(An edited version of this article originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.)


I notice from your tour schedule that you’re on a bit of a break. Are you enjoying having a few days off?

Absolutely, yeah. We’ve just done Australia, the Far East and Central America, then we’re off to Vancouver next week. We’ve had an exhausting travel experience over the last few weeks, so it’s good to get a few days at home, pat the dog, kiss the wife…

Are we all basically getting the same tour, or do you make any significant changes as you go along?

You tend to find that the show develops. You start recognising what’s not working in the set, and maybe introduce a few different numbers to refresh it. We’ve got a huge catalogue of work to pull from, so we like to change it a little bit. We get quite a lot of repeat members of the audience, that travel with us – so we like to juggle up the set, so they get to see something different.

You played a storming show at Nottingham Arena back in April 2004. It was one of your first UK dates with the full original line-up, so there was a sense of not quite knowing quite what to expect. For all we knew, it might have been awful! Did it feel at the time that you were on a mission to reclaim your heritage, and to remind people of who you were?

I think we had to prove ourselves. I don’t think there’s anything worse than going back to see your childhood heroes, and having them not quite live up to how you remembered them. So I think we were on a mission to prove we could still do it.

When we originally got the band back together, we started by playing very small theatres. From the energy of those small performances, it grew into a huge scene, where we got to play five nights at Wembley Arena, and Madison Square Gardens in New York. So it suddenly felt like a new band again, and not something that had been trodden into the ground. We had left the original line-up on a real high, and so it actually felt very fresh.

Something that surprised me about that show was your audience. During your “imperial phase”, you were almost seen as a boy band by certain people, and so I had assumed that I’d be one of the very few men in that audience. But actually, it was a fairly equal 50:50 split. So either your audience has changed over the years, or else it was never really about the screaming girls in the first place. What’s your perspective on that?

Maybe the girls dragged their husbands along, I don’t know! But there’s definitely more of a crossing over now – especially in America, where we get a lot of guys coming to see us – whereas in the Eighties, it was 95% female.

Because we had a real teenage audience, that maybe scared off the guys. If you get a band that has a teenage girl following, then the guys will probably go to another band. But we’ve come out of that now. I think the guys have come back and said: actually, I always liked Duran Duran, but I was afraid to admit it. So it’s cool.

You’ve had an interesting journey in terms of going in and out of fashion. It’s completely OK now for bands such as The Killers or Franz Ferdinand to name-check you, so that must be extremely gratifying to witness.

It is, because music journalists – particularly those in the UK – would constantly try to write us out of history. They’d have preferred it if we didn’t exist during the Eighties, and if it was just The Smiths and New Order and U2. So it’s been really cool that the new bands are saying: actually, they were a cool band, and we are influenced by them. It’s great to feel that we are leaving some sort of legacy, which bands are now being influenced by.

When you first emerged, you were part of what some people called the New Romantic scene, although in Nottingham we liked to call ourselves Futurists. Very early on, you played at Rock City to a deeply fashionable crowd, and it became quite a legendary gig. But then of course, there was a moment when you went very pop. When Is There Something I Should Know came out, the DJ at the same venue actually denounced you down the microphone, as everyone thought you were turning into the Bay City Rollers. Did you care? Was it a conscious decision?

I don’t think so. As you become very successful, you become very uncool, and unfortunately it’s very hard to run those two things together. We were breaking America at the time, so we didn’t give two hoots about the criticism. But you’re right: it has taken a long time for people to recognise the significance of the early work. Our success was probably our worst enemy.


In terms of the creative dynamics within the band, it always seemed as if there was an “arty” faction led by Nick, and a “rock” faction led by Andy. We particularly saw it during the period when you split into Arcadia and The Power Station. But it also seemed that you were the guy who floated between those two factions.

I think you’re probably right. It was like being in a gang at school. You had the kids who liked football at one end, and you had the kids who liked softball at the other end. There was a big gap there, and I fell in the middle.

But that’s what made it so creative. It wasn’t like you had five Nick Rhodes, all wanting to be like Depeche Mode. You also had Andy in there, who wanted to be like AC/DC. When we went to America, they were ready to accept us because we had a guitar player that could play heavy riffs – particularly live, which at that point was very important over there. And then of course you had John, who was into the disco bass lines. So you had this real clash of musical cultures, this whole juxtaposition of styles going into the bucket, and I think something very interesting and very successful came out of it.

When I think of Duran as a rock band, with all the rock and roll excess which goes with it, you strike me as the sensible, grounded, non-starry one. If Duran were the Rolling Stones, you’d be Charlie Watts. Fair comment?

You could say that. I’ll take that a compliment, because I do love Charlie Watts. I think drummers tend to play that role in the band. Musically, you have to be an anchor when things are maybe going a little bit haywire. So I guess that could possibly be my role.

When you left the band in the mid-1980s, did you have any thoughts of returning to music in the future?

I just wanted to get as far away from music, and from rock star culture, as I possibly could. I bought a farm in the Midlands, and I retreated there. The pressure surrounding the band had become so intense. You have no idea what it was like. In those few years, we lost all of our freedom. We’d get to a hotel and you couldn’t actually leave your room. You couldn’t go into the lobby, and you couldn’t walk down the street, because you’d get harassed by a thousand teenage girls. People were camping outside our houses, and it was all very intense.

I got to the point where I’d just had enough. I had no idea what I was going to do, and no idea if I was going to go back to music, or reject it for the rest of my life. All I knew was I needed to get away from it for a while, and that turned into a number of years. I slowly started getting back into music, and then the chance of a reunion came up.

Did it require any persuasion to get you back into the band, or were you eager as soon as the suggestion was made?

It was a real surprise. By the year 2000, I thought: that’s it, it’s never going to happen again. Then I got a call out of the blue from John. It took me a little while to think about it, but I think I was ready.

I don’t think anybody needed persuading, as it was one of those things that almost had to happen. I don’t know how many times people have said to me over the years: when’s the band going to reform, when are you all getting back together. It was a constant nagging question, I suppose.

Are you back in the band for the long haul? Making that Rolling Stones comparison again, can you see yourself still doing this in twenty years time?

I don’t know. We don’t even talk about that, to be honest with you. We don’t even talk about a five year plan. All we talk about is this tour. We’re kind of thinking about another album after the tour, but that’s as far as we go.

Of course, it all depends on whether you’ve still got your audience. We’re not going to be playing in a little pub in Shepherd’s Bush, or whatever. We’d never do that. If we still have our audience, and if we still feel creative, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t keep doing it for a number of years.

But I don’t think it’s something you can plan. I’m sure the Rolling Stones didn’t sit down when they were forty and say: oh yeah, we’re still going to be doing this when we’re seventy. They’d go mad. It has to be a progressive thing.

But they do set an example of that being a perfectly good, viable option to take.

That’s the thing about the Rolling Stones: they have opened that option. There are only a handful of bands who are still going: U2, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Depeche Mode, and not many others. But the Stones have said: actually, you don’t have be done when you’re forty, or fifty, or sixty. You can keep doing it.


I’m intrigued to see you worked closely with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake on the current album (Red Carpet Massacre). What were you looking for them to bring to the table?

Timbaland has been one of the world’s biggest producers over the last few years, and Justin has been one of the biggest male artists. So if you get those two guys saying that they want to work you – of course! It was a no-brainer. We didn’t go chasing them; they wanted to work with us. It was a great opportunity to keep the band moving in a contemporary direction.

It must have been a departure for all concerned. I’m not aware of Timbaland having worked with any bands before. Was it a two-way learning process?

I think we were the first band that he’s worked with, and it was the first production project that Justin has been involved in. It was very much an experiment. We had no idea what to expect. We all just turned up to this little studio in New York on a Sunday evening. Timbaland was there with his beat box, Justin was there with some lyrics and melodies, and we just jammed. It could have gone completely wrong, but luckily it worked.

A lot of the tracks have a late night, funky feel, as if you’re finding the groove again. Was that part of the intention?

That was one of the manifestos for this album: that we would somehow get back in the clubs, and find our groove again in a very contemporary way. We thought Tim would be the ideal guy to do that for us.

Timbaland is known for using electronics to generate beat patterns. As a drummer, do you find that today’s technology can take some of the challenge away? Is there a danger that it can dull your edge?

Well, I’ve never been a down-the-line rock drummer. I’ve always used electronic drums and I’ve programmed, so that makes it a lot easier. If I was a rock drummer with no interest in electronics, it would have been difficult, but that’s always been very much part of the Duran sound. If they’d tried to do it with the Chilli Peppers, who just plug in their instruments and play, I’m not sure it would have worked. But we grew up with Kraftwerk and the Human League, and we formed the band in a club, so that made us much more open-minded.

I heard that there’s a section in this tour where you explicitly pay homage to Kraftwerk. All four of you take to the keyboards, is that right?

Yeah, I play a little electronic kit à la Kraftwerk, and the other guys play keyboards. Our management suggested that we should do a bit in the show where we come to the front of the stage with acoustic guitars and bongos, or whatever. F**k, we’re not doing that! Our roots were electronic, which is to say Kraftwerk. So we thought that a great way to do our “acoustic moment”, if you like, would be to get out the electronic instruments and pay homage to our roots.

