LOSERS have never been a band that followed a straight line, and in this conversation with Tom Bellamy, that winding journey comes sharply into focus. From the ashes of The Cooper Temple Clause to late‑night Berlin sessions, from remixing The Prodigy to rediscovering creativity through an old piano bought on eBay, Tom traces the band’s evolution with disarming honesty. Across themes of transformation, experimentation, emotional rebirth and the strange alchemy of long‑term collaboration, this interview digs into the DNA of a group who have spent years shapeshifting their way into something unmistakably their own.
You’ve all come from different corners of the alternative scene. How did LOSERS originally come together, and what was the spark that made you realise this wasn’t just a side project but a fully‑fledged band?
The way I remember it, the day The Cooper Temple Clause ended was also the day Eddy Temple-Morris phoned me and asked if I wanted to do a remix with him. He’d heard some of the remixes I’d made for The Coopers and was keen to try working together on his project, which was Losers. He’d already made a few remixes with another engineer, and when he heard what I’d been doing, it felt like a natural progression for us to work together.
Thanks largely to Eddy, though, we actually spent most of those early days just hanging out, listening to his records and eating delicious food. The music almost came second! We formed this really strong bond first, and that gave us the space and trust to start experimenting and remixing together. Eddy was incredibly well connected, so pretty early on we found ourselves making remixes for bands like The Gossip, Gallows, The Prodigy, Empire of the Sun and Placebo. I think I knew from the off that we were onto something.
But it never really felt like a band until Paul joined. Once he came in and we started taking the music to the stage, with friends helping us out on drums and keyboards, everything changed. That was the point where Losers stopped feeling like a project and definitely started feeling like a band.
Between The Cooper Temple Clause, Yourcodenameis:milo, The Automatic and your individual production work, you’ve lived several musical lives. How have those past bands shaped who you are now in LOSERS?
Those bands absolutely shaped who we are now. With The Cooper Temple Clause, we jumped straight into big textures and layers, making quite complex, eclectic and epic music. We learned a huge amount very quickly about how to produce records. I didn’t realise it at the time, but just being in the room and watching our good friend and incredible producer Dan Austin, I absorbed so much about making music.
After that, when I started delving into club remixes, I had to learn very quickly how to produce music of an entirely different nature. I really didn’t have much confidence in myself at the time, but Eddy constantly encouraged me to just keep making things and keep going. With his encouragement, I learned an enormous amount simply by showing up and doing it. Paul, of course, brought so much from Yourcodenameis. He taught me a lot about recording vocals and about being more spontaneous when creating. His abstract use of melody in Milo carried over into Losers too, you can hear it in some of our tracks, where he takes us on melodic and harmonic journeys that I simply never would have thought of myself.
And, of course, working with my former Cooper Temple Clause bandmate Dan Fisher has always inspired me enormously when it comes to lyrics and toplines. To this day, I still think he’s one of the best and most underrated songwriters of our time.
So all of those experiences fed into Losers in different ways. I think we’ve ended up with this strange mixture of everything we’ve learned along the way… big, ambitious rock music, electronic production, experimentation, melody and songwriting — and that’s really become part of the DNA of the band.
Your sound blends industrial tension, widescreen electronics and emotional depth. Which artists, scenes or movements have influenced LOSERS the most across the years?
It’s very difficult to try and get to the bottom of the sheer number of influences that have inspired us as a band. Personally, I listen to so many different genres of music, spanning so many decades, that I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I was brought up on people like Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Blood, Sweat & Tears, The Mamas & The Papas and Queen. Then I grew up with Nirvana and Pearl Jam from America and Blur & Oasis in England, while at the same time loving ’90s pop music.
During The Cooper Temple Clause years I became a huge fan of post-rock, bands like Oceanside and Godspeed You Black Emperor, as well as more lo-fi, leftfield artists like The Beta Band, and singer-songwriters like Nick Drake and Beck.
Then there was electronic and dance music, The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers and Leftfield, through to trip-hop artists like Portishead and Massive Attack, and later more modern electronic music like Disclosure and TEED.
And then, of course, you have the big hitters for us, bands like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead. It really is just a melting pot of anything that has touched me or excited me over the last 40 years. I don’t think we’ve ever consciously tried to take one particular influence and make it part of Losers. All of that music just gets absorbed somewhere along the way, and eventually it comes back out in whatever we make.
You started as a remix/electronic project and evolved into something far more cinematic and guitar‑driven. How has your approach to writing changed from those early days to the present?
I guess my approach to writing has always been the same, in the sense that I want to make something that genuinely makes me feel something.
Like most artists, once you’ve delved into a particular style or genre, I think it’s important to move on and push the envelope somewhere else. I’ve never really been interested in trying to recreate something we’ve already done. All I want to do is keep writing music that excites me.
And that means I don’t really know where we’re going next. All I know is that I love sound. I want the music to feel authentic and sincere, and I want to surprise myself with whatever comes next.
You’ve recorded in different environments over the years — studios, remote setups, collaborative spaces. What’s changed in how you capture the LOSERS sound now compared to your earlier albums?
To begin with, Eddy and I were just writing tunes with a laptop and a MIDI keyboard. That usually involved him humming melodies and beatboxing, and me trying to embellish those ideas and build a song around them.
Then I ended up sharing a house with Paul, and we started recording live drums, guitars and bass to the best of our ability. We were both musicians and didn’t have a huge amount of experience being on the other side of the microphone, so there was a lot of learning as we went. But it was an incredibly exciting time because we were able to capture so much live energy.
That setup eventually followed us to Berlin, where we had a residential studio and could create, record and produce 24 hours a day. That gave us the freedom to really develop our recording and production skills. In many ways, we taught ourselves by doing it every day.
