18 WHEELER
a tribute creation records' power pop obscurities, 18 Wheeler

The great thing about Creation Records was it allowed young bands to spread their wings and fly. Even at the expense of global domination, musically ambitious bands were allowed to reach for the stars and create little under appreciated masterpieces.

18 Wheeler released three great albums for Creation and loads of great bubblegum/punk/pop inspired singles. They never made it massive and have since drifted into obscurity but their albums, particularly the stunning debut, Twin Action, will remain treasured around these parts forever. Here are some snippets from three interviews I did with the band during their brief but brilliant spell at Creation Records. For further reading on 18 Wheeler check out the Creaion biographies and websites.

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I first met the band on their debut tour when they supported the BMX Bandits in the early nineties at Bradford, Queens Hall. The original line-up of David Keenan, Neil Halliday, Sean Jackson and Alan Hake lasted only a couple of singles before David Keenan jumped ship and start afresh with the Telstar Ponies.

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18 WHEELER ON THEIR MUSIC

"We wanna do a real studio album and get back to the things they did in the sixties, like with 'Pet Sounds'" says David. They certainly gave it a real good go. The up beat surf pop and melanchonic psychedelia of 18 Wheeler's remarkable debut album, 'Twin Action' recalls a long forgotten era when records were recorded with equal amounts of style, ambition and no shortage of love.

There was something about 18 Wheeler that could make your heart sink. They were the original, little lost band. Totally out of synch with what was going on around then at the time. They were vastly under-rated and largely over looked, seemingly destined for obscurity from the word go. Even the backing of Creation Records couldn't propel 18 Wheeler to greater success.

How does bland shit sell millions and bands like 18 Wheeler remain in relative obscurity? I'll never know. Cute, love torn lyrics, mischievous fuzzy guitars, Beach boys harmonies, cute bubblegum melodies and the odd out and out Mary Chain/Zeppelin inspired fuzzed up rocker - all this mad up the perfect pop wrapper. Nothing less than a starry-eyed vision of pop music that was brimming with lost innocence and charm.

'Twin Action' was a colourful, engrossing and affectionate box of delights. Most bands would take ten years to accomplish the many styles, influences and sounds 18 Wheeler showcased in their formative years. All of it done in a cheeky yet modest lo-fi kinda way.

They don't come as romantically cool as the effervescent 'Alness Gurls' (note the cool spelling, as in 'September Gurls'), the country pop, sunshine like brilliance of 'Yer Eyes' or the out of our heads, Beach Boys experimentation gone mad, 'Pots of Tea'. All top notch, lo-fi b-sides oozing in charrn. Their first stab at drop down dead melancholy appeared on the b-side to their first single with 'Some Things Last A Long Time' and their respect for country shines on the 'Different Drum' inspired, 'I Won't Let You Down'.

'Twin Action' saw 18 Wheeler realise their ambitions to record an album that manages to capture the future whilst grasping devotedly onto the past. All this achieved even though founder member David Keenan quit the band to leave the band to further explore their unique brand of Beach Boys inspired bubblegum pop.

The majority of the writing is down to the talented Sean Jackson. The shy retiring singer proves his enormous potential as a songwriter in the truest sense showing the unique vision of Brian Wilson at his most ambitious on the sweet toothed, quasi-psych adventures of 'Twin Action'. The lets get plastered, out of our heads, melanchonic vibe swims around the many thrills'n'spills of the upper songs, providing a fabulous cocktail of ace pop tunes.

The Beach Boys are the most obvious reference whilst songs as solid and uplifting as 'Honey Mink' wouldn't sound out of place on the 'Bandwagonesque' by Teenage Fanclub. 'Life is Strange' is pure country tinged innocence and the harmonies on the bubbly 'Prock Shake' are simply ace. Those familiar Beach Boys like wall of sound/medley formations are best appreciated with work like 'Golden Candles' (up there with the High Llamas for perfect modern examples of Wilsonesque pioneering). 'Golden Candles' is basically three different songs linked together with the sounds of plodding keys and drugged up ghostly murmurs. Both spooky and cool. With a keen eye for a classic pop song with hooks aplenty, there is a good mix of styles to suit all. 'Twin Action' for me remains to this day the perfect debut album - full of the exuberance of youth and a glorious celebration of pop.

