Interviews

Will Oldham aka Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

2009-03-06T18:20:18Z

With 17 albums recorded over 15 years under various pseudonyms, Kentucky-born Will Oldham has established himself as one of the most prolific and talented songwriters in alternative music today. That's despite starting out as an actor - at the age of 17 he starred in John Sayles' 1987 film Matewan, but found the accompanying pressures unmanageable and instead drifted into making music (just don't mention Joaquin Phoenix).

After recording a number of albums under the names Palace Brothers, Palace Music and as himself, he settled on his greatest character role to date, that of Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. The first album he recorded under that moniker, 1999's I See a Darkness, is a masterpiece of ragged, lo-fi coal-black country-folk, his unaffected, fragile voice spitting out brutally honest poetry that seemed to come from depths rarely mined by other songwriters. It's as if the protection of an alter-ego has afforded him the freedom to express a much deeper side to himself than he would feel comfortable doing under his own identity. The album's title track has even been covered by the late great Johnny Cash (with a little help from Oldham on backing vocals).

Since then the Bonnie one has forged his own distinctive musical path with follow up albums such as Ease Down the Road, Master & Everyone and the Letting Go, plus collaborations with Matt Sweeney, Tortoise, Björk and PJ Harvey, and even appearing in videos for R&B stars Kanye West and R. Kelly. And following his success in music he's been able to return to acting on his own terms, taking roles in a selection of credible indie films such as Julien Donkey-Boy and Junebug, and Wendy and Lucy, out in the UK this month. However for all his critical acclaim, it would seem that Will Oldham is not a fan of the music press. Why else would promotional copies of Beware, the latest Bonnie Prince album, also out this month, contain so many excruciating spoken interruptions during each song, rendering the album virtually unlistenable and leading one journalist to recently describe it as "the worst promo CD ever"?

Speaking on the phone from a "very attractive" Hawaiian island where he's due to play a gig the following night, Oldham admits that this wasn't just some evil record company ploy, and that he was complicit in the decision (Oldham is signed to Domino Records in Europe and Drag City in the US). "That's something that we agreed on. I guess it's all well and good for reviewers to complain about something like that, but I think it's partly the reviewer's responsibility to figure out a process by which music can be gotten to reviewers in advance of the release of a record without it being leaked all over the internet, and when reviewers get off their asses and start taking a little responsibility for their jobs then things can go smoothly again."

In fact, he also considers the current process of doing interviews inherently screwed up. "Doing lots of press takes so much time away from playing, writing and listening to music. And I think there's something wrong with this process of soliciting huge numbers of writers to talk to somebody about their work in a solid mass of interviews, rather than doing say, four interviews over the course of a year. It might have something a little bit more to do with the writer's desire to find something out and the musician's ability and desire to express something about what's going on, and that would make for ideally more interesting articles."

Oldham's attitude towards promoting his records may seem overly antagonistic to some - and seems to have led to a reputation as something of a curmudgeon, with even his own mother describing him as "ornery" in a recent in-depth article in The New Yorker magazine. Whilst on some levels the New Yorker piece fits into Oldham's ideal of how the interview process should work, he also says he considered the author's detailed description of his Kentucky home life including his dinner with his mum to be "a strange invasion of privacy" as he hadn't realised the writer "would be on the clock 24/7".

But his self-protective stance actually serves to illuminate his entire life and career philosophy, helping to explain how he has managed to produce a discography almost as prolific and rewarding, at least to his huge and dedicated fanbase, as Dylan (to whom he is oft compared) or The Fall (who he has revealed are on his ipod). It also explains his sometimes surprising changes in musical direction, and his preference for recording under multiple names: "I feel strongly about protecting my ability and enthusiasm and energy and desire to continue making music, and it seems, as with in every walk of life, there are a lot of forces constantly acting against you to make you feel like it might be better and easier to stop." He went on to spell out his strategy for dealing with such forces. "It's a regular checks and balance system, when things do seem stupid or futile or wrong, to not necessarily get claustrophobic, but to decide OK, this just means turn left or turn right, and not to feel that if you're not moving straight it means you're not progressing."

Leaving the acting profession could be seen to be a case of this philosophy in action - "I didn't get to go to career counselling and choose to play music over acting, it was more that music started to open up, it started to happen." It's a similar open-ended approach to the one Oldham took whilst recording Beware. "I wouldn't say that it was necessarily loose, I definitely was very tense throughout the whole time, but I guess the idea is to spend a lot of energy making sure that things stay open."

Oldham admits that- much like contact with journalists - some engagement with the public has been unavoidable in this pursuit of a musical career. "I understand that things like faces and names help people connect with music, so if that has to happen then there can be some sort of representation of a human being through these photographs." Yet it would seem he's happy to remain elusive, a character trait that has only heightened the fascination of his fans, as if he is a rarely sighted hairy man of the woods, a kind of Bigfoot of American indie.

But then Oldham believes that is far better than the kind of ubiquity enjoyed by massive stars these days. "I'm satisfied with the littlest thing - if I love a song by the Greek singer Demis Roussos, I can go on YouTube and watch some strange video - that I can't make head nor tail of, which looks bizarre, ridiculous and frightening - in 3 minutes and I'm satisfied. Then you get the extreme pinnacle example of somebody like Michael Jackson or Britney Spears, where we find out so much about them and see them so often that both they and the public become fatigued. If Britney Spears just released music and you didn't have to deal with her personality then you might every once in a while be like, oh, I want to listen to that Britney Spears music".

However despite his love of R. Kelly, who he says "has originality going for him", the Bonnie Prince won't be putting Britney on his turntable in the near future. "i've always been kind of mystifed and even offended by people's claims to like her- I mean Britney Spears is sort of like the Oasis of America, I don't understand how somebody who likes music can look you in the eye with a straight face and say that this is good". Realizing I embodied the twin evils of both music journalist and Britney apologist, I kept quiet at this point and thanked my lucky stars that I had gotten off so easily with this notoriously difficult interviewee. In fact, whilst clearly a complex man, Will Oldham was a very nice chap to chat to, despite what his persona would lead you to believe - unless this was just a case of him playing yet another of his many roles.

