| DP |
First of all, how is everyone? I hear that Simon and Justin have recently
relocated to Birmingham (hence the new mail order address). Any other
details that would bring us fans up to speed on the goings on of AATT? |
| Steven | We're pretty good, thank you for asking....despite various rumours
that have circulated since the 'Silver Soul' tour. We had pencilled-in a
third leg of the tour, taking in Portugal, the French provinces and our
first UK tour since 1985, but Justin & Simon were hit by a family tragedy &
all plans were put on the back-burner. AATT headquarters in Inkberrow was
sold and we all had personal stuff to attend to....moving house, children,
everyday stuff....Simon busy with an educational charity in India, Justin
putting the finishing touches to an ongoing animated film....I guess it
looked like we'd called it a day. But there was never any question that
there would be another album. Sporadic rehearsals later and the album is in
embryonic form, coming along nicely, if not slowly. |
| DP | Tell me a bit about the new band members. I know of Paul Hill from last
year's Silver Soul album, and must admit that his drumming is a wonderful
accent to the music. Who is the mysterious "Dale" whom you spoke of to the
e-list? |
| Steven | When Nick officially departed we were working heavily with
programmed drums, and I guess, as he is still very much in our lives, we
didn't really notice he'd gone until we needed real drums. Paul Hill & Dale
Hodgkinson, drummer & second guitarist/organist respectively, were known to
us from living in the same village and besides being our drinking buddies,
play together in a power-pop band 'The Velvet Trick'. When you've played
with the same drummer for nearly 20 years it's strange to have a different
face sat behind you, but Paul lent a fresh perspective to the material, as
he did with older stuff onstage. He was the only man for the job. Dale was
brought in slightly later when we discovered that Emer (Brizzolara -
previous occupant of the second guitar/organ slot) was going to be heavily
pregnant at the time of the tour. 'Silver Soul' was in it's later stages
when they appeared, so their creative involvement was minimal, but several
months & tours down the line they're very much a part of AATT. Paul in
particular is taking an active role in the construction of the new album.
They're both degenerates of course... |
| DP | Steven, have you always played the trumpet and only recently been able
to incorporate it into the music, or is this something that you've just
picked up? |
| Steven | I've played since I was seven or eight years old, but I hated it
until I re-discovered Miles Davis & Chet Baker a couple of years back. When
I was taught at school, it was all quickstep marches & 'God save the
Queen', hardly the stuff to keep a punk teenager interested, so I moved
onto bass guitar. When Will(Waghorn) played on 'Angelfish' it sort of
inspired me to dig the horn out again...I only regret that I hadn't kept up
with it, because i'm a pretty terrible player these days. Thank God for the
miracle of studio technology... |
| DP | I'm not sure if you want to divulge anything about the new album, as I am
not sure how far into the creation process you are, but is there anything
you'd like to say about the new recordings? I must admit, the few words
from the official site were quite enticing... |
| Steven | As I mentioned earlier, it's very much in it's infancy right now &
as anyone who has ever heard our demos will testify, it may well sound
completely different by the time it's finished. Early signs are a lesser
influence of the 50's sound that's been prevelant in the last couple of
albums, and a sparse, less frivolous approach. There've been some dark
personal chapters in the recent history of AATT and it may well be that
this is reflected in some of the new material... |
| DP | You guys are really a productive band. It seems that you have been
releasing albums constantly since the first LP, with a tour following just
about every release. Have you grown weary at all over the years? How do
you feel about touring, and why/where are your favorite places to play
live? |
| Steven | It's funny you should describe us as 'productive' as we've been
derided throughout our entire career for being just the opposite! Record
companies in particular always called us lazy...we have to work at our own