RECORDING THE FIRST ALBUM, TWIN ACTION

"The thing about the recording was, first of all we were given a very small amount of money and they (Creation) didn't even realise we'd started recording the album. We disappeared and went up to our friends' studio in Aberdeen. He's got a studio attached to the side of his house and we lived up there for three weeks and recorded what we thought was going to be our album. Then we phoned them (Creation) up about a month later and we hadn't had any contact with them and they were like, 'Where the hell have you been? We've been trying to get in touch with you but no one knows where you are' and we were like, 'Oh, we've finished our album and they were like, 'What!?"

"Because we'd done it ourselves we thought it was a bit amateurish so we re-recorded some stuff down in London and it took forever to record and eventually it got pieced together from about three or four different recordings. So in that sense it wasn't really like a proper album, there was no start and finish. We were a bit frustrated by that but I think some of the music on there is good. I haven't really listened to it since we recorded it but it does have its moments. Things like 'Gram' and 'Golden Candles', I quite like those two".

"But with this album (Formanka) it was exactly the opposite. We decided to go in and do it really quickly. We'd try to record it live. It was hassle free basically and we recorded it in two weeks and mixed it in a week".

Twin Action features a dazzling array of styles from Pop to Country to Dub to Rock. All of which blend together well, making nothing but perfect sense in a 'how did they do that?' kinda way .

"That was a conscious thing. We were trying to make a studio album. It wasn't meant to be like a band playing in the studio, it was definitely meant to be pieced together. It was meant to be like one of those Beatles albums in the mid-sixties like the 'White Album'. It's got lots of different things on it. That was the sort of idea".

18 WHEELER ON SONGWRITING

"When you write a song you tend to be thinking about how it's going to sound anyway. You just have ideas about what would be a good thing to try with it. If you've got a song and you're happy with it, it's all more or less there. It's just a question of finding the right way to record it. 'Twin Action's' got some really good pop songs on it and I think it's an interesting album because it's almost like we didn't really know what we were doing, we were just sort of let loose and there was some interesting things on it because of that. But, I think if we had to make that record now again, it would sound better. Because we've got a much clearer idea of what we wanted to do. I think our next album is probably gonna be more along these lines again now we've done the live studio thing. Next time we're gonna piece it together again, I think it will be more successful because we've got a better idea of how to go about a studio now. Then we were just pissing about basically".

"Quite often it's a surprise basically. Occasionally you do have a unified thing in your head that it should sound like this but, equally as well, when your trying to get towards that you stumble across something else, so it sort of changes as you're doing it. You never have a fixed blueprint that must be adhered to. It tends to change all the time until it's finished'.

18 Wheeler always seemed to pack a bunch of humour into their songs, you got the impression they didn't take themselves too seriously.

'It's funny you should say that. We do have a sense of humour definitely but we do want to be taken seriously. It's hard to talk about these things because all of a sudden it sounds as if you're not taking it really seriously. With this record we're all quite happy with it, we like it, we think it's a good record. We could stand it up against anything and say we're quite proud of this record. But at the same time there is an element of humour to it. There are some situations you get into. They're so many farcical things that happen to you, you do develop a sense of humour about it. There are certain tongue in cheek things going on in the music and lyrically but we're not a comedy band We're not incredibly po-faced about it but it's meant to move people on some level".

18 WHEELER ON THE SECOND ALBUM, FORMANKA

Sean says the heavier parts on 'Twin Action' should have turned out harder in a early Dinosaur Jnr style but ended up sounding more poppy. Yet, they still managed to capture a charm that recalls the best of fizzy bubblegum pop music.