As published in the March issue of The Skinny Magazine

Jason Lytle from Grandaddy

2009-03-02T19:28:24Z

From the archives - an interview with Jason Lytle around the time he was releasing the final Grandaddy album “Whatever Happened to the Fambly Cat”. Most people agree it wasn't their best but I still think it has its moments. Now he's back touring again and is due to release new music under his own name shortly. Judging by his myspace page, which includes a bonkers tune called 'On a Piece of Wood I Go' and a cover of Queen's Bicycle Race, the new material promises to be gloriously eccentric.

For more info see www.jasonlytle.com

Grandaddy Q & A

Despite a sequence of great albums which began with both Under the Western Freeway and the Sophtware Slump in 2000, Grandaddy never seemed to reach their full potential or breakthrough to a larger audience, overshadowed by the success of their peers who shared the same aesthetic and thematic sensibilities, including Radiohead, Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips. Vocalist and songwriter Jason Lytle decided to split the band last year, but not before releasing one more epic album of sonic and melodic majesty, “Whatever Happened to the Fambly Cat”. Lytle spoke to the Skinny about the album and his reasons for ending the band, as he was preparing to leave his home town of Modesto, California, the inspiration behind many of the band’s songs.

The album marks the death of Grandaddy as a band, and the epic nature of many of the tracks seems to reflect this.

I wasn’t thinking too much about death, more like the end of a journey. There was so much going on related to that, in addition to the band - moving from this place that I’ve lived, Modesto California, for a long time that contributed to much of the material that people have come to know.

So have you left Modesto already?

I’m still here right now, the house is for sale; so it’s completely empty and I’m doing things like scrubbing floors, dusting countertops and clearing up the yard, shit like that. The studio was here and everything, but it’s all moved now. All my belongings are 12 hundred miles away, I was living out of a bag throughout this 3 week press trip I’ve just done, and I lost my luggage so I don’t even have that anymore!

You’re studio is in storage at the moment; will you be setting it up again when you’ve moved to Montana?

Yeah, that’s the plan. That part of it’s pretty exciting, it’s a complete change of environment. I’m not seeing it like “it’s all crashed and burned and I’m ready to throw in the towel”, I’m looking forward to working, and when I’m taking breaks being around good, healthy, inspirational stuff, not just fucking off.

The recent ‘Todzilla’ EP was a postcard of discontent with your hometown Modesto, was that your way of telling yourself you’ve had enough?

Yeah, it was like, this isn’t even funny anymore. It gets pretty ridiculous around here. Part of it is the fact that’s it home, but the other part is the fact that people just don’t know what to do with themselves so they decide to do the worst version of all the options. All I can do is cruise around and take it in, and just go man, “this place just sucks. At first it was funny, but It got to the point where it isn’t funny anymore, and then it just starts affecting you and then you’ve just got to do something about it and get out while you’re still alive!

You’ve said that when you’re not busy you have a “substance abuse problem”?

Yeah, I come from a long line of drinkers- it’s not like I’m cowering behind a dumpster in an alley, it usually starts off light hearted and social enough, but a part of it is not knowing when the party should end, an ability to know when to say when. I needed to rearrange my thought process.

It’s a stimulation thing too, I’ve always placed a pretty big importance on making sure I’m having fun and there’s a lot going on and I’m being excited by something, and when you’re in an environment where that’s just not happening you’ve got to create it artificially and it becomes a long running bad habit.

And I believe you quit drinking during the recording of the album?

Yeah. I was falling way short of where I should of been and I could see there was a good chance that the album was entirely going to suffer from my inability to juggle technical stuff and getting to the essence of where the songs needed to be. I had other shit going on, a big relationship that was on the out, and the uncertainty with the band was bringing me down.

So the split has been on the cards for a while?

Yes, a lot of it was because of the uncertainty and I was hoping and waiting, like we’ve always done- sometimes you’ve just got to wait things out but years were going by and there were no answers coming.

Do you have a Brian Wilson like attention to detail during the production process, because the way it’s mixed makes it seems that way, there’s so much going on and so much depth and warmth.

That’s where it gets down to the unspoken artistic part of it- knowing that you have this crossword puzzle, there’s a point when all these words and all of these pieces are going to fit together and it’s going to make sense- always being, for the most part, slightly out of reach of that can be pretty maddening, but the challenge and the payoff of finally getting it right is pretty immense.

I was hellbent throughout this album, definitely through the mixing part, of really getting it right. It was tough towards the end cos my back started going out on me, it was like everything was trying to prevent me from getting it right. I had way too much fun for a while on the painkillers, and finally I couldn’t do those anymore, and I was in such pain that just to sit for more than 20 minutes at a time was insane, it was like a big cruel joke to make sure that I didn’t get it right.

Were you addicted to the painkillers?

For a while there was a little problem and I kind of sorted that out. But then I got my doctor giving me these non-addictive muscle relaxers so towards the end it was like red wine and muscle relaxers just so I could sit for long periods of time! I was possessed, I had to finish the album. It’s funny to talk about it in a lighthearted way now but sometimes I forget what a chaotic time that was. The worst part of it was having to come back out of that world and be normal to other people, pay bills, be presentable, when a lot of times I just wasn’t. I had shut myself off entirely.

The final song “This is how it always starts” in particular seems to be coming from rock bottom, lyrically.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, there’s a point towards the end where the song is breaking down and there’s a little shaker percussion part; that’s actually a little container of prescription painkillers which and I’m using it as a percussion instrument. That was to the depths, there and back, and attempting to get it on tape.

You mentioned waiting, as a band for long periods. Were you waiting for some kind of breakthrough, for example to a larger audience?

It was more the financial strain; it had become a concern, then it became a problem, then there was the potential it could be fixed but it stayed in that mode for way too long, and there’s a sliding scale, the longer it goes on, the older the guys in the band are getting and the more concerned they are, there’s never been a solid sense of security for the members of the band, we’ve always been winging it, for years. It got to the point where I knew it wasn’t going to get any better. The label were petering out and were pulling back on support, it looked like it was going to get harder rather than more fruitful.

The band also knew that I didn’t want to go back on tour. I said I would consider it if there was a new way of doing it that was more efficient and more healthy.

