Oh Land… Snubbed Rihanna

Rocksucker’s Quotes O’ 2011 (part 4)

Published on December 31st, 2011 | Jonny Abrams

Finally, here is part 4 of Rocksucker’s Quotes O’2011…

(click here to read part 1, here to read part 2 and here to read part 3)…

Click on the artist name to read the relative interview in full!

Snow Patrol keyboardist Tom Simpson on people comparing his band to Coldplay…

“I kind of hate it when people compare us to Coldplay because I don’t think we sound like them. They do what they do, which is brilliant, but I just don’t like being compared to them because I think we do something different from them. But this isn’t a slight against Coldplay. You’re not going to start one of these media wars of words, are you?”

Babybird on encountering fellow baritone Ian McCulloch…

“He locked me in his dressing room once, filled my beer can with whiskey and stood over me with a huge bouncer next to him, and I thought I was going to get a kicking but instead he smiled, and said he liked Babybird. A lot.”

The Twilight Sad front man James Graham on being compared to U2 in a Pitchfork review…

“Bono does come across as a bit of a wanker but, at the same time, so do I. Maybe that’s what they meant.”

We Can’t Enjoy Ourselves front man Giovanni on what we can expect from his band’s debut album…

“You can expect a collection of musical postcards cheerleading what we call the lost decade in pop music; a decade that championed swooping vox jaguar organ sounds, sadomasochistically amphetamined guitars, bouncy Motown basslines, the neo-Victorian poetry of the pince-nez, the barbarity of the Foxtrot, the rise and fall of Malkmus X, the secret Hasidicism of day-glo clothing, the gruesome museums of Genet and Bresson. If you want proof of that decade’s existence, c.f. 1948, 1959, 1966, 1972, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1994, 1995. The songs are all high-hearted and point unpoetically, if rather overexplicitly to our past and current fascinations.”

Forest Fire on aspects of the music press that annoy them…

“Most music journalists don’t even know how to write, so that can be annoying.”

The Olivia Tremor Control co-singer/songwriter Bill Doss on what happens when one totally awesome troupe of sonic adventurers listens to another…

“We actually had a Zaireeka [1997 album by The Flaming Lips released on four separate CDs, to be played simultaneously] listening party when that came out. About twenty minutes into it, one of the CD players’ speakers caught on fire! Flames, sparks, smoke, the whole business. Not sure if that was the intended result?”

Oh Land on ignoring Rihanna…

“I met Rihanna and she listened to one of my songs and said, ‘I love that song – would you write a song for me?’ I just didn’t know what to say because everything felt so unreal. The moment she said it, I didn’t think it had actually happened. I was like, was that just something in my head? So I just chose to ignore it, which was really rude! I couldn’t believe that it was actually part of reality so I just started talking about something else, like: ‘Er…so, when’s your album coming out?’ I was so freaked out because it was so otherworldly.”

The Nightingales main man Robert Lloyd on the antics of his previous band The Prefects…

“The Prefects annoyed The Clash very much on the White Riot tour, largely by keeping ourselves to ourselves and not fawning over them. And yes, Vic Godard and I did drop lighted matches from the lighting rig at The Rainbow in an attempt to set The Jam’s Union Jack on fire but it didn’t work. And I did try and nick some of Bo Diddley’s rider but that was when The Nightingales were supporting him and anyway I failed as he was doing a costume change when I went in to the dressing room and I had to excuse myself and trap. But I did get to see Bo in just his underpants and that’s gotta be better than a bottle of lager, right?”

Deerhoof founder member/songwriter/drummer/producer/keyboardist/occasional singer and guitarist Greg Saunier on his experience of playing drums for Plastic Ono Band…

“There was obviously a power struggle between Yoko and Sean [Lennon]. It’s a really amazing dynamic and it’s really funny. It’s like, Sean will have already planned and rehearsed something, he’ll tell her what it is and she’ll be like, yeah, but I think we should do it this other way. Then Sean’ll say, yeah, we could do that, but we haven’t rehearsed that and if we do it that way then it’s going to be harder for you to sing and you might blow out your voice. She’ll say “okay, okay, okay” and sort of acquiesces with Sean, which is really funny to see.”

