But is it dangerous territory for a rock ’n’ roller? You can tell that the Clash listened to a lot of soundtracks like Apocalypse Now when recording the b-side of Combat Rock, and 999’s Concrete is loaded with sonic references to spaghetti westerns, and while each of those records were popular in America, critics panned them.
I think it’s very dangerous. I think it has to be good, and hopefully mine are. I think a lot of bands think, okay, we’ve got a rock song, how can we make it better? They get an average rock song, and they think they can add a few strings and make it posh and epic and make it better. I’ve never liked that, really. I’ve tried to go back and learn how those kinds of dramatic orchestrations are constructed and then write pop music from that, really. I think I have done okay.
Would you say it goes back to the Twin Peaks theme covered by Wedding Present?
Certainly. Yeah. As a simple answer, I suppose. I mean it’s popped up a few times in the history of the Wedding Present. I’ve tried to push those things through, and the Hit Parade series was a good opportunity for me because we had twelve covers that year, and everybody was choosing them. I would say “Twins Peaks” and the “Theme from Shaft,” which wasn’t quite as successful.
They were suggesting Neil Young . . .
Go-betweens.
“Pleasant Valley Sunday”?
Actually, that was mine. That’s the reason I started Cinerama. It wasn’t fair. It would be impossible for me to simply reinvent the Wedding Present as a kind of vehicle for my experimentation with film music.
You stopped trying to replicate the album sound because of the difficulties accommodating and even hearing string players and stripped it down basically to a Wedding Present plus keyboard. Is that like giving the songs two different lives?
When I started it, I thought we could re-create the albums on stage. It just didn’t work. We’re not big enough, really. On the stages we play, like the one tonight, we just physically cannot get anybody else on the stage anyway. So then I thought, “Let’s do it with keyboards.” We had two keyboard players and really great samples and really great equipment, but it still didn’t sound right. It sounded like 1980s synth music, even though they weren’t synthesizers but real strings. I just think that someone playing the keyboards is never going to sound like someone bowing a cello, so we actually phased it out and have given up on it, really. Now, yeah, it’s like two bands almost, like a studio version and a touring version. We’ve re-arranged the songs specifically for this tour so that we can play stuff on the guitars instead of keyboards and orchestration.
You’ve said that in the past the New Music Express had an editorial policy in which they didn’t like any of the Wedding Present records after the first one, and you said, “We’re just not fashionable anymore.” Do you think you regained the attention of the U.K. press with Cinerama?
Uh, no, not really. I think I’m kind of seen as this legendary indie figure, so I am paid lip service, but I don’t think. . . . Well, I could make the greatest record ever now, and the NME is never going to say it is because it is not their belief to say so, their brief is to say, “The Vines!” Or someone new, because the whole basis of their being really is that it’s got to be bands that no one has heard before. Q could put me in, some of the older, more mature readership magazines probably would do it, but the NME is for kids, really. Kids have got to be seen into new bands before anybody else, and to them I am a late-1980s, early-1990s indie guitar player, so I am completely irrelevant to their lives.
“I’ve always been a big fan of radio. When I was growing up I was always listening to the radio and being inspired by it.” Would the same hold true for your experiences with radio in America?
Well, yeah, I think college radio in America. Yes, when we are approaching big towns. The presenters are not quite in the same league as Peel, but then again, I am always interested in. . . . Well, I think Peel is of fundamental and paramount importance in British pop music. But I am a fan of all radio. Here I’d sooner switch on the radio and hear something that I have not chosen myself than go back and play some classic album that I know is good but I don’t have to hear anymore because I know what it sounds like. I’d rather hear something newer. I think radio is a great medium.
“I’ve always been a massive fan of that [John Peel’s] programme, as everyone knows [laughs]! I’ve listened to it as long as I can remember: I think I’ve missed about six programmes! My taste in music has always been in the same kind of area as his—the Fall, guitar bands—and in some ways I think it has influenced me to make records that wouldn’t sit uncomfortably in that programme,” you’ve said. So, are we to blame John Peel for your stylistic leanings and development?
Well, yeah, I suppose so. I suppose I latched on to that program in my late teens. In fact, when punk started there were only two programmers on the radio at that time, Radio One, BBC, anyway, who played that stuff, and he was one of them. I’ve stayed with him ever since, really. So I think it has almost been like an older brother saying, “Here’s this record, here’s another, here’s some African music, here’s this.” I’m sure he has shaped my tastes. It actually used to be on the radio here in Texas as well. He was here for a couple of years.
“I think we stopped doing [encores] in the mid 80s really. I’ve always been a little uncomfortable about it. . . . As you get a bit more well known you can literally do an encore every night. I started thinking that I’m not actually keen on it, it’s a rock tradition, and I think it’s a bit hackneyed,” you’ve said. Does it relate to the old punk idea like the Ramones burning through the sets in twenty minutes without going through stadium rock gestures or early Jesus and Mary Chain playing with their backs to the audience or PIL behind a giant screen?
