Author: sayitwithgarageflowers

‘Britpop’s dead – it’s a rotten corpse lying on the floor’ [Sleeper: Feb ’98]

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Back in February 1998, it looked like it could all be over for Britpop band Sleeper. Their last few singles had hardly set the world on fire and some of their gigs had been cancelled, due to a lack of interest. But despite all this, when I spoke to frontwoman Louise Wener, she was adamant they weren’t splitting up… In fact, they called it a day a month after this interview…

Are Sleeper well and truly down the dumper?

Last month, rumours about the band’s demise appeared on the internet, and in the NME, a representative from their US record label hinted that there was tension between frontwoman Louise Wener and drummer Andy MacLure, who is also Louise’s boyfriend.

The rumours come as no surprise, though – Sleeper’s last two singles, She’s A Good Girl and Romeo Me, barely dented the Top 40 and two of the dates on their current tour were cancelled due to poor ticket sales.

Despite this, Louise is adamant that Sleeper aren’t about to disintegrate…

“We haven’t got any plans to split up. The press are evil little shits – that’s my response to the rumours,” she says, talking to me on the phone from London.

“We’ve got various problems with our American record company, but it’s not as bad as some people would have you believe.

“Things appear on the internet all the time. The thing about me and Andy splitting up was utterly made up by the NME. I was angry about it for half an hour, but I’ve got used to things like that.”

‘We haven’t got any plans to split up. The press are evil little shits – that’s my response to the rumours’

So, there are no plans for a Louise Wener solo album, then?

“I’ve done 10 solo albums already,” she jokes. “No. I’d have to fight it out with the other pop star called Louise. I wouldn’t know what to call myself. Send your answers on a postcard…”

So is the current mood in Sleeper a healthy one, then?

“Yeah – it is. We’re making plans for the next thing we do, which will probably be quite radically different. We’re pretty up about it – we’re still relevant.”

I ask her if she’s disappointed by the poor performances of the band’s recent singles and the lack of interest in their gigs.

“It was kind of our turn,” she says. “Every band goes through up and down phases. It’s just life and you have to get on with it. We think that we made a really great album [Pleased To Meet You]. You have to go forward with your own belief in what you do. Things just go up and down – that’s the nature of most bands’ careers.”

Ironically, Sleeper’s latest album, Pleased To Meet You,  is their best yet. Although by no means a classic – and it could hardly be described as a massive departure for the band – it’s more eclectic than their past offerings.

She’s A Good Girl touches on soul, Romeo Me is all-out, Pretenders-style guitar pop, Firecracker is Alvin Stardust-esque glam, and Breathe and Because of You are haunted by the ghost of trip-hop.

Does Louise think that Sleeper should’ve overhauled their sound more dramatically to fit into the current post-Britpop climate?

“Britpop’s dead – it’s a rotten corpse lying on the floor,” she says. “I think it’s good that it has gone and that everything’s changing. It’s really interesting to see what’s going to happen next. That’s why music’s exciting.

“Maybe we didn’t change enough to go with it. We kind of thought we’d come back and everything would be exactly the same. Maybe we lacked some foresight.”

Pleased To Meet You did see a big shift in Louise’s lyric writing. No longer was she penning observational songs about commuters and office workers – instead she addressed more personal issues.

“I couldn’t keep writing about other people, ” she says. “It [observational songwriting] was the essence of what Britpop was about, but that kind of life is alien to me now. It’s not something that belongs to me anymore.”

‘We might just get an Uzi and kill a few people’

This month, Sleeper are heading out on a national tour and, after that, there’s going to be some serious rethinking on the musical front.

“Me and Andy are planning to go and live in America for six months to write and do some other stuff,” says Louise.

“Whatever happens next, it will be quite different. It will be a good thing. We’ll be shaking ourselves up a bit.”

So what can we expect?

“We might just get an Uzi and kill a few people.”

 

The original version of this article first appeared in Splash! magazine in February 1998.

Out of Order [Monaco: June ’97]

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I revisit a 1997 encounter with pop duo Monaco, during which I upset Peter Hook by asking him if their debut long-player, Music For Pleasure, was simply the album New Order never got round to making…

There is dissension in Monaco.

