Clash Daddy shoots the breeze with Mr. John Grant

“I’m sitting on my favourite bench, as I’m leaving soon and won’t be back ‘til beginning of June. So I thought I’d sit here and enjoy the sun,” says John Grant over the phone. “I’m not trying to cause any trouble but it’s shockingly beautiful today.” But he likes the weather here in Brighton too: “I’m a pig in garbage – I love that weather, walking along the seafront of Brighton, looking at the turbulent ocean… I would have been a happy boy!”

Somewhat of a late bloomer, this American’s debut solo album of 2010, the Midlake produced Queen Of Denmark, saw him talk with stark honesty about his homosexuality, his battles to overcome drink and drug addictions and his love for someone called Charlie. He then used the stage at last year’s Meltdown to announce that he was HIV-positive. It all seems grist to the mill, however, as his purple patch extends to the new album, the brilliant Pale Green Ghosts, which he made in Iceland. “I didn’t plan on moving to Iceland, but I came here to make my record. I ended up finding an apartment to stay in and then I decided I really liked it.

“I was intrigued by the language; I’ve made lots of progress, but it’s such a complicated language that it’s difficult to form simple thoughts because of all the grammar involved. When you think of any noun, for example, you have 16 different possibilities for that noun. The other night I was in somebody’s house and I said, ‘I think I’ll take my hat off’, and I thought I could say it – I had all the right words – but not the grammar, even for that simple sentence.”

“This is the most complicated language I have tried to learn so far; They say your language centre shuts down in your late teens; 17, 18, and then it becomes hard going,” he laughs. Still, the man obviously has a talent for language, being able to speak German, Russian and Spanish along with English, and it was something he was nearly destined for after leaving school. “­My parents were very upset about me not knowing what I wanted to do. So, everyone got excited when I latched onto German, and when my parents were able to cart me off to Germany they were elated.”

However, the lure of music eventually took a grip. “Music is not seen as an undesirable thing to do (Grant is talking about Iceland, which has a population of just 300,000, and yet has an inordinate amount of well known acts), it’s seen as relevant and a productive thing to do with your life. The parents here are not so likely to say, ‘Oh you need to go to law school.’

“I was in such emotional turmoil when I was at school that I just gave up, I didn’t try. I made As and B’s in grade school, but when I went through adolescent I was in such turmoil that I didn’t think there was a future for me. I barely made it out of high school, I was failing a lot… it was very uncharacteristic of me. I really wanted to become something, and in my senior year at High School I started taking German and that sort of saved me a little bit. It was the last year of High School before you go out into the world and go to college… I remember going to the Graduation Party and they were playing this game – all the kids were going off to their fancy colleges where it costs 50, 100 grand, Ivy League schools. The game involved having to pick something out of a hat, horrible scenarios for your first year of college… and I was surrounded by all these rich people, my rich friends from school, and one of the things that somebody picked out was: ‘you find out your room mate is gay’ and everybody just guffawed, and thinking what a horrible thing that would be for your first year of college. And I just thought, ‘Yeah, you’re fucked’.”

The conversation inevitably turns to his father, homophobia, gay marriage, and… Jeremy Irons… “I wouldn’t describe my relationship with my father as good, there’s nothing hostile about it… he’s very right-wing, he thinks Obama is something approaching the anti-christ – a Nazi-communist bastard. We don’t have much to talk about. I find that to be unfortunate.

There was this video recently where he was musing aloud, about gay marriage, he didn’t have an opinion either way, but was wondering if that would open the door for a gay man to marry his gay son. The interviewer brought up the incest laws, and he said that didn’t count as incest because the man can’t procreate! He also said he thought the smoking ban in New York was a dangerous thing, because the government doesn’t need to stick its nose into such things because people can take responsibility for each other, which I also thought was fucking hilarious. I just don’t understand that at all. There’s crazy people everywhere… I do feel I have to talk about these issues.

“My favourite saying about the marriage equality thing is, based on people saying how homosexuals are going to ruin the institution of marriage, my thing I like to say is: straight people do not need any help to fuck up their marriages!” he laughs.