Was it the sheer amount of touring?

partly, and it was the most foreign environment for me. The whole thing of being stripped of your independence, under someone else’s constant routine. If you’re granted 30 seconds of solitude at any point at all during a tour, you can think yourself lucky. I spend more time by myself than anyone else in the band, I live alone, I’m more of a solo guy than anybody else. some of the others didn’t mind that part, they loved standing around, smoking, talking shit, drinking and partying, playing shows..I loved the playing shows part, the excitement of playing in front of people and how exciting and frightening and invigorating it was,. but all the other stuff was just a waste of time, and the years were racking up, you know, I was like, wow, I’m wasting a lot of time in my life doing this thing I’m told I’m supposed to do, in order to pay a bunch of crew and have my band be miserable because we always ended up coming home broke.

Can you ever see yourself doing a solo show?

the fact that I’m afraid of it makes it kind of appealing, but I don’t want to do it for the sake of doing it, I want it to be special, more scaled down, more arty and not so macho like all the top rock shows.

I would love to think that I’ll be sitting round piecing something together and I’ll think that other people might get a kick out of it.

What was the story behind “the Animal World”, which seems to consign animals to the past?

The initial reason for the song was; my mum is a total antisocial, hermit person so I guess I got a lot of those qualities from her. She sent me a Christmas card one year and it had a picture, almost like a bible picture, of all the animals on earth, like a Noah’s Ark kind of thing, zebras, monkeys, horses, posing in a picture, and underneath it said “Joy to the World” and I thought how hilarious it was because there were no humans in the picture! The humour behind that combined with the fact that I love watching old movies and every now and then there’s a dog walking past or a cat on the fence or something!

To get back to the record, was there a specific story behind the mainly instrumental track “Skateboarding Saves My Life Twice”?

I skateboarded on a regular basis since I was 8 years old and totally grew up in the culture and I feel that it was responsible for dictating the direction of my life and turning me into who it is I am today. Thinking about who I could have turned into without it scares me, with all the other options that were out there. I did it for many years and amongst other injuries I had a really bad knee injury and I had to quit for four years. I eventually got surgery and all of a sudden there it was, back in my life, I started skating again, it was like an old girlfriend or a friend I hadn’t seen in years, I kind of had a new approach to it, it was a lot less strenuous, there was no pressure attached to it, it was totally enjoyable and therapeutic. It came around at a good time in my life.

Maybe that’ll happen with your music once you’ve had a break?

I’ve been thinking about this since and there might be something to that.

Originally published in The Skinny Magazine in 2006

Paul Vickers (Dawn of the Replicants, The Leg)

2009-01-03T14:58:32Z

At the end of January Edinburgh's indie music stalwarts SL Records are releasing an album called 'Releasing The Impossible' - one of the most bizarre, twisted pieces of audio you're ever likely to hear. Anyone who's encountered either Dawn of the Replicants or his work with The Leg won't be surprised to found out that Paul Vickers is one of the nutjobs involved and that it's inspired by Ivor Cutler. In an effort to recycle content in a timely fashion, here's an interview I did with him for one of the early issues of The Skinny Magazine.

As their dazzling new album ‘Fangs’ suggests, you’d be hard pressed to find a more entertaining interviewee than Dawn of the Replicant’s front man and lyricist Paul Vickers. The album, their fifth over a ten year career, is a voodoo New Orleans Jazz-rock-opera featuring a cast of boozed up lounge lizards, pterodactyl dinner guests, diminuitive brawlers, and surrealist Wild West imagery. Beautifully arranged and produced, musically it spans classic rock, Ennio Morricone, doo wop, BB King style blues, Sinatra style crooning and consistently melodic yet inventive songwriting.

The Replicants began when Vickers moved to the Scottish Borders town Galashiels to work on cult music magazine ‘Sun Zoom Spark’, having left a music course in Nottingham which geared its students towards “spending the rest of our lives doing background music for Czechoslovakian animation.” Disillusioned with their band Crunchy Joseph, Brothers Roger and Mike Simian had started Sun Zoom Spark and gained UK wide distribution. The first issue sold 15, 000 copies but sales began to drop off and when it folded prematurely, Roger and Paul’s new band The Dawn of the Replicants became their main concern. They used Roger’s student loan to press up a batch of their first single and the contacts they’d built up with the magazine to gain exposure. “We got over the fear of phoning people up and not knowing where to start as we’d been dealing with record companies for two years through the magazine”.

The single instantly gained airplay from John Peel and Mark and Lard’s evening show, as well as support from the NME and Melody Maker. Record companies were soon on the phone demanding to see the Replicants live, but with the band not as yet properly formed they were forced to play showcase gigs in their living room, along to “backing tapes powered by an Atari”. In the end they decided to go a major label. “East west had Mick Hucknall and Tori Amos so wasn’t that cool but it was the right A&R man so we thought let’s go for it.”

However after recording second album 'Wrong Town, Wrong Planet, Three Hours Late' the band were dropped, another casualty of a cruelly indifferent music industry. “What a lot of major record labels suffer from is no company loyalty. What happens is nobody’s safe in their jobs, and the turnover of jobs is so fast, that you have a lot of people who don’t really give a damn working for the company. I remember that they sacked the whole A&R department at East West, apart from the A&R man who signed us. Somehow he got away with it and is now working at EMI because he signed the Blazing Squad.”

Luckily, after a period of disbandment in which Vickers and Roger Simian went it alone as the electro duo Pluto Monkey (“It was a difficult time. We went for a sort of Soft Cell approach which didn’t really work”) they decided to reform the Replicants, albeit with a couple of new members, and have now hooked up with Edinburgh’s SL Records, home of Ballboy and Misty’s Big Adventure. Vickers is philosophical about the glitches in their career, regarding it with a characteristic sense of humour.

“You can’t be in Dawn of the Replicants without having an element of humour - we’re underdogs. People have preconceptions and write us off as being a weird band without actually listening to our records. I think the problem was that we weren’t cool enough when we came out. We just looked like a bunch of farmers and were even described by one journalist as ‘four farmers and a freak’".