pace, in our own time. If we're hurried it usually ends up being a mess and
we have to do the whole thing again anyway. There have inevitably been ups
and downs over the years, the usual stuff...rampant egos, drink problems,
Yoko Ono syndrome, bohemian poverty...but when you've survived this long
you kind of get beyond the trivialities.... we've spent 50% of our entire
lives in each others company! Touring? The live performance is still the
most gratifying & enjoyable aspect of the whole thing. It allows us to
display a side of AATT we've never really captured on record. Studio & live
performance are two sides of the same coin, but for us two totally
different experiences. In many ways I think we have always been at our best
in a live situation. There's more dynamic, more room for improvisation, and
the notion that it could all fall apart at any moment. And we've always
loved the travelling. Given the right circumstance I think we would tour
for half of every year, but it would probably kill us. There are no real
preferences for where we play. There are places we adore - Florence,
Chicago, Lausanne, Hamburg, etc.- and places that, like Paris, have always
adored us. But our real pleasure is in playing in places we've never been
to before, or in unusual situations. We've played in all sorts of bizarre
places....castles, churches, cinemas, swimming pools, chicken-huts(!)...and
each has it's own challenge and atmosphere. It certainly makes a change
from the club circuit, but that too has it's charm. |
| DP | Most fans agree that the "new" AATT sound is really very palatable, even if
a departure from your older style of playing. Was it just a logical
evolution for you, or have you just grown out of your previous (and excuse
this) dark style? Do you still like to listen to or play your older music?
I know, at least, Slow Pulse Boy seems to be a live favorite. |
| Steven | From our perspective, there's never really been a 'new'
sound...sure, it's a departure from a lot of the earlier albums but
essentially it's still us. We've always seen AATT as a means of reflecting
our lives & our surrounding enviroment,so in many ways we've grown up on
record. The music has changed as our lives have changed & if that means our
records are not as dark as in the past, that's because our lives are
generally not so dark. From that point of view, our material acts as a kind
of aural photo album, conjouring up pictures of places, people and personal
events....each has it's own story other than the one on the surface. By
default that means that not all of them are happy memories. 'So this is
silence' I guess is the song that everyone would love to hear us perform
live again, but it comes from a desperate period in our existence that
we're happy to forget. But 'Slow pulse boy' has been a good friend. It
opened a lot of doors for us in the early days. And it's always been fun to
perform. The trick is never to rehearse it..... |
| DP | I think you mentioned that Nick Havas has left the band for a graphics
design job in London. Has his not being in the band at all affected your
writing or recording process? Does it feel like a new band with the new
members and sound, or do you get the same "vibe" in the studio that you
have always had? |
| Steven | Nick's departure wasn't an overnight decision...in fact it was a
gradual process over a period of four or five years, with Nick being less
involved with each album. We knew something was amiss when he started using
his practice kit as a plant stand. I think he felt that he couldn't
contribute to the same extent that he had in the past and that music was
becoming an obstacle to his 'real' life...but Nick is always around. He
came to two shows on the last tour and thoroughly enjoyed himself, but it
only confirmed that he was happier not to spend his days on endless
autobahn journeys.
But yeah, it does feel like a new band in many ways. Everyone brings
something into the group, be it musically or purely in terms of
personality, so by the very the very nature of having new faces, our
development veers a little off-centre. We just follow where it takes us.
The 'Vibe' is our lifeblood. A great friend of ours in DC once referred to
it as the 'Groove Dynamic'. When it's no longer there, it's maybe the right
time to quit. Right now it's pretty healthy.