In Pale Green Ghosts, Grant along with Gus Gus’ Biggi Veira have created a beautifully judged mix of industrial electro pop and open letters to the ever present Charlie. It also features a guest vocal from fan and friend Sinead O’Connor. “I didn’t know how people were going to react to it; my heart is shaped like a synthesiser and I think this album is about my adolescence in the ’80s, and it was all about that synth music from then. And Iceland was responsible for me getting more into rock music via The Sugarcubes [Bjork's first band], something I really connected to. As for England, Gary Numan, Chris & Cosey, Fad Gadget, Cabaret Voltaire, New Order were the soundtrack to a big chunk of my life. I still listen to that stuff constantly and I love it just as much as I did back then.”

As for Sinead: “She covered one of my songs and that opened the door for me to say ‘hi’. She and I quickly became friends, I was listening to her stuff from day one; musically, I’m not her equal, but she’s the kind of person I like to be around; funny and warm. That’s a bit wild for me.” So, is it true that she would have his babies if he were straight? “You would have to ask her,” laughs Grant. “But, that seems to be the case…”

John Grant is on UK tour, Spring 2013

Clash Daddy spoke with Angeliqe Kidjo

Angélique Kpasseloko Hinto Hounsinou Kandjo Manta Zogbin Kidjo commonly known as Angélique Kidjo, is a Grammy Award–winning Beninoise singer songwriter and activist, noted for her diverse musical influences Time Magazine has called her ‘Africa’s premier diva’; the BBC has included Kidjo in its list of the African continent’s 50 most iconic figures; The Guardian has listed her as one of their Top 100 Most Inspiring Women in the World; and Kidjo is the first woman to be listed among The 40 Most Powerful Celebrities In Africa by Forbes Magazine.

Born in Contonou, Benin, her father is from the Fon people of Ouidah and her mother from the Yoruba people. She grew up listening to Beninese traditional music, and extended her influences to include afropop, Caribbean zouk, Congolese rumba, jazz, gospel and Latin. Artists such as Bella Bellow, James Brown, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Miriam Makeba and Carlos Santana informed her musical upbringing. Kidjo is fluent in Fon, Yoruba, French, English, and sings in all four languages.

“Brooklyn is sunny and cold,” she says over the phone. “I’ve been living in New York since 1997, but it doesn’t make any difference. But I love the summer. Everyone is complaining but I say, Yeah! Bring it on! I dig it!!”

Kidjo started singing at school and she found success as a teenager with her adaptation of Miriam Makeba’s Les Trois Z, which was played on national radio. She recorded the album Pretty with the Cameroonian producer Ekambi Brilliant and her brother Oscar. The success of the album allowed her to tour all over West Africa, but continuing political conflicts in Benin prevented her from being an independent artist in her own country and led her to relocate to Paris in 1983. Initially studying jazz, she met and married the musician and producer Jean Hebrail, with whom she has composed most of her music. She became frontwoman of the euro-jazz rock outfit Pili Pili, released three albums, and recorded a solo album, Parakou. Island Records founder Chris Blackwell signed her in 1991, and it was with them that she recorded Logozo, reaching number one on the Billboard World Music chart. From then on, she quickly became a world music star before moving to America in 1997. “Music took me here, just music. I started my trilogy here, when I decided to make the three albums (Oremi, Black Ivory Soul and Oyaya) to travel backwards to see how much that Africa has affected the rest of the world, musically.

“The first time I came here (1991) I was preparing the album Logozo with Joe Galdo from Miami Sound Machine. My first reaction was: ‘It’s big! So much space. In Africa it’s much more jammed up, people all over the place. This magnitude of space I was really comfortable with. It does create a lack of connection though, you need to travel… like Los Angeles, which is so spread out, you spend so much time in the car going from one place to the other…”

Over the years she has recorded with the likes of Alicia Keys, Branford Marsalis, Peter Gabriel, Bono, Carlos Santana, John Legend and Herbie Hancock, releasing a string of acclaimed and popular albums. She’s currently back in the studio making a new album. “I’m going through the songs, adding space, musicians. I’m in the process of listening back to what I have written and see what I want to take out. Less is more, for me!”