Vickers believes that humour is essential in music as long as it’s combined with real feeling. “I suppose it seems like a strange thing to get upset about but snobbishness about humour really pisses me off. You can say a lot more with humour than anything else, and when something’s genuinely funny you feel every emotion- everyone can recognise that a real truth is being spoken."

John Peel was always a major supporter of the band, and one of their sessions for him was recently voted amongst the best of all time. Vickers regards the reaction to his death with bemusement. “It’s a weird thing because it went from nobody giving a shit to everyone really caring after he died. In a lot of ways Peel was just doing the right thing, he cared about music and he stuck by bands he really liked whether or not they were in fashion or not, as long as it was still good he’d still give Half Man Half Biscuit a session and it was the same with us.”

Of course the loss of the band’s major champion was always going to be difficult. “We went to the funeral and I cried my eyes out throughout the whole thing. Partly”, he jokes, “because I thought this is the end of my career! At the funeral there was Belle and Sebastian and the White Stripes in the row in front and behind us was Griff Rhys Jones of all people. There were really famous people there like Robert Plant and also a cement mixer from Hull, which you wouldn’t get in any other circumstances. We’ve lost one of the good guys.”

www.dawnofthereplicants.com

www.myspace.com/paulvickersandtheleg

www.myspace.com/recordingtheimpossible

Edwyn Collins/Orange Juice

2008-12-04T15:12:19Z

From The Skinny Magazine, December 2008

Celebrating Orange Juice's recent reunion to collect a lifetime achievement award, Milo McLaughlin charts their legacy and speaks to frontman and solo artist Edwyn Collins.

Scottish music industry shindig The Tartan Clef Awards, held last month in Glasgow's Old Fruitmarket, was notable not only because of a brief on-stage appearance by rotund funnyman Peter Kay - it also marked the first time that the original members of Orange Juice had been together in the same room for 20 years. The seminal Scottish band put aside any lingering differences to receive the 'Glasgow: Scotland with Style Life Time Achievement Award', an event given added poignancy by the fact that frontman Edwyn Collins was able to attend at all. In 2005 he suffered a very serious cerebral haemorrhage/stroke, for which he underwent a brain operation and spent six months in hospital.

As a result of his ordeal Collins is no longer able to use his right hand and for a time couldn't speak or even walk, but has shown remarkable bravery in regaining his strength and abilities. This inspirational courage in the face of such adversity was evident in the moving BBC Scotland documentary which followed him and his wife (also his manager) as he took his first tentative steps to recovery and incredibly, towards playing music live again.

Speaking ahead of the awards ceremony, Collins relates: "I love my life, I love to work. It's fresh and new to me. I'm glad to be alive." He also talks about the personal importance of the charity which the ceremony was in aid of, Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy in Scotland: "Nordoff Robbins do great things, especially with children. I've been involved for a long time. But I actually received help from one of their therapists, Matthew, when I was in hospital." The awards raised £93,000 for the charity on the night.

Good cause aside, it might surprise some that a band considered to be one of the great post-punk acts of the 80s would choose to reunite at such a mainstream event, with tabloid-friendly fare like the Fratellis and Sharleen Spiteri also in attendance. But then Orange Juice and Collins himself have never had any problem with both courting and achieving mainstream popularity.

As documented in Simon Reynold's brilliant book on post-punk Rip it up and Start Again, which takes its title from the band's most famous and successful single, Orange Juice emerged at a time when the alternative music scene was still reeling from Ian Curtis' untimely death. But rather than attempting to fill that vacuum with the then fashionable trend for staring-into-the-abyss existential angst, Orange Juice were the perfect antidote, combining the jaunty pop sensibility of Talking Heads with danceable rhythms which owed as much to disco act Chic as the Velvet Underground.

They soon hooked up with ambitious hipster Alan Horne who became their manager and founded the hugely influential Postcard Records, through which the band released their debut single Falling and Laughing in 1980. Horne went on to sign the Go Betweens and Edinburgh's Josef K as well as Aztec Camera, who collectively became known as 'The Sound of Young Scotland'. Postcard's bands also earned themselves a reputation as 'New Puritans' as they had little interest in getting trashed or taking advantage of groupies, something else which set them apart from the pack.

Pop success was something that was high on the agenda for Orange Juice though. Despite gaining them critical acclaim, Postcard didn't have the financial clout to make it happen, so they signed to Polydor. The backing of a major label and a personnel shake-up led to the band finally gaining mainstream success with their signature song 'Rip it Up', which utilised the new technology of a Roland 303 and slicker production values to take the Orange Juice sound to the heights of the charts in 1983.

Collins was to replicate that success as a solo artist in 1995, a decade after the band split, with the irresistible Girl Like You. The success of this saw him make a surreal appearance on Vic and Bob's Shooting Stars performing his hit in the 'club singer' stylee - just in case anyone doubted that the writer of the self-deprecating classic Consolation Prize was in possession of a wry sense of humour.

Now - despite his current challenges - Collins is determined to continue with his career and maintain the connection with his fans (his son Will set up a MySpace page for this purpose). He cites this as an important part of his therapy: "It's very important to me. More than you can imagine. Before MySpace and my letters I couldn't read and write without a lot of help. Now I can do quite a bit myself."

After his stroke, Collins had to learn everything again from scratch: reading, writing, even drawing. But he persevered and having his drawings of bird life exhibited in London was a major step in his ongoing recovery process. "Drawing is another important thing for me. I draw with my left hand now. Crude at first, but I'm still improving. I'm going to have an exhibition in Glasgow next year." And as for the music? The first single released after his ordeal, though it was recorded beforehand, was the haunting and eerily appropriate Home Again. But as for any new material Collins simply says: "I've just started. A bit at a time."

Also published on www.theskinny.co.uk

King Creosote & The Pictish Trail - Fence Collective special

2008-09-14T20:21:16Z

illustration by Leigh Pearson

From small beginnings, Anstruther-based label Fence Records has deservedly grown in stature over the last decade or so, and now boasts a dedicated fanbase and an impressive roster of artists whilst very much retaining its down-to-earth DIY ethos. I caught up with label lynchpins Johnny Lynch and Kenny Anderson, otherwise known as The Pictish Trail and King Creosote for a chinwag just before they played a blinding gig as part of the Retreat! mini-festival in Edinburgh.