It's difficult to survive in the music industry when you aren't making
other people rich, and that we've survived this long, still creating &
developing, is seen by many to be nothing short of a miracle. But we've
never really questioned why we're still around. It's our passion & I think
we're pretty good at it. |
| DP | What records do you find yourself playing lately? Who do you look to for inspiration with your songwriting, both musically and in art and literature? |
| Steven | There have been a handful of artists who have inspired us from our
inception...Scott Walker, Ennio Morricone, John Barry, Roxy Music....very
hip names to drop these days, but if you trawl through our interviews from
the early 80's you'll find they've always been there for us. But it's a
difficult question to quantify. I can only speak for myself and what is
inspiring me at the moment....John Cale, Brian Eno, Calexico, Suicide,
Elvis Presley, Massive Attack, Underworld, Al Green, Tortoise, Frank
Sinatra, Miles Davis, Chemical Brothers, Buena Vista Social Club.....I
rarely read books, this year I've read perhaps three of four. John Cale's
autobiography "What's Welsh for Zen?", "Bordersnakes" by James Crumley,
"Brat pack confidential" a wonderful perspective on the
Sinatra/Martin/Davis Jnr. Vegas years, and countless computer related
books. I like art that challenges the senses. John Heartfield, Max Ernst,
Francis Bacon, work that is not always pretty, but is always provoking. I
kind of like Damian Hurst's stuff too, but he's a bit of a jerk by all
accounts....To this day i'm amazed that no-one ever noticed Keith Harings
contribution to the artwork on the "Evening of the 24th" CD release. |
| DP | In retrospect, what album are you most pleased with as a whole, both with
the recordings and with the promotion and touring? I realize this might be
hard to narrow down to a single album, so you can name a few for different
reasons, too. |
| Steven | Without doubt 'Silver Soul', but a musician always prefers his most
recent work. Of the older stuff I guess 'Farewell to the shade' is our most
complete work in terms of craft & production. It was a good period for us
too, lots of touring, visiting new places. The US tour in support of
'Farewell..' was I think one of our better tours, and became something of a
turning point.
'Green is the sea' was a pivotal release for us too, although the final mix
was not what we were after. It should have been rougher at the edges. Songs
like 'Red Valentino' were a little too smooth in retrospect. The demo
version is far superior. And I always liked 'The Evening of the 24th'
because it put songs like 'Slow pulse boy' and 'Vincent Craine' in their
proper live context. But 'Angelfish' and more recently 'Silver Soul' have a
more "organic" quality and we've gotten close to a completeness that we've
been after for some time. With each album we edge a little nearer. Towards
what? I don't think we really know, but it's in the search that the
compulsion to write and record lies. |
| DP | How has the stronger internet presence of AATT affected the band? Do you
find the mailorder more prosperous for it? I'll admit, here in the US you
aren't a regularly played band, and I have had the most luck finding your
releases through the net. Before that, it was all I could do to track down
the first two LPs. You, Steven, seem to be the only one involved with the
internet. I've heard rumors that Simon and Justin are a bit technophobic.
Is there any truth to this? |
| Steven | Ignorance is bliss, as they say, and that's why it's taken so long
to get hooked up to the net. It's been a bit of a revelation in many ways,
in that it just makes our music more readily available to the world.
Distribution is everything in the wacky world of record-making, and without
it who's going to find your music? The net, to a degree, cuts out the
middle man, but there's still no substitute for having your records in the
stores. MP3's are an interesting prospect however...music passed directly
from artist to fan, a very pure, hype-free transaction.
It can be very frustrating, trying to spread your works across the globe.
If there are any labels, publishers or distributors with a passing interest
in AATT out there......
