstanding fellows for sure.

Paul hails from Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, while Duncan is originally from Derby.

They both studied art at University, Paul at Newcastle and Duncan at Northumbria.

After graduating, Duncan formed an embryonic version of the band

with original bassist Arches Tiku, drummer Tom English and original keyboard disc Lucas

Wuller. In 2003 the guys decided they needed a fully-fledged frontman, and on the recommendation of Tom's

girlfriend, they asked Paul, who at the time was working as an art teacher and playing guitar

in an instrumental band called Me and the Twins.

Paul added his vocals to some of the band's demos

which were just what they were looking for and Maximo Park as the wider world

came to know it was born. The band eventually came to the attention of Steve Beckett

of Warp Records who promptly signed them up in spite of Warp being a predominantly electronic label

...