by Johnny Davis, The Face
vol. 3 no. 13, Febuary 1998
... and I saw the light. Brett Anderson called him "a singer who can't sing", David McAlmont called him a racist, while everyone else called him the best musician in Britain. He couldn't care less. After ten hits, two bands and one week in The Verve, Bernard Butler has done what he always said he wanted to do. He's made a record. And it's brilliant.
So Bernard, it's all change for you. A new single, a new album; you're doing all the playing, the singing, and, perhaps most amazing of all, you're granting interviews now as well. I didn't want to do interviews before because whenever I read anything about myself I hate myself. Secondly, I just cringed because of the people I was with. It was just embarassing. I didn't believe in the outlook and attitude of Suede. McAlmont was the same. He'd want to talk about his hair and stuff.
When you signed to Creation, Alan McGee said: "After Neil Young left Buffalo Springfield everyone said he'd never make it. We see Bernard as our Neil Young".(looks appalled) I'm not "going to be Neil Young" because Neil Young is still alive. I'm not "going to be Mick Jagger" because he's still alive. This whole thing came about with Oasis being "the new Beatles". Oasis don't sound anything like The Beatles. Suede didn't sound like David Bowie.
He was probably trying to say he saw you as a prolific singer-songwriter with a great career in front of you. No. I'm not a singer-songwriter. Or a guitar singer. Or a guitar songwriter. I'm a songwriter. It wasn't like I thought (bellows) "Now I can be a singer" like Freddie Mercury or someone. I let it happen and I started to feel I had a purpose instead of writing loads of musical symphonies and looking over my shoulder waiting for someone to come and sing. (tetchily) There's much better questions to ask than to go on about "being this" or "being that".
Right. What do you think your friends will say about you? Wanker. Pretentious tosser. Lanky streak of piss. Drip. Unreliable. Never knows what's going on. Stubborn moody bastard.
Phew. With your first single with McAlmont, 'Yes', your music leapt from its indie shackles and crossed over to Housewife-And-Cabbie Choice FM. The songs on your album, particularly the Motown-ish 'Not Alone' and 'Change Of Heart', have a similar appeal... I hope so. I don't want to be tied down to the sort of people who read this magazine or watch this television programme. Britpop was a communal park bench in Camden. It's not about Camden Town any more. It's about the world.
You were quite annoyed with all that Britpop business, weren't you? The whole thing was that anybody could pick up a guitar and have a top ten hit. It was just bollocks. Some of the terrible bands that took part of the Suede blue-print, particularly the guitar sound, and it just made me think, "Oh my God. Is that all I've done?" Then people started waking up.
There did seem to be a new mood emerging through some of the albums released in 1997: Radiohead, Spiritualised...(immediately) Spiritualised is the best record of the decade without a doubt. That record makes me very close to tears every time I listen to it, and I listen to it constantly. It's really beautiful, it's totally modern, it's totally heartfelt and it's totally commercial suicide. The David Holmes album I love, Radiohead are brilliant, The Verve are unique. People have taken risks, used their imaginations again. All [these people] care about is expressing themselves.
You joined The Verve for a week, didn't you? Yeah. Richard came round and sat on my sofa and played me 'The Drugs Don't Work' and I'll never forget it. It went to number one a year later and the rest of the year, before it came out, I could still remember it in my head. We hung out for about a week and a half. Richard just decided at the end of the day "This is great", but it's not what he wanted. I think what he wanted all along was Nick McCabe back in the band. And the sound of The Verve is Nick.
"McAlmont called me a racist. How can I be? He was singing on my record for God's sake! He slagged me off to save his own arse, like Brett Anderson. He knew I wouldn't answer back, wouldn't get in the playground with the bullies."
Were you amazed that Suede made such a full and healthy recovery after you left? Oh God (looks disgusted, stares at floor). What do you want me to say? (sighs laboriously) I'm not going to say "Na-na-na-na-na. They're rubbish without me."
Alright then: have they heard your record? I'm sure he [Brett] will and I'm sure he'll go "It's alright", or, actually (crosses leg, adopts cockney accent, camply bats imaginary flick of hair from one eye) "It's alright". I don't mind if he likes it or not. (laughs) I just hope they all leave me alone.