A lot of bands actually write a set list and draw a line at the bottom. It’s just a lot more simple, actually. I feel a bit uncomfortable. The Wedding Present did start off doing them. You get to the point quite soon, I think, as soon as you get a bit of a following, where you can do them every night. Well, when we first started off and played a gig, if it was really good, and we got an encore, we’d be like, “That’s really great. Let’s do one more song.” Then if it wasn’t, we’d say, “Let’s not do one.” But then after maybe a year and we started doing all right, it could be every night, really. Then suddenly it’s this thing where you hang around a bit, go okay, then go back on, and I don’t think an encore should be that. If it’s going to happen at all, it should be spontaneous. really.
And there are a lot of things like, well, it’s so stupid, but if the dressing room is close to the stage, obviously you are going to hear the cheers more, but if it’s down the corridor, you are not going to hear them, so it’s things like that. The easiest way to avoid all these complications, pretensions, and embarrassment, and whatever—like you think, “Let’s do an encore,” and you walk on and half the crowd is already gone away—let’s just not do them. As I said with the film analogy, the set is done. It’s like reading a book or making a cake.
“I think the lyrics have got more extreme as I’ve gone on. Now it’s more about relationships but earlier it was more, well, not teenage exactly but more naïve, now they’re a bit more realistic and explicit.” Are you so embarrassed of some of the songs?
Oh yeah, definitely, especially the real early stuff. It just sounds a bit juvenile to me now, and a bit teenage angst–ridden, really. I hate the word “mature.” It’s not very rock ’n’ roll, but I think I’m obviously fifteen years older now. I’ve had more experiences and I’m a better writer, and I just think it’s like reading your diaries when you were eight or something.
But it’s a very public diary.
Yeah. I think that’s part of the thing, certainly George Best. It was my diaries, like, here’s what I’ve been doing for the last five years. After that, I started thinking about writing pop songs, I suppose, which might be a good thing or a bad thing, but from an artist’s point of view, you always think you’ve improved. Other
wise you wouldn’t do it, I think.
“I never had any trouble with RCA, they were a great label to be on . . . really nice. . . . We were there for years and then we signed to Island records and they were fine and then we signed to Cooking Vinyl, the independent label, which I thought would be fine.” Do you think people have a misimpression of big labels?
I think it has changed. I think, from what I gather, being on a major is harder nowadays. There’s a lot more marketing involved, and it’s a lot more cutthroat. But certainly when we signed to RCA, it was great, because we got money and we got the artistic freedom we already had. In a way, we actually got more freedom because when it was our own label, theoretically we could do whatever we wanted, but the money wasn’t always there, but with RCA, we could say, “We fancy doing a mini-LP of Ukrainian folk songs,” and they just said, “Okay, whatever.”
But when the band wanted to do a single a month, they only wanted to print five thousand, but you said that was crazy, and they ended up printing fifteen thousand.
They were probably right, actually. The albums didn’t do as well as they should do. RCA wanted them to be from the albums, but because we had an artistic control clause, they relented.
The irony is, do you think a small independent label would have done that?
Probably not. Yeah, I don’t think a smaller label would have been able to afford it. So, it’s to their credit, really, that RCA did that, so I’ll always defend it. When we signed, it was a really big thing, because we were the biggest independent band at that time. People were like, “Ah, they are going to sign to a major, it’s the end of the indie ethic” and all that. I was quite nervous about it. At one point, we spoke to every major record label in London. We had meetings with these people, and it was always like, “Okay, you’ve done really well so far, now what are we going to do?” It was always, “How are we going to change now to adapt to a major label”—the things we’d have to do, marketing and stuff. RCA said, “Okay, you’re doing really well so far, carry on,” and we put the records out.
It was just about putting their name on the label?
Yeah, it was exactly the same, and obviously it meant that we could sell records around the world because previously it was all exports for us, but RCA and the parent company BMG have offices everywhere. It means we can sell records in Australia and America. It was perfect. It lasted a long time as well. I mean, it only ended because. . . . Well, I suppose if there was any problem with our major deal it was that you’re only as good as the people who were there when you signed. We were there for five or six years. By the time we came to the end of it, all the people who were there when we signed were all gone. It was a whole new regime, and they were off signing new bands and weren’t interested in the bands that were already there, so that’s when we got dropped, really.
“I’ve got thousands of CDs but I don’t listen to them—I’m more interested in what Peel’s going to play tonight—some band I’ve never heard of. I’m not one of those people who’s interested in some classic album from 1989, I’m more interested in a classic album from 2002.” So why have a thousand CDs?
