Gene interview; part 2
Charles: Speaking of live, any embarrassing moments?
Martin: Many. Absolutely hundreds.
Matt: That wasn't a good start. I missed the question actually
Martin: Embarrassing moments live.
Matt: Oh live. I think the worst one, for myself, and the one that I remember was Glastonbury. Sort
of falling over on stage in front of forty thousand people the moment we came on. We were really
going for it and Martin climbed on the monitor as he does every night successfully. He's a really good
monitor climber actually, and he just fell completely on his ass in front of forty thousand people. To be
honest, it just endeared the crowd to us as because he just took it on the chin and bowed. After that
they were really cool with it. I don't think I've had anything else myself. Oh, a monitor fell one me
once when we were in Germany. A huge monitor just fell on me, and I just managed to get out of the
way before it crushed me to death.
Charles: I've done a lot of reading recently on The Beatles, how they came up from basically
nowhere. Do you ever get a sense that without music you wouldn't have all these opportunities to
travel the world?
Martin: Of course. I couldn't imagine anything else that would have done this. I don't think any of
us would have made professional footballers.
Matt: I wanted to be a social worker if not a musician. Music wasn't my number one. If I'd been a
social worker I wouldn't have been able to travel at all. It would have been holiday once a year with
travel to...
Martin: New Yorker
Matt: Well, Prague or something like that. We do feel lucky to do that. Coming back to LA after a
few years is very exciting. I was sitting in a pub with a few friends and they said "where you going
tomorrow", "well I'm going to Los Angeles to do three shows". I still get a little excited about saying
that to people, and that's the way it should be.
Martin: Absolutely. It's great to feel proud, and a little bit cocky. "Yeah, I'm off to play the
Troubadour, isn't that great". And you want people to share that with you. And your friends do, they
get excited on your behalf as well which is very flattering.
Charles: How has success changed your lives as far as family and the friend you grew up with?
Martin: I've deserted most of my friends to be honest. They're frankly not worthy of me.
Matt: Parents are very proud of me. When we played the Royal Albert Hall in London. It was the
biggest we got in England. Just walking out and seeing your mom and dad in a box, peering over
looking. I find that family weddings, people come up to you "My husbands got a music shop outside
of Wolverhampton (sp) and he's in a band called Cry Wolf and they're a bit heavy metal. What do you
like?"
Martin: "Got any advice for them?"
Matt: There's a token pop star in the family, though I don't think we're really pop stars. We're sorta
second division pop stars. It's all that kinda thing.
Waitress (to Matt): Do you want something to drink?
Matt: I'll have a small diet coke please.
Waitress: It comes in one size.
Matt: Hey, one size is cool with me.
Charles: You must be inundated with demos where ever you go.
Martin: We do get quite a few. Which are generally awful. I'm sorry, I'd love to say they're great,
but they're really not. Occasionally you hear something that shows magic that has yet to come. But
than again I listened to some of the demos that I did in bands before this and ...(sign of embarrassment).
Matt: The best demo I've ever gotten was from a band called Muse. Have you heard of them?
They're just starting to break in the UK now and they're fantastic. We were at the time getting local
bands to support us in every town and we did one in Exeter, southwest England, and this band Muse,
they were all about sixteen, seventeen at the time, sent me a demo that was great. From there they just
grew. Two years later they're on the front cover of NME.
Martin: They're a great band actually.
Matt: They're brilliant. I love getting demos, I really do. Most of them are rubbish, but you have to
sift through. There's one in every fifty that's good.
Martin: Where do you think we nick all our songs from?
Matt: Yeah, we gotta get them from somewhere.
Martin: You don't think we actually write them, do you?
Charles: We actually have that on tape, so...
Martin: That's alright, it's the truth.
Charles: What other bands that you've seen develop in the past few years, you really feel in touch
with?
Matt: Well Muse is one of them obviously. I've watched REM's career since day one. I've been a fan
of theirs since Chronic Town sort of time, and I've always.
Martin: They owe us a lot.
