gene's Martin Rossiter interviewed pulp and blur can f*ck off to bultins (2012)

http://sabotagetimes.com/music/genes-martin-rossiter-interviewed-pulp-and-blur-can-fck-off-to-butlins/

The enigmatic frontman always hated being bundled in with the Britpop bands, but not as much as he hates them all reforming..

JW: What were your earliest musical influences?

MR: I grew up in Cardiff in the 70s. Like most other kids of my age in the area I would attend the Methodist church on a Sunday and sing hymns. I always found the melodies and words very affecting. There’s a certain stridency to hymns, almost a pomposity. The emotions in those hymns are writ large and I like that very much. I still sit and play hymns at the piano. I also enjoy watching Songs Of Praise, so long as it’s not being broadcast from a modern church.

Back then I’d go to a church that was largely populated by burly men who were unembarrassed at belting these hymns out. That’s when I first understood that singing was just something that everybody did. In Wales there was no sense that singing was in any way effete.

From an early age I loved musicals but there were no pop records in the house. My parents were quite old and they’d skipped rock’n’roll and The Beatles completely. The most contemporary album my folks owned was Sinatra’s Songs For Swinging Lovers and that never got played.  I heard my first pop record when I was nine. The first Top Of The Pops I watched featured ‘Something Else’ by Sex Pistols. I was completely intrigued by the band’s name, which was quite shocking to me, a clean-living Methodist boy.

JW: At what age did you decide to become a singer?

MR: It just happened really. After leaving school I drifted through a series of mundane jobs. I stuffed envelopes and stacked shelves. I was in removals for a few months and that was a kind of living hell. I played in quite a few bands before Gene, including a gay disco group called Drop. Then, in the early nineties, I was in a club and was approached by Steve Mason who played guitar in a band called Sp!n. His band had been involved in a road accident where they’d collided with a 40-ton truck, which resulted in the bassist going into a coma. He walked up to me and asked if I could sing. I thought his shoes were quite interesting so I said, “Yes, I can sing,” and handed him my card that read “Soothsayer to the rich and famous.” A few weeks later I went for an audition and became the singer. This was my first proper band in the sense that they’d released records, they had a manager, and they had gigs lined up in London. I felt like I’d taken a Stannah stairlift to the top of Mount Everest. I’d finally arrived. We released one single together as Sp!n and, in 1992, we evolved into Gene. I had no long-term plan at that stage. I was just happy to be swept along.

JW: By the time Gene’s debut album, Olympian, was released in 1995, Britpop was in full swing. Despite the media’s attempts to co-opt you into the movement, you gave it a wide berth. Why?

MR: I felt very uncomfortable with the whole Britpop thing. It was played out under the dirty shadow of the union flag which I always found quite distasteful. I never had any desire to represent Great Britain. At the time I said that I regarded myself as European rather than British. I’m a Socialist and I’ve always felt very uncomfortable with the idea of nationalism because it can be a very dangerous thing.

Looking back, Gene’s timing was appalling. When we arrived, it was a time of Loaded Magazine and Oasis. All of a sudden, misogyny became fashionable. There was a lot of nastiness in the air. You had Noel Gallagher wishing AIDS on Damon Albarn and Alex James. I had Liam Gallagher calling me a faggot to my face. A few years earlier all of this would have been considered completely unacceptable. But everyone seemed to be turning a blind eye to it.

I felt we had nothing in common with all those Britpop bands. There were modern British references in our songs but I always tried to steer clear of going down the Mary Poppins version of Britain because that sort of thing is a load of crap. Also it never existed in the first place.

인터뷰를 스치듯이 본게 몇갠데 항상 일관된 답인 것 같다. 나는 잉글리쉬가 아니라 웰시예요. 그럼 브리티쉬? 아뇨 난 내 자신을 유러피안이라고 생각합니다.
거봐 내가 리암이 이런 말 했을거라고 했잖아

JW: I imagine you weren’t a big fan of Oasis.

