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Belle And Sebastian

Irresistible melodies. Playful, yet wise-to-the-world lyrics. Glasgow's Belle And Sebastian are,

Tekst: Alex Tobin

Publicatiedatum: 10 april 2002

The last time you played in Holland was in September 1998, which is three-and-a-half years ago. That's a long time for a young band. The newspapers are now speaking of a changed band, a tighter live unit... Have there been a lot of changes to achieve that goal?
"Yeah, definitely. Just all kinds of things. The band just seems tighter as a band, and we've got a proper crew now, which helps so much. The sound on stage is so much better, and we've just gotten better at playing live. We've got a slightly different line-up now, and it's just coming back together so much more."

For this show you have a string quartet with you. Are they always along on tour now?
"Yeah, every gig we do has got them."

Since Stuart David [ex-bass] left to concentrate on Looper full-time some things have changed within the band. You play bass a lot now, for example. What are the dynamics like in the band at the moment?
"Actually having the session players as well helps, I think. It's kind of a bigger group, and there are actually more girls now, which I think has helped the girls [Isobel Campbell, cello/vocals, and Sarah Martin, violin/vocals] in the band. There's more of a balance, a gender balance. We've never been a bunch of lads, but it's hard to avoid slight laddish elements, so I think that this has helped them a lot."

Are you still trying to play football matches against local teams when you're out on tour?
"Yeah, Chris [Geddes, keyboards] is doing that. I don't play football myself, but there was a football match in London, in Hyde Park. A lot of folk turned up, a lot of footie spectators... It was like 15-a-side or something!"

Most of the band is involved in other musical projects as well, ranging from ska to Northern Soul DJing. Does that have a big effect on the sound or the way you approach things when you work on B&S music?
"Yeah, I think it does. I think it just keeps things a bit fresh. You always get input from outside sources. Again, just playing with session guys as well... You always pick things up from playing with different people. We think for the next album we're definitely going to try to make things a bit different. To keep things fresh we'll work with a producer or something, just to always get input all of the time. I think we've kind of fallen into that trap a wee bit, you know? Every album has been slightly different, but I think we've probably come as far as we can go without getting an outside producer to steer it a bit. It's mostly Stuart [Murdoch, vocals/guitar] who takes that role, and I think he'd rather just concentrate his efforts within the band, as opposed to always being the producer."

It seems that Belle And Sebastian music keeps getting more and more soulful, if you compare it to the earlier stuff. Has there been a deliberate effort to incorporate more of those sounds and influences into your music?
"I guess it's probably not deliberate, but I guess it kind of coincides with the times. The northern soul nights in Glasgow became really popular, and some folk were going there most every week. It was kind of sinking in. The band has always been into that kind of music, but I guess the more you're exposed to it, the more it sinks in."

'Storytelling', which will be your next release, is a soundtrack album. What was it like working in that format, writing and playing songs for a film? Quite different, I suppose...
"Yeah, it totally was. It was really good actually, and that's kind of one thing that's led us to wanting to get a producer next time. We were actually working for somebody else. That's the first time we've ever done that. We'd come up with ideas, and Todd [Solondz, 'Storytelling' director] liked lots of the ideas, but they weren't always right for the film. We probably recorded more stuff - more different stuff - in that time than we've done in ages, so it was just like trying out different ideas. It was pretty refreshing, actually, to work towards something, as opposed to just making an album. It's not that experimental, but this is the first time we've done instrumentals on an album. There are six instrumentals, six songs, and six bits of dialogue, and it allows you to do something you've never done before. Not that there was anything stopping us doing it before, but this gave us a reason to do stuff that we've never done before. I guess the funny thing is that it's not really that connected to the film, because there's only about five minutes worth of music in the film itself."

Isn't 'The State I Am In' used in the film?
"Yeah, yeah! And that's not on the record either! We kind of had lots of ideas for Todd, and a lot of it wasn't right for the film. There are certain themes that emerged and developed, and we made lots of music, which we then expanded on. There is one song that has got absolutely nothing at all to do with the film. We just kind of came up with it at the same time, and it's just on there."