Jan St Werner from Mouse on Mars on working with Mark E. Smith…

“It’s a clash of cultures, I guess: us Germans have a bad conscience and we think if we work more that it will make it okay again, or something. We’re okay at the end of the day because we didn’t do anything bad, because we were in the studio all day long. I think Mark has a different work ethic: he’s a real worker and also he’s self-employed so he sees himself as a working man who should only work a specific amount of hours each day, and the rest would be exploitation.”

Billie Ray Martin on London life…

“I’ve lived in London for fifteen years. It’s not the city I loved any more. Greed and commercialism have killed a lot of creative outlets. Same as everywhere. When I’m there I just like to sit in coffee shops in Soho and watch the buzz that’s still there.”

Space co-singer/songwriter Tommy Scott on why Gut Records never released their third album Love You More Than Football…

“I wanted to do it with Edwyn Collins [as producer] so we recorded it with him, and they were dead against it just because it was my idea. They wanted to use the latest, hippest producer and all that. They kept on playing it and saying, ‘No, we don’t like Edwyn Collins.’ I had to fight for him to do it. The head of the record company came down all the way from London to listen to the album. He walked in, sat down – our manager was upstairs at the time – we played him some songs, then he got up and said, ‘That’s cool. I’m going to go speak to your manager.’ I thought, ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ so I went after him and said, ‘Eh, fuckin’ bollocks, get back in here. You don’t need to see the manager.’ I kicked off then and nearly started a fight with him, the head of the company. He’s going, ‘Go on, hit me then!’ and stuff like that. I just lost it ‘cause he had no respect. Once you’ve dissed a man like that, there’s no going back.”

Space keyboardist/co-songwriter Franny Griffiths on the same subject…

“They had Tom Jones on board for them now, and they’d never have had Tom Jones on board if it weren’t for us writing that fucking song [‘The Ballad of Tom Jones’]. We walked into their offices in London and, where there used to be a big cover of Spiders on the wall, now it was Tom Jones. We all walked in and just went, ‘What the fuck?’”

Space co-singer/songwriter Jamie Murphy on the destructive temptations facing a young rock star…

“It got to a bad point where we’d got back from Asia, and we’d had the success of ‘Female of the Species’ and all that, and we started playing to like two thousand people at each gig, that’s when I started really partying hard and taking stupid amounts of drugs. And the thing was, when we came back from tour, these would all go home to their girlfriends, whereas I’d go home and I’d carry on. In fact, I’d party even harder because I’d been away from all me mates so I’d be out with them every single night. It was the just the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, ever ever ever.”

Damo Suzuki on which place he’d like to visit that he hasn’t been to before…

“17th century Japan.”

Jad Fair on working with Daniel Johnston…

“Daniel has very wild mood swings, so he’ll either be very, very easy to work with, or the opposite of that. Daniel doesn’t like doing more than two takes of a song, which can be kind of frustrating. He’s a very nice guy but because of his mood swings he could be difficult to work with. At those times, you say, ‘Let’s go get some pizza,’ – you know, you do something different – then it’s fine.”

Ash singer/songwriter Tim Wheeler on Weezer’s latter-day output…

“It’s been quite disappointing after the highs of their first few records, but I checked out Hurley recently and I was pleasantly surprised by some of it. You just have to know that it’s balls-out cheesiness and that it’s not as ‘cool’ as their earlier stuff, but there are still some good tunes and it’s still pretty fun. A lot of fans are quite disgusted with it, though!”

Maverick Sabre on people likening his voice to Finley Quaye’s…

“I’d actually never heard of him until I did a gig in Camden when I was about 17 or 18, a half-hour acoustic set. There was this couple standing by the left-hand side of the stage, and they had their eyes closed. I thought, ‘That’s a little bit weird.’ They were holding each other’s hands and smiling at each other but they had their eyes closed. When I came offstage, they were like, ‘Oh my god, you sound like the great Finley Quaye! It sounded like he was onstage!’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t really know who Finley Quaye is.’ They were shocked, maybe kind of offended, that I didn’t know who he was!”

Gary Curran from The Japanese Popstars on which up-and-coming artists he’d recommend…

“Anyone who’s on Jools Holland.”

Happy new year, folks!

Artists: ash, babybird, billie ray martin, damo suzuki, deerhoof, maverick sabre, mouse on mars, oh land, snow patrol, space, the nightingales, the olivia tremor control, the twilight sad

About the Author

Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.