Matt: I've always wanted to emulate REM. I never thought we sounded like them but I always
thought they had a degree of integrity and art. Artistic credibility that I wanted to get that big and
retain it, and they were always a band that I wanted to follow in a way. Not musically, but...
Martin: But just the fact that they managed to become the biggest band in the world without having
to compromise too much.
Matt: They did a little.
Martin: Everybody has to a little, that's inevitable. We were talking about this before. There's no
such thing as full control, it just doesn't exist. They did it better than most. I'm not a huge fan. I like
some of it, but you can't deny that they're held on to their dignity.
Matt: I've watched peoples careers all the time. Watching Travis' career at the moment. Watching
Oasis' career and seeing how that's changed around and the nightmares that they're going through.
How it all becomes diluted after a while. Knowing when to stop and when to keep going. I've been a
keen observer to the whole thing.
Martin: I don't understand music so.
Charles: How about some of the newer bands now?
Martin: Matt? I'm completely the wrong person to ask. I'll tag team with Steve here because he
knows more about these things than I do. Steve, tag team.
Matt: There's a band called Coldplay that aren't too bad in the UK. We're talking about up and
coming band that we like. There's a band called Mower that sound like Captain Beefheart to me. I'm
not a huge fan of Beefheart, but I respect for that as young guys trying to do something avant-guard.
Failing sometimes, but occasionally getting it right. Obviously Travis are doing well. I like the fact
that they've got a good ear for melody and simple chord structures with classic chord structures. I can't
think of anyone else I've been into. Oh, Super Furry Animals. Do you know them? They're a brilliant
band. They're great live. And they never used to be good live but they became great live. There are a
lot of bands sticking to their guns and doing the things they want to do.
Steve: Who's this?
Matt: Super Furries
Steve: Oh we like the Super Furries.
Matt: There probably a band that actually has a fan base and they're not really gonna break it huge, I
dont think ever. They might though.
Charles: Have you heard their latest.
Matt: The Welsh language album? Mwng or whatever it is.
Charles: Is that how you pronounce it?
Matt: I don't know, I think it is. I went to see the gig in London and they played the majority of that
album. I think half of it is fantastic and half of it is...Guerrilla, the last album, is brilliant.
Charles: I was curious as I played on the songs last night and had no clue how to pronounce it.
Matt: On the album?
Charles: Yes. I had to just spell it out.
Matt: Yeah, track seven.
Charles: I think most people have no clue that in the UK there are different languages for different
regions.
Matt: Oh very much so. Well, sort of accents. There's only Welsh really? Welsh and English. And
there's Gaelic.
Charles: How do you cross between being a fan of music and actually writing? Does it ever impede
on your ability?
Steve: I think if you're a songwriter you need to listen to as much music as you possibly can. It's like
with any form of artistic expression you have to be aware of what's going around you. Past and
contemporary stuff because everything does influence you. You'll taste dictates what you'll do
anyway, but if you hear something that's brilliant than you must really analyze why it's brilliant and try
to utilize it for your own artistic expression.
Charles: So you never worry about being influenced too heavily.
Steve: That's called plagiarism, so obviously you try to avoid plagiarism as much as possible. I think
John Lennon said the art of great songwriting is disguising other peoples work. I don't know whether
that's true or not, but everyone's influenced. We try to do things that other people haven't done before.
But than again you're in this genre where it's a guitar band and unless you get into the technology and
drafting, aspects that aren't retro, than you are within a genre. Basically we're (good/with?) songwriters
and the power of the song is more important than the style necessarily. A good melody is a good
melody no matter how you present it, and if it is a good melody it will stand up to any presentation.
We present ourselves as a guitar band and that's what we are.
Charles: I guess one of the things I'm thinking of is, if you listen to Travis, as much as I like them,
you can definitely hear a lot of voices in there.
Matt: Travis?
Charles: They toured with Oasis last month here and you can hear some of the melodies as they
opened and hear them played back during Oasis' set.
Matt: I can't really see that.
Charles: A Wonderwall type thing with the acoustic guitar.
Matt: Oh, right. I think Fran Healy is far superior to Noel Gallagher in his sense of melody.
