If one was to ask Neil Wilkinson a couple years ago what his band, British Sea Power, is to the music world, he would have given a modest response .
“I always thought we would make a couple of records, and that would be it,” said Wilkinson, who also goes by the stage name Hamilton.
But the Brighton, England, band has had a critically acclaimed career so far and just released its third album, “Do You Like Rock Music?” to familiar glowing reviews.
And for the first time, the band will rock Baton Rouge at 10 Tuesday at the Spanish Moon. San Francisco’s Film School is opening for British Sea Power.
Though the band’s albums flow from eagle-soaring crescendos to fuzz-laden rock, Wilkinson’s idea of rock music is a feeling of freedom that comes with various experiences.
“It could be a hunting experience or riding a bike through a forest and seeing a deer,” Wilkinson said. “We try to capture that emotion in our music. That’s the rock music feeling for us.”
And the other rock music “has become more simplified,” Wilkinson said. “Real rock music is becoming a rare find.”
Unlike peers, bits of history drip into the band’s songs, forcing some listeners to keep a Wikipedia.com page handy while nodding to the neck-aching angular rhythms. Rather than use empty adjectives, Wilkinson and vocalist/guitarist Scott Wilkinson, also known as Yan, tap into historical comparisons that keep their songwriting a cut above radio rock.
Wilkinson said the band is interested in bringing details to its songs, unlike other bands he considers “not really interested in history” and “zombie-like.”
But Wilkinson described the songwriting process as “random and coincidental.”
“Things come out of nowhere, and they interest you,” Wilkinson said. “It could be something we hear on the radio or some story we see on television.”
Though the otherworldly references are maintained on “Do You Like Rock Music?,” the new album was recorded quite differently than the first two.
“We tried to have an adventure,” Wilkinson said. “We started in England in these commandeered water towers. We went to these vast concrete buildings and made them into studios.”
After England, the band trekked to Montreal to record in a studio in a warehouse. The album was then mixed 20 miles outside of Prague with “twice as many songs as the last albums,” Wilkinson said.
Also unlike their last two albums, the latest was recorded with the help of three producers – Graham Sutton, who has helmed the boards for Jarvis Cocker, along with Howard Bilerman and Efrim Menuck, who have both worked with Godspeed! You Black Emperor.
“There was no ego struggle,” Wilkinson said, noting that each producer did some work in a few sections. “Mostly, they set up the mics. We recorded and produced it.”
Album notes aside, the band has a reputation for bringing something else that is missed in rock music: energy to live shows.
On the BBC television show, “Later with Jools Holland,” two wrestlers in capes faced-off during the band’s performance of “No Lucifer.”
In late January, guitarist Phil Sumner had a concussion after jumping off his tower of amps.
And they keep the intensity levels by ignoring everything while on stage.
“You get used to people not paying attention,” Wilkinson said. “So, you get up on stage and get on with your job. I think we still have a natural streak.”
And the response has been similar from across the pond to here in the States.
“[In the United States] it’s all a bit new to people,” Wilkinson said. “But we can tell when they seem to enjoy it. We’ll play a song, and the audience will start jumping around. We like to play the songs that will get that response.”
After wrapping up the North American tour, the band will play festivals across Europe.
Tickets for Tuesday night’s show cost $12.
—-Contact Matthew Sigur at [email protected]