It really gets us in contact with the audience, because we’re all right at the front. It only lasts for fifteen or twenty minutes, so it’s a nice contrast to the live band thing.

One of the great things about your 2004 show at the Arena was the sound quality. The Arena is a difficult venue acoustically, and you do have to put more work in with it. So I salute you for doing that.

We’ve got great sound guys, so hopefully it should work for us!

(Photos of Roger Taylor taken in New York in November 2007 by li'lhug, and reproduced under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license.)

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

(An edited version of this article originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.)


It’s refreshing to note that you’re embarking on an 11-date UK tour, without having any new product to promote. We don’t get that too often anymore. Does the tour have a particular purpose?

Just to get out and play, really. We enjoy touring, we enjoy playing, and it seems to be something that audiences are into. There’s also a whole new album called Poor Man’s Heaven, which comes out on 30th June.

Will you be performing some of the new songs for the first time?

We will, actually. We’ll probably play a good eight or nine songs from the new record. We played a handful of them last summer, and on our last tour in November, and there was a great reaction. We’re quite excited to see how they go down. And playing the Rescue Rooms is always a lot of fun for us.

We are blessed. It has a great acoustic, and you can get quite an intimacy.

I think so as well. Last time in Nottingham we played the university, and I was actually missing playing the Rescue Rooms. We always have a great night there. I did one of my first gigs there, with Benji Kirkpatrick and also John Jones from the Oyster Band, and I remember just thinking it was an amazing venue. And it turned into a club afterwards!

I’ve heard rumours that the new album is less acoustic and more electric…?

It’s not electric, no. It’s just heavyweight; it’s quite in your face. In terms of the stories, I’ve gone for a coastal-based concept. There are stories of tragedy, including the true story of a lifeboat disaster that happened in Cornwall. There are stories of the wreckers in Cornwall, who used to put beacons on the coast to lure ships in and steal their cargo. There’s a story of a pirate, and there’s a story of the Hurlers Stones on Bodmin Moor, so it’s very much a West Country based record. Most of the stories are about wanting or aspiring to something more in your life, and so the title of Poor Man’s Heaven refers to that aspiration, or that ambition.

How do you come across these stories? We’ve lost the oral tradition, so is there a certain amount of research involved?

Obviously, there’s some of it which is made up. Some are based on a true story, such as Solomon Browne, the Penlee lifeboat disaster song. Crimson Dawn is based on a very romantic true story with a happy ending, which is quite strange for a folk song! There’s also The Unquiet Grave, which is a traditional song that I’ve reworked. But mostly it’s researched: looking on the Internet, or knowing about the songs anyway. A lot of people in this area are aware of the little coves where wrecks have happened, and of the Manacles rocks, which have wrecked thousands of ships over the years. So I guess it’s common knowledge round here, and you just kind of dig out the details.

We don’t have anything like that in our part of the country at all, I don’t think…

[Baffled] What, in Nottingham? Haven’t you got …?

[Hastily] Well, yes, we have Mr. Hood. But he’s been done to death. And he’s apparently from Sheffield, anyway. They’ve even put Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster! It’s got nothing to do with us!

That’s madness… (Laughter)


Going back a bit, you first caught a lot of people’s attention when you were plucked from obscurity for the Mercury Music Prize in 2005. You represented what a lot of people still think of as the “token folk” category, which means that no-one thinks it will win. A lot of the nominated folk artists have quickly returned to their own scenes, but for you it provided a real springboard to greater success. In retrospect, do you see that as a defining moment?

I think it just gave me the confidence to work out that what I was doing was something that people could enjoy, and were starting to enjoy. I wasn’t even trying to be a lead singer. At that point, I was actually trying to put a band together with a girl singer. I released Kitty Jay as an experiment, and then the nomination meant that I could actually be a professional solo artist. So that was the break.

I’m a person who likes to experiment in music quite a lot. I like to produce my own records, with my brother Sean, and I like to be involved in every part of the project. It develops with curiosity, I guess.

Your breakout at the Mercurys seemed to coincide with a remarkable resurgence of popular interest in British folk and folk-influenced music. It feels like it has broken out of the niche where it was languishing for a good couple of decades.

I was lucky enough to come out at that point, yes – but I was already well aware that acoustic music, open mike nights and contemporary singer-songwriters were coming through. The record companies were starting to finance people like Damien Rice and KT Tunstall, well before I was doing anything. With artists like Kate Rusby, Jose Gonzales and Newton Faulkner, a lot of people are doing things from different directions – but you’re right, it seems to be more popular than ever. I think that’s because of the confidence from the labels of using acoustic instruments, and so they’re putting money behind that. I also think it’s from MySpace and the Internet revolution, which has really fuelled independent musicians.

It’s bad news for the record companies, but an amazing opportunity for people who are actually making the music, so I think you’re right. A friend tells me that there’s a whole underground acoustic scene going on in London at the moment: not so much directly folk-influenced, but very much acoustic music. He’s going to gigs all the time, and there’s a whole network of people that all seem to know each other, and so there’s something really breaking through there.

Yes, it’s exciting. I think it’s good for English music, so hopefully we’ll get something that will translate internationally, and that we can stand proud of as a country. Because I think, to be honest, we could do with that musically. It’s just an exciting time. You kind of know. You can feel something bubbling, can’t you?


Definitely, definitely. Talking about breaking out internationally, you supported Tori Amos around Europe last year. How did European audiences take to your very English material? They wouldn’t have had the same reference points, so did they get it?

Well, that’s the thing about what I do. There’s quite a lot of depth, in terms of the stories and the messages that I’m singing about. So without having that in the forefront of your mind, and because it’s not popular music, it doesn’t translate as well.

But because of the energy, and the instruments that we use, and the way the guys are so amazing musically: whenever we’ve played abroad, people really are into it. They really like what they’re hearing. In that way, I would love to follow in the footsteps of an act like the John Butler Trio. He sells a lot of records in other countries, and he spreads himself in a really good way, but without selling out to anyone.

In a certain sense, a weight has been placed on your shoulders, in that you’re almost being cast in the role of an ambassador for British folk. For people that don’t buy fRoots magazine, or who don’t listen to Mike Harding’s show on Radio Two, yours and Kate Rusby’s may be the only folk-influenced albums in their collections. Does that role sit easily on your shoulders?

Kate would probably be more of a folk artist than me. I’m definitely a folk singer, but I write pretty much most of what I do. Because it’s conjured up from my mind, but inspired from where I live and the people I live around, it’s definitely very realistic English music; there’s no doubt about that. I do feel a certain amount of pressure sometimes, but I also feel very content with the way things have gone. I couldn’t be happier, actually. I’ve been very lucky. The reality of what I do is: I play the fiddle and the tenor guitar, stomp my foot, and sing songs about local legends and stuff.


Unlike the rock tradition, which exploits the differences between the generations, you seem to be playing in a tradition which actually builds bridges between them. There’s less of an emphasis on that kind of difference. Is that a fair observation?

I think it is, yeah. I’m trying to look forward as well as re-work traditional songs, which I have done once or twice on this new record. I like to write new narrative tales such as Solomon Browne, which covers a disaster from 1981. I’m trying to put a record together that feels right and can flow well, and I think Poor Man’s Heaven has done that. I’m not consciously setting out to change folk song, or direct it in a different way. I’m really just trying to find a collection of songs that I’ve written, that really encompass a poor man’s heaven.

What line-up will you be taking on stage? You used to perform accompanied by nothing more than your foot, but I guess it has expanded a bit by now.

Yeah, my foot has turned into an engine room drum kit behind me: a guy called Andy Tween from Bristol, who’s amazing. Then we’ve got Ben Nichols on double bass and banjo, me on fiddle and acoustic guitar, and my brother Sean on acoustic six-string guitar.

So it’s an acoustic line-up – but like you say, there has been such a boom. Last year, we were playing after McFly and before The Sugababes on the V Festival Tent, which was an amazing experience for us, and something that wouldn’t have happened ten years ago. So I think you’re right: the music is changing, and young people are really getting into it.


(Photos of Seth Lakeman taken in Cheltenham on September 28th 2007 by 6tee-zeven and in Oxford on October 16th 2007 by Mr Ush, and reproduced under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license.)

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

(An edited version of this interview, which took place on Monday March 17th, originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.)

Your new album The Seldom Seem Kid is out today. It’s been on sale for, what, about three hours now, so it must be an exciting and nerve-wracking moment.

Very, very exciting. Not so nerve-wracking, really. I’m very proud of it, and it’s been a long time in the making. It’s been a couple of years, for various reasons, with record company negotiations and such like. We had the luxury of quite a long time to make it. We just locked ourselves away in our studio, and in my opinion we’ve made the best record we’ve ever done.

I see that the album is self-produced for the first time. Hard-Fi and Athlete did the same thing last year, and a few bands seem to be going down this route. How did the decision come about for you?

It’s something that we’ve always dabbled in. We’ve always had a pro-active part in the production, even when working with other producers. Leaders of the Free World was pretty much recorded by ourselves, but we didn’t quite have the confidence to mix it, and so we worked with a guy out in L.A. Whilst we were out there mixing, we basically came to the decision that we’re actually quite capable of doing this ourselves. My brother [keyboardist Craig Potter] has really proved himself as the producer. I’m very proud of him, and for me it’s our best sounding record.