Writing is a big part of her life, and technology is playing a positive part it seems. “Thank God for the cellphone. It allows me to record ideas, When inspiration comes I can catch it, even sleeping! I’ll be half asleep, do the song in my sleepy voice, go back to sleep, and next morning I listen to it and record it better!!

“I cannot write music when I am touring, I need to put the music somewhere where I can find it; verse, chorus, bridge, even if it’s not connected – I can come back to it later and make it better. The percussion is always there; I am always singing the percussion, the lyrics and the melody. They are, for me, a unity.”

With a simple set up of guitar, bass, drums and percussion, Kidjo has used the same touring musicians since the release of her previous album Oyo in 2010, which was nominated for Best Contemporary World Music Album at the 53rd Grammy Awards. It was an album that paid tribute to the music of her childhood in Benin. “I’m going to Benin in two weeks, after Brighton, because my new project is about women, women’s voices, so I’m going to record traditional voices. I’m going to let them sing the music I have written, with their voice, come up with something we can put in the record.”

Since 2002 she has been a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, and womens’ rights has been an issue close to her heart, in Benin and around the globe. “Benin has been a very stable country for a while, since 1989, when we turned from a communist dictatorship to a democracy. It’s the only country in Africa that made that switch without bloodshed or war. The people just said we don’t want this nonsense no more, and the dictator said, ‘OK, I will give you what you want if you don’t prosecute me’. We don’t care about prosecuting, we just wanted our freedom back. And the military were ready to kill everyone… but when the president walked out, everyone dropped their weapons, and we were able to get our freedom.

“We are not a belligerent people, we don’t like war; we are a quiet people. it’s a small country, and we don’t want to die. But we are a stubborn people; when we don’t want something, you can be God on earth, we don’t care!

“Benin is a matriarchal society; when it comes to making money for ourselves, we are very good at it. The Beninese women are the backbone of the country, but when it comes to women’s rights there is still a lot to do… We have the right to vote in Benin; I remember when I was eight years old it was the concern of my Mum and a friend where they would be singing and marching and asking the president and military to let women choose, to decide for their lives. Benin is a place where you are not married at the mayor’s office – when you aren’t married legally, and you are married traditionally, you can walk away if you don’t like,” she laughs.

“The problem we have in Benin is child trafficking; most of the kids that are born in rural areas don’t have birth certificates. What I am working on with the government and UNICEF is for the men to allow the women to name the child. 75% of the farmers in Africa are women, and they don’t own the land.”

Despite continuing problems in Benin she is very proud of her country. “People are so cool, and so nice… really, really nice. It’s a peaceful place, and you’ll laugh a lot.

She’s currently writing her memoirs, to be published by HarperCollins early next year. “It’s not easy, I have to dive into my memory and ask my brothers questions. I’m not the type of person who is going to give away too much private information. So, I have to find a balance; my brothers and sisters are still alive, my mum is still alive! If that is the kind of book they want me to write, I’m never going to write it! I don’t want to shock people to sell. I don’t do it with my music, and I wouldn’t do it with anything else.”

So, how is her mother, a woman who introduced Angelique to music and theatre at a very young age? “My mother is grooving, she’s going to be 87, and I say: ‘Mum, rest’. And she says, ‘leave me alone, I don’t want to rest’! Get yourself busy, do what you gotta do, but be careful, stay away from those motorcycles (which is the main mode of transportation in Benin). She goes anyway, doesn’t matter what you say! She still won’t wear a helmet – she says her hair do will be messed up! We all give up! My husband says, ‘are you going to be like your parents’, and I say it’s too late!

Angelique Kidjo (with Jospehine Oniyama in support), Brighton Dome Concert Hall, Sunday 12 May, 8pm, £22.50-10. Part of Brighton Festival.