What do you mean by that? At one stage I was at a pretty low ebb. I didn't really feel very secure about the people who were around me and the people I'd been involved with. I wasn't feeling very special about myself and I think that's a bad thing for anybody. Everyone needs to feel special about themselves, or have someone to make them feel special at some point in their lives. I feel I've proved myself. Not proved that I'm better than anybody else. I've proved that it's OK to be me. And Brett Anderson, and people like that, don't try and take that away from me. Please. (to tape recorder) PLEASE BRETT, LEAVE ME ALONE. Because I don't think I deserve it.
What does he do? Plague you with prank calls? Well, I had an unfortunate incident with Simon [Gilbert, Suede's drummer] at the Radiohead gig in Brixton where he followed me out and said something really nasty to me in the street, without realising that the reason I'd left the show early was because my pregnant wife was about to faint and I was helping her to the car. The last thing you need is him running across
the road with two henchmen. Sorry, but if you do that to somebody you go home feeling shit. And if I know Simon he went home and cried that night.
Let's play a game. I'll read you some quotes, and you tell me about them. One: Asked "What makes you angry?" you once said "Most journalists. Lazy people. Untidy people. Rude people. Most musicians. Conceited, tortured artists. Impatient people. Clever people. People who moan in queues. Opportunist former associates. Yes, most people."(laughs) Pretty intolerant, aren't I? I've mellowed out a bit. I still moan about people in queues. Why? Because I am an old woman.
Two: "All pop stars are motivated by their own vanity but Bernard's in denial about that, denying his own behaviour. It's dishonest." Ohhhhh. McAlmont. (sarcastically) Crazy days. He talked a load of bollocks. One minute he was a star, then he got pissed off with me and called me a homophobe. He called me a racist. He was singing on my record for God's sake! How can I be racist? He was going to be the star on his own, he didn't want to do the album, and as soon as 'Yes' was a hit he said, "Do you remember that album?" I was like: "Fuck you." He was finished. His album had flopped. If 'Yes' hadn't happened to him... still, STILL... he's spent two years and a fortune making this David Arnold thing [somewhat superfluous re-recording of
'Diamonds Are Forever']. Number 39. He slagged me off to save his own arse, like Brett Anderson, because he knew I wouldn't answer back, I wouldn't get in the playground with the bullies, and I think that's cowardly.
Three: Brett, well known for underlining his own down-at-heel origins, once said that when he was growing up, a raw onion was "a luxury".(splutters) It's rubbish, but at the time people were asking him a lot of rubbish and he was giving a lot of rubbish back. It's exaggeration. The London romanticism. I'm the only one [out of Suede] who was brought up in London. I think if you're brought up in London you want to go somewhere else. But if you live in Sussex or somewhere like that you tend to go (in comedy plummy accent), "Oh, let's go to London and get on a red bus, man. And let's go to Soho and Notting Hill and go to the
pictures." I've lived in London all my life and I'd never been to Notting Hill before I met Suede! When I met them they lived in Kensington. Brett has never lived in a high-rise all his life. It's only imagery. And it's a good image.
What's the worst thing anyone's ever said about you? Hang on, I've got the list here. (thinks) One thing that was written by someone was that I needed psychiatric help, that I was mentally ill. That really hurt me. Someone where my wife was working had the magazine and they asked her straight out, "Is this your husband?" And she cried. And for a couple of days I thought, "Hang on. Maybe this person's right." You start believing it. You start feeling very neuro... paranoid. That person kicked me when I was low and now I just think, "You can't touch me." Not in a million years. Even if my record bombs
at number 1029 I'm happy expressing who I am, not who someone thinks I should be. I'm happy to feel a life of warmth and happiness around myself. I'm going to be a dad next year. And that's the greatest feeling in the world.
You'd better tell us your New Year's resolution, then. I want to start another record. I've finished seven songs for the next album, and I've got 15 others that I'm thinking about at the moment. I want to enjoy it, because the first time round I didn't. Hopefully now I can.