So you now have your own dedicated studio, which is part of a larger complex?

Yes, we rent a large space on the top floor. You can actually see it in the DVD that came with Leaders of the Free World. There’s a really big room up there, in which we do a lot of the live stuff in, and a smaller room which is our control centre. Over the years, we’ve made a point of upgrading and building our own studio whenever we can. You never know when record companies won’t exist, and so hopefully we’ll always be able to put records out.

The album isn’t what I was expecting. I had you down much more as a sort of straight down the line, meat-and-two-veg guitar band, so it came as a pleasant surprise. A couple of things stood out: the sheer musical variety on offer, and also, as you say, the quality of the production. There are so many little details tucked away on there, and so I think people need to hear it on CD, rather than getting it on a cheap download.

The fact we had such a long time to make it definitely contributes to that. You talk about the finer details – we’re very much perfectionists about what we do, especially my brother as the producer. Some songs can come literally from a sound – that’s where they can begin.

Elbow songs are written, recorded, re-written, then played live, and then re-recorded. So it’s quite a long process, before the song ever comes to completion. I think it’s that attention to detail which sets us aside from other acts.

The flow of the album is quite unusual. It starts quite lively, building up to a crescendo with the fourth track Grounds For Divorce, before slipping back into a quieter, slower mood for the remaining seven tracks. You’re the lead guitarist, and you supply that grinding riff on Grounds For Divorce. Was there a part of you that felt frustrated at not being able to rock out for a bit longer?

(Laughs) I am the rocker in the band, and I’ve been playing around with that riff for many years now. Eventually, the rest of them picked up on it and thought: Hang on, it’s pretty good, that riff. Let’s get that in a song.

The fact that all five members of the band contribute to the writing is what gives it its eclectic nature. We all love bands like Radiohead, Queens of the Stone Age, and more recently Smashing Pumpkins, on the heavier side of things. But then we love stuff like David Sylvian – and Talk Talk, who are a massive influence on all of us. I actually think that delicate beauty is what we do best, and I think matches up well with Guy’s lyrical style.

There’s a very pronounced emotional quality that runs all the way through. The album’s title refers to a friend of yours called Brian Glancy, who died last year. Can you tell me a bit more about him?

He was a very good friend of ours – a local Manchester musician, who had been around for many years. He did some stuff with Mark Burgess [The Chameleons] many years ago. He was just such a loved guy: he was best friends with multi-millionaire rock stars and homeless people in the street. His music was very delicate: he played beautiful, heartfelt songs on an acoustic guitar. He’s very sadly missed. I don’t think there was a musician in Manchester that wasn’t mourning for quite a while when we lost him, to the point where I think there’s going to be a tribute record coming out, of local Manchester bands performing his songs.

The album’s final track Friend Of Ours is clearly dedicated to him.

It is. That’s a direct goodbye to him, from all of us. Whereas the lead single Grounds For Divorce is really about the way we felt. After his death, there were a lot of people drinking heavily, in a couple of our local bars in Manchester. Guy’s lyric – “I’m working on a cocktail called Grounds For Divorce” – was basically him saying: it’s getting a bit on top me now, and I want to get out of this feeling. So it’s not about divorcing your missus; it’s about divorcing a feeling within oneself.

I’ve not seen a lyric sheet, and I have struggled in a couple of places without one. I’m particularly curious to know more about the lyrical concept behind Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver.

Guy [Garvey, singer and lyricist] actually met a guy in a pub – there’s a theme running here, the pub seems to come into it quite a lot! – and he was a power crane driver on one of the work sites near the studio. They started talking, and Guy was saying: Oh, it must be great doing your job and being up there. The guy was saying: Yeah, I absolutely love it, I’ve got my own little toilet, and I’ve got a TV up there.

But after a few beers, it came out that this guy was very lonely. He wasn’t liked on the site, because his was the highest paid job and so he was making more money than anyone else. And at the end of the working day, by the time he’d got down from his power crane, everyone had gone. Therefore he didn’t have any friends on the site. So it’s really about that isolated sort of feeling.

What would you say are the album’s main lyrical themes?

Love is something that Guy has always written about. He’s very much in love, for the first time in a long time, and so it’s about the way that love make you feel. Mirrorball is about how you feel the day after you’ve met somebody that you know is special, when the world looks differently to you.

So it’s about love, it’s about loss – with Brian, obviously – it’s about hope, and it’s about us being comfortable with where we are musically. I don’t think that we’ve ever been so confident with the music that we make.

One particular departure is the track One Day Like This. In a way, it’s the nearest you’ve got to a stadium anthem. It’s notably more uplifting, with a singalong chant (“throw those curtains wide”), but it’s actually a very personal love song at the same time, so there’s quite a contrast.

That was quite intentional. I do find it hard commenting on Guy’s lyrics, because they’re so personal to him. On Weather to Fly, Guy talks about how we feel as a group of mates, and as a group of musicians, who are lucky enough still to be doing what we love after all these years. It’s actually my favourite song on the album, and I’m afraid it brings a bit of a tear to my eye, because it’s a bit of an “I’m proud of you, lads” from Guy to the band.

There’s also a duet with Richard Hawley on The Fix, which is a nice piece of Manchester-Sheffield crossover. How did that come about?

Guy met Richard as part of a strange collaboration in Memphis, Tennessee. I think it was Jack Daniels sponsored, and so it was a small gig in a distillery out there. They used some legendary local Memphis musicians who had played on a lot of Motown stuff, and Frank Black was also out there. Guy became very friendly with Richard out there, and they sang with Frank on a Pixies song. On the plane back home, they made a decision to do a collaboration.

The song is about a couple of friends who fix a horse race and then disappear on their winnings. As soon as we heard it, we thought it would be great to get Richard on. He came down one afternoon, we set two mikes up, they stood opposite each other, and it was pretty much done on the first or second take.

It was interesting to hear that you write the songs and play them live, before going back and re-recording them. Because the production is such a key feature of the album, I wondered whether there would be problems translating those songs to a live setting. But it’s like you’ve done that first, in a way.

Almost, but not with everything. In an ideal world, you’d write a record, then tour it, then go into the studio and record it. That’s because songs evolve live.

We never try to do an accurate, bang-on version of the actual album. We’re not big fans of backing tapes, or anything like that – although there are certain sounds that we will use on stage, as long as there’s one of us playing a similar thing. As long as there’s a visual, actual live representation of it, then we’ll occasionally use subtle sounds to back up what we’re doing. But we will actually be touring with a string section as well.

Cool, I was wondering about those orchestral flourishes…

I hate it when you see a band, and halfway through the gig, a string section comes out of nowhere. It’s not good enough, in my opinion.

I also read somewhere that this might be your last new album in the traditional sense of the word, and you might switch to releasing EPs and single tracks from now on. Is that correct?

I think that was slightly misquoted, actually. In fact, it definitely was. Guy was talking about how these days, the album as a format is a dying thing, because of all the downloading. We wanted this to be a record where people listen from to start to finish. We took it to the point where we had written three songs, and then we started putting them together in the order we thought they would work on the album. Then we’d listen to them and we’d think: OK, what would be great to follow that? For example, there’s a high backing vocal at the end of Weather to Fly which starts the following track, An Audience with the Pope. I don’t think there are many people doing that these days.

The Seldom Seen Kid is out now. It’s a terrific album, which I hereby recommend to the group.

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

(An edited version of this interview originally appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post.)


Where are you speaking from today, Gaz?

I’m at home on Oxford, recording some B-sides in my little studio, with a few of the fellas. It’s been a good day, actually.

You recently appeared on ITV’s Guilty Pleasures, covering Michael Jackson’s Beat It. I thought it was a good performance on an otherwise iffy show.

You just don’t know at the time. When we heard about it, we knew the Magic Numbers would be there, and Sophie Ellis Bextor, and obviously a few real mainstreamers. I thought it sounded alright, and that it could be quite a laugh. When I saw it, I thought it was a bit dull. But although it didn’t make for riveting viewing, I actually really enjoyed it. Basically, it was like walking into a pub full of old folks and screaming really loudly. We woke everything up a bit, I think.

I do take issue with the concept of “guilty pleasures”, though. Apart from maybe smoking, I don’t see why any pleasures should be guilty ones. I thought we were over the whole “cool factor” thing by now?

Well, that’s true – but there are certain pleasures that maybe one wouldn’t want to mention too much in public!

I guess that show marked the end of your Diamond Hoo Ha Men side project, where you and drummer Danny Goffey went out and performed as a duo – including here at the Bodega Social last December.

We knew we wanted to get out and play, because our bassist Mick was still laid up after a serious accident, but we didn’t want to reconstruct Supergrass too differently, and bring in too many different people. A lot of our new songs have riffs in them, and so they were possible to translate into guitar and drums, in a White Stripes-y kind of way. So it all pieced together, and it all worked. Plus playing in little clubs for 18 to 25 year olds was a really good laugh.

The title track on the new album (Diamond Hoo Ha) has a White Stripes sound about it, with that typically bluesy riff, so I guess there was a link.

I dunno. I mean, we weren’t really taking the White Stripes thing too far. They’re an amazing, inspiring band, but we’ve always written with riffs, going back to Richard III.