“Everyone says it’s going great… it could go wrong at any moment,” say Sam Lee, who in a very short space of time has become something of household name with the folk and indie-folk fraternities. His debut album last year Ground Of Its Own was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, while the folk roots bible FRoots named it album of the year; and then there were the three BBC2 Folk Awards nominations this year… Where did he come from?

“I didn’t have any kind of musical training,” he says. “I’ve been a music promoter for many years, running a night called Nest Collective, an events company that promotes folk amuse in and around London and beyond. So, I’ve been behind the scenes supporting folk music, and creating platforms for folk music. I fell in love with the music, and the next musical journey, which was my own learning, was doing an apprenticeship to a Scottish traveller, who took me on as his next of kin for his ballads, and then recording and song collecting amongst the Roma Gypsy community and the Irish travellers. I’ve learnt by listening in these musical communities.”

“Much misunderstood and maligned over the years, folk music is back, bigger than ever, with thousands or musicians and artists wanting to investigate their cultural and musical roots. “I started listening to recordings made in the ‘50s and ‘60s – gypsies singing these old songs – and was completely taken aback by this very under-appreciated style of music.

I didn’t believe what many academics were saying, that all the oral traditions had died, and no one was singing the old songs. I went out knocking on caravan doors and visiting sites, and asked around, and word of mouth took me place to place. And I often found one or two left in the older generations, these quite prolific singers.”

Lee has spent the last few years recording these songs, and is just about to launch a digital forum featuring these recordings. “It’s a song collectors collective, all the recordings I have built up are about to go live on air, and so will be accessed by the families and communities who have passed the songs on to me.

“And then I went to Cecil Sharpe House In Camden, home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, went into their library where they had wonderful sound archives. And then I was apprenticed under a famous song collector, Peter Kennedy. He instilled me that spirit of adventure, getting out of the armchair..

Whether via his own recordings and touring, or through his Nest Collective and new digital platform for traditional song, Lee is a steely force of nature, but with a compelling case for the this most ancient of British music. “I try and subvert any assumption about what folk music should sound like or where it should be heard. That’s my mantra.”

Sam Lee is currently on UK tour

With his original band, the much loved Orange Juice, Edwyn Collins enjoyed some success particularly with the single Rip It Up, and then later on as a solo artist with the perennial favourite A Girl Like You, before succumbing to a well documented cerebral hemorrhage in 2005 which almost took his life, and left him severely disabled. But since then he has mounted an extraordinary life-affirming comeback and has a new album, Understated, plus a UK tour on the go.

Great album! You must be pleased…

“I’m delighted. I’m glad people like it. I do, of course, but I’m slightly bigheaded.”

There’s a strong Motown feel on some songs, a sixties feel… what draws you to those sounds?

“I can’t help it, it’s uplifting and life-affirming. My musicians are brilliant, they bring it to life.”

Lyrically, to what extent are your lyrics informed by the events of 2005 and beyond. Are they integral to your thinking?

“Of course. I’m moving on, I’m over it, but it still affects my speech, my thinking is different. I want to channel these thoughts, in a positive way.”

“And I see you have decided to release the album on your own label. It seems like the natural culmination of your career that began on an independent label back in Scotland?

“You’ve got it, bang on. Back to where it started. AED (Analogue Enhanced Digital) has no backers, just good partners, great music, imagination, hard work. It’s the future and it makes sense.”

How far do you feel you have recovered from your well-documented illness back in 2005? In the Home Again documentary it says you couldn’t read, walk or talk. And that you don’t remember much pre-illness… I find it remarkable that you have regained all this, and that musically you sound very much in keeping with how you sounded before. How can that be!? Were you able to to remember things more clearly over time?

“It’s still work in progress. But I’m so much better. The process I use, I’ve had to adapt it. I lean on my musicians more and on Seb Lewsley, my production partner. And every day, more and more of the picture becomes stronger and clearer. It’s hard work, but it’s also a pleasure. It’s exhilarating, coming back into myself.

Has the ability to sing and perform on stage again been a help?

