TEENAGE FANCLUB

This interview was conducted on the 'Grand Prix' tour at the Irish Centre, Leeds. The photos are from an instore appearance at HMV in Leeds prior to the release of 'Songs From Northern Britan'.

Sitting backstage at the Irish Centre in Leeds, on the eve of the Grand Prix release in the affable company of the three principal songwriters from Teenage Fanclub, Norman Blake, Raymond McGinley and Gerry Love. Your slightly nervous and awestruck scribe tries desperately to hide the butterflies and cram in a many questions as possible to the most talented guitar based pop bands of our time (whatever the weather).

Teenage Fanclub immediately put you at ease. The friendliest men in popä are as friendly and warm as their records suggest they would be. Norman sits crouched down and attentive. Flicking through my fanzine (he likes it!) he um’s and ah’s and candidly stammers over every question. Gerry Love stretches out on the sofa. Like the songs he writes, he is laid-back, detached and achingley cool. Raymond, the more nervy and uptight member looks pensive and alert.

If push comes to shove, Teenage Fanclub are my all time favourite band. I mean, I like a lot of music and my favourite bands change with the weather but they are one of the few bands I can safely say have never released a bad record. Even their b-sides are first class. They also have a natural, earthy emotional pull on you. Once bitten by the love bug and your hooked baby. Nobody really puts them on a pedestal and they may never ever top the charts but Teenage Fanclub are highly respected amongst many musicians all over the world. If you understood, you would know that what Teenage Fanclub have got, what many others would kill for, is soul.

Let us begin...

The music press over the years has had it in for Teenage Fanclub. The fact that a band wants to be taken for the songs they play alone, is not good enough for some scribes. Some times their hatred goes to ridiculous extremes. Maybe it’s because they're Scottish and don’t live in London. When a band like TFC can be slated as retro rockers and then at the sane time a band such as Elastica appear from London, totally rip off the Stranglers and receive plaudits galore. Let’s face it, at the end of day both bands are interpreting their influences and on the whole, The Stranglers were pretty shite compared to the superior tastes of Teenage Fanclub.

These jibes continue to annoy the Fanclub as Raymond quite rightly moans, "It’s a fucking disgrace. You can’t really blame them, they’ve wanted a London scene for years and they’ve sort of got one now. They’ve not had one for years and years now, so they're not going to let it go now".

"Blur don’t even come from London anyway" deadpans Norman, "Where do Blur come from? Home counties or somewhere".

It shouldn’t really matter of course. But you know it does. It’s like the football team you support. Pop music is all about those kind of things. Little boys never grow up in the pop world. You and me. Them and us. Me against them. Beatles or the Stones. But the Stranglers versus Big Star? Surely no competition?

"If we were more like the Stranglers, we’d get panned for it!" claims Raymond.

"You’re good today, Raymond!" shouts Norman as he pal reaches boiling point on the subject.

At the time Teenage Fanclub were totally out of fashion. Britpop was at its peak and the band had yet to release the career resurrecting albums Grand Prix and Songs from Northern Britain. Those albums and all of Teenage Fanclubs best efforts would go to prove, whatever the fashion, their music has a distinct timeless element to it. So they needn’t have worried. Whatever happened to Elastica? Well they maybe struggling to follow up their debut album but ironically Donna from Elastica have teamed up with Teenage Fanclub to record a cover of the New York Dolls’ ‘Personality Crisis’!

If I have one criticism of the Fannies (and it’s a selfish one at that) it is the sense of effortlessness they portray by spending lengthy periods out of the limelight. There have been considerable gaps between each long player but still, when the songs do arrive, nobody manages to transcend this hazy mood better onto record than the Fanclub. So how do they plead to the charge of lazy slackers!?

"A guy who does a soundcheck with his slippers on, what do you think!? jokes Norman pointing to his brown suede, oh so comfortable looking moccasins!

"We’re not lazy. If we were lazy we wouldn’t bother doing gigs. When you’re lazy you just stay at home" says Norman on the defensive, "and know a lot about television. But I do like that soap opera, the one that’s set in the market in London?"

"Eastenders?" asks Raymond.

Albion Market, I suggest?

"Yeah! that one I like that!"

I didn’t know it was still on?

"No, it was scrapped about ten years ago!" says Norman probably making some cryptic point!