Have you buried the alter egos, or will they make a re-appearance?

I can’t remember where they are at the moment. They went off on sabbatical. Maybe joined a cult, somewhere in Middle America.

Good luck to ‘em. The new album is more upbeat, punchy and straightforwardly joyful than I was expecting. After some of the darker material on Road to Rouen, was there a conscious decision to return to fun?

I don’t think there was a conscious decision to return to anything. From the beginning, we were writing in quite an energetic fashion, so we just pushed that. We didn’t want to repeat Road to Rouen, but at the same time we wanted to take some of its more intense elements and bring those into the new record. In songs like Whiskey & Green Tea and The Return Of, there’s some crazy stuff going on, which isn’t simple. It might sound simple, but it has complexities underneath.

In The Return Of, you sing about “the return of inspiration, the return of serotonin”. It made me feel that Supergrass is back in a happy place.

There’s maybe some underlying message in there, yeah. I don’t think there has ever been any lack of inspiration, but there has definitely been a return of a sort of bonding between us as a band. Our closeness has come back really strongly. There were troubling times between us over the last three years, so it’s great to be close and excitable again.

It’s such a relief that you haven’t gone down the route of making the sort of polite, sensible, mid-paced, thirty-something corporate indie which you hear so much of these days. Naming no names…

It’s just not in our nature. We like things to be raw. We’ve never really thought about whether something will break through and sell millions of records – although we always think after we’ve completed each record, that it’s definitely a massive album that should sell millions. So someone’s going wrong, somewhere along the line!

There’s also an unexpected variety on the album. Based on the two singles, and on the songs that you’ve been performing on TV, you would expect that all-out, rock based energy to run all the way through, but there’s a change of direction in the middle. Songs like The Return Of and Ghost of a Friend have a lighter, more pop-based approach, and there are some 1970s Bowie influence at work on the final track Butterfly. Is that due to the influence of the Hansa studios in Berlin, where Bowie recorded in the 1970s, and where you recorded this album?

Not necessarily. The songs were written before that, back in Oxford. For me, Butterfly has a kind of epic quality, but in quite a raw way. There aren’t too many instruments plastered all over it, just a sort of emotional power. We try not to get into particular references, where we want something to sound like Bowie or whatever.

I just thought that there might have been a deliberate nod towards him. I suppose it was something about the way it was phrased.

I don’t think we ever do any deliberate nods to people. We stumble across things, and at times they might have a bit of Stones-y edge, or a bit of a Bowie feel, or a bit of a Talking Heads-ness, but that’s as far as it normally goes for me. It’s what I do with all bands. Even with really so-called “pioneering” bands like Radiohead or the White Stripes, I can still say: oh, there’s definitely a little bit of Al Green there…

It’s a game we all play, isn’t it?

Definitely, yeah. So it’s that sort of thing, but we don’t really look at references too much.

The song that has grabbed me the most is Ghost of a Friend. It’s certainly the tune I’ve been ear-worming the most. It sounds like a really radio-friendly, hooky pop song, at least on a certain level. Would that be a potential candidate for a future single?

I don’t know. We all love that one, and it’s just a case of which ones are coming through, and which ones are getting the feedback. It hasn’t necessarily come through as a single yet, but there’s still time. Rebel In You is going to be the next single, but after that we don’t really know what the deal is.

Well, that would be my tip, for what it’s worth…

Yeah, mine too, I’m into that one.

Although on one level it’s radio-friendly, hooky pop, there also seem to be some personal references going on. It sounds like someone from your past – maybe a former lover, or a former friend – is reminding you to keep your distance from some of the madder elements of the rock and roll circus.

Yeah, I think that’s what it is. Danny wrote a lot of those lyrics, and I think he was escaping from that kind of intense life, that doesn’t really let you breathe. It’s really constricting and suffocating. Then there’s a chance to get out, and you hear the voice of someone pushing you or guiding you through. It’s definitely got that vibe.

The other one that interested me lyrically was Whiskey & Green Tea, which describes a trip to a Chinese karaoke bar called KTV. I’ve spent some time working in China myself, and we had a KTV in our city as well. It sounds like you’ve had one of those deeply weird nights that can only happen in China.

Well, that’s it; all sorts of things happened. It was a really mad visit, and really culturally interesting. On the plane home, I started writing about it. It was almost like a little story, and we just picked out lines from it for the final track. Things like going up to the thirteenth floor, to be greeted by military rows of schoolgirls. The situations were bizarre, so it deserved to be noted down.

I ended up in a nightclub on Christmas Day, with go-go dancers dressed as Santa Claus, writhing to a gangsta rap version of Jingle Bells. Then when you went to the loo, the toilet attendant would give you a back massage, whether you wanted one or not. Totally weird. I also met some musicians when I was over there, and they seemed culturally starved in terms of access to Western rock music. You couldn’t buy it in the shops, so I sent some over when I got back, almost like food parcels. When you were there, did you get any indication that China might be opening up to Western rock music?

Only the very beginnings of it. I think we were only the fourth rock and roll band to go over there, or something. I think it will open up, because like anything they’ll realise that there’s potentially money to be made. There were little signs of it.

In the city I was in, there was just one club that played live rock music, and that was shutting. I went to the last night. Everyone was still talking about when Suede played Shanghai five or six years earlier, as there had been nothing since.

Yeah, yeah, totally – it’s crazy.



I have a niggle about the album’s packaging, which is rather on the minimal side. It’s like you’re just expecting people to burn it to their iPods, and never look at the CD box again.

That’s pretty much what they do, isn’t it? But I don’t know if that was really the issue. On vinyl, it’s actually superb. It’s brilliant: you basically pull the vinyl out of the… [pause] inside bit, if you know what I mean. It all makes sense; it’s like you wouldn’t want any more. But yeah, the CD does perhaps look a bit minimal.

I just think that with a CD, you want to add a bit of value to the people who are going to pay that extra three quid, rather than just going straight to iTunes.

Well, perhaps, perhaps. But I love the cover anyway.

In terms of the way that you’ve survived, people now see you as the last survivors of the Britpop era. A lot of the reasons why bands tend to split up haven’t happened to you, so what is it that has kept you together as a foursome?

I suppose we feel like there’s a long way to go. We haven’t yet explored everything that we want to. Maybe there’s a timeless quality. Maybe when bands are stuck into a fashion or a trend or a movement, it shortens their life as a band.

Often one person will take over and start dictating the musical direction, but it strikes me that you must be considerably more democratic than that.

All four of us write songs, so it’s a bit like the bloody Beatles! No, I’m joking. But as we all write, it’s easy to get variation. It keeps the interest going, and it keeps things flowing.

Am I right in thinking that you’re touring as a five-piece?

Yeah, we’ve got my brother Charlie on board. He’s playing second guitar, and some backing vocals. It’s really opened up certain tracks. Some of the new album has a real heavy guitar sound, so it really works with that second guitar.

Is Mick fully recovered, and coping OK with the demands of touring?

Yeah, he’s pretty good. We did those four dates last month, and he played really well, so we’re not really worried about that. We’re looking forward to the gigs. We’re playing better than we have done for years, so the set’s going to be wicked.

And you’ve had many, many visits to Rock City under your belts before. A favourite venue?

Yeah, it can be just totally f**king mental. The roof can really lift off, so it can be a great night.

Well, best of luck with the album. I know that it hasn’t exactly set the charts alight, so I hope that situation turns around.

I think it’s really down to EMI. If you don’t put much money into something, you probably won’t get it out there, so it is frustrating. We’ve loved everything we’ve done on this record, and so you want that to come from other areas as well. But we’ll see what happens, eh?

Photos taken outside the Royal Festival Hall, London, on March 19th 2008 by Matthew Armstrong and Mr_Benn, and reproduced under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license.

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post's EG supplement. This is the extended remix.)

I read with some amazement that this will be your first ever solo tour. Why now, and why never before?

This is the question on everybody’s lips at the moment! That sentence has been taken a little bit too much to heart. I’ve always played live, but I’ve never done a consecutive string of dates. So I think that’s where the gasps of amazement are coming from, as if I’ve never left the house for thirty years. And sure, the last time I played Nottingham was at Rock City with the Bad Seeds, or maybe with Magazine, which is eons ago.

But the “why now” is a fair question – and it’s because the new album [Back to the Cat] just screams to be played live, that’s all. Funnily enough, I was able to play it live as a preview, right after it was written. It went down really well, which gave me an indication. So I thought: OK, let’s just do it. Let’s go out, night after night, and play it. And I think I’ve now got a sufficient body of work, as well.

Also, I wasn’t really a band. I was this guy who sat with a keyboard, twiddling away and making these scores, and I didn’t feel comfortable taking that out on the road. I’m not really a band now – but it sounds like it’s a band, and it’s presented in a band way.

So you don’t generally define as a band leader for most of the time?

I do now, and I feel like I can take that out.

Are these people that you’ve worked with many times before?

Yes, they’re regulars. They’re the same people that play on the new record, and on the other records.

So there will be quite a full line-up, I guess.

It’s funny, because people think there’s eighty people playing on each track, and there’s not really. There’s only four or five, or seven at most, and they’re the people that I’ll be bringing with me, so sonically it will be fine. People do seem to think that we’ll be coming on ten buses.