Steve: Presently.
Matt: Noel has penned a couple of good tunes, you have to give him respect for that. I think Fran
will prove to be a better critically acclaimed song writer. I don't think he's stolen from their melodies.
You can hear the Byrds and Teenage Fanclub and bands like that in Travis. That Scottish sort of rock
tradition. I can't hear Oasis though. You can hear Oasis in people like Embrace and bands like that.
Charles: Let me ask you a question since we're talking about songwriting. How do the songs
develop?
Matt: I write everything! No.......
Steve: I do!
Matt: He does as well.
Steve: What normally happens is someone comes in with an idea and the four of us, Martin on piano
on Hammond, Matt on drums maybe on guitar occasionally, Kev on Bass, and I'm on guitar, and we'll
just go through a basic song idea and play it around and around in as many different styles as possible
until we conjure up the best possible presentation for the music and than Martin will go away and
drape his melodies and lyrics over the top. He'll come back here and decide whether the true are
cohesive, and if they're not than we'll bash it around again until it's right. Sometimes it can take
months, other times it can be quite swift.
Ally: Do you ever get really frustrated?
Steve: We get frustrated all the time.
Matt: It is frustrating. We know how many songs we've written, and we know if it's weird. I wish
we could just do it more quickly when you really need to. There are songs in the set, one that we
played last night which I think is fantastic. It's not finished yet. There's another one we're gonna do
tonight that I know is gonna change again. But you gotta do that. We're gonna "yeah, that one's really
good", no it isn't, yes it is". You gotta go back and have another look at it, and that's the process.
Charles: What's song?
Steve: Don't tell him.
Matt: No no...
Steve: It does make a huge difference, the four of you playing in an enclosed space like a studio and
actually presenting it in front of a whole load of people. You get a different sense of objectivity
because you have to gleen from the audience how they're perceiving it. If you've got any slight bells
ringing in your head that this isn's quite right than you'll know for certain when you play it live
because that little chime turns into Big Ben. You know what I mean? You have to be aware of it. A
lot of bands fall in love with their work too quickly.
Matt: That's very very true. I think playing live really helps your songwriting and our first album we
played live before recording it and the second album we didn't do that. Although I think there are some
fantastic songs on the second album, some of them are a little bit self-indulgent, a little bit studio like.
There's nothing wrong with studio albums actually, but live they didn't transfer because they didn't
start off live and hadn't been bashed around live. We're gonna try to do that a bit with this record, and
it will be a lot better for that.
Charles: Do you remember how "You'll Never Walk Again" came about?
Steve: The initial riff was written in Belgium, I think I was just sitting down to nap. And from that
we started jamming.
Matt: You had that sort of thing didn't you? Than the piano thing turned later. Martin write the
piano riff over that, didn't he?
Steve: I had that as well, that whole riff. To be honest we really don't sit down and say well who
came up this bit and who came up with that bit. We're a collective. We're a house of cards. If one
person isn't present than the whole thing topples. I write riffs, and I forget them, and Matt says "you're
playing that wrong", and it happens all the time. Without Matt I must forget half the stuff I write
anyway. We all sort of edit each other and encourage each other and collectively we come up with the
Gene sound man! its true.
Matt: I have a mini disc and I tape loads of stuff. Me and him sort of jamming with guitars and
stuff. And every rehearsal now I tape mini disc stuff. It's great. The last time I was in Japan I got a
mini disc and it's helped us so much. I just tape loads of stuff that we would have forgotten before. It's
a bit of a chore going through it sometime, but it's worth it.
Charles: Does anyone actually write music?
Steve: I think Martin does.
Matt: Martin can read music. He's the most, sort of, classically trained of us. He can write string
lines and score them as well. I think he will do that this time. He wants to score out the string parts
first and do that properly. He's getting better and better. He's become really good on the Hammond,
Martin, as well. He was a very, sort of, piano player really. The Hammond playing is getting brilliant
now, isn't it? Really soulful and stuff.
Charles: How did you two come into your instruments? How you started the drums and guitar?