"We just do our thing. Make records, write songs. It’s as simple as that" says Norman.

The song ‘Neil Jung’ from Grand Prix album is packed with soaring guitar solos that never turn wanky. It’s the perfect tribute to Neil Young. It’s as obvious as the summer sun that the Fanclub are big Young fans. I ask Norman to tell us how he discovered the great man’s work.

"The first time I got into Neil Young was, I saw a film called ‘Out of the Blue’ starring Dennis Hopper. ‘My My Hey Hey’ is in that film, that was the first time. I really liked those songs and I went out and bought the album, from there I went and heard more stuff".

What would you say is your favourite Neil Young period?

"It changes for me, you know? I like ‘Zuma’, sometimes I like ‘Harvest’. The couple of things I’ve been listening to recently are ‘Journey Through The Past’ and ‘On the Beach’ which I think is a great album as well".

What is it that you like about Neil young?

"I suppose it’s just kind of like folk songs or something. They’re really simple his songs. Good words, well sung. The perfect voice. It all sounds kinda easy. There’s something really easy about it, something really natural"

Norman may well be talking about Neil young here but he couldn’t have put it in any better way if he was describing his own band. But back to Neil Young, somebody in Mojo magazine once said he was the poor man’s Bob Dylan.

"That’s funny in a way. I think he’s as good as Bob Dylan in a way, you know?" shrugs Norman.

"He’s less of poser than Bob Dylan" argues Raymond, "The thing is with Neil Young and Bob Dylan, they both come from Woody Guthrie and people like that. But Neil young’s more like what Woody Guthrie was about more than Bob Dylan is. Bob Dylan’s more for the posers. What Neil Young sings about is more real".

I asked the band to talk about some of the classic songs from the Grand Prix album. Gerry says he was after a real bubblegum sound to the single ‘Sparky’s Dream’, "something really instant".

Raymond wrote ‘Say No’ and he says how the song came about, "I had this idea that the arrangement was with strings but played with guitars. I sort of arranged that on the bass line but played it all on acoustics".

It was Norman who penned the soaring Neil Jung, "I suppose the answer’s in the title really, we were doing it in rehearsals and it was slower, something like ‘Zuma’, that kind of feeling. It’s that kind of laid back guitar, really Neil Young. Something really simple with a simple melody".

Sadly, our interview time is cut prematurely short because the band have another interview to do. So I finish off with some quick fire questions to find out what the band currently dig. Fortunately the guys who are in next say they could do with some more questions, so I pass on all the once I never got to ask. I have since got a cassette of that interview and this will form part two when I eventually get round to typing it up. Watch this space!

As far as other bands go, the Fanclub tend to like mostly American bands. Norman says the band are really into stuff by Daniel Johnson, Calvin Johnson the man behind the Halo Benders and Beat Happening records, Pavement and US underground troupers Yo La Tengo.

I ask them who they would class as their heroes. Without any pause for thought Gerry Love chips in with "Alex Chilton" with a distinctive, boyish zest that knocks me back a bit considering how many times he must have said that name, be it in his defence or adulation. Just look at how many times the band have been attacked for ripping off Big star and yet the band are not ashamed to hide their influences. You will be amazed at how many bands I have spoke to, try desperately hard not to talk about their influences for fear that you would say they are just copying them. You have to prize it out of them sometimes. Why would anyone want to hide something they obviously love? Thankfully Teenage Fanclub don’t mind talking about the things that make them go um. Which is a good thing really because if it wasn’t for Teenage Fanclub harping on about obscure and largely ignored records by Gene Clark, Gram Parsons, Yo La Tengo, Flying Burrito Brothers, Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach and others, I probably would never have picked up on some of the mighty fine records these people have released.

On the heroes front Raymond goes for Neil Young who has cropped up more than once during our conversation and Norman plumps for his mate Stephen from the Pastels.

The last time Norman says he felt starry eyed and free as bird when hearing a fantastic song was listening to the album ‘Blonde on Blonde’ by Bob Dylan and discovering a track that John Lennon had ripped off apparently! Finally, I ask them who they feel is under-rated and they all agree that Ken Livingstone (MP), Galaxie 500 and 18 Wheeler deserve more credit then they receive and I couldn’t agree more!

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Page updated: 5th August 1998