Was Indie Sleaze Even Real? Maxïmo Park’s ‘A Certain Trigger’ at 20

Nov 5, 2025

Frontman Paul Smith of Maxïmo Park dives into the making and legacy of the band's celebrated debut, A Certain Trigger, as it turns 20. He shares how art-school influences shaped their sound amidst the chaotic 'indie sleaze' era, debunking the label's authenticity. The conversation highlights Smith's genuine lyrical approach and the band's outsider identity from signing to Warp Records to headlining the NME Awards Tour. With reflections on political themes and emotional sincerity, Smith offers a captivating glimpse into the complexities of British indie music.

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INSIGHT

Pop As Craft And Emotional Balance

Paul Smith views Maxïmo Park's core as balancing pop song craft with emotional complexity.
He emphasises melody, chorus structure and lyrical simplicity mixed with depth.

ANECDOTE

Art-School Beginnings With Noise And Film

Paul describes forming an instrumental art-school band influenced by post-rock and noise, using Super 8 film projections.
They performed as a journeying audiovisual act before Maxïmo Park's pop direction.

INSIGHT

Warp Changed How They Were Seen

Signing to Warp signalled they were outsiders, not a typical indie-rock band.
The label affiliation broadened how people framed their music beyond simple genre tags.

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How “sleazy” was Indie Sleaze, really - and was it ever a scene that Paul Smith of Maxïmo Park recognised himself in?

At a time when the air was thick with lager and leather jackets, Smith was more inspired by art-school notebooks, Robert Wyatt, and the idea that pop could be poetry.

In this conversation, the Maxïmo Park frontman joins Sean Adams who also lived through the era being retrospectively called “indie sleaze”, was at those early Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and Libertines shows, released records by Metric and Kaiser Chiefs, etc.

In this conversation they revisit the making of Maxïmo Park’s Mercury-nominated debut and reflect on what it meant to be outsiders during Britain’s mid-2000s indie boom. Recorded for the album’s twentieth anniversary, the pair unpack the contradictions of that moment - art rock vs lad rock and sincerity vs posturing whilst tracing how those tensions still shape British guitar music today.

From signing to Warp Records and headlining the NME Awards Tour alongside Arctic Monkeys, Mystery Jets and We Are Scientists, to the band’s art-school roots, working-class perspectives, and enduring faith in pop’s emotional truth, this is a deeply human glance back at the legacy of one of the era’s most literate frontmen.

Chapters

00:00 – Indie Sleaze, revisionism, and the myth of 2005
01:46 – Forming an art-school band and the noise scene that shaped them
08:30 – From experimental roots to pop hooks: defining the Maxïmo Park DNA
14:30 – Signing to Warp Records and finding a home for outsiders
20:30 – The whirlwind year: Top of the Pops, the NME Tour, and the cost of success
24:30 – Art rock, class, and being mislabeled “sleazy”
31:30 – The politics of pop and the poetry of the everyday
42:30 – Romance, resistance, and the belief that pop can still mean something

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