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Savvy readers will note Emma's admission she is meeting Paddy for the first time is a complete contradiction of the article she included in the "Here Comes the Militia" brochure! Emma Welles sounds as if she is reading prepared questions; Paddy sounds as if he's hearing the questions for the first time. Begin interview: ["When Love Breaks Down" is played in its entirety] Emma: Thanks to the people at Kitchenware you've been hindered by my sleeve notes on occasion, but it is the first time we have actually met. Have you always had that beard? Paddy: Ehm, it's a recent development. If I scratch it again, [scratches his face] you can hear it. Ehm... E: It makes you look very sexy, Paddy. P: Thank...Thank you very much, Emma. E: [laughs] P: You'd think we'd known each other years. E: What have you been doing since "Swoon"? P: Ehm... E: Besides growing a beard, that is. P: Well, ehm, we had a small tour after, after "Swoon" came out, which took us to Belgium where we played a crazy festival among a bunch of punks who shouted things like: 'We love Bob Dylan. We do not like you'. Ehm, and since then we have, of course, recorded another LP which is the... E: ...called "Steve McQueen"... P: ...which is, which will be called "Steve McQueen" if we can get his widow's permission. E: Isn't that an unusual title? P: [clears throat] Excuse me. Yeah, well, ehm, the day I did the demos for it--I did some demos in a, in a local studio for, for Thomas Dolby who we wanted to produce it. E: Mmm. P: And ehm, I was in an exceptionally good mood because prior to this, this new binge of equipment buying, I've always played things to people on acoustic guitar--which can sound very ehm, make you sound really vulnerable and your big, bright ideas don't sound so good when you've just got a guitar and your lone voice in a little room. So, ehm, I bashed them all down and I played them to people the first time and I that knew they were okay and so it was a massive weight off the mind. I went out that night and I had this vision, I'm quite serious, I had this vision that just came into me head that the LP had to be, had to be called "Steve McQueen" because I could hear this voice on the radio saying: 'And now, the new LP from Prefab Sprout, "Steve McQueen"', which would immediately make anyone who'd heard it think they'd either made a mistake or, whatever. It would, it isn't sort of meant to pass you by very quickly. So, ehm, it seemed to fit and I told a few people about it and uh, I'm sure a lot of people aren't quite sure of the connection between that and the material on the album because there, there are no references to Steve McQueen and there, there isn't a song called him or anything like that. But it just seemed to work. For me, it just, it just seemed, ehm, a better, a better thing to call it than take one of the album--one of the song titles from the, from the LP. E: So, isn't typical? P: So it's not, it's not, you know, supposed to be representative of, you know, an LP about "Steve McQueen" or anything like that. E: It was produced by Thomas Dolby. P: Mmm. E: How did you come to work with him and did you like working with him? P: Ehm. [clears throat] I enjoyed working with him very much. He's ah..he's a very dominant personality. I've always been attracted to the idea of working with somebody from a possibly, an area you're not supposed to work with, y'know, it may have been more sensible for us to have gone to--I won't even name anybody... E: Mmm. P: ..because, y'know, that's...that's...that's daft, but there's certain ways you categorize people by. I've always thought it would be much nicer to work with someone you perhaps shouldn't work with and so when I then found out that Thomas likes us and his management had phoned CBS and we thought, 'Oh, well there's something happening here', y'know, and uh, he came to, he came to see me and I played him a bunch of songs, and he heard them in the rawest possible form, [clears throat] which was good, and uh, we decided to work together. His a, his approach really is ehm, he's a...he's a keyboard player, and he's extremely musical which at, at the time I didn't know, I knew he was great with equipment but I didn't realize what a good ear he has, y'know and... E: Mmm. P: ...and he can, he can work things out very quickly which is a bit embarrassing for myself because, ehm, while I'm good at giving instructions, I'm not very good at taking them because I've never had to do that before, so when he'll suggest a different way of doing something I had to take twenty minutes to absorb new information, but I was so pleased that I could have someone who would help us construct the arrangements from the ground upwards instead of going to someone with completed demos... E: Mmm. P: ...with him we gave him the bare bones of the song and we all worked together to build it from there. So, ehm, that, that was great, y'know. E: So it was a really constructive time. P: It was very, yeah, yeah. [Excerpt of "Faron Young" is played] E: Can you tell me, what is "When The