Steve: My brother was always a bass player and had guitars lying around. I had a guitar lying around
the house for ages and picked it up when I was sixteen. No real calling really, just lying around and I
thought I'd have a bash with it. you had to paint all your nails to follow the guitar chords. My father
thought I was going through some weird phase in my life. Waking up with nail varnish on my hands.
In about six weeks I had all the chords sorted out and I was within a band in about two months and it
just sorta went on from there. I never thought I'd end up doing it as a living, that's obviously how it
panned out.
Charles: I never heard of the nail polish technique.
Steve: It's great, you should try it.
Charles: You could start your own school.
Matt: I watched Steve develop as a guitarist. I was in a band with his older brother.
Charles: Spin, right?
Steve: That's right.
Matt: It's that Steve just worked really hard at it. You gotta do that. And he had a certain amount of
attitude in his playing, always, even when he wasn't as particularly as he is now. There's the certain,
picking up the Hendrix stuff and learning how to play them with soul. That's something not everyone
can do.
Steve: I think studying is a question of enthusiasm. If you're enthusiastic about something you will
succeed. If you lose enthusiasm it doesn't allow you any form of talent to read and get better, and I
found guitar playing solace really. I was crap at sports at school. It was something for me that's mine
and I'm fuckin' good at it. I don't have to compete with anyone on any other level apart from that's
what I do.
Charles: Were there any other guitarists that really influenced you?
Steve: When I started hanging with Kev he brought in a lot of Faces stuff, Ronny Wood? And that's
when for me everything started turning on its head and I started getting into rock blues guitar playing.
Before that I hadn't really listened to Hendrix that much, I was more into the Stones. I think Ronny
Wood, through Kev's influence, really dictated style and where I wanted to go. It was quite revelatory
really, that was a good thing that Kev did.
Matt: That was when the "For The Dead" riff came. A very important moment in Steve's
development, that riff. That is a killer riff. You know you've written something good. When we wrote
that and finished the song we thought "we've actually got something that's soulful and classic
sounding" and also we (?) because of Martin's lyrics. It's very influenced by the Faces sort of track
music, but if you take Martin off it. It's a really interesting marriage and we realized "I've stumbled
on something" and, oh right, now's the time to go for that sort of thing.
Steve: That was kind of the blueprint for a lot of songs that came after that.
Matt: I never get bored of playing For The Dead. Not really, sometimes, we play it not every night,
but most nights because fans demand it and I don't mind. I still play it in sound check. Steve still
strikes up the riff and rather than, I'll play along, again for the five hundredth time now! I never get
pissed off For The Dead and that's the mark of a good song.
Steve: There's a sense of security in that track as well, as we know that's the defining moment when
we were on to something. When you play that you know how it sounds and it's a good yard check for
judging sound checks and how the bands sounding in any room. If you've kinda got that one song
nailed, and it sounds great, than you know that things are gonna be alright.
Matt: If For The Dead doesn't sound great we know were in trouble. Big style. Help!
Charles: What's the song you're most proud of?
Matt: I think my favorite Gene song is Where Are They Now actually. I like so many of them. As
an end on Drawn To The Deep End the fade out of that track at the end is my favorite bit of Gene
music ever. The fade on the last bit of Where Are They Now. I love the song, it's probably my favorite
Gene song, but that bit is my favorite bit of music. There's some wicked new stuff.
Charles: yourself? (to Steve)
Steve: I can't really pinpoint it, as there's so much to the way Martin delivers things. If you've got
stuff like Speak To Me Someone, which I think's fantastic. And you've also got Why Was I Born. I
try not to think about it too much, I just like our songs and that's enough for me.
Matt: I think it's good to be fans of your own music, and it should be like that. Sometimes I forget
that we wrote those (?) and I've become a bit of a Gene fan myself. That's great to be like that. It
makes you take care of them. There's songs that you don't become fans of "they're not up to scratch
and we'll have to do better".
