[Music]
hey taiwan i'm josephine and i'm anthony
and we are oh wonder we are chatting to
joey on icrt fm 100.
i'm joey today we're going to have a
chat with one of our favorites from
around the world and it's going to be
josephine and anthony of oh wonder hello
guys hey what's up jerry how are you i
am very well how are you guys in the
uk the sun is out we can't complain
we're all good uh before we get started
talking about music guys i i've only
just one question at the top of my head
how is margot and how old is she now
margot is good uh we almost lost her
last night she ran away what yeah it's
never happened before but we were
working in our coffee shop and we didn't
realize the door was open and about five
minutes later anthony looked around i
was like where's margo and i was like oh
my gosh she's gone and she'd ran
ironically she'd run to the local pub
yeah in search of a drink
and you taught her well some
unsuspecting people were like carrying
her awkwardly and we're like is anyone
looking for a dog we were like
and then they recognized this which was
even worse because they were like are
you guys in no wonder and we were like
oh no
we look good bad dog parents um i do see
that a lot of your interview videos you
have like anthony having to walk off
halfway because she's either
feasting on a whole chicken or digging
into the bread basket oh my god
yeah there's always something i'm just
looking i'm looking in the kitchen now
we're safe yeah she ate a whole pan of
chocolate yesterday as well she's really
going for it well i mean that's the way
they're supposed to be she's like just a
little bit over a year old nice three
three she's three now oh my gosh oh
she's equivalent to 21
years no she's off to university or
something oh no a little separation
anxiety for the mom and dad
all right finally let's talk about your
musical baby uh so a new album out it's
called two to break correct yeah or 22
break we don't know how you pronounce it
so it's just both are correct both are
correct you guys put a lot of sort of
lifestyle noises
and turn them into your production in
this album now was that intentional yeah
there's kind of loads of organic lots of
organic sounds that we kind of
yeah the start of a lot of songs is kind
of well the first song baby
we literally pressed record on josie and
josephine and
under the desk here where we are now was
margot and her chain
there's like a metallic sound she moved
and she's always moving around the
studio but when i now listen to it i'm
like oh margot's here because i
and the trouble is like because it was a
live take like we can't re-record it so
it's just in there yeah there's a lot of
those moments on the album that kind of
have to be there because it's organic
like you said and it
it happened in the moment so we
shouldn't get rid of it i love that so
you're grooming margot into first off a
a pop frequenter
and then secondly someone who can make
music along with you i know right
co-writer yeah you're gonna have to
start crediting her yeah you have to
give her her cut pretty soon yes yeah i
do feel like that you do bring us into
your life with this album you know with
those you know random sounds um from
day-to-day lives but it's also it's a
brutally honest album um i read on your
twitter that you said uh this is one
that took you through your breakup your
your almost breakup now is that true
yeah yeah exactly
um i wish it was some sort of really
clever marketing ploy but uh it would be
far easier to talk about but yeah we we
had a really tough um
kind of year last year we were on tour
we were five dates into a big world tour
and our bodies were pumped full of
adrenaline and we were really excited to
kind of be touring our third album
around the world and um it was difficult
for so many people but for for us the
difficulty came in just being together
and having no purpose i suppose that's
something we've never done in our
relationship we've never just hung out
as as boyfriend and girlfriend yeah and
we found it a little bit difficult to be
honest because we love our job so much
and we get so much from being in no
wonder and making music and it was like
well what do we do if we don't have that
and then we were like what happens when
we're 80 and we're not in no wonder
anymore like are we gonna have anything
in common what are we gonna do and we
started asking all these questions
and the way we answered them was to come
into the studio at the end of our garden
and and write and um
i'm kind of realizing that music is is
almost like our first language it feels
like we are most authentic and most
honest and it's like when you dream in
your first language it's like our own
secret language as well yeah and then
english and just be all speaking
language is just kind of a second
language where
you're articulate but you're not really
talking about how your express feels
yeah um it's not expressive that's
exactly it so i guess music is our
shared language and where we found
common ground throughout all of this
that is interesting isn't it um i think
during the pandemic a lot of couples
had to be very introspective about their
relationships and the funny thing is
when you spend so much time with each
other you realize how much you don't
communicate even though you're talking
