Liverpool’s The Shipbuilders deliver dustbowl drama on 'Hills of Mexico'

For frontman Matty Loughlin-Day, the Spanish Civil War isn't just history—it’s poetry in motion, adrenaline in ink. “So many powerful lines jumped out and smacked me in the face,” he says of For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway’s anti-fascist epic that became a creative lightning rod for “Hills of Mexico,” a brooding, cinematic highlight from The Shipbuilders’ new album This Blue Earth. Co-produced with Danny Woodward (BC Camplight, Ladytron), the track finds the Liverpool band expanding their ranks and ambition, trading barroom sea shanties for widescreen drama in the vein of Ennio Morricone and Roy Budd. With a sharpened sound, a new lineup, and a hunger to distill rebellion, romance, and mortality into tight, thunderous bursts, The Shipbuilders are sailing into bolder waters.

Q: “Hills of Mexico” draws from Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls — how do you translate something as dense and emotionally charged as that novel into a three- or four-minute song?

A: That’s a good question! I didn’t plan to write a song about the book, but as I was reading it, certain lines or phrases jumped out at me that I couldn’t shake and had to make a note of. Over time, the more I looked at them and whittled away at them, they transformed and merged into lyrics.

Concurrently, I had an instrumental song I was working on, and the sound of it seemed to fit the sense of drama and urgency conveyed in the lyrics. Although I’m not a film person (I’ve probably seen about ten films in my life!), I couldn’t get past the sense that the song sounded to me like a cinematic climax — a really big, catastrophic event followed by a slow pan out, fading to black. That’s why we leaned into that long outro.

I was trying to capture the same feeling Bob Dylan’s Romance in Durango gives me, especially with those closing lines: “Aim well my little one, we might not make it through the night…”

Q: The Shipbuilders have always felt like more than just a band — there’s a real sense of cultural curiosity in what you do. How do literature, film, and history shape the creative process for a track like this, compared to more traditional songwriting?

A: Thank you! That’s exactly what we’re aiming for — we always say we want this to be a world for people to explore, made up of countless influences. Something wider than music, rather than just five lads playing songs. When we list our influences, it’s not just musical — it’s what books we read, elements of world history that grab our attention, our love of the mystical and natural world, the beers we like, the crisps we obsess over… it all goes in!

In terms of writing, without trying to sound like Lee Mavers or something, it’s about being open. Not just open-minded, but open to that spark that catches you when something stimulates you. It’s not quite “automatic writing,” but it’s about following the thread of whatever grabs your attention and seeing where it leads — rather than forcing yourself to write in a specific style.

Any time I’ve tried to write something deliberately in the style of someone else, it’s ended up sounding weak or pastiche. But when we let ourselves be guided by genuine inspiration, that’s where the magic happens. I think that’s why people often struggle to define us — we’ve never been able to do it ourselves!

Q: With This Blue Earth, it feels like you’re building sonic landscapes as much as songs — there are cinematic references, expanded instrumentation, even trumpet. Was there a conscious decision to push toward a more filmic, atmospheric sound?

A: Not directly cinematic, but I think that’s the natural result of how we approached the studio this time around. With our first album Spring Tide, we were so road-ready that recording was just a case of playing the songs as we did live. That worked really well.

But with This Blue Earth, a lot of these songs had never, or only rarely, been played live. That — combined with growing confidence in using the studio as an instrument — led to a bigger and more diverse sound. We added strings, trumpet, and had more of a “let’s throw everything at it and see what sticks” attitude.

It’s overly simplistic to say Album One was a live album and Album Two is a studio album — but we definitely spent more time thinking about the sonics and dynamics here. Me and Danny Woodward (our producer) both independently came to the conclusion early on that this should be an album that never feels static.

There are sounds, lyrics, and effects that appear briefly and vanish — the brief was to never be boring. I kept repetition to a minimum, which led to me chucking in random piano or organ parts, or Danny Lee adding improvised guitar lines.

Bringing in Pistol Pete on trumpet as a permanent member between albums completely opened things up in ways I can’t even quantify.

Q: You mentioned wanting to emulate Hemingway’s economic style — saying a lot with a little. Has that approach changed how you write lyrics in general?

A: Yes, to some degree. It was definitely a conscious decision for Hills of Mexico, but even outside of that, I usually start with a splurge of nonsense and one strong refrain or chorus that everything else has to orbit around. Then I just chip away until I’ve got a cohesive set of lyrics.

I’ve always tried to say a lot with a little. I think there’s a danger in being too direct — you want to paint a picture and let listeners draw their own conclusions. It’s like sketching an outline and letting people colour it in themselves. Writers like Bill Callahan or Bill Ryder-Jones can zoom in on minute details — and I love that — but I tend to go grand. I need that big, sweeping feel.

Q: Hosting your own Club Shipwrecked nights and touring with artists like Michael Head has clearly fed into the band’s energy. How have those live experiences influenced the direction of the new album — and how much of This Blue Earth is meant to be felt live?

A: We’re working on that, hah! Some of these songs have been knocking around for years, and one or two have been in our live set for a while — but the vast majority are new. Because we focused so much on the studio sound, we’re now figuring out how to translate that live.

Obviously, there are elements we can’t fully recreate on stage, but luckily, the lads I play with are geniuses. They’ve taken what we did in the studio and morphed it into something even meatier and more theatrical live. I honestly can’t wait to play the bigger-sounding songs — I think they’re going to surprise people.

The ending of Spring Tide hinted at the direction we’d take with This Blue Earth, and I’d say this album points the way forward again. The next one is already written and demoed — and whisper it, but it might even be a double album... but that’s another conversation for another time!