You do imagine an orchestra, somehow.

Yeah, but there’s not one there. That’s how it works today. A keyboard can sound like an orchestra, which it does on the record.

Tell me more about the Back to the Cat album. Are there particular unifying themes?

I guess there always is with me, because I’ve got that film head. I guess I work in the background. I run around from theme to theme, from the psychological set-up to the next beat of the movie, and I pull it together in that way.

But what’s interesting about this record is that there wasn’t a lot of pre-meditation. The first song that popped up was Walk On Fire. I thought: well, that’s pretty upbeat, even though it still has the same flavours of noir, and a dark leaning in some ways. It set me off, and then it was a bit like watching a garden flower, really. The songs sprang up one after the other, really quite quickly.

It’s funny, because I usually keep such a tight rein on the themes. I put it down to experience, and having a bit more confidence, just to let things happen.

It’s more stylistically diverse than I was expecting. I had a pre-conceived notion of your music as being very much down the John Barry and Leonard Bernstein route.

Yeah, I’ve always been linked to the Bernstein/Barry ends of film composition, but maybe there are newer elements that I’m adding.

The standard description which gets applied to you, over and over again, is that you compose soundtracks for imaginary movies. Is that the way that you approach the composition process? Does an imaginary movie spool in your head?

I think it does, actually. I’m writing from an idea, which is driven from character – but you do almost drift, from station to station. You go into each place, and inhabit each world on the record.

I think it was more applicable in the early days. The pieces were instrumental, and so they were like soundscapes, where you could apply your own imagery. In that sense, they were open. There wasn’t a narrative, and there wasn’t an idea that was verbalised. But I still think that that’s the thread of the record, yeah. I still think they have a sense of that.

A track that I visualised particularly strongly was your instrumental Flight. To me, it suggests men in trench coats and trilbies, running down dark alleyways at night, with police sirens whooping behind them and lights chasing them…

All that for a little cat, running down the alleyway! But I know what you mean, of course. It does hark back to that way of working. I actually find that track quite out there on its own. It’s not like anything I’ve done before, but at the same time you kind of know what it means. And it’s exactly the description you’ve made there – that’s what’s going on in it.

So basically, you’ll start from a narrative standpoint, as opposed to an emotional standpoint. You don’t really write about personal emotions, in terms of spilling your heart out and letting a particular personal situation inform a song.

Well, no. I’ve made mistakes in the past where I’ve attempted to do that, and I don’t think that’s good art. Well, I can’t do it, put it that way.

What I tend to do is use symbolism and metaphor, that drop quite definitely into the emotions. Then you can get a sense of where I’m coming from, and of the feelings which come behind that, which are in some ways therefore biographical.

So what I enjoy is mixing up those states, and moving from the head to the heart, if you like, and back again. Being abstract about that, and then covering that, and then mapping that, and then purposely not revealing that, and then revealing something when you think: well, that’s all obviously made up. It’s very much a filmic way.

Truffaut had this idea that you should write 25% of yourself, 25% from a friend, 25% from what you read in the newspaper, and 25% totally made up. That’s what makes up a narrative.

To what extent, if any, should the album be viewed as a quote-unquote “retro” project?

I think that would be a cheap shot. I think that would be a slightly cynical way of brushing off something, in order to get back to reading the News of the World.

But it has a retro-istic standpoint, and on purpose. Because, if you think about it, where we are now musically: there’s nothing going on. I don’t think anything’s really going forward. I think we’ve driven to the coast, and we’re looking to build a boat. So all I’m doing is saying: while we’re building the boat, just think this. This is what’s got us here anyway, so let’s go and build the boat. To be honest with you, that’s what my thinking is.

Mm, okay…

“Mm, grunted Mike!” (Laughs) No, go on!

Well, yeah, there is an undeniably retro feel – but to me, there’s an element which reminds me of the music that I grew up with in the Sixties, which is very formative music for me. There’s something very reassuring about some of the Bacharach/David elements, and so on.

That’s true, but there’s another thing going on there, Mike. Why? Why? Why is he doing a record like this? There’s something else going on there. You’re right: I’m taking comfort from that in some ways, but I’m also saying: this is where the buck has stopped. You know, if it was 1977, well, I wouldn’t be making that kind of record.

You’d have been tearing up the past?

Yeah, exactly. But I don’t see that happening now. And when it does happen, I’ll gracefully bow out, and do something else. But until then, I’ll create these worlds, and use the past to inform a future.

When you do see people attempting to tear up the past and start afresh, it all seems a little bit unconvincing to me. Maybe I’ve just been around too long, and I’m not taken in by it. Maybe we’ve reached a point where we can’t do it anymore.

I’m not convinced that you can ignore history, ever. In artwork, or in music, or whatever.

Finally, I have to commend you for playing on one of my absolute favourite singles of all time, which is Magazine’s A Song From Under the Floorboards. It came along at just the right time for me, especially with the way that it revels in self-abasement, in a way that I found very appealing at the time. I guess you must have been responsible for that lovely popping bassline, that goes all the way through it…

That’s true, yes. Well, you see, even then that was kind of new for me – a case of: oh let’s just try it and see what happens. It was taking an idea that I’d heard on a Sly Stone record, and then from something that was going on in a David Bowie record at the time. I was trying to fuse them together, and to make this thing that was bubbling underneath the surface – which was like the floorboards, from my end of the story.

(Photo of Barry Adamson taken on June 1st 2007 by Angel D, and reproduced under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license.)

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

Perhaps it’s unfair to expect comedians to be funny all the time. Perhaps, when you’re halfway through a marathon tour of the UK, the pressures of constant travel will conspire to rob you of whatever sense of humour you once had. Perhaps, when you’re nearing the end of a long-running comedy partnership, the desire to market yourself as an appealing proposition cannot help but dwindle. Perhaps, when your final series for the BBC (a “greatest hits” clippings job, with a few minutes of new material thrown in each week) has suffered poor reviews and lousy viewing figures, the desire to rule a line and move on can only make you testy and impatient.

Maybe it’s just because you were sitting on a train to Brighton, with the phone line cutting out every few minutes, feeling self-conscious about being interviewed in public, and understandably nervous about that night’s show.

Or maybe, just maybe, when your interviewer has admired your work for the thick end of a quarter of a century, and has been looking forward to communicating that admiration in person, disappointment is the only, and inevitable, outcome.

Whatever the reasons might be, the fact remains that my much anticipated chat with Jennifer Saunders turned out to be the dullest interview that I have conducted with anyone since Shayne “Mister Personality” Ward, just over a year ago. Granted, Jennifer was never less than courteous and professional – but as our conversation progressed, her answers remained resolutely terse, warily defensive, largely disinterested and utterly humourless.

(Oh, OK. I think she laughed twice. Three times, tops.)

The French and Saunders Still Alive tour, which comes to Nottingham next Thursday, has been billed as a final chance to see the pair perform together, as a comedy duo. “We’ll probably work together again, but I don’t think we’ll be doing the double act as such, unless there’s the odd Comic Relief moment.”

So, no chance of ending up like the ever-valedictory Cher, then? “No, I don’t think so. The tour is the tour, and then that’s the end of it.”

We have been here before, though. Absolutely Fabulous came to an apparent conclusion after the third series, before being resurrected for a couple of “last ever” specials a year later. Five years after that, it returned for two more series, followed by a few more specials, eventually spluttering to an end in 2005. So we might be forgiven for harbouring a few suspicions.

“Um, yeah. But that was… I never, I never wrote that off as a… I’ve never said it was finishing. You know, it’s just: when you get time, and people want it, then you do a bit more.”

If you say so, Jennifer. But what has brought about the decision to call it a day as French and Saunders?

“I think that the days of doing a sketch show have passed. There’s lots of new young acts coming up, and we’d rather quit while we’re still enjoying it – and people still want to see it – rather than letting it drift on.”

A lot of the duo’s material over the years has parodied whatever happens to be popular at the time, be it from television, music or film. There might therefore be a certain sense of relief, at not continually having to “keep up” with everything. (Dawn as Adele and Jennifer as Duffy, maybe? It’s an admittedly tantalising proposition.)

“I think it’s more about what’s a common experience these days. Much less is a common experience. I think it’s harder to play anybody, because fewer people see them. The ratings on TV shows now are tiny, compared to what they used to be. Nobody watches the same stuff. Different age groups don’t watch the same stuff.”

As for any future plans to work with her comedy partner, Jennifer is keeping an open mind. “We’ll be doing another Jam and Jerusalem, so that will be the next thing. But I’m sure that we’ll look at ideas on things we can work on together. We have a production company together, so we’re always seeing each other and talking through ideas. As ever, you never think too far ahead.”

Shooting for the third series of Jam and Jerusalem commences this spring. This is excellent news for those who have enjoyed Saunders’ shift of focus, away from the hot-house world of “media”, and towards the altogether gentler world of village life.

“We have a lovely time. Everyone really enjoys working on it, and it’s a nice fun project. It’s nice working with people that you respect so much, and writing for them.”

Although the show is clearly tightly scripted, it’s tempting to wonder whether any of the lines come from the fine ensemble cast themselves, during the filming process.