“It’s amazing. At first I was scared as hell. I can trip up on my tongue, freeze, forget the words. I have a book, but my reading is slow, so I use it sparingly. my audiences are incredible to me.”

I see you attended the Helmsdale Highland Games as a chieftain. What does that mean!?

“It’s an honour they gave me in my family village, Helmsdale. The chieftain, 2010. I marched behind the pipes and drums, in the kilt, eagles feathers, all that. I open the games, give the prizes. It was brilliant.

-Orange Juice have proven to be an on-going inspiration to many bands, I can hear traces of your sound in newer bands like Fiction. Or am I wrong!!

“I don’t know, it would not be for me to say. We didn’t care about inspiration, we were quite headstrong and cheeky. Like it or lump it! I do see young men with my haircut, my clothes. Good taste!

What plans have you got for the rest of the year and beyond?

“Shows shows shows, more producing, and I’m building a new studio in Helmsdale, so I can live there more and work there too. What’s going on? I’m middle aged, but it’s busier than ever. I like it.”

Currently on tour

Formed in 1986, House Of Love became a leading indie rock band in the late ’80s; Shine On, Christine and Destroy The Heart remain seminal songs from that period, and their eponymous debut made number one in the Independent Charts.

Regular cover stars and hotly tipped as being the next British stadium rock band, the band soon suffered a downward spiral of drugs, ego clashes and sheer exhaustion and saw their fortunes decline until disbanding in 1993. They reformed in 2003, released a new album in 2005 and have been semi-active ever since, juggling day jobs and other musical projects with the band. They have a new album, She Paints Words In Red, released in time for this UK tour.

At its beating heart are singer and songwriter Guy Chadwick and guitarist Terry Bickers, who initially left the band in 1989 following a well publicised breakdown in the band’s relation. “Then I was very young when we had our success,” says Terry, who is Brighton based. “I was only 20-22 years old when it was building up rapidly. I didn’t have much experience of what we were going through, being in the limelight. This time around, I’m happy to be still doing it, it’s like being given a second chance.”
The legendary Alan McGee, who set up Creation Records and managed both Oasis as well as House Of Love, has only fond memories: “I loved them, they could have taken on anybody live. Terry was a true genius, Guy a master songwriter, the recipe for big time success still to this day. Maybe only I know how fucking crazy that band truly were.” “We really needed guidance at that crucial point,” Guy has said. “Most groups just go nuts. It’s like this huge trolley full of booze being placed in front of you. With a whiff of success, people change towards you. We were taking too many drugs, I was drinking ridiculously…”

Bickers’ psychedelic stylings have won many admirers over the years; after the band split he formed the psychedelically-minded Levitation and as well as House Of Love, he has an ongoing musical project with Pete Fijalkowski, of whom there should be more later in the year. Chadwick and Bickers though managed to join forces again for a reunion in 2003. “We did a session for Tom Robinson recently; he was describing how we got chewed up by the music industry and buckled under the strain, but now we’ve managed to work it out, and it’s good to be working with the guys because it’s like a family band; we know each other very well, and we have an instinctive feel for each others playing.”

And now they are about to release the new album and head out on a very rare UK tour. “We worked with Pat Collier, who helped produce some of the early stuff like Destroy The Heart. I’m really pleased with the material, the songs are strong and I think it’ll grow live.”

House of Love on UK tour, Spring 2013

Call them Britrock or, rather controversially, clitrock, Skunk Anansie are still young enough and energetic enough to be one of the great live bands of recent times, as they amply demonstrated tonight despite a well below capacity turnout. As frontwoman Skin recently pointed out in an interview with Latest 7, the English can be fickle. But their standing amongst rock fans around the world is generally very high; their refusal to rest on the laurels of their back catalogue has seen them come up with a number of top drawer songs that sit very comfortably with the high water point of the 90s when they threatened to become one of the biggest bands in the UK before initially splitting in 2001.