MR: There was a lot to dislike about them. They obviously lacked craft but Noel did have this knack of writing a chorus that had universality to it. I remember lying awake in bed around midnight in the autumn of ’95 and hearing these drunken men swagger along the road singing ‘Wonderwall’ as though their lives depended on it. They were singing as though the song was dripping in meaning and, quite clearly, it isn’t. But the melody does have some primitive emotional tug. I think it’s a truly horrendous song but I can appreciate the fact that some of their songs contained these big headline feelings that people connected with.

JW: Anything you regret about that period?

MR: I wish I hadn’t spent so much time worrying about whether my hair looked OK. Apart from that, it was all very enjoyable, particularly the live shows. I’ve always loved being on stage. I’ve never taken ecstasy but I imagine that it creates a similar feeling to the one you get when you’re singing in front of a few thousand people.

JW: Around this time it became known that you were bisexual. Was this an issue that you made a conscious decision to go public about?

MR: I wasn’t remotely interested in a game of hide and seek with the media. I’d have considered that to be a betrayal of the people who’d gone before me and fought for gay rights. I couldn’t be doing with some long running “is he or isn’t he?” debate because that would have been profoundly boring. I didn’t want to be Michael Stipe or Morrissey. Admitting that I was bisexual didn’t harm me in the slightest. In the main my sexuality was irrelevant to the songs.

JW: You had the reputation of being something of a fop. Yet you weren’t adverse to letting off a bit of steam. Didn’t you once head-butt Paul Kaye (TV’s Dennis Pennis) in a nightclub?

MR: That would have been 1997 or thereabouts. He was being extremely rude to me and physically aggressive. I was a little drunk. So I head-butted him and he hit me very hard in return. Then the fight was broken up. I wasn’t quite as foppish as was made out. Some people had this idea that I was this uni-dimensional type who would spend all his time lounging at home on a faux leather armchair reading a first edition of Dorothy Parker, which wasn’t exactly the case. I mean, it wasn’t unknown for me to enjoy a good football match.

JW: 1997’s Drawn To The Deep End is often described as Gene’s darkest work. The songs on that album would certainly indicate that you were no stranger to Churchill’s black dog.

MR: From the age of eleven I’ve suffered from dysthymia, which is a relatively rare form of depression. It’s also known as double depression. It’s a unipolar depression so the lows are much lower and there are no ups as such. I was only properly diagnosed at the age of thirty. I’ve pretty much whipped it now. I’m more balanced and content than I have been in a long while. I’m wary of saying too much about depression as I don’t want people to think, “Here’s another person from a band banging on about how miserable he is.” But the songs on Drawn To The Deep End do address that condition and they do reflect the times in which the record was made.

JW: Why did Gene disband in 2004?

MR: I decided to end it. I called a meeting and told the others I didn’t want to do it anymore. The reasons I gave were truthful. To make another album would have required a commitment of time I couldn’t give. Our money had run out and I’d started working as a music teacher. I had young children and they were a priority. Beyond that, I really didn’t want to do it any more. No disrespect to the others but I didn’t want to work with them any longer. I couldn’t see that we were going to make better records. I was just so tired with it all.

이건 먼가 심란했다..

JW: Didn’t you all get back together to play at the 100 Club in 2008?

MR: That was for our ex-manager’s 50th birthday party. We performed five songs and that was it. There was no thought of reforming the band, certainly not as far as I was concerned. A lot of people have brought it up as a possibility but it’s not something that interests me. Not in the slightest. A lot of people would be interested in it for nostalgic reasons. We could sell out Brixton Academy in no time at all. We could certainly sell many more tickets than I’m selling on my own. But who would be interested in Gene doing anything new?  Every other band, including Stone Roses, has reformed and they’re all money-grabbing bastards. Shame on the lot of them.

JW: But you do accept that people have to earn a living?