“A certain amount, but we shoot it so fast. It’s on a very quick turnover. But if a problem comes up in a scene, then we’ll sit down and change it over the lunch hour.”

Does this shift of emphasis – from the urban to the rural – mirrors changes in Jennifer’s own life?

“I think so, in a way. But there’s so much media now. When I first did Ab Fab, there wasn’t the same celebrity culture. There was only Hello! magazine. Nowadays, everyone who falls out of a cab without their pants on is a Patsy and Edina, in a way. It’s very commonplace. So where I thought there was a gap, it was in something that was basically about nice people. The only thing that it challenges is other people’s cynicism, really.”

But then there is also Saunders’ latest comic creation: Vivienne Vyle, the demonic doyenne of the daytime TV chat show, and a deliberate satire on the likes of Jeremy Kyle. (From Vyle to Kyle: the reference is hardly a subtle one.) Has Kyle offered any response to being so expertly skewered?

“No, none. Absolutely no response.” A steely silence, maybe? “I’m sure he’s blissfully unaware.”

As for the many other public figures that have been targeted by French and Saunders over the years, it seems that none have ever kicked up a fuss. “I don’t think anybody has, really. If we do it on the show, then we tend to invite them along anyway.”

One of the duo’s most memorable parodies was Dawn French’s take on Catherine Zeta-Jones, some of which is reprised on video during the tour. This apparently heavy reliance on video footage has come in for criticism in some of the reviews – but before I could give Jennifer the chance to answer the charge, I was hastily, anxiously silenced. “Don’t tell me, please. Honestly, don’t tell me anything. I’m not reading them, so please don’t tell me.”

Time for one final question, then. Once the tour is over, and the double act put to rest, it must be tempting to think: right, I’ve reached a certain stage in my life (Saunders turns fifty in July), I’ve been at the top of my game for twenty-five years, my daughters will soon be leaving home, and so maybe I don’t need to work so hard any more. Wouldn’t it be nice just to stay down in Devon, keeping chickens, and maybe opening the occasional village fete?

“Well, if we were that rich, then yes – but we only work for the BBC! I think you’ve read too many of those lists! But I don’t think I’d be tempted, anyway. I enjoy my job, and I think it’s a really good, fun job. We’re very lucky, and as long as we can do it, then we’ll keep on doing it.”

This article is the cover story in today's EG colour supplement, inside the Nottingham Evening Post.

(Photo taken on February 5, 2007 by Bryan Ledgard)

Labels: celebs, comedy, eveningpost, interviews

As the leader of The Go! Team, to what extent do you control everything that goes on?

The Go! Team sound is a lot to do with stuff I’ve always dug. It’s almost like my record collection melted down. I started the group, I wrote the first album, and I did all that myself really. The band came together because I really wanted to do things as a gang. There was certainly no plan to do it as a laptop thing, because it’s just dull, and it’s been done. There were no auditions, and no kind of grand plan. I really got it together just for one gig in Sweden in 2004, with the idea of: let’s get through this, let’s see if I can blag it, let’s pretend we’re a band for one festival. Then we just took it from there. We never really spoke about the future. It was just like, OK, we’ve got another one in a week’s time, and do you want do that? So I guess we got to know each other on the road.

Two years later, when it was time to make another record, I wanted to involve everyone in the recording process. So we all went into the studio, and everyone did their own instrumental parts, but the songwriting is still a lot to do with me. There are also lots of collaborations, with people around the world. Ninja wrote a lot of the lyrics, particularly for the live show. I also like to get involved in the videos and the whole visual side – but apart from that, every other decision is made as a band.

So it’s still your creative vision as interpreted by others, even though they might bring some of their own stuff to it.

I guess so. I wrote the songs, so I suppose that defines the sound. We’re all quite different people, and there are different kinds of playing styles, so that comes through. Maybe the next album will be more of a jam-off, but I’ve got an inkling that it might not sound like the Go! Team. It might sound good and noisy, with lots of wigging out and thrashing around, because we’re all noise fans – but I’m not a great believer in jamming. I’m more of grafter. It’s more a case of trial and error: trying things out, storing them away and then pulling them out again.

Jamming can be a dead end…

I’m sure it works for some bands, but I’m a terrible jammer.

Well, you can be one step away from the Jools Holland end of things, if you’re not careful. (Laughter) Enjoyable to play, but it can sometimes lose creative focus.

I like to hoard melodies, and then revisit them. It’s that kind of distance you get when you have an idea, but when you listen back two weeks later it’s almost not your idea anymore. You can say: oh that’s alright, I’ll use that. Or you can say: no, that’s shit.

You can sometimes start with one idea, and by the time the track’s finished it has warped and shifted so much that it’s ended up in a different place.

(Dubiously) Well, every song starts with one kick-ass idea that I definitely think is worthy of using. Then it builds out from there, and you’ll try other ideas next to it. I’m really interested in contrasts, and different styles of music rubbing shoulders. So a song will grow out, and spread into three minutes that will be worth listening to.

To my ears, it certainly sounds as if the first album was more of a studio project, whereas the second album does sound more like the work of a live band. There’s a more unified sound, in terms of the instrumentation and the line-up.

Yeah, I think so. I certainly wanted it to be more kick-ass and more ballsy, with thrashy guitars and the drums kicking in more – which is a lot more like the live show.

Barring a couple of tracks, there’s a kind of full tilt, ecstatic energy level to it, which you manage to maintain pretty well throughout.

Yeah, some people find it a bit wearing. (Laughs) But I wanted it to be an all-out thirty minute assault.

It’s certainly that. There’s something that I like about the vocals, in that they remind me of late 1980s party-rap, such as the Cookie Crew and people like that. There’s a kind of playground quality at work. Was that era an influence?

Definitely the early hip hop stuff. I wanted people to imagine street corners and sports halls, rather than studios. I like “found sounds”, which is how some of the vocals on the album came about. We used a chant team in Washington DC, where a geezer just turned up to one of their practices, stuck some microphones up, and said: just do something. It was the same with the Double Dutch Divas, a jump rope team from Brooklyn, who have been going since around 1979, and who have toured with the Fat Boys and Run DMC.

I didn’t even know that whole tradition was still continuing. It’s a tradition which seems to have got lost.

Yeah, that kind of jump rope, chanting stuff has always been an influence to me, and I felt it was underused. And that girl gang feel is something I’m always drawn towards. I want people to imagine girl gangs, with baseball bats, taking to the streets.

I guess you must be a crate digger to a certain degree, in terms of that samples that you’ve managed to dig up.

I’m not super-knowledgeable, but I’m always hustling for it. People give me stacks of easy listening records, and 99% of it is bollocks, but there will be the occasional moment of usable stuff. I look out for Blaxploitation soundtracks, Bollywood soundtracks and all kinds of blaring, brash stuff from unusual places – but hopefully nothing too obvious.

How do you translate that sort of sound to a live setting?

It’s a shifting kind of line-up. There are six of us: three girls and three blokes. Three of us can drum, so at times there are two people drumming. I play harmonica, drums and guitar, Kaori plays recorder and glockenspiel, and so there’s loads of swapping. The samples are set in stone: they’re off, they’re doing their thing. We didn’t really make that a part of the visual thing, because it’s quite dull. We could have had someone with a laptop, pressing buttons, but…

Laptops on stage can be deathly, can’t they?

It’s a kind of wall of sound, I guess. There’s so much going on, with six people plus a whole bunch of samples, so for the sound man it’s a real feat. (Laughs) There’s a real art to getting everything balanced.

Without it just completely disintegrating into a mush, and everything cranked up to maximum…

It has just taken people’s heads off. It’s probably more ballsy live than it is on record.

Good God! The music sometimes sounds as if it’s teetering on the brink of chaos, but then it just stops short. Do you retain that element?

Yeah, chaos is a plus in my book. If someone asked me what was my dream gig, I think chaos would be the key word. Particularly in the crowd. I dig that idea of the whole room descending into chaos!

So, is slickness the enemy?

I thank that’s actually a quote, isn’t it?

Oh, is it? I actually thought that was an original observation! (Laughs nervously)

Well no, I think I’ve actually said those words on a press release.

Have you? Oh, I didn’t see any press releases… (*)

But yeah, pretty much. Like you say, you’ve got to draw a line somewhere. It’s a lot to do with the reaction to current production styles. When you turn on Radio One and you hear the latest song from Keane or Coldplay, it’s all very lavish and very panoramic. You know that they’ve spunked thousands of pounds on the best studio, with the best producer, and that it’s the best it could ever sound. For me, that sucks all the life out of it. It’s certainly helpful for getting a hit, because it suckers the listener into thinking that it’s a real piece of work – but I always want people to think of immediacy, spontaneity and energy. I want people to imagine us recording in a garage, rather than a £2000 a day residential studio.

Are there any other acts currently around with whom you feel any kinship?

I wouldn’t say kinship. There are some good bands out there: I think Deerhoof are one of the best bands around, and there’s Black Moth Super Rainbow, who are like a low-fi version of Boards Of Canada. And also Caribou.

You’re a Brighton band, and I always get the impression that Brighton punches well above its weight, in terms of producing successful and interesting acts. Do you feel part of a scene there?