Given the shared ethos and sound of the artists involved Fence could almost be classed as a sub-genre in itself. For example, there's no doubt that Fence's success is to some extent down to the fact they are a collective as much as a record label and this extended family includes post-Beta Band acts The Aliens and Black Affair. The Beta Band connection is one that Kenny is justly proud of, especially as his brother Gordon, aka The Lone Pigeon, co-wrote some of their finest tunes. "This year at Homegame (annual Fence festival held in Anstruther) Steve Mason played and he had my brother Ian on the drumbox, and he did his solo thing but he did also lot of Beta Band songs, and for a lot of the guys that came to Fence from the Beta Band, so this is people that in 1999/2000 had tracked us down, and they were in tears at the door of that hall. It was like a complete circle."

Not everything has run smoothly however. Anderson's last two albums as King Creosote, KC Rules OK and Bombshell were released through Warners offshoot 679, allowing him to reach a much wider audience than ever before. But the record industry being what it is, he's back to releasing his latest album through Fence and perhaps not coincidentally it has a more experimental side, not least the title - 'They Flock Like Vulcans to See Old Jupiter Eyes on His Home Craters'. Being back in control must be something of a relief though, given the hoops that major labels expect their artists to jump through to justify their investment? Kenny: "Well it is a relief because we're at the helm so we're as busy as we make ourselves. The difference is when you're with another label and they make you busy with all sorts of things that you never expected to have to do, but you've signed up to do it - and they make it quite awkward for you if you don't do it. All these things are there to help promote your album, but it's just amazing all the weird and wonderful things you end up doing."

As well as interminable interviews that take up entire days (The Skinny not included, obviously), this involved some major support tours, for the likes of KT Tunstall and Squeeze. And despite Tunstall's early links with the Fence clan, it was playing with Squeeze which paid off. Kenny: "Actually Squeeze made more sense, in an appreciation kind of thing because it was an older audience and it was a music buying audience, and we did better from sales of albums. Whereas a lot of Kate's audience were younger and had only heard two or three songs on the radio; it was like a different gig. As soon as she played 'Suddenly I See', the place just went bananas - even though it's not a stand-out in the set at all, but it's just one that everybody knows. So for us as a support band, can you imagine? We don't have anything even approaching her least known songs." Johnny however is keen to stress the glass-half-full side of the arrangement. "It doesn't mean it was worthless because the end product of that was that for other Fence shows that we've done since then, it's brought in a different audience and it's made the audience that was there think of us as a real band instead of just 'some guys from Fife'" Kenny agrees that there are benefits to such compromises. "That's true, and also playing with Kate did get us that Jools Holland thing - without a doubt that was what swung it for the producers."

But despite the raised profile both are determined to avoid the label morphing Decepticon style into a monstrous corporate machine. Johnny: It's reflective of the audience that's there, if the audience that gets properly excited about it gets bigger then we want to accomodate that, because there's nothing worse than putting on something and people who really want to be at it can't get to it." Kenny: "But we're not in it just to make a quick buck and escape. the Homegame, for example, is different, oddly enough because it is different. We've made our own rules. Everybody expects you to want to be bigger and better, but we kind of don't. We want it to be manageable, and just to keep people happy." Johnny: Because at the end of the day the Fence thing only has to supply a wage for two people." Kenny: "And a lot of kids.."

Fence Club #6 takes place on Wed, 17 Sep at The Caves, Edinburgh and will feature James Yorkston, Malcolm Middleton and The Pictish Trail. They Flock LIke Vulcans... is available now at King Creosote's live gigs and will be more widely available in November. King Creosote, The Pictish Trail and The Fence Collective play The Corn Exchange, Cupar on 25 Oct.

As published in the Sept issue of The Skinny and online.

Hear part 1 of the I Hear a New World podcast here.

The Pictish Trail - Powerhouse of Funk

2008-09-08T15:27:52Z

Perfectly representing the organic mix of traditional and electronic instrumentation with quality songwriting and unself-conscious experimentation that characterises the output of the Fence Collective is Secret Soundz Vol.1, the first long-player from The Pictish Trail aka Johnny Lynch.

Born and raised in Auld Reekie before moving to the US as a teenager (where he became a big fan of the likes of Beck and Pavement), Johnny Lynch was drawn back to study at St. Andrews University by a love of the Beta Band and Belle & Sebastian, and it wasn't long before he made a fateful encounter with Fence founder Kenny Anderson aka King Creosote. "Kenny used to play pub shows in St. Andrews and they'd be three hours long with different songs every time. I got the Beta Band connection when I saw him and his brothers singing She's The One, which Gordon (aka The Lone Pigeon and lead songwriter of The Aliens) had written. It was just amazing seeing that and being a fan of that band." And the rest is history.

Despite having released material for years, Secret Soundz is the first "proper" album Johnny's released, but he's philosophical about his chances of breaking through into the mainstream. "Maybe people will buy the record and become new fans of Fence or maybe they'll just be sworn off buying anything by anyone Scottish ever again!" chuckles Johnny. "I know people were burnt really badly with Deacon Blue - they ruined it for us!" And although there are three excellent tracks that were recorded with The Earlies - who also played on Kenny's first major label album KC Rules OK - the album is extremely varied, and far removed from any predictable attempt to replicate his pal's winning formula. "I wanted it to be a kind of hodge-podge thing because a lot of the songs have been done at different recording sessions - I mean I respect bands who go and do a ten day stint somewhere and record a thing all at the same time - like Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska - but I wanted things a bit fucked up and a bit weird."

Far from the cabin fevered sparsities of The Boss, Secret Soundz is influenced by bands like Hot Chip - who Johnny admits to being a massive fan of - though he says that by comparison "the equipment I'm using is absolute shit!" There are also similarities to fellow Fence artists Barbarossa and Found, not surprisingly as Johnny, who runs Fence on a daily basis, was the man who signed both acts and still speaks excitedly about the pair.

"The Barbarossa record I got through Adem - we put out an acoustic EP, and then James had also recorded stuff with Simon Lord from [now defunct electro rock band] Simian, which was the sort of music I get really excited about - it's the same thing with Found because they've nailed proper songs with something that's a wee bit experimental but not for its own sake - it's not too arty, it's pop music. Man, you should hear the new Barbarossa stuff, he sounds like Justin Timberlake! He's done a few tracks with Diplo who did the MIA record."