MR: Absolutely. Earn a living by all means. Go and do what I did. Get a job. Earn a living my arse! I used to quote Stone Roses as the one band who wouldn’t reform. I was led to believe that Ian Brown was a man of principle. He always cited that principle as the reason for not reforming the band. As someone who is deeply passionate about pop music, I was heartbroken when they announced their comeback tour because the only reason they’re doing it is commerce. It’s moral-free racketeering. They’re selfish bastards, the lot of them. Pulp, Blur…they can all fuck off to Butlins. I feel a genuine sense of betrayal when bands reform for the money. For me the real art of pop music is something like capturing a Polaroid of a moment. To keep returning to that Polaroid rather than try to do anything new, that to me is selfish and shameful.

요새 수많은 90년대 밴드들의 재결합에 대해 내가 느끼는 묘한 이 감정과 정확히 일치.. 항상 브릿팝 밴드들의 음악은 그 시절과 그 나이에만 나올 수 있었던 감수성이라고 생각해서, 그리고 그 밴드의 색으로 전성기를 한번 찍고 나면 뭐가 더 어떻게 나올수도 없고..  추억속의 청춘들이 돈 때문에 모여서 너무나 달라진 색으로 돌아오면 그게 또 너무 심란하단말이야. 내가 블러와 오아시스에 환장했음에도 불구하고 갤러거들이 우리 싸워서 이제 안봐여~~~마저 비즈니스의 연장선처럼 보였고, 어설픈 동양풍을 차용한 블러의 신보에는 별 관심이 안가는데 말이지.. 물론 본인들이 작업하느라 행복하다고 하고 그를 응원해주는 팬들도 많겠지만.. 지나간 연인을 추억속에서 회상할지언정 굳이 다시 만나고싶지는 않은 마음같은 내 태도가 너무 이기적인가 생각했는데, capturing a polaroid of a moment라는 표현이 딱 들어맞는다. 무슨 감정인지 헷갈렸는데. 아 속시원해! 

JW: How would you sum up your time between the end of Gene and the release of your first solo album?

MR: I’ve been working in further and higher education, teaching music and songwriting. I’ve also been working with disadvantaged kids. It’s been magical. When Gene came to an end I felt an enormous relief, mostly because someone was prepared to give me a job and I found that I was good at it. There have been moments when I’ve missed being in a band. When you’re in a band you have other people with you, people you can go to and say, “Weren’t we brilliant?” or “wasn’t that astonishing?” without feeling egotistical. That’s the only thing I miss. I have no-one I can share that with who are as much a part of it as I am.

Mostly though, I’ve missed the process of writing songs and having them heard. People might ask why it has taken so long for me to make this new album and the simple answer to that is that I wanted to get it right.

JW: What made you decide on a voice/piano format for the songs on your new album?

MR: I’ve been playing piano since the age of five. The reason I decided on piano and voice for this record was that I wanted the songs to be completely candid. You can’t hide when you’ve got a voice and one instrument. When you’re working with other instruments and other musicians you can make a good record out of a mediocre song. OutKast’s ‘Hey Ya’ is a good example of such a song.

JW: The songs on this album sound like emotional autobiography, drawing on various chapters of your life.

MR: That’s it, exactly. With the exception of ‘Darling Sorrow’, which is a made-up narrative about a couple who meet on Beachy Head, these are autobiographical songs. Compared to some albums I suppose it could be described as downbeat. But it has its optimistic moments. ‘I Must Be Jesus’, for example, is one of the cheeriest songs ever written about childhood depression. It could easily be the theme song to a musical about that subject. It’s got a kind of vaudevillian swagger about it, with a Welsh male voice choir thrown into the middle.

Only now do I feel confident in saying that I consider myself to be a really good songwriter. I genuinely struggle to think of any songwriters who have been so emotionally blunt and yet made something quite as beautiful as ‘Three Points On A Compass’. It’s quite obviously a song about my dad. I can’t think of any other song that offers a critique of their father. He’s alive and I haven’t seen him for years but I hope he hears it. After I wrote it I couldn’t sing it for three months. Lots of men are estranged from their fathers and it’s a whole area that pop music, to my knowledge, hasn’t touched upon. But the response I’ve had about that song from men has been astonishing. I’ve been told by men that this is the only song that has ever made them openly weep. For some men, trying to make things right between themselves and their dads is like attempting to bridge the Pacific.