No, not really. There isn’t really a scene, in terms of one uniform sound that comes out of Brighton, as it’s a real passing-through kind of town. Not many people who live here actually grew up here, so there’s not the sort of pride, or the sense of identity, that you would get in Manchester. I don’t think Southerners particularly have that same pride or identity. So you get lots of different kinds of bands. What have British Sea Power got to do with the Kooks, or with The Pipettes, or with us? But there are lots of good noise bands here, and I think that’s underrated.

I inevitably link you back to Big Beat, in that you’re mixing funk and rock and rap, in an upbeat, celebratory way. I wondered if you felt part of that tradition…

No, I wouldn’t say so. I can’t stand Fatboy Slim, really.

Heresy! (Laughter)

I think it had a bit of a bargain basement dimension. It was almost like a gold rush. It was like: who can get to the sample first, and put a beat behind it.

And it spawned a rush of imitators, so I guess you must have had a lot of that.

Yeah, it had a kind of cheeky, cheap feel to it.

I know what you’re saying. Obvious tricks. OK, final question: what is your plan for 2008? What do you want to do with the band next?

There are lots of interesting gigs coming up: Mexico, maybe Africa, and back to Japan. But really, just to keep writing. I’m always hustling for that next song, and I think there’s a lot more mileage in schizophrenic kind of songs. I want to push the idea of channel-hopping, where very different things are rubbing shoulders, with very different kinds of production within a song. So I’ll just keep working away on that.

I hope you’re not going to be one of these bands that keep everyone waiting for three years between albums, because that hacks me right off.

Like the last one, hmm? (Laughter)

---

(*) I really didn't see any press releases, you know. And I've Googled for the phrases, and everything! It was an original observation, dammit! (Wanders off, gibbering...)

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

On the forthcoming tour, you’ll be playing your 1979 Replicas album in its entirety. What was the inspiration for this?

This year is the thirtieth anniversary of my first single coming out, and so it’s my thirtieth anniversary of being professional. I’m also fifty years old in March, so I’ve got two fairly major anniversaries. I wanted to do something special, rather than just letting it slide by and being scared of getting old.

There’s a reason that I’ve been here for thirty years. I don’t want it to sound corny, so I apologise upfront for this, but it is the fans who have given me the life that I’ve had, and I am genuinely grateful. I wanted to celebrate that with the people that have given me these thirty years.

Replicas was my second album, and it’s the one that Are ‘Friends’ Electric came from and went to Number One. So it’s the album that effectively gave me the career. It’s also one of only two albums that I’ve never toured, so there are songs on there that I’ve never played live.

As a rule, I’m hostile towards nostalgia. I don’t like bands that live on past glories. But for this particular year, for this particular tour, I’m going to swallow humble pie a little bit, because it does seem to be the right thing to do.

I’m doing another tour later in the year, which will be more conventional, with new stuff and so on. But for this one, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody, and that I’m glad I’m still here.

There’s an artistic integrity there as well, I think. If you take on a whole album, then it will inspire people to re-familiarise themselves with it before the show. So there will be more concentration in the room. People will be paying more attention, because they know what to expect.

There’s a difficult balance to be drawn, when you do these old songs live. You can do them the way people remember, or you can add some kind of extra shine, which will bring them forward slightly and make them work that much better in a live situation. But if you go too far down that route, you stop the songs from being what people have come to listen to. That’s what I’m working on at the moment, at the pre-rehearsal stage.

When I wrote these songs, it was in a little 16-track studio. We only had two synthesisers in the room, and it was all done pretty much on a shoestring. So it will be nice to try to make something more of them, without changing their nature.

So you’re fleshing things out, but without returning to that more synth-based sound, as you’ve brought in stronger rock-based elements over the years.

Interestingly enough, there are a number of songs on Replicas which are just guitar, bass and drums. It’s not quite as electronic as history talks about. Are ‘Friends’ Electric has got guitars all over it.

When I first discovered synthesisers, I didn’t want to replace guitar, bass and drums. All I wanted to do was add another layer of sound. People that were getting into electronic music then – the Kraftwerk type people – threw themselves into it absolutely. It seemed to become a point of honour.

It was really anti-guitar for a while, wasn’t it?

It suddenly went anti-everything that was there before. It had to be electronic, or else it wasn’t pure. I didn’t give a shit about that. I’ve never been an electronic purist.

It sometimes feels weird that I have that reputation, with people talking about me robot dancing. I’ve never f**king robot danced in my life! I couldn’t do it if I tried! An awful lot of things get thrown back at me, as though I started this and I started that, and I really didn’t.


A lot of Replicas deals with alienation in an increasingly mechanised, authoritarian world, and so there’s something prophetic about it. People thought we were heading towards some kind of technological Utopia, but you were pointing a finger at all that, and suggesting that it may not be quite so Utopian. Do the themes still feel relevant today?

They do, actually. Things have evolved differently to what was suggested, but the underlying fears are still quite relevant to the way we see technology now. There is this feeling that we are becoming increasingly separated, with more and more automation.

A silly example is a car. When you turn it on, you’re not directly connected to it. You press a button, you ask it things, and it won’t let you go above a certain speed, no matter what you’re doing. And with aeroplanes, there’s this fly-by-wire business: you’re not flying an aeroplane directly, but you’re asking the computer to do something for you. So now there is a thinking electronic brain between a human and the machine itself. It’s all a bit weird.

Sat nav, cruise control, hands-free mobile, all of that…?

But it’s when it gets slightly beyond that: when it’s not you that decides to put the cruise on, but it’s the computer in your BMW 70 series or whatever, that says: “No, that’s fast enough. And it’s raining, so I’m going to slow you down.”

You know: bollocks! Don’t start driving the car for me! It’s that kind of separation of interaction which is a worry, and I think it’s that sort of thing that – in a very naïve and childish way – Replicas was looking at, but turned into a sci-fi story.

Do you still identify with the state of mind that produced those songs, or does it all feel a little bit juvenile?

It was written when I was nineteen going on twenty, so I had all that “no-one understands me” teenage angst, and all of that self-pity that teenagers seem to be so full of at times, sometimes justifiably. I think that side of me has long gone. But apart from that, my fear of crowded places, and of interacting with people, and all of those insecurities and worries, are still with me. They’ve been with me my whole life, and much of that is in Replicas.

It was written when I had travelled far less, and when I knew less about the world. So I think there is a more childish element to it. I wouldn’t necessarily say it was childish, but obviously a much younger man wrote it.


Replicas catapulted you very suddenly to huge success. While you were recording it, did you have any inkling that it could go on to be that successful?

No, none at all. My ambition at the time was simply to be able to headline The Marquee club in London. I thought that would have been a big step forward.

The first single was Down In The Park, which is now considered one of my best songs, but at the time, it did absolutely nothing. Are ‘Friends’ Electric was five and a quarter minutes long, you couldn’t dance to it, it had no discernible sing-along chorus, and it had none of the classic trademarks of a hit single whatsoever. And it was being released on a tiny independent label that had no money. So there was no reason to expect it to do anything other than knock me up a few levels in the small clubs that I was already playing.

How did you deal with that sudden success? Was it enjoyable, traumatic, or a mixture of both?

I would say 70% traumatic, 30% enjoyable. There were fantastic moments, but the pressure and the hostility that came with them was completely unexpected, and I would have to admit that I took it very badly.

There was certainly hostility from the press, who never even gave you a honeymoon period. Have you any perspective on why you didn’t find favour with the self-appointed taste-makers of the day?

I was probably the first big pop star of the post-punk period, so politically I was persona non grata. Even though punk created huge amounts of stars and heroes, its ethos was anti-star, anti-celebrity, anti-establishment. It was completely hypocritical, but that was the vibe.

I think I got a huge backlash, because I said: “This is fantastic! I’ve always wanted this!” I had an unfortunate way of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong people, and I had nobody to blame but myself. I was insensitive to the feelings of the time. But even if I had the sensitivity, I’m not sure that I would have done things differently, because I’ve never really been that bothered about telling lies.

From very early on, you attracted an exceptionally loyal bunch of supporters. Sometimes it felt as if there was a line to be crossed. Either people ignored you, or else they were fiercely loyal. It placed you on your own, as opposed to being part of a scene. Why do you think that happened?

When there is a huge amount of press hostility, it hardens what loyalty there is, and roots it into the ground. The more hostile the press became, the more loyal those fans that stayed with me became.

With a lot of artists, the majority of people don’t care one way or the other. Some people love them, some people don’t, but most don’t really care. I didn’t seem to have that. Most people had a bloody opinion, one way or another!

Now that’s a good thing, in many respects. If you want to be famous, and you want to be create a stir - which I did, as a young man – that is what you need. But it was a lot more difficult to live with than I expected.


In the past few years, you have enjoyed a considerable rehabilitation, particularly amongst a younger generation. A number of hit singles have sampled you – Armand Van Helden, The Sugababes, Basement Jaxx – and your influence is now acknowledged. There must be a great satisfaction in that.

It’s still going on now. Groove Armada have just done Are ‘Friends’ Electric, so there’s no signs of it letting up yet. It really is incredibly flattering.

I’ve had Number One singles and Number One albums, and I am hugely proud of that. But if I’m really honest, I would have to say that having people that I admire covering my songs has probably given me more satisfaction than anything else.