Like many a good rock band they have a simple set up; bass, drums, guitar plus the startling power and personality of Skin’s voice. Supremely crafted songs offer little in the way of indulgence; guitarist Ace (and former presenter of Juice FM whilst the band were inactive) alternatively strokes, picks and powers his way through the songs, assisted by an array of pedals. He rarely does solos, and nor does the extremely well built drummer Mark Richardson indulge either, while super cool bassist Cass flexes his fingers without too much fuss. It’s very tight, all their songs built like perfect pop nuggets, space and texture coming through at the right times, but with an underlying dynamic that sometimes threatens to take the dome off the, er, Dome. Coming across sartorially like the outcast good guys of Mad Max, Skin keeps a relative lid on the politics that have always informed the bands philosophy, but every now and then she shows her disdain that the usual culprits; bankers, politicians etc, are still managing to get away with it. And bouncing around the stage and within the audience, we see her spirit and defiance shine on.

Concert Hall, Brighton Dome, 26 March 2013
Rating: ★★★★★
Jeff Hemmings

Radio Reverb 28 March 2013 by Jeff Hemmings on Mixcloud

ClashDaddy spoke to Skin, frontwoman of the one and only clitrock band, Skunk Anansie!

Formed in 1994, disbanded in 2001 and then reformed in 2009, this four piece achieved a lot of success with several hit singles (including Weak, All I Want and Charlie Big Potato and albums to their credit, but are better known as an incendiary live band, winning several awards over the years for their live act.

So, what happened when they initially split? “I was doing a lot actually,” says Skin (born Deborah Dyer). “I’ve had two solo albums, sold about 500,000 between the two, and did bits of modeling and some other Japanese stuff, and some deejaying, house music – electronic, in-yer-face… More like tech-house, minimal, deep house stuff, a little bit of electro.”

As for the split, Skin remains discreet about this period… “If you drag up old stories it makes the future worse; it’s a bit like that – people have been asking me that question for four years and it’s always the same answer… a short version would be to say the chemistry faded, we didn’t look after the band, and even though we didn’t lose our friendship we weren’t concentrating on making the band as good as it should be, and so we just stopped for a while. When we thought we could do it properly again we got back together.

“It’s very intense, and incredibly tiring, and if anyone has any issues or problems, it becomes accentuated and becomes a big deal. And when you’re in a band you can get away with behaving like a child and not looking after people. I’m sure most bands have the same friggin’ issues; it’s so boring… Hindsight is wonderful, isn’t it? There were so many things I would have done differently.”

On reforming they released a Greatest Hits album which also included some new tracks including the excellent Because of You. Since then they’ve released two more albums of original material, gaining new fans as well as re-engaging older ones, although Skin is somewhat dismissive of her country. “England is not very loyal… really fickle.. the grief that Adele gets nowadays make me laugh, because I’m like: ‘she couldn’t put a foot wrong’. She gets the success that everyone wants her to have and now she’s hated for it; she’s a bit too successful. It’s frustrating to see these people with great talents getting battered to pieces. I think that’s what happened to us really quickly; we were like the kings of England, we sold 100,000 in a couple of months, and all of sudden everyone hated us.”

Strong words from this lady, who once famously described Skunk Anansie’s music as ‘clitrock’. “I said that once as a laugh – and I carried it on, put it on a postcard and I took a picture with ‘clitrock’ across my forehead. Someone put it on a postcard and sold it in every shop in England without our permission! But, it was a joke really. Someone said to me: ‘So, what does it feel like to not be a part of Britrock’ They hated us! Some people thought we were part of that movement, and we said: ‘No, we weren’t’ [part of the Britrock movement]. We weren’t allowed… we were tossed to the side. Remember, back in the ’90s it was all about scenes; there was this scene, and that scene, and Menswear, all the hype, and all these individual journalists creating these scenes.

It was bollocks, and everyone was like ‘fuck you’. I remember the hype over that UNKLE record was unbelievable, that was what it was like in the ’90s. So, we said: ‘well, actually we’re not Britrock, we’re clitrock, and we’re the only band in the scene and we’re going to be our own scene. It was funny, and people took it seriously. And then some other bands started calling themselves clitrock, and then we disbanded it and said,‘the scene is over…’, you can all go home now. It was a just a bit of a laugh,” she says.