Simon & Justin are far from technophobes however. Justin is in fact a bit
of a wizard on an Apple Mac both with music & graphics, but is relatively
new to this internet business. Simon however just prefers telephones &
snail mail. I'm working on him....I'm hoping he'll start to write something
regularly for the official web-site. |
| DP | The last track on Silver Soul, Highway 4287, utilized electronics almost
exclusively. Was placing it at the end of the album any kind of portent to
the direction of the band? Then again, since The Secret Sea, you have had
usually at least one track with some electronics. Are you planning on
adding similar sounds on the new pending album? |
| Steven | Highway 4287 was an exciting track to work on because it was so
different to anything else on the album. Its use of electronics was a major
part of it's inception, but we never consciously wrote an 'electronic'
track for each album...the electronics are just another tool, i guess, for
doing the job...we just use the sounds that we feel are more appropriate
for the mood of the piece. We're not averse to using ANYTHING to get the
right sound for a piece, without coming over all Brian Wilson....the down
side of using electronics, however, is that with the constant upgrading of
music technology, it can be too easy to lampoon yourself with a sound of
the times...hear how dated much of the early 80's alternative stuff sounds
in retrospect... |
| DP | Do you all rely on your music as your main source of income, or do you hold
other jobs in addition? Do you do anything interesting for recreation
(that you'd care to divulge)? |
| Steven | I have a record store here in England, nothing special, just a High
Street shop that sells a lot of chart fodder. I've been doing it for years
& have never had a good enough reason to stop! I've dabbled in other stuff
too...a couple of not-so-hot production jobs, a few years as bassist with
the 'Very Things' and a possible collaboration in the near future. Justin
works at various musical bits & pieces. There was the GOL project with Mark
Tibenham that spawned an album of ambient dance music, a few small
commissions and now his animated movie of course. Simon travels and takes
pictures...part of his charity work involves taking pictures of the places
he visits & selling them at exhibitions to raise finance for the various
projects. It's related to Amnesty International and is primarily concerned
with childrens education in rural India....and of course we are all
obsessive football (that's 'soccer' to you American folk) supporters. Every
member of AATT past & present has been a supporter of Aston Villa. It's
part of the criteria for joining the band.... |
| DP | Are you pleased with how your own production of the albums is going?
Silver Soul, Angelfish, and the Nailed ep all looked amazing as far as
design, and the sound quality of the recordings is excellent. Do you feel
that you promote your new albums as well as when you were on another label,
or better? |
| Steven | There are of course good & bad sides to both. With the artistic
freedom one retains in running your own label comes tighter budgets &
increased workloads. We've had a lot of bad label experiences in the past,
and it was with this in mind that we decided to go it alone, but we - and
Justin in particular - were spending more time in the office than in the
studio, which kind of defeated the whole object. When you're halfway
around the world promoting a new album you want to know that there's
someone back home working hard at promoting too, but when you're doing
everything...well, it means compromises have to be made. It's highly likely
that the next album will be released on a new label, but right now lips
must remain sealed...As for design, that is Nick, Justin & Simon's
department. Nick IS Fabrizio (the name came from a Woody Allen character in
the movie "Everything you always wanted to know about sex...") and
continues to help out on the artwork front, but Justin & Simon are the
'ideas' guys. And Simon takes a pretty good photograph... |
| DP | Recently, you have gone back to older songs, both Ill Omen and the Critical
Distance, to create new versions. What was your motivation for this? Are
you quite pleased with the results? |
| Steven | We wanted to play one or two different older songs on the 'Silver
Soul' tour, but found it impossible to recreate the same passion for some
of them during rehearsals that we'd had when they were written. When we
played them as if they were new pieces, however, they came across as almost
new songs. They were exciting to play again. And I think more interesting
than going down the remix route. We've done it before, to a lesser extent,
on previous tours with tracks like 'There were no bounds' & 'Scythe and
spade'. It may happen again. It'd be nice to give say 'Jacob Fleet' or 'The
Sandstone Man' a new, appropriate lease of life. |
| DP | What can we expect from AATT in the future? |
| Steven | Aha, the impossible question? Right now it's difficult to see
beyond the next album, but there will certainly be a tour upon it's
release. We celebrate the 20th anniversary of our first show on January
12th and we're considering doing something a little unusual to celebrate
the fact...what we'd like to achieve is a return to the USA for another
tour, but we need to get a domestic release over there before it can
happen. There's also a plethora of unreleased material - studio stuff, live
shows, radio sessions & curios - in the vaults & we're discussing a
project with the best of it. Initially we talked about a four cd box set,
but it's more likely that it would involve MP3's or something similar. |
