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White Lies’ Jack Lawrence-Brown Still Loves: Milan Kundera

British trio White Lies—guitarist/vocalist Harry McVeigh, bassist Charles Cave and drummer Jack Lawrence-Brown—just released Ritual (Geffen/Fiction), which follows up To Lose My Life…, the band’s commercially successful 2009 debut. The 10-track sophomore LP was co-produced by Alan Moulder (Depeche Mode, Killers) and was written over a five-week period when White Lies wasn’t crisscrossing the globe in support of its first album. Though McVeigh, Cave and Lawrence-Brown are all barely old enough to drink legally in the U.S., the threesome has been playing together as a band since their mid-teens, first as Fear Of Flying, which released two singles produced by Stephen Street (Smiths, Blur), and then under the White Lies moniker. The trio will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with them.

Lawrence-Brown: Over the last couple of years, I have read more books than in the rest of my life combined. When touring, you often find yourself with huge stretches of dead time spanning out in front of you, as you head towards your next destination. By dead time, I mean time spent in confined spaces (tour bus, airport, plane, train) that severely limit what you can do. Anyway, reading is my pastime of choice for such occasions. And Milan Kundera has become my favorite author. He is probably most well known for his book The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, but really, everything he has written is of a very high standard. He is so knowledgeable about the world that every time I read one of his books, I can’t help but feel like I am learning something. I also feel like I know him fairly well as a person somehow, just by the way he writes. I would love to meet him. His books are occasionally political, but always philosophical, and you come out the other side feeling a slightly improved person. My personal favorite book of his is Immortality.

Video after the jump.

2 replies on “White Lies’ Jack Lawrence-Brown Still Loves: Milan Kundera”

Here’s an idea Jack, why don’t you pass some books over to Charles so that he might glean some other literary concepts to write about. Ritual? More like routine, predictable, samey …

Unfortunately I’m not familiar with the work of Milan Kundera. “Immortality” sounds interesting,I’ll read it someday, if I manage to find. My personal favorite is “Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner. Each new reading,for me, is discovering something new (so far I’ve read it twice). My favorite author is, of course Stephen King, I can not resist a good horror book.

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