"We've all travelled around Europe a lot and the title 'Formanka' comes from a bar in Prague. It's one of our favourite cities, we've been there quite a lot. It's just a beautiful place, it's like a perfectly preserved medieval city. The architecture is like nothing you'll ever see this side of the iron curtain, there's really an atmosphere to it as well. Beer costs about 50p a pint. Well that's one of the many attractions!"

"The first one was mainly about failed relationships with girls basically. With this one it's probably got less songs about that because all of us have been such dismal failures at meeting girls of late so you have to write about other things. So I guess most of them are about feeling pissed off in your early twenties. There's a couple with specific ideas in mind like 'John the Revelator'. I wrote that because there's an old blues song called 'John the Revelator' and it just struck me that guy that wrote the book of revelations about the end of the world and stuff, this guys obviously a complete mystic and as spiritual a person you could imagine. What would he be like if he was completely heartbroken over some girl. Something that was completely nothing to do with religion, something to do with real life. I just thought that was an interesting idea for a song. But of course I only managed to write one verse of it, 'cos I'm a lazy sod, so it probably would have been an interesting idea for someone else to do!"

18 WHEELER MUSICAL ROOTS & INFLUENCES

18 Wheeler made music for music fans written by music fans. Raiding their ever expanding record collections and picking out the best bits. The way they enthuse over the likes of Alex Chilton proves how much influence Big Star have had on such young shoulders. They enthusiastically recommend the Flying Burrito Brothers 'Gilded Palace of Sin' as the best starter for the curious fan.

"Country and stuff is Gram Parsons. I think that's fairly obvious. None of us had really considered getting into country before we'd heard Gram Parsons. Once you get into him you start to get into people that influenced him. All of a sudden you start getting into, country music and it's quite disturbing but I still don't like 95% of it. Garth Brooks is shite you know? Crap melodies but some of those old records are sound. Rock, we like cheesy 70's metal like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Pop music, we like anything that's classic pop. Some people are almost revolted by the idea of pure pop music but I think we're all fans of it. I do listen to a fair bit of classical music too. We also like things like Dub reggae, that 'Blood & Fire' label is releasing amazing dub albums from the 70's. Stuff like King Tubby, it's like all these mad effects which King Tubby built in the studio. He'd just take these records and just completely rips them apart. A lot of that stuff is obviously so influential in techno music".

FOUR RECORDS SEAN JACKSON COULDN'T LIVE WITHOUT...

'Wild Horses' by the Flying Burrito Brothers

"Absolutely amazing, it totally pisses on the Roiling Stones version" says Sean.

'Amazing Grace' by Aretha Franklin

"Totally astounding" says Sean.

'Pet Sounds' by the Beach Boys

"It's one of those records that every time you listen to it you hear something new. It's one of those records you tend to really concentrate on when it's on" says Sean.

Exile on main street by Rolling Stones

"The first time you listen to it, it's a bit like a non-descript blues jam but the more you get into it, it takes off and you hear so much stuff out of it" says Sean.

SEAN JACKSON ON HIS LOVE OF THE BEATLES...

"Well I like 'em all. I like everything they did even the shite that Ringo did! 'Please, Please Me' is a brilliant album. Bits of 'Help' are a bit ropy but I still like them. They were the first band that got me really interested in music. I was a total Beatles maniac all my teenage years. I didn't realise there were other bands. Because of where I came from, it was so cut off. I was aware of a music scene but in the mid eighties it was all pretty grim but there were some bands, like The Smiths. They were the first band I ever saw and they totally blew me away. Not many bands managed to penetrate that far up North. Basically I thought music had stopped around 1972!"

18 Wheeler
Creation Records
Discography

Albums
Twin Action 1994
Formanka 1995
Year Zero 1997


Singles
Nature Girl
Suncrush
Kum Back
The Revealer
Boddha
Steel Guitars
The Hours and the Times
Grease
Crabs
Stay

Check out Sean Jackson's latest musical project SLOTS at myspace.

www.myspace.com/nseanjackson