So given his taste for genre-hopping artists, can we expect Secret Soundz Vol. 2 to be Pictish Trail's answer to Beck's infamous Midnite Vultures? "I'm not sure," Johnny ponders. "I might not even call the next record Vol.2. But I do love that album - powerhouse funk is an overlooked genre!"

Published in The Skinny Magazine, September 2008

James Yorkston - Is He Haarving a Laugh?

2008-09-02T16:59:56Z

This month James Yorkston releases 'When The Haar Rolls In', his follow-up to 2006's sublime 'The Year of the Leopard'. Whilst that album was beautifully produced by Rustin Man, this time Yorkston has taken the helm himself and the result is a rich and full sound - tempered, of course, with his usual wry lyricism. His label Domino are also releasing a limited edition box-set which will include loads of extra goodies including an exclusive covers CD - and one lucky punter will find a special 'Golden Ticket' which will entitle them to a James Yorkston track written especially for them - and performed in their own house (geography permitting). As gently spoken and beguiling in person as he is on record, the most famous member of the Fence Collective chatted to me over the phone from his home in Anstruther, Fife, about the ever-present haar, being stalked by nutcases and doing 'a Willy Wonka'.

So is the title of the album an attempt to educate people outside of Scotland about the meaning of the word 'haar'?

"It's funny you say that, because no one seemed to know what it was at all, in fact they still don't! The guy from Domino, when I first told him it was going to be called 'When the Haar rolls in', he thought I said when the hare rolls in, as in the rabbit-like creature, and I thought, well if he was going to let me call it that, then it means that I've pretty much got free reign to call it what I want!"

This time round you produced yourself - did you have a clear idea of what you wanted to do?

"For both Just Beyond the River and 'Leopard' we'd had one problem or another which meant that something hadn't quite gone right, so it was like an unfinished business thing. I'm 36 years old, and if you know what it is you want to do there's no need to have a producer there. And I thought I want to go in there and make it as beautiful as possible, and that's why it's sounding really lush; there's a lot of different instruments there and it's really varied, which is what I like. With the last record I was quite aware I could have gone on to make another dark acoustic record along the lines of Just Beyond the River, but i wanted to do something different because I thought I'd end up painting myself into a corner if I repeated that. so that's why Year of the Leopard's got electronica on it and it's got me singing falsetto and stuff, I was trying to do something a wee bit different. So when I got to this one, I don't really think about whether I should or shouldn't do something anymore."

Would you say Year of the Leopard was something of a breakthrough album for you?

Absolutely - people talk about second album syndrome and I had it for Year of the Leopard, I was really worried about it, but it was a record I just felt that, well I've done this now, and now I can do anything. So it was a breakthrough album, but in a way it was because i realised that whatever I did the oceans were never going to boil, i was just going to release another record. Magazines like Q and Mojo, they must review over 100 albums every month, and they're the lucky ones that get in the magazines and get the publicity. So there must be a thousand albums released a month at least. But 'Leopard' is a great record, I"m really fond of it, and people call out for songs from that the whole time."

On the current album you do a very powerful cover of Lal Waterson's Midnight Feast - and you're joined by Norma and Mike Waterson and others - how did that come about?

Lal Waterson is one of my favourite songwriters, she's up in the top three or something. And I got asked to be one of the musical directors for the BBC concert that we did last year. Lal died ten years ago - so it was me and her son Olly who did it, and we had loads of people such as Kathryn Williams, Eliza Carthy, Norma Waterson and Martin Carthy, so it was a big show. I did two songs, that and 'At First She Starts' and I just thought it sounded amazing - and I thought why don't I chance my arm and ask them to record it and they just said yes straight away."

How did it feel to have all those great artists cover your songs for the bonus covers CD?

It was mad because they all started arriving at much the same time, and I'd just click on my inbox and pretty much everyone was saying "here's the song James, I don't think I've done it very well, and you don't have to use it if you don't want". I listened to them and I just thought they were brilliant, there's some amazing versions on it. There's quite a few them, like Adrian Crowley's and Charlotte Greig's versions which I think are better than the originals. I was also delighted when David Thomas Broughton said yes, he did a few different versions of my songs and some of them were just crazy, but the version of St. Patrick he's done is one of my favourites."

And you are also doing 'a Willy Wonka'?

(Laughs). Yes, that was Domino's idea! They put a lot of money into my albums, they give me money to go to the studio, they pay my musicians to record, etc and they came up with this idea to promote the album and I just thought well it's the least I can do, so long as I'm lucky and it's not a nutcase! Without going into details there have been a few nutcases in the past, and you can print that. In fact, it got to 5 I think, but they were different kinds of nutcases. I was going to say it's flattering, but it's not, it's just annoying!

How important is to you to be part of the Fence Collective?

Very important. Fence has been a real help quite a few times in my musical career, one way or another. When I first started out there would be gigs in St. Andrews and they released my first album and individual tracks of mine on their samplers, and they were just great fun to jam with and to play gigs with. And then, again, after Moving Up Country, I kind of retired back to Fife, because it went down really well and I ended up touring for ages and ages all around the world, and I was exhausted, and when I came home Fence was a lovely thing to come back to musically, because it was all very relaxed. And now, since I've just moved back to Fife, again it's proving to be a great thing, it's really nice to be among people who can understand the kind of irrational but crazy love that we have for music - they don't question, they just do it; they don't say 'shouldn't you just get a job in a bank?'

Finally, are you happy to be back in Fife?

Yes, although Edinburgh's a lovely city and I was extremely happy there, when I moved out it was like a heavy weight had left my shoulders, it's a strange thing to understand, but living back here at the moment feels 100% right. The only thing I miss is that it takes me an extra 2 hours to get down to London, and I have to go reasonably frequently so those extra two hours are a pain in the arse.

You need a private helicopter!

Yes, I need The Skinny to put me on the front, and give it your first ever 6 star review, and get all your punters to go out and buy it and a copy for their mum and dads, then I'll go and buy myself a helicopter!