On tour Spring 2013

Hugely successful, Simple Minds have topped America’s Billboard chart, released six number one albums in the UK and have hit the top spot in countless other countries around the globe. With over 60 million albums sold worldwide, they are one of the UK’s most successful bands. And they are about to embark on a UK tour as well as releasing a new Greatest Hits package to coincide.

The core of the band are the remaining two original members (and childhood friends), singer Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill (guitars and keyboards), plus drummer Mel Gaynor who has been with them on and off since 1982. “That’s been the biggest reward, my long term relationship with Charlie Burchill,” says Jim Kerr. “Honestly, he called me yesterday and was jumping up and down because he had found this piece of music that had gone missing for about 12 years, and he said, ‘I’ve got it and it sounds great’. I was equally as excited about it, and we could have been 17 or 18 again, this piece of a puzzle that was missing. In those moments we haven’t thought about what we’ve done or what we’re about to do, it’s just ‘oh, great!’ and off we go. In a world where things have changed so much it’s great to have something that hasn’t changed much at all.”

Of course, Kerr is the main focal point of the band, the frontman for so many years, and the one who has been a source of so much publicity, whether it’s the music of Simple Minds, or his love interest, including that Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, whom he married in the ’80s. Still, Kerr and Burchill have been pretty much equal partners over the years. “He’s a clever so and so,” says Kerr of Burchill. “He may be in the background, but he calls the shots as much as I do. If you met Charlie now he’d probably be more sociable than me off the bat, but he’s never really clicked with the promo stuff and he does what he does. He leaves it up to me to do the mythologising and analysing.”

Born out of the punk era, in the city of Glasgow, the band were originally called Johnny & The Abusers, eventually releasing one single, Saints And Sinners, and splitting on the actual day of the song’s release. The shadow of David Bowie loomed large over punk, post-punk and new wave, and the band took a lyric from his ‘Jean Genie’ song, re-christening themselves Simple Minds.

In 1979 they released their debut album Life In A Day, which revealed Magazine, Bowie and Roxy Music as major influences. Over the next few albums they strived to forge their own identity through experimental albums such as Real To Real Cacophony, Empires and Dance, Sons And Fascination and Sister Feelings Call, the last two being released simultaneously

Simple Minds recently toured, specifically performing tracks from these first five albums: “Yeah, we played tracks from the albums before the breakthrough [of New Gold Dreams, their commercial breakthrough, released in 1982], stuff we hadn’t played for years. We discovered that some of the songs we hadn’t played for 30 years! They were so long ago since we played them they were refreshing again. It’s amazing how cyclical they become – you look at a song and think: ‘Well, that’s been and gone, we won’t be playing that again’, and then lo and behold, we hear and see it through new ears and eyes. That’s one of the big pluses of a big catalogue.”

It was the release of Promised You A Miracle and the subsequent New Gold Dreams album of 1982 that propelled the band to stardom, the rest of the decade marked by ever bigger tours and stadium gigs, as they moved away from new wave and new romanticism to commercial pop and rock. Kerr became a major celebrity, helped along by his marriage to Chrissie Hynde, and the band finally cracked the US thanks to the use of Don’t You (Forget About Me) in the smash film The Breakfast Club.

But, like so many of their contemporaries, things began to unravel during the late ’80s, including the dissolution of Kerrs’ marriage, and the departure of key personnel, in effect reducing the band to the core of Kerr and Burchill. “We were knackered. We were de-sensitised. We were lads who had grown up together, but we were getting tired of each other,” Kerr has previously said. “I probably wasn’t the easiest to work with – I was always pushing – I was a bit anti-social and I had lead singeritis. Although they never again reached those heady heights of fame in the ’80s, they continued to operate throughout the ’90s and noughties, releasing well received albums such as 2005’s Black & White 050505 and Graffiti Soul in 2009 which became their first album in 14 years to make the UK top ten. Over the last couple of years the band have concentrated on their Greatest Hits tours including the 5X5 Tour where they played five tracks from each of their first five albums. At a time when many younger bands are exploring the music of the post punk era, it seems that Simple Minds’ music is being re-appraised and warmly welcomed for its inventive and futuristic touches that seemed so normal then.