Angels" about? P: What's, what's that about...Ehm, well, last year, ehm, when we were doing some publicity for "Swoon", I was in London with Keith, our manager, and ehm... E: This is Keith Armstrong of Kitchenware. P: ...yes, this is, this is Keith Armstrong of, of Kitchenware, yes. I had actually heard very little material by Marvin Gaye and uh, this is around about the time he was, he was shot--that sounds ghoulish, but ehm, I've always felt like when Lennon died and how everybody went out and bought his records, y'know and everybody--he'd suddenly became a saint. And I found myself doing that with Marvin Gaye because I hadn't heard, didn't, knew very little about him and Keith said, "you ought to hear 'What's Goin' On'" and I love that LP so much and uh, I think the basic idea for the song was not to do of--anyway a Marvin Gaye, y'know, that would be great--but ehm, to do some sort of tribute whereby the song would say, y'know, 'Those who were...'--it's kind of a twist on the old saying that those who are good die young. E: Yeah. P: It's kind of about the angels being jealous of his voice. It was like a really homey sentiment and that's all the song is about: a tribute to Marvin. [excerpt of "When The Angels" is played] E: Is there any way you can constructively tackle the catholic and bedsit tags that pepper recent reviews, and can songs that scratch a little deeper below the shiny surface of pop ever be commercially successful? P: Yeah. [laughs] Yes. E: Next one! P: Yes, yes, yes, yeah. Ehm, first of all, songs can definitely scratch beneath the shiny surface of pop. They've done it in the past and they can do it again. Ehm, I don't think that's the difficulty. Ehm, I think the catholic, ehm... what was it called again?--and bedsit... E: Bedsit. P: I think that kind of uh, the way you get around that really is, uh, is sell loads of records. I think that those sort of--they're kind of criticisms that come from, ehm, a band that hasn't been around too long, or hasn't done too much and their still in a kind of a...critics' pet container. E: Right. P: When you're, when you're, when you're not quiet in the, in the, in the, in the mainstream public eye, you're still very much at the mercy of what people write or say about you. E: Mmm, yeah. P: Then tags like that are appealing--ehm, appealing to journalists, whatever, all you have to do there is, in the words of David Bowie: win. All you have to do is sell loads of records, then you move on to something else and you move into, ehm, "God, isn't it marvelous--ah, isn't it marvelous that someone who writes, ehm, with a bit of depth about things... E: Yeah. P: ...can sell lots of records" or, "Oh, God, we don't like them at all, they're too mainstream now". You move on to--you move into different fields so I really, I don't even think too much about that, ehm, because it's kind of a local difficulty, it's not like... In the, in the real world of, ehm, of pop music, I think that's kind of, that's really a parochial thing, and I, I do tend to, I like the big obstructions of working in, in the pop world where it's money and it's image and it's brash music that counts. I quite, I would rather than say 'we have nothing to do with that'... E: Yeah. P: ...I'd rather embrace that and bring something good through it rather, rather than kick against it and stay... E: ...and do nothing... P: ...than do nothing. In fact, why--y'know, y'know, you're holier because you stay independent, it's like one of those ridiculous things that you should just embrace it. E: So you can do more from the inside... P: You do, yeah... E: ...to change it. P: ...of course--yeah, yeah! [Excerpt from "Johnny Johnny" is played] E: In the past, you've expressed a dislike for songs about specific things. P: Yeah...allright, right, right. E: Can a mixture of pop and politics ever work successfully or will it always reek of sloganeering? P: Ehm, me first reason, it's an age-old one, is that you play too casually into the hands of your listener, if you just serve them... E: Mmm. P: ...what they expect to hear, you are yourself preaching the converted and you're kind of patting each other on the back. I don't like songs like that simply because, I think there are lessons have been learned in the past, and they're like, for an example, people like Dylan, who moved away from that because they too were worried about what you call "finger-pointing songs". E: Yeah. P: That was one of his big things. I, I think Dylan once did a--he was invited along to, ehm, some awards ceremony, and it was, it was something to do with civil rights and he got up shortly after Kennedy's assassination--I don't know you know this story. E: No. P: He got up after Kennedy's assassination and said, well, y'know, he was, he was, y'know, hero of the counter-culture as they called it then, and he got up, he said, "I can see a little bit of myself in Lee Harvey Oswald", which was the last thing anybody ever expected him to say or wanted him to say, and he got kicked under the table by people. E: [laughs] P: In, in, in the end, they booed him, and I think he, he ended up