Mechanised


1987 / Loop n°1, fanzine Why did you record 'Baby Honey' for the Album again? Stephen: We weren't all that happy with the version we put out. We thought we could have done it a lot better. Loop: Are you pleased with the album as a whole? Stephen: I like parts of it.. I like Automatically Yours, but there are bits I'm not happy with. Loop: The lyrics on the lp are better than normal, more intelligent. Stephen: I spent more time on them because I thought it was important. I never used to be really bothered much with lyrics and then everyone else who came along wasn't bothered with lyrics either... so I'd try and make these say something quite funny. All The Soup Dragons seem to say is 'Sha la la, I love you and you don't love me'... that gets a bit nauseating after a while. We always want to move on from what was going on and we still want to move on - we're not that happy with the lp and we don't want to stay there. We want to do something new. Loop: Has the album been an attempt to get away from that 'Shambling' / anorak / C86 thing? Bands like The Razorcuts and The Primitives don't appear to be doing anything original? Stephen: It's very cynical but it's like... winning formula now. I mean you could sell about four thousand of anything that had a fuzz guitar, standup drummer and a few 'Ba Bas'. I can't understand why they don't do something new, like use synthesisers. I'm bored hearing the same thing over and over again... I listened to C86 and I didn't think it was very good. I thought there weren't many ideas going around and there were a lot of people using the same ideas. For instance... the second Shop Assistants single 'Shopping Parade' has got a real energy and I think it uses those ideas very well, but a year later when groups like The Primitives are doing the same thing you just think 'What's the point?'. People just seem to want more of the same thing. The trouble with too many groups is that they're influenced by the stuff they like. The trouble with being too heavily-influenced is that you inherit all of the bad points as well as the good points... added to your own bad points. Loop: You said on 'FSD' that you think the Music Industry is in a bad state. What would you do about it? What do you think you can do about it? Stephen: I think that the major labels are in control and the type of people who work for Major Labels are just interested in Product that'll sell but not interested in what the merit of that product is. There's just not much new happening. Loop: Do you think anything new can happen here? Stephen: Yeah. Definitely. Like Camper Van Beethoven, they're a real roots group and they've got lots of influences but they're doing it in quite a good way. Loop: Do you think The Pastels are important? Stephen: I don't really like to make claims for ourselves. It's all relative. Is music really all that important? (...) Stephen: The Americans are a dumb race... I think it's really bad, because it's just a really repressive society. This New Moralism is really scary because they're trying to infringe on peoples' personal liberties. Our society has changed a hell of a lot in the past seven years. It's been a kind of gradual thing. If you went from 1979 to 1987 in one step, people wouldn't have accepted it. If the Conservatives get in again I think we'll move towards the same pseudo-moral society. I mean look at the reaction towards Aids. Loop: What about 'Political' bands like The Redskins or Chubawamba ? Do you think that stances are only a gimmick to sell records? Stephen: Yeah... I don't want to be too cynical about it but I think there's career moves there. I don't feel that The Redskins could possibly change anything, but if the Press were to say music's got no possibility of having any political impact, I don't know whether that would be true. I think maybe young kids who identified with Paul Weller could become aware of politics through that. That Crass thing was quite good that got debated when they did that Falklands single. I thought that was really sharp. I think that Panic is a good single. Loop: Do you like The Smiths? Stephen: I like Morrissey because I think he's quite interesting. I never liked the group. I thought it was a mediocre group really: Eighties rock sound. 'Free Nelson Mandela' - that's the only example I can think of of a really great political record. I think that must have had some impact. Loop: What's your relationship with Glass Records like? Stephen: Quite straight-forward. They've very honest. They put money behind us. Loop: What have you got to do with 53rd and 3rd? Stephen: Well, originally it was supposed to be a three-way partnership between me, Sandy and David of the Shop Assistants, but it just didn't work in a practical way so Sandy's more or less taken over... but if there was a group I really liked I'd recommend them to him. Loop: What was it like when you started the band? Stephen: We were treated like shit. When we started we hated the whole Glasgow music thing because it was dead cliquey but this has just become the same - everyone knows everyone else and you get all your friends' groups to support you. When we started they wouldn't put us on anywhere. They used to give us fifty quid as a support group and they used to treat us like shite. More people would come to see us than the headline group and they would still treat us like shite because they hated us... getting a record out makes all the difference, I think, because you're taken a lot more seriously. It's really stupid but people don't talk about you if you get a record out.