Steve: Lyrically I think This Is Not My Crime is one of the best lyrics that Martin has ever
delivered. I still read those lyrics and think "That's fuckin' brilliant". There's no way I could ever
conjure up that take on that subject so eloquently and you think, hand down, respect. When you've got
that sort of level of respect between the four of you. Kev being a fantastic chord merchant and bass
player, and everyone's got a mutual sense of respect for each other. It just makes everything a lot more
harmonious, so if someone has a problem with something you'll listen and say "this is like this and we
can go through other ideas and try to make it better" and normally we do succeed in doing that. Where
other bands go "no, that's it, this is the way it's done" and you gotta live with it. Fuck that, that's not
right.
Charles: Are there times when you listen to your own music? Put on the cd and listen to it?
Steve: I do occasionally. Not too much. You spend so much time writing the songs and recording
them, and than playing them, going and listening to them again is almost like opening up things that
don't necessarily need to be opened up.
Matt: Yeah, I put Revelations on the other day and actually heard it for a while. Put it on in me car.
I don't think we ever made an album that sounds like a concept album, maybe we should do that
Draw To The Deep End was the nearest to that. All our albums are collections of songs and are quite
eclectic, and successful for that in some respects, But maybe I think we should get some new sounds
as a whole thing. Like a Stone Roses album or a (?) after the Gold Rush or town like album.
We do great collections of songs. That's something we've still gotta crack. You always need
something to work on.
Charles: I do have a listener question for you.
Steve: A listener question?
Charles: I heard that you've taken up boxing recently.
Steve: Yeah.
Charles: They were wondering….Say it was you, Robbie Williams and Liam Gallagher in the ring,
who would come out first?
Steve: Me, cause I'd run away. I don't box of any form of violence. I box basically I wanted to get
fit and I'm fortunate that I've got a place 30 seconds around the corner from me.
Matt: He's sick of being bullied by is all. We're always cracking him around the ears.
Steve: I just did it because I felt like I needed to get fit. I started running as well, it's just boxing. I
don't do to sort of walk into a pub and if anyone looks at me and go, give it the ol' Clint Eastwood
and go "alright, outside" you know. Its just there so I can get fit and have a sense of release really.
Charles: So you guys are working on releasing an album over here. I heard that you'll be releasing
Revelations over here?
Matt: Trying to, yeah. We're going wrestle it back off Polydor first. It isn't easy. It's stupid, she
should agree because if they sell copies they'll make money as well. We can do a deal with them. It's
proving a little tricky. I think we will get there. It's our music and we gotta fight for it. It wasn't really
Polydor America's fault that it didn't come out. It was the whole takeover by Universal. Polydor just
didn't exist any more over here. There's nothing they can do about it really. They're been a little bit
hard with us about letting us go our way. I don't think the Universal bosses want us to have success
because it makes them look stupid. They got rid of us. They can't really stop us because there are so
many fans, and we can just survive. That's a great thing.
Charles: Are there any more plans to release another b-sides record?
Matt: There were a few that didn't make it. There are a few songs, Touched By The Hands Of
Havoc, isn't there.
Steve: I Need You.
Matt: Yeah, I Need You hasn't been heard. There's a few that we're gonna be b-sides to single three
and four from Revelations that have not come out. There's Little Diamond that's and instrumental that
a souly thing.
Charles: Actually Touched By The Hand Of Havoc was on a past single.
Matt: Has that one been out?
Charles: I believe it was Fill Her Up.
Matt: Oh god, so it's not that one than. Which one is it?
Steve: I've no idea. It's weird, a lot of bands have loads of stuff unreleased and we've only got three
or four songs unreleased.
Charles: I've read that you did about twenty five tracks for the Olympian sessions.
Matt: I don't know if we did that many.
Steve: I don't know if we did that many, I don't know.
Matt: There's only Dear Restrauntier (sp?) from that time.
Steve: We have a few things. There's probably a few more. There's Supermarket Bomb Scare, has
that come out?
Matt: I don't know. I can't remember. I've no idea.
Charles: Is there chance of releasing these sometime?
Steve: The thing is if we wanted these songs to be released than we would have released them.
Steve: Hi Chris.
Matt: Hi Chris.