to each other every day yeah sometimes
it can just be the day-to-day stuff like
yeah what we have for dinner and it's
not actually
it's not the real stuff that actually
brings us together and makes you feel
closer and the reason you got together
in the first place often those things
are forgotten about in those moments um
so we yeah we kind of lifted the hood on
all that and said okay we're gonna jump
in and see
see if we can fix this thing um well
that's very interesting you lifted the
hood and uh the way to patch things up
was through music which is what you guys
have always done yeah yeah which was the
first song to start patching things up
like which was the first idea as a as a
positive turning point kind of thing no
like the first one
it might have been 22 breaks yeah maybe
it was 22 break
um i think all of the angry ones came
first because
it's really interesting when you look
look back with hindsight the emotion of
of something like a breakup or whatever
in it and it kind of lasted a long it
lasted like a good few months it was
like i don't know six months maybe more
eight months and all the angry songs i
think were written first of course um
and there's kind of references to like
venom and poison and snakes and you're
like
you just have lots of feelings and then
it's kind of then it moves on to the
really introspective ones so songs like
baby where you're then just that's that
being like
what happens if i leave
um
you kind of you're in like the cold
reality of like
actually practically what does it look
like if we broke up and then i think
there were kind of the more positive
ones that we wrote towards the end
yeah which are less angry and have less
pain but you're like
maybe there's a glimmer of something
here maybe we can work yeah that's the
kind of
the track listing of the album has that
as well you kind of
going through darkness you're
occasionally pulled out of it but by the
end of the album there's some sense of
hope to kind of yeah
got some resolution at the end so now
that you have two albums to work with
for your live shows how do you choose
your setlist i don't know
yeah it's gonna be hard it's
it's that thing and we don't know
because we're also like
in we've been in lockdown we haven't
really spoken to fans for a while we
don't even know what people are
listening to really like the fan
favorites
it's always that surprising thing when
people like oh i love that song like
really
basically all our shows are just going
to be four and a half hours long from
this point
just do everything yeah yeah there'll be
like a meal break everyone will kind of
have a sandwich
come back for the second half
how do you guys take breaks if that's
the case i guess you go take turns yeah
it's gonna be a tough one because this
is such an emotional and bear oh yeah
it'll be strange performing it we
performed it once like a couple of weeks
ago yeah and it's it's an odd odd
feeling because there's one thing
sharing your album online right but then
actually singing the songs to
to people stood in front of you is very
powerful it's definitely powerful to be
the person cry it was horrible yeah
because you're going through all the
feelings of those songs again i guess
because when you make an album you only
sing the vocal once and then it's done
you have to think about it again yeah
yeah um and i hadn't really sung those
songs you i've listened to them a lot
but i haven't sung them and there's
something very powerful about the act of
saying those words again to the person
you've written them about in front of a
load of strangers it's pretty weird
that's your job eh that's a difficult
thing to do
it's like the equivalent of someone like
like a transcript of a therapy session
at couples therapy and it's like doing
like a big presentation and you're like
i'm just gonna read the transcript of my
therapy session out to you it's the same
thing it's weird it's cool though i
think you guys need to invest in a couch
for your future shows yeah yeah i think
so
yeah be simple to talk no musicians just
a couch
uh we do hope that you can come to
taiwan i know you have uh locked in some
dayton asia and uh we can't wait to see
this performance um and to see what you
will pull into the set list now
everybody go listen to two to break or
22 break but at the very end of this
conversation like i promised you uh
josephine and anthony i'm gonna ask you
three trivia questions are you ready
okay we're ready the first question i
actually asked you last year um so i
wonder if you remember this the average
human body contains how many pints of
blood damn it why did i not remember i'm
gonna say 53 no that's too many
[Laughter]
i'm gonna say
eight nine to ten so we got
anthony
okay okay next one next one what is
queen elizabeth's favorite breed of dog
awkward cookie very good yeah you should
know that one
okay
last one um in what year did the famous
english duo o wonder form and release
their first single twenty 2014 very good
that is uh the last song in this album
and it's a song that sort of got you two
to come to full circle and we're going
to play that one for our listeners today
we had josephine and anthony thank you
so much for taking our interview thank
you so much for having us you're awesome
thank you so much