giving his award and a pile of money to somebody to try and make up for the horror that he'd cause, but I thought that he was--that his upsetting people there was far more valuable than him standing up and saying, ehm.. E: The right things. P: The right things, yeah, I mean it's not, it's just the side of perversity, I wouldn't let, try, deliberately get up and say anything provocative meself like, like that because I think... E: It becomes to staged then. P: ...because, it, exactly, it becomes stagy and that's the, that's the whole objection I have to it. I mean, I read the music papers and I see the characters who are, who are saying all the right things... E: Mmm. P: ...and I just think, y'know, you've got the, the writer and the songwriter has too much to gain from it himself... E: Mmm. And it's... P: ... to make me--I doubt the motives, when I see that... E: Yeah. P: ...when I see somebody making a lot of money out of a political cause I would just, I would be, I would feel queasy, but that isn't to say that I haven't, I mean, since these records... E: Yeah. P: ...done things of a similar thing, y'know, talking about, I don't try and avoid social issues and some of that, I would never do something like that, but I just think that the song is better served talking directly to your emotions than trying to be a piece of journalism, y'know. I think if you want to say someplace, the old thing of "if you've got a message, use Western Union", y'know, the telegram firm... E: Right, yeah. P: I think that's the sensible way around it, y'know. [Excerpt of "Horsin' Around" is played] E: Paddy, why weren't you nominated for a Grammy for "Swoon"? P: Ehm, I, I don't know. I think unfortunately, that the Grammys are, uh, structured to, um, I don't know how the nomination system works. I think it's got something to do with money and how many records you've sold, I mean, I know for example at the recent, as we speak, recent British Phonographic Institute Awards, whatever, some of the nominations there, they must, they must be made by the record companies themselves, y'know. "These are, these are our top-selling artists and we think you should take note of them" and then everybody chooses similarly with the Grammys, I think it's, it's ehm, a similar thing. No one is going to nominate a band that hasn't sold so many units, but I mean, the only, the only, the consolation I draw from that is that when Marvin Gaye made when "What's Goin' On", he didn't win a Grammy for that year either. I think it went to Carole King, or some, somewhere, or Paul Simon or something like that. I'm, I'm very flattered you should ask that question, Emma. E: Will you be touring, Paddy, in the near future? P: Ehm, I'd rather wait until, ehm, there are all these things, I mean, of writing and recording and touring, they all seem to go together in a package and from a businessman's point of view it is sensible that you go out and sell whatever it is that they've just spent a fortune making, but, ehm, it doesn't always work best from a, like a performer's or a writer's point of view. If you're on a good streak, as I think I am, of writing, I think it's really criminal to go and spend however many months, or two months, or something, spending it six/eight hours in the back of a van or a coach, not being able to do much other than, say, read and listen to other music. E: Right. P: So, ehm, I think I'll leave the touring, ehm, until maybe we have also a more substantial backlog of material. I mean, there's certain songs I love, love to play live, like ehm, things from the new LP, things like "Appetite", which I--something just really, really easy to play. [Excerpt of "Appetite" is played] P: I think the things that we've gotten, say, on "Steve McQueen", are things I want to do in the future, are to make the songs as vivid for people as possible. There's no way that I like them to sound [indecipherable], ehm, songs that are worthy because they're maybe under-produced. I think there's an awful lot of that about, as well, where you have a song that, ehm, isn't allowed to put smart clothes on--if you can look at it that way... E: Yeah. P: ...y'know, a song that, it, it's of a very puritanical way of looking at music. I don't want to have that. Ehm, some people hear rebellion in loud guitars, whatever. Some people see rebellion the kind of jeans you wear; others, sort of, ehm, name you chose for the band. I think that, I hear rebellion in music in somebody deliberately following a personal vision whether that be fashionable or not... E: Mmm. P: ...I think there's something more, something more brave about that. [Excerpt of "Desire As" is played] The End
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This
transcription of "The Great Escape" interview by Emma Welles of Paddy
McAloon was prepared with loving effort by Daniel James.
You'll note the interview is peppered with the word 'ehm.' This is an
approximation of a very typical Geordie speech pattern (and others in northern
Britain for that matter) to use it as a pause. We thought it made sense to
include it in the interview.