And then, strangely enough, we came full circle. We left the studio and came back to a laptop, a MIDI keyboard and some microphones, except this time we had years of experience behind us.
They’re very different ways of working. There’s still nothing quite like capturing live musicians playing together in a room, but ultimately, with any music production, the only thing that really matters is what comes out of the speakers. I remember a great mix engineer once telling me that it was irrelevant what happened on the way to making a record. If the finished thing makes you tap your feet or nod your head, then you’ve achieved something great.
Fans have been eagerly awaiting the new record. What can you tell us about the themes, the direction, and the emotional core of this much‑anticipated album?
I think, in stark contrast to the last record, the songs we’re releasing now feel much more positive and open. A lot of them look inward and deal with themes like consciousness, self-awareness and transformation.
Emotionally, I think we all hit rock bottom with the last album, and these songs are the phoenix rising from the flames. They represent a complete transformation from where we were then. One of the songs is called “Butterfly”, which feels like a perfect symbol of that change. We’ve shed the old skin and let the light in. There’s no more hiding from ourselves, no more trying to run away from or block what we’re feeling.
I think a lot had been suppressed over the years, and now we’re allowing ourselves to actually feel it all, perhaps for the first time, and to express that through the music. That, for me, is really the emotional core of these songs.
It’s your turn on Come Dine With Me. What are you serving for starter, main and dessert — and who in the band is most likely to burn something?
Well, as I mentioned before, Eddy is definitely the cook in the band, so really this question should be for him. He visited me recently and made some delicious tacos, so I think we could have those for starters.
For the main, one of my favourite things he’s made over the years is bigos, a Polish stew with smoked pork and sauerkraut. Traditionally, it was something hunters could leave cooking while they were out for the day and come back to later. I remember Eddy’s being particularly delicious, so that would definitely be on the menu.
For dessert, Eddy is a big fan of Japan, and so am I, having been there seven times with The Cooper Temple Clause, so I’d go for mochi.
As for who’s most likely to burn something, Eddy is pretty responsible in the kitchen. I like to think I am these days too, although I have been known to melt a kettle after leaving it on the hob once… so I think the evidence probably points to me.
Your music has found a home in huge TV and film moments — Game of Thrones, True Detective, CSI, Hercules, Far Cry 3 and more. When you’re writing, do you ever think about how a track might translate to the screen, or is that cinematic quality something that naturally emerges from your creative process?
In the last weeks, for the first time ever, I actually thought to myself, maybe I should try writing some music specifically for the big screen.
It’s funny because, up until now, I’ve never once thought about whether our music would work for film or television. We’ve always just written the music we wanted to write. It just so happens that the style, textures and dynamics we naturally gravitate towards seem to translate really well to the screen.
One of the things I learned from being in The Cooper Temple Clause was the brilliance of dynamics and the emotional impact they can have. That became such an instinctive part of the way I make music that I’ve never really had to consciously think about making something sound “cinematic.”
I guess we’ve been very lucky in that regard. We’ve never had to compromise or tailor the music to fit the screen. We’ve simply made the records we wanted to make, and somehow they’ve found their way there.
After years of working together, what’s the secret to keeping the creative chemistry alive — especially when juggling multiple backgrounds, influences and personalities?
For me, the most important thing has been the space in between the sound.
I remember Dan Fisher from The Coopers once talking about how music is an expression of the experiences you have in life. And if you don’t live life and have new experiences, eventually you run out of things to write about. So, for me, staying creative simply means living a rich and varied life. It means always being open to new influences and stimulation, surrounding yourself with new people, working in different environments, picking up new instruments, or finding new ways of using old ones.
A few years ago, I decided to let go of most of my instruments and take a proper break from music. Eventually, I could feel the creative juices naturally building up inside me again, and when I came back to it, there was a completely different landscape in front of me. When that happens, I find it almost impossible to get stuck creatively.
Recently, for example, I found an old piano on eBay which is now living in my lounge, and it’s brought a whole new life to writing songs. I love that feeling of fresh energy and discovering what it can bring to the table.
Hans Zimmer and/or Danny Elfman - if you could remix any of their soundtracks which would it be and what direction would you take it? I think you’d do a cracking job on Dune or Blade Runner but equally Dr Strange could work!
I know this is going to sound crazy, but I don’t watch films or TV and haven’t done for years. I watched plenty of things in the ’80s and ’90s, less so in the noughties, but throughout my thirties and forties I’ve barely watched anything. I’d much rather read books or listen to podcasts.
So, embarrassingly, I wouldn’t be able to name you a single film that Hans Zimmer has scored. I’ve never seen Dune, I don’t remember ever watching Blade Runner, and I’m not entirely sure what Doctor Strange is.
However, I do remember absolutely loving the soundtrack to Edward Scissorhands when I was younger. Danny Elfman was definitely a name I had to look into because that music had such an impact on me. I guess Edward Scissorhands would be a fun one to remix, although, to be honest, I’m not sure it needs to be messed with, in much the same way that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory didn’t need to be made again!
But the fun of remixing for me has always been completely deconstructing something and rebuilding it as something entirely different. So maybe we’d turn the Edward Scissorhands soundtrack into a banging nightclub album. Or a reggae record.
Actually, I’d quite like to hear that!
Huge thanks to Tom Bellamy for taking the time to dive so deeply into the past, present and future of LOSERS. His reflections on creativity, connection and reinvention offer a rare window into a band still pushing themselves into new territory after decades of musical life. With a new record on the horizon and a renewed sense of openness guiding the songwriting, it feels like LOSERS are entering one of their most compelling chapters yet.
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