That’s a good question, really. I should get rid of them. I am a bit of a hoarder, I think. But I do think that I will get rid of them one day. There’s a bloke in Vancouver that’s going to leave me all of his in his will, so I’ll get another twenty thousand when he dies. He’s getting on a bit as well, so I am dreading that phone call, because he says he really respects the fact that I am a music enthusiast, so he told me that he has me in his will as a beneficiary of all these CDs that he’s got, because his wife does not want them, and he’s serious. He said, “I’m not joking. They are going to come to your house” [laughs]. I’m like, “No!”
“I think all I do really is absorb bits of conversation and regurgitate it in a pop song. . . . It’s always been very basic, just like little stories. I do feel like I don’t really do that much.” David Mamet said one of the elements of drama is feeling like you are overhearing someone’s conversation in a restaurant, and you have to make guesses and fill in the blanks. Would that relate to your songwriting?
I guess it means that I don’t really make things up. I just kind of regurgitate what I’ve heard around me.
You’re not really writing fictitious material, you’re just observant?
Yeah, and nosy, I suppose [laughs]. It’s not just people, it’s everything, really: films, books, comics, newspapers, and magazines. It just kind of all goes in there, and when I sit down to write, it’s usually quite easy to draw on, because it’s just all there.
It’s interesting that you like to write but do not like to read, because you’ve said that novels by people like Jane Austen were written when people had all kinds of time.
It’s just that reason really. I just don’t see why anyone would want to read a book now when there’s so much else to do.
But then someone might ask, why write at all?
Because I write pop music. I still think there’s a place for pop music in our culture.
Where do you think it belongs? Exactly where it is?
Yeah, I think it’s fine. It’s perfect. Radio is good, records are good, then it can move into TV and films as well, so it all works. A book . . . I don’t know. The only reason I can see for writing a book is to turn it into a film, really. I know that’s artificial [laughs].
You were pulled over by the police on the way to Mt. Rushmore. Many Americans see it as an important national monument, but as someone from Britain, was it a bit kitschy for you?
I thought it was great. I mean I am very, very fond of American culture. I suppose it’s pop culture, and I love pop culture. I’ve never been interested in Shakespeare and poetry and architecture, all those old buildings in Britain. I’ve always been interested in comics [laughs] and TV, pop music, rock music. A) There’s more of it here than Europe, and B) It’s not quite as frowned upon. In Britain, people stop listening to pop music when they are thirty because they think, that’s for kids, and we’ve moved on to something else, theater, you know. In America, it’s seen as a viable . . . actually, on the continent of Europe it also seems like valid art. I just thought that Mt. Rushmore is a great example of that, really. It is pop culture. I know it’s a fantastic monument, but it’s a bit silly, and I think that is really interesting. It wouldn’t happen in Britain, I don’t think. Let’s carve four massive heads out of this mountain. I don’t think anyone else enjoyed it as much as me. I think they preferred the Badlands, but I thought that was boring.
Really?
There’s nothing there.
Are accidental moments in the studio more rewarding than coming up with a polished pop song in the studio?
No. I think they just kind of enhance it, really, and I think sometimes they happen, sometimes they don’t. We did a session for the BBC before we went away and it sounded really good and the engineer was coming over and looking at my crappy amp and trying to work out how I got these fantastic sounds, and I know absolutely nothing about guitars, I’ll be the first to admit it, other than pick-ups, pedals, or whatever. He was explaining to me how it was interesting the way that it was set up. It came out with this really interesting sound. To me, I just struck a good fortune there. I know what sounds good on records, but I have no idea how to do that, really. I think a lot of it is trial and error, like this sounds great, let’s keep it.
Deep down, are you like a starry-eyed, seventeen-year-old fan of music and musicians?
I think so, but it’s only a select bunch, really. I’ve met absolute loads of people in the music industry who I just think are idiots. But yeah, there’s a lot of people I really respect, but it’s a small group. On the last tour of America, we played with Broadcast, if you know them, from Britain. I was quite nervous speaking to them. It’s just if you think someone is really, really great, then you get a bit worried. Yeah, for instance, John Peel. I’ve met Peel so many times now, but I still get really nervous. My girlfriend is fine with
him. She’s like his niece or something. Whereas if he walks into the room, I’m suddenly sweating, like, “Uh, John Peel’s in the room.”
When the Wedding Present bio Thank Yer, Very Glad came out, you said, “It’s crap, don’t waste your money.”
[Laughs.]
Looking back, do you appreciate it a bit more or still think it is crap?
I think I probably overreacted, but it was an emotional time because the band was in a kind of transition at that point, and I think he didn’t really write it very well, and it came off rather tabloidy. It was just a bit annoying and I wished it didn’t exist, but in retrospect, it’s not the absolute end of the world.
Do you think you tend to see the symbolic nature of a lot of common practices, or intellectualize them?
I don’t think I overintellectualize in the writing. I think I am quite a straightforward writer. I just think it’s odd. For instance, I think that marriage is a weird phenomenon. I think it’s got its roots in this weird patriarchal and slightly weird society.
But why do you prefer Roger Moore as Bond?
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