The duo, who are Peter ‘Hooky’ Hook – the bassist from New Order – and guitarist David ‘Pottsy’ Potts, are in dispute over their debut album, the sublime, all-out pop record Music For Pleasure.

I am backstage with them at Portsmouth Guildhall, shortly before they are due on stage to support The Charlatans.

“I don’t think it is pop,” says Hooky. “I think to call it ‘pop’ demeans it.”

But Pottsy doesn’t agree: “I don’t think it does.”

Hooky replies: “I think of it more as AOR.”

“Is that Any Old Rubbish?” quips Pottsy.

“Any Old Iron,” says Hooky.

 

To my ears, Music For Pleasure is undoubtedly a great pop album. It veers from chart-bothering romps like the hugely infectious What Do You What From Me? and the E’d up, hands-in-the-air, cheesy, hedonistic house of Sweet Lips, to classy, heart-melting ballads like Blue and Tender, and even finds time to stop off at a rave (Junk) and take its place on a football terrace for the big Beatles/Oasis-style sing-along that is Buzz Gum.

But, despite the fact that I love the album dearly, at the back of mind there’s something that’s nagging me every time I listen to it…. Isn’t it simply the album that New Order never got round to making?

Let’s face it – sizeable chunks of Music For Pleasure do hark back to the glory days of the Manchester band. Hooky’s trademark bass sound is all over the new record and Pottsy’s vocals even recall those of New Order frontman Bernard Sumner…

“This is definitely the album that New Order never made ‘cos they weren’t fucking round when I was doing it – the lazy bastards!” booms Hooky.

He adds: “No – I think you might be looking for something a little too much. People might say that the music’s as good as New Order – and it does have slight leanings towards it – but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s New Order again.

“A lot of the songs are nothing like bleedin’ New Order,” he says, grumpily.

“They’re good, but the only thing that makes them sound like New Order is the bass, really.”

I’m sorry I asked…

‘This is definitely the album that New Order never made ‘cos they weren’t fucking round when I was doing it – the lazy bastards!’

Monaco were formed from the ashes of Revenge – the band that Hooky started as a New Order side project. Pottsy joined Revenge to augment their live shows, but the group soon fell apart and him and Hooky were left on their own.

Says Hooky: “The two guys I was working with dropped off. Pottsy was the only one that showed any interest. We started writing together – it was quite easy for the two of us to do it.”

So, Monaco were born.

Pottsy explains: “I wasn’t playing my songs in Revenge, so I couldn’t put my heart and soul into something that wasn’t mine.”

Hooky says that with Revenge, he deliberately tried to shy away from the New Order sound and do something different.

“I made a conscious decision that I didn’t want it to sound like New Order.”

He adds that he left behind the thing he was good at in order to learn something new.

Revenge didn’t work out, though, so is that why, with Monaco, he decided to return to the thing that he does best?

“Well – yeah, with a lot of coaching from Pottsy,” he says. “He was more into it than I was. There’s always that bit of a paranoid thing that I get whenever anyone says to me, ‘as soon as you start playing, we always hear New Order’.

“Sometimes I just think ‘cheers’,” he adds, sarcastically.

‘Everybody says that Electronic sounds like New Order without the bass. I bet Bernard fucking hates that, ‘cos he hated the fucking bass playing towards the end of New Order. He was sick of me!’

But returning to what he does best has certainly been a good move for Hooky. Monaco’s debut album is a triumph and it’s a stronger record than Raise The Pressure – the difficult second album by Electronic, the duo his New Order bandmate, Bernard Sumner, formed with former Smiths guitarist, Johnny Marr.

“Bernard’s always got a little problem,” says Hooky. “Everybody says that Electronic sounds like New Order without the bass. I bet he fucking hates that, ‘cos he hated the fucking bass playing towards the end of New Order. He was just sick of me!”

Both members of Monaco seem thoroughly content at the moment and the band looks like being a long-term project.

“At the moment, it feels very natural,” says Hooky. “I’m quite happy to go out there and watch the kids have a good time. I’m just doing it for the kids, but I’m actually enjoying it myself.”

He adds: “The album simply is ‘music for pleasure’ and even though some people say it’s quite melancholic, I always find there’s a certain pleasure in being melancholy – especially as you get older.”

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The original version of this interview first appeared in Splash! magazine in June 1997.