When the Haar Rolls In is out on 1st September 2008. You can hear songs from it and the ltd edition covers album on this month's I Hear a New World podcast. James Yorkston plays the Fence Club on 17 September at The Caves, Edinburgh.

Regina Spektor

2008-08-18T16:41:14Z

Regina Spektor speaks to Skinnyfest down the phone line from New York, where her family moved from Russia when she was a child due to the oppressive regime of the former Soviet Union. “It was almost government policy anti-Semitism. It’s on your passport that you’re a Jew and you have your opportunities accordingly. Practicing any kind of religion was illegal”.

I ask her if her adoptive home is really the glamorous place I have always imagined it to be. “It’s not at all glamorous when you’re broke and you’re going through the couch cushions to look for change to see if you can even get downtown to play at an open mic, then you wake up to do your day job that you hate. And everyone’s been there - you won’t meet a single musician who’s not had their head smashed by New York City.

But at the same time, it’s a very generous place- you can spend the day walking round the city, which is free, and no matter how broke you are you can see a million movies happening right before your eyes. You have to be really open and let the city take you where it wants you, it’s almost like some sort of a weird pill, you just follow it”.

Her description of New York as an inspirational wonderland makes sense as Spektor’s songs are known for their inventive array of characters and stories such as those on the first collection of her songs officially available in the UK, Mary Ann Meets the Gravediggers. That record was culled from her early self-produced records and 2004’s Soviet Kitsch, recorded with Strokes producer Gordon Raphael. “We made Soviet Kitsch in about 10-14 days, in New York and London. With Gordon it was a very different experience to the new album because I was in a totally different headspace but it was still better than my previous record which was all recorded in one day!”

I suggest that new album Begin to Hope is a more commercial direction for her but she disagrees - “that’s kind of a gross thought! I’d never had any money or time or any of the fun stuff that makes studio recording exciting for musicians so I worked really, really hard for a couple of months. I really had the chance to fulfil my ideas and arrangements- things that I heard in my mind for a long time that I never had the chance to work on before.”

Indeed, once you become accustomed to the higher production values the album reveals itself abundant with classic avant-garde pop songs - but then what else would you expect from a Russian born, Bronx raised classically trained pianist with a Beatles/Billie Holiday/Ella Fitzgerald/Bjork fixation who counts the anti-folk movement as her friends? Those attending Regina’s sold out T on the Fringe gig can expect a stunning, theatrical performance perfectly suited to August’s festivities, when Edinburgh comes closest to the vibrancy of the Big Apple. [Milo McLaughlin]

Published by (Skinny) Fest in August 2006

Interview with Steve Mason aka King Biscuit Time

2008-08-18T16:35:57Z

Note: this was before Mason returned with his Black Affair project.

Steve Mason aka King Biscuit Time has spoken openly of how he struggled with depression during the eight years the Beta Band were together. However, chatting to him prior to the release of his stunning new album Black Gold, it seemed as if his current situation was more conducive to a healthy state of mind; "Every now and then I have a bad week but other than that it's all good. I lived in London for about 10 years and a couple of years ago I moved back to Fife and have been living here ever since in a tiny village.

"Before I suffered from mental illness I used to spend a lot of time on my own so I needed to get away from everything and everybody and learn to deal with my own company again. But the problem with a tiny fishing village is that there's nothing here. You can go for two or three days without seeing anyone at all - there's no cinemas, decent food or women! So I'm going to move to Edinburgh as soon as I can 'cos I'm bored out of my mind."

The proximity of a certain diseased swan aside, it seemed that the Fife air was doing Mason a world of good. The album, on which he played and produced everything himself, is crisply modern but also has an organic, acoustic feel along with the jittering beats, and dubby synths and melodica you would expect from the main songwriter of the Beta Band. Below, he talked the Skinny through some of the key tracks on the album:

C I AM 15
The first single confounded some critics with its combination of Top Cat's overtly political closing rant and Mason's more obtuse lyrics. "I sometimes think my lyrics are a little bit too open to interpretation so with this album I've tried to make things a bit more obvious. But there's quite a childlike mentality with the general public, who are being pampered and treated like morons a lot of the time. Even on something like the 80s quiz show Bullseye, the questions were really fucking challenging compared to what you get now!"

IMPOSSIBLE RIDE
"This is about an eight year relationship I had with a girl that finally ended at almost exactly the same time as the Beta Band ended, around Dec 2004, and I started going out with her just before the band started so those two things were in total parallel the whole time."

KWANG CHO
"I wanted to make the chorus as uplifting as possible. It's about being up here in this tiny village on your own and realising that there's only so long you can sit around the place and feel sad about things, you eventually have to come alive again."

ALL OVER YOU
"This is about a girl I met after the eight year relationship who I had a two or three month relationship with and it was like falling in love again, but at the same time I knew it would be a short term thing so it was like we were packing a whole relationship into a very short time."

WHERE YOU WALK
"An out and out love song to the girl I had the eight year relationship with. It's about waking up and turning round to look at this girl and hoping every day that I'm going to wake up beside her, and when you open your eyes and she's there it's just an overwhelming sense of relief. At that time there was still a lot of darkness in my life and she was the constant light that I'd look for."

PAPERHEAD
The stand out track on the album which cheekily references 80s saxophone anthem Baker Street. "The predominant sound on this was made using an old cruddy keyboard, which I'm not into using for the hilarious lo-fi effect, but because I loved the sound. I can't remember what the setting was, probably vibraphone or something like that."

RISING SON
"There's a part of the film '1984' starring John Hurt where they get out of the city and go to the fields. Rising Son's about that, it's about the state of this country and the situation we're living in. I was imagining, as with '1984', when these things that are happening now reach their logical conclusion and we really do actually live in a police state, running off to the country and finding that little bit of space."

The Skinny also spoke briefly to Mason about the label he has set up with Alan McGee, No Style (of which he said "I haven't got a fucking clue about any of that") and his forthcoming tour which he seemed positive about, mentioning that this time round he would be joined by a live drummer.

However a couple of weeks after speaking to Mason he appears to have had a dramatic change of heart about returning to the music industry, posting the following message on his myspace page; "Peace to you all. I'm out of here. It's been amazing but I've had enough. The mountain beat me. and sadly you too/that don't mean you should give up. It just wasn't me. Over and out. Steve xxxx".

