An End begins, Editors rise

Tom Smith has a passion for his music, sparks his imagination in seclusion, and gets aggravated when people compare his vocals to Joy Division's Ian Curtis. Quite an eclectic combination of qualities and quirks for such a subtle and humble Brit.

Smith's just completed his second disc with the band he fronts, Editors, the album climbed to number one on the U.K. charts and is quickly escalating on the Billboard 200 here in the states, and he's dating Edith Bowman, a stunning Scottish TV personality and renowned disc jockey, most recently on the BBC Radio 1 show.

Editors, a Birmingham, England-based band that draws comparisons to any early post-punk group such as Joy Division and the Cure to more recent post-punk revivalists such as Interpol, is in the midst of a worldwide tour supporting their recent release, An End Has a Start. Their tour stops Sept. 6, at the Paradise Rock Club, in Boston.

Despite being categorized with some well-established and extremely talented musicians, none of it sits quite well with Smith and his mates.

"They (comparisons) irritate me," Smith said via telephone from Los Angeles. "It's annoying. I don't mind being mentioned with those other bands, and we understand that people describe music in brackets, but it's still baffling to hear us compared to Interpol and Joy Division. If you're a good enough band, those things do go away. Look at Muse. They were called a Radiohead cover band. Look at them now. I look to a band like that."

It's hard to hold back on name-dropping those bands, but Editors have their own sound. It's one that slightly echoes early post-punk, but it's molded with more indie rock and driving guitar arrangements in spots and subtle piano echoes in others. All of that has matured even further since their 2005 debut, The Back Room.

"We desperately didn't want to make second-rate songs, but we didn't want to change either," Smith said. "We're being more ambitious. We tried things we'd never done before. It made it more of a test. People will recognize it. It's Editors, but it's a step forward."

Smith, as grounded as he is, can't hold back on how impressed he is with the outcome of the band's second disc.

"Everyone asks me if I feel any pressure. In all honesty, no, not really," Smith said. "Of course at the end of the day, if we're happy with what we've done, we really don't care about anyone else. It sounds selfish, but we make music that we're proud of. If you sit there and think too much, you go mad."

After the band finished touring in support of their debut disc, Smith took time off from practically everyone and everything around him. He wanted to focus on the band's follow-up album.

"We had two songs done. Then I locked myself away for two months," he said. "I chained myself to the piano, an eight-track, and a guitar, and then I sent out the songs to the bandmates around Christmas."

Song melodies and arrangements kept swirling throughout his head, almost too much at times, Smith said. But that soon went away.

"I was kind of scared of the unknown, and then you kind of doubt yourself," Smith said. "I'd literally be at home when my girlfriend was at work and had ideas on certain melodies. I'd send them to the other members of the band. The lyrics are all mine, and all the beginning of the songs are too. They're not Editors songs until everyone has had their part it in. I started getting excited when I was getting feedback."

Unlike many other bands, Editors didn't work on any of their songs while touring. Smith said there are too many distractions while on the road.

"You get into a routine on tour and routine doesn't breed creativeness," he said. "Every ounce of us wanted to be creative, and it was like a relief to get going. As soon as you start going, the pressure seems to go."

What came out of Smith's time in his self-imposed solitary confinement and the band's time in the studio shot out a phenomenal sophomore album. The two strongest tracks, the first two on the disc, set the tone. The emotional overtones carry "Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors," and the title track, "And End Has a Start," sounds fresh off The Back Room with Smith's vocal intensity and the band's explosiveness. The lyrics throughout echo darkness, gloom, and death.

"What I do stems from experiences that have happened in my life. Certain things happen in life and you try to explore that," Smith said. "I mentioned things coming to an end, like death. It's inevitable. I hope across the record, it's not a gloomy record. There is a thread of positivity there."

After Editors' U.S. tour they head home to England to play a handful of shows in the place that got them to where they stand today.

"It's our home, and it's where things started. We love playing all over the world, but you do get a little buzz when you go home," Smith said. "When we're there, 45,000 people will see us. It's insane. I hope the crowds are up for it. It's amazing, isn't it, to go home to play."

Smith said he's looking forward to coming back to Boston, especially the Paradise, a place the band played while touring their last album.

"I remember the first one. It was really good," Smith said, noting how much he likes the atmosphere and look of the small confines of the Paradise. "It looks like an old courtroom."

Whether it's the Paradise in Boston, the Metro in Sydney, Australia, or Brixton Academy in London, Smith said the band wants to play and let people come to their own conclusions about the music.

"We don't aim at any certain level of success. If they like it, they like it," Smith said. "People can be snobbish about music. We want to get out there and see if they like it."