Take Life In A Day: “When we were rehearsing that, one of the management team, albeit a bit younger than us, came in and said: ‘What’s that new song, it sounds great!’ And we’d go, ‘what new song? It’s 30 years ago’! It seems to be the way; you see that in design, in fashion, in architecture, in and out of fashion. If you wait long enough they become in fashion again, or someone current does a riff on them and makes them contemporary,” says Kerr, who spends most of his time divided between Sicily and France these days.

As for the new material they are currently working on he says that revisiting their past is having an effect. “Because I spent so much time recently with those first albums, some of the stuff we have been coming out with seems inspired by those early electronic styles. The idea is to bridge that new stuff.”

The upcoming tour will feature the band playing two sets, the second set likely to be a run through all the singles that qualified for the UK top 40. “The opening set we’ll play songs from every period; one way or another that should keep most people happy.

“I never have a problem with getting motivated to get on stage and tour these days. I feel blessed to have had this opportunity. I’ve met so many people, other artists who don’t enjoy touring. I think deep down, they don’t appreciate what they’ve got and I realised a lot of them aren’t really cut out for it, for packing a suitcase and heading out year after years. We were born to do it. In terms of motivation, it’s very simple: we manage somehow to put ourselves into the ears of the audience. A lot of them may be seeing you for the first and never see you again. And then there are others who will be thinking, ‘it’ll be good, but not like the old days’, and that’s quite a challenge to leave people thinking, ‘that was much better than I thought it would be’. And I think that because we have those attitudes, it means we give it our all every night and hopefully they’ll tell their mates the next day and it gives us a future!”

Simple Minds are on tour, Spring 2013

Former Brighton resident Marika Hackman is just about to release a mini-album, That Iron Taste, a work that channels the spirit of the late ’60s, the psychedelic whimsy of Nico for instance, into an altogether darker sound.

“My stuff is folk at the core, almost medieval folk in a sense, but a bit more dark and moody and abstract,” says the 20 year old who has just finished a tour with Ethan Johns and about to embark on her first headline tour. “My writing process is pretty boring. I sit in my room and play my guitar for hours, and something will click perfectly and that’s the beginning of a song. Then I play it over and over again to get the measure of it before recording a demo on GarageBand where I experiment with harmonies and arrangement, before working with a producer.”

A fan of old school rock and pop such as Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and Steely Dan, she’s also been immersing herself in the sounds of Alt-J as well as current folk hero Johnny Flynn. “I had a double A-side last year called ‘You Come Down/Mountain Spines’, which was produced by Johnny Flynn. Both those tracks will be on the mini-album. He was interested in doing this; he produces a lot of his own stuff with his bassist, Adam.”

An untrained musician, she has developed a style all her own: “I’ve been writing songs for a long time; I used to play piano and write songs on that when I was 7 or 8. I started teaching myself guitar when I was about 12, and I knew that if I taught myself I would make the effort, rather than somebody telling me, and then I wouldn’t make the effort!”

She has, rather inventively, described her sound as: “Folk at the inner core, Kurt Cobain for the outer core, whimsical dark madness for the mantle, and Marika Hackman for the crust”.

Hackman, whose dad is Finnish, is well acquainted with Brighton. “I lived here for a year when I did an art foundation, and am planning on moving back… but I’m now living in Devon where my parents live. It’s way cheaper like that, especially when you are on tour all the time. But I love Brighton, it’s an awesome place to live.”

Things have been developing fast for the singer songwriter, her years of grafting away on her own, learning to play and sing and writing songs, starting to pay off. “We had big concerts at school which is where I first started to perform. But when I left school I kinda waited… it sounds a bit weird… I would get the odd offer to do a gig; then I met my manager and its been non-stop the last year and a half.”

Marika Hackman is on UK tour Feb/March 2013
www.marikahackman.com

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