At the time of going to press, even his PR company are non the wiser as to his reasons for quitting, having been unable to contact him. His tour has now been cancelled and will not be rescheduled, although the album will still be released as planned. Perhaps Mason has sunk into depression again or has decided that touring posed too great a risk to his mental health. All we can hope for is that he's safe and well, and that one day we might hear from him again, because he and his sublimely original music will otherwise be sadly missed.

Published in The Skinny, May 2006

Interview with Malcolm Middleton

2008-08-18T16:31:02Z

Malcolm Middleton is infamous for being a bit of a dour bugger. As if it wasn't enough being one half of the now defunct Arab Strap - perennially described by the media as Falkirk miserablists (despite being one of Scotland's most original and important contemporary bands) - his first two solo albums were full of heartbreaking songs of depression and self-loathing. Of course, as with Arab Strap, a dark, elegant humour courses through the veins of these records and the quality of his songwriting is up there with the likes of the similarly misunderstood Leonard Cohen. After the first album steadily built a reputation through word of mouth, the follow up, Into the Woods, was a far greater commercial success, giving a financial boost to Glasgow's Chemikal Underground records.

Now, with Arab Strap's recent farewell gigs behind him, Middleton is about to release his third solo album, A Brighter Beat, this time through Full Time Hobby. As well as a cover photo by his pal David Shrigley - of a balloon face smiling at us from under the bedcovers - it features his most uplifting and well crafted collection of songs yet, with the addition of beautifully arranged strings, horns, and synths to complement his already accomplished guitar and piano based songs. Lyrically too, although the same themes remain, there is a new sense of positivity. In fact, when The Skinny dug deep into our Smash Hits annual to come up with some classic posers for Malcy, he was only too happy to oblige.

Did you enjoy the final Arab Strap gigs?

"Yeah it was good, it was a long tour but it was a bit strange towards the end cos I was a bit unsure how I was going to be feeling when the last chords struck out - but we've done the right thing. With hindsight I would have left a bit more space between that and the new album - it's a bit weird finishing that tour and going straight into doing my own stuff."

Are you pleased with the new album?

"Yes I am. I finished it in October and for the first couple of weeks I couldn't decide if it was better than my last album or not but that was just because I'd spend so much time recording it. But I listened to the album again after Arab Strap finished and now I'm really proud of it. Tony Doogan was amazing, it was the first time I'd worked with a producer and it was good for me, he basically brought a lot to the overall production."

Did you have an aim in mind before you started recording?

"Musically I wanted it to sound bigger and better produced because although Into The Woods was a good, fun record, some of it was recorded in the house on a computer and then just mixed in a proper studio. This time I wanted to start off in a proper studio and song-wise I didn't want to be so miserable. At the same time I'm aware that the only stuff I write about is along those lines - depression, or anxiety about stuff, or just general day-to-day shite. But I wanted to make that a bit more palatable, and I think the record's got a lot more hope than the last album, it's not as self-flagellating."

Is it important for songwriters to acknowledge their darker sides?

"I'm not sure if it's important for a songwriter to acknowledge it, it's just something I seem to be drawn to when I'm writing about stuff. One of the elements of the last song on the album, 'Superhero Songwriters', is the fact that my favourite singers and songwriters go through those feelings and do the work so other people can listen to it and say "that's how I feel too" and be comforted by it."

Which songwriters are you referring to?

"In that song I was talking about Jackson C. Frank - then there's King Creosote, James Yorkston, people like that."

You've got a number of excellent Scottish musicians guesting on the album. Jenny Reeve (Reindeer Section) in particular, sounds fantastic on the song 'Fight Like The Night'.

"I'd worked with Jenny before in Arab Strap and stuff - we're mates - she came in and I hadn't really heard her sing for a couple of years but she's so confident now and her voice is so strong it was amazing to hear."

Where did Mogwai's Barry Burns come in?

"Most of the keyboard stuff is Barry, with the exception of a few bits I did myself, but any stuff that sounds good or complicated is Barry! It's great because I think I've finished a song and I'll get him in, he writes the hook on top of the one that I had, and it blows it away."

Songs like 'Up Late All Night Again' are surprisingly epic.

"That song's weird, it almost didn't make the album cos I thought it was a little too much like Keane. It's quite a soft song, it's quite romantic, and there's not the usual twist in it anywhere, but at the end of the day, the message I wanted to give to a certain person is in that song and so it went on - there's nothing wrong with being nice..."

Don't worry, it doesn't sound anything like Keane! Do you think you'll ever go back to more pared-back stuff like the brilliant 'Cold Winter' from the first album?

"I wouldn't want to go much further in terms of bigger production, with full-scale orchestras and stuff, but having listened to a lot of singer-songwriter stuff like Davy Graham and Jackson C. Frank, I would like at some point to do an album that's just voice and guitar. 'Somebody Loves You' is kind of going in that way but I'd need to write songs that hold up without any other instrumentation."

What are your plans for touring the album?

"I'm doing quite a bit; a couple of acoustic tours supporting a band called Sophia in Europe and Badly Drawn Boy in the UK next month, then in March I'm doing a UK tour with a full band. It's going to be pretty much everyone who was in Arab Strap's last line-up, and Jenny's going to be there as well."

How about the new song, 'Fuck It, I Love You' - were those words really sent on your mobile phone?

"It's something that happened."

Finally Malcolm, is it alright if I ask you some Smash Hits style questions?

"That's fine- I used to buy Smash Hits every week."

Which Pet Shop Boy do you prefer?

"The keyboard guy."

What would you do if you were Prime Minister?

"Get rid of the Government."

Have you ever belonged to a fanclub?

"No, but I almost joined the Frankie Goes to Hollywood one."

If there was a sandwich named after you, what would the filling be?

"I'm going to play you at your own game here; Brighter Beatroot and Cheddar."

Which celebrity/pop star do you fancy?

"Erm.. I don't read the tabloids or anything... I'm gonnae have to go on fucking Google here... no - just put Karen Carpenter."

Published by The Skinny Feb 2007