Becoming Number One is really difficult to do, and I don’t take anything way from that at all, but there is undoubtedly an element of luck attached. But other people covering your songs is a totally artistic decision, based on the quality of that song. So from a song-writing point of view, that’s just phenomenal.

(Photos of Gary Numan taken on February 25, 2007 by Stv photographe, and reproduced under a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license.)

Labels: eveningpost, interviews, popmusic

Considering her mother is Judy Garland and her half-sister is Liza Minnelli, I could be forgiven for expecting gushing over-exuberance and plenty of "fabulous, darling!" - but no. Instead, Lorna Luft turned out to be sensible, grounded, business-like, with no illusions - and equally, with no bitterness at being somewhat eclipsed by the showbiz legends within her family. Now read on...


(Photo of Lorna Luft taken at the Hollywood Bowl by npdxbear, September 23rd 2007.)

Tell us about your current tour, Songs My Mother Taught Me. I gather that this tells the story of your mother Judy Garland’s life in words and music?

Yes, it’s a two hour show of me telling you about my legacy. It uses screens; it has multimedia; there are stories; it’s how I grew up. It’s honest, which is why I think the audiences have been spectacular. They’ve laughed, they’ve cried; I wish I had the Kleenex concession! At Chichester, there were three standing ovations. I’m incredibly grateful. Someone said to me that “we were taken over the emotional runway of your life”.

Does the show deal with your own relationship with your mother?

Of course; that’s what it is. There’s a long medley at the end, which talks about how she grew up. But this is mainly about how I grew up.

Do we see and hear your mother on the screen? Are there duets?

Yes, there are. So it’s very personal, very funny… and I have a fantastic 11-piece orchestra.

Are all of the songs taken from your mother’s repertoire?

Yes, these are all her songs. It took me a very long time to do this – but then I don’t believe that you really get to know your mother or father until you’re in your forties. I don’t think you know them in your twenties or your thirties. In your forties, you’ve probably had children, and you’re at an age where you can look into your heritage, and really find out more and understand more about yourself. I’m 55 now, so it took me a long time.

I think there comes a time, especially if there was a difficult relationship, when you can see your parents through an adult’s eyes, and you’re prepared to give them a break. You stop being angry, and blaming them for things which you thought they hadn’t done right. You can see where the weaknesses may have come from.

I think you have more of an understanding, and I think in your forties you learn the most important lesson, and that is to forgive. You don’t need to forget; but you learn to forgive.

It’s one of the most empowering things you can do, as well. It sets you free.

Absolutely.

What personal qualities do you think you have inherited from your mother?

I know I’ve inherited her sense of humour. I’ve also inherited her work ethic. I show up on time; I hit the marks; I do the show at 110%. And that’s what she did. When she was on a stage, when she was on a movie set, when she was working: you saw 110%. And that’s something that’s lacking in today’s young artists. They have the opportunity sometimes to lip-synch, and a lot of artists today have the opportunity to get away with a lot of stuff that I find to be pretty shocking. I wouldn’t dare – dare! – subject an audience to it.

I’ve noticed that with some of the arena shows that I’ve seen. It can be surprising how many corners people will cut, and how much time they will spend off-stage.

Well, I was so pleased, because I just met this lovely, lovely girl, Melanie C. She invited me to the last Spice Girls concert at the O2. So I went, and I met all of the girls, and all of their families, and all of their kids – it was really lovely backstage. And I have to say that they gave 110%, and they were singing live, and it was so wonderful. It was absolutely great.

So there was a real warmth between them as individuals?

Yeah, and they did a whole tribute to their mothers. Melanie C even wrote me an e-mail the next day, saying “I thought you might like the show!” (Laughs)

That’s cool. So in what ways would you say you were most different from your mother?

I have a very good sense of reality. I really don’t like sycophants around me.

Was that a problem for her, do you think?

Oh yes. And I don’t like the people who come into my dressing room and start with all of the over-the-top praise. I shy away from that.

Maybe they think you have a more fragile ego than you actually do? They may think it’s required, in order to put you in a good place.

When my husband – who is also my musical director – comes in, he gives me notes. I appreciate that, because it means that I can improve. I don’t respect somebody who comes in and says that it was “the amazing thing I’ve ever seen”. That’s what’s different: I have a reality check. My manager was here earlier, and we had to go over some things. He knows: just cut to the chase. Just give me the bottom line of what’s going on, reality-wise. Then I can handle it. I’m not saying you have to be brutal or mean, but if you start to sugar-coat something then I’m going to see right through it.

I would imagine that the question that you’ve been asked most often in interviews over the years is whether you feel in the shadow of your mother. It must get tedious sometimes – but by doing this particular show, are you perhaps coming to terms with your position, as it relates to her legacy?

I would say that I was coming to terms with my legacy and celebrating it. It took me a long time to embrace it, to be grateful, and to say thank you, because I ran away from it for so long.

Until this morning, I had no idea that you went off and sang with Blondie…

Yeah! I died my hair purple, and sang rock and roll, and did all sorts of stuff. I sang on Dreaming, and I did a bunch of stuff on Eat to the Beat.

Dreaming is my favourite single of all time. In some ways, it captures everything about what it is to be a teenager.

She’s a lovely girl, Debbie Harry. She’s just a really really lovely, talented girl.

So you went kind of rock and roll for a while there?

Oh, I did everything. Everything that I could do to find my footing. The shadow was always there, and I kept trying to outrun it. But you’re not going to outrun your shadow. You’ve got to sit yourself down and say: I have to deal with this.

There has also been a renewed interest in your mother’s work, thanks to Rufus Wainwright’s exact re-creation of her 1961 Carnegie Hall show. Towards the end of his show, you guested on a couple of songs. Did you appear on every show of the tour?

We did New York, London, Paris, and L.A. together. Rufus is a very talented artist, and a very nice man. He and I talked at length, when he first wanted to do this, about what this all meant to him. He told me that it came from his heart, because of the despair and the depths of devastation that he felt after 9/11. He felt that he had really seen the horrors of what people could do to one another – and he put my mom’s Carnegie Hall album on, and it gave him hope.

Are there particular songs which stand out, which you think he does particularly well?

I think it’s more the feeling of the show. Vocally he’s not as strong, because he has his own vocal style and he’s not used to singing this kind of material. But the heart behind it is what stands out.

I think that’s true. I’ve heard the Carnegie Hall show that’s on the CD, and I’ve watched the London show that’s on the DVD, and he seems that much more polished by the time that we get to the London show. It’s a more controlled performance, but the emotion of the New York performance is also great to witness. I think that the song which really stands out for me is when he does Noel Coward’s If Love Were All. I think he was born to sing that. The whole show seems to lift at that point.

It’s also that he’s taking my mother’s name into pop culture. I think it’s really important that it goes on. The week after he did the Carnegie Hall show, my mother’s Carnegie Hall album spiked through the roof. There’s a whole new generation that maybe only knew her as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and didn’t know the performer – so they’ve now gone out and learned to appreciate the incredible live performer that she was.

What’s coming up for you after this tour finishes? What other projects have you got on the horizon?

I might go back to Los Angeles in mid-February. Around the 18th, I’m doing a concert with my friend Michael Feinstein in Palm Springs. After the concert, I’ll drive back to Los Angeles and get on a plane to Sydney. I’m going to Australia for about two weeks, on a promotional tour for the CD of Songs My Mother Taught Me. Then I come back, take a couple of weeks off, and then go back to Australia for two months, on tour.

Just missing their summer, unfortunately…

Listen: there’s a writers’ strike in Los Angeles, and there are so many people who are out of work. I am so grateful to be working. The other night, somebody looked at me and said “Ma’am, thank God you can sing!” (Laughs)

That’s really starting to bite now, is it? People are having difficulty getting the work?

What people don’t understand is that L.A. is a one-industry town. My friend Carol Thatcher took me to tea with her mom the other day, and Mrs. Thatcher and I were talking about the strike. I said that there was a trickle-down effect. When the writers walked out, the BBC and Sky news would say that “the writers are on strike”, but nobody ever understood that this has now cost L.A. over 300 million dollars. The make-up artists, the wardrobe people, and every single person that works on a television show now don’t have jobs.

Do the writers have a just cause?

Yeah! It’s all about downloading. You can download these television shows, and the writers aren’t getting paid! We knew that this strike was going to happen; we knew that the writers were not fooling around. They have said, over and over: we’re prepared to walk out for a year.

There has to come a point where someone’s got to start negotiating…

That’s what Mrs. Thatcher said! I said, Mrs Thatcher, nobody’s even talking to one another, and she said, oh, they can’t act like children!

But she was known as one of the toughest negotiators of all. It’s interesting that she was saying that’s what had to happen.

That’s what she said. And I said: you’re absolutely right. Carol Thatcher came to my show in Chichester. She’s a very smart, very bright, very well-read woman. And she said: well, this is just ridiculous.

You know, the trickle-down effect has even gotten to my daughter. My daughter, who’s seventeen, called me up before Christmas and said: Mom, I got a job in this big florists’ shop in Los Angeles, and I’m gonna make money for Christmas. She called me up two weeks later and said: Mom, I don’t have a job. I said: what happened? She said: all the Christmas