What was it like working with Mike Hurst [producer of Petula Clark's 'Downtown', Cat Stevens, Manfred Mann, T-Rex, etc.] on 'I'm Waking Up To Us'?
"Well, it was good. Everyone enjoyed it, and the end results eventually were OK. It took us a while to get the end result, and we didn't actually get to the end result with him. So I guess there wasn't satisfaction from that point of view, because Stuart had to remix the whole thing three or four times. It was a good experience, but I don't think he's right as a producer for the next album."

People still write a lot about The Glasgow Scene, often depicting it as a collective of musicians who work together very closely. What's the scene actually like there at the moment?
"Well, that whole kind of Goodfoot [soul night at Glasgow club The Bedsit] thing didn't come to an end, but it moved venue [to The Riverside Club], and I think for a lot of folk it's taken a bit of a step down now. There's actually a new indie club in Glasgow, which is kind of strange. It's like an Eighties indie club, Eighties/early-Nineties indie club... The strange thing is that for Glasgow, which is kind of an indie sort of place, there was nowhere they were playing that kind of music until two or three months ago when they started this club. That's really, really popular. They've had sell-out nights every night. It's kind of weird to go along to it, because there are a lot of Belle And Sebastian fans there."

Do they hassle you?
"Yeah, quite a lot! Folk giving you a chinning..! Actually, no. It's good, you know? The whole northern soul thing's not quite as big as it was."

Are there a lot of collaborations with other musicians in Glasgow?
"Yeah, The Reindeer Section [also featuring Mick Cooke] is probably the biggest collaborative project, and we've just done the second album. It's like everyone playing in a band in Glasgow is playing on that album! It's good fun. I enjoyed the second one more than the first. I played on a few more songs. It was quite fun, because it was a just a case of turning up. Things moved very, very quickly; it all happened very, very quickly. The first one was like that as well, but I think the second one is a bit more focussed. I think the first one was a bit unfocussed, and on the second one the songs are stronger, and I think everyone kind of reacted to that, so that's pretty good."

There are a lot of references to film and literature in Belle And Sebastian lyrics. How is the band influenced by other art forms, apart from music?
"I guess the influences are probably subconscious, if at all. You can absorb things; you can see a really, really great film and be influenced by it, but maybe not directly. We went to see 'The Royal Tenenbaums' the other week, and it was just an amazing film. It seems like quite an original sort of way of making a film. Och yeah, I suppose we have quite similar tastes as a band for films and that kind of thing. I guess it's mostly music that everyone kind of brings to it."

Not the visual art then, via art college backgrounds or anything like that?
"Well, I think Stuart definitely thinks visually all of the time, as well as aurally. He's always got very strong ideas about how the artwork should look, and he sees it all as a whole thing, a complete thing. The videos as well... He's got that kind of brain that I don't really have, that kind of seeing-everything-as-a-whole. I think it works really, really well. Some people are just like that. They can see as well as hear and see it all through to completion. There's a website out there that's got joke album sleeves on it. For 'Dog On Wheels' it's got a dog that's actually got wheels, because its back legs don't work!"

Your fan base is very, very close to the goings-on of the band. Can it be a bother at times, having people follow the group so closely?
"I never get hassled in a sinister way. People are generally pretty friendly. A couple of people have actually been a bit cheeky. We've actually been asked for guestlist places by folk that we hardly even know! It's fine if you kind of know folk, but I think it's a bit cheeky if you've met somebody vaguely once and they come up and ask you for a guestlist spot when the gig's not even sold out! In America, there have been times when folk have travelled and the gig's been sold out. They've travelled, just on the off-chance that they might get in, and of course we put them on the list."

Are there a lot of people that travel very far to your shows?
"It's been noticeable on the British tour. There are these Japanese girls who come over for the British tour - they're here today as well, actually - and we know them really well. They're always friendly and nice. Then there's an American guy who came to every date on the last British tour. That was like the biggest British tour we've done, twelve dates or something, and he came to every single one. He'd be hanging outside the venue before the gig! At first, we thought: 'Who's this total weirdo?' Then we got chatting to him, and he was a really nice bloke."

He wasn't a stalker; he was OK.
"I mean, I suppose he was kind of stalking! In a nice way though, never in a threatening way. He was a nice guy. We've never had threats or people even annoying us, really. Not too much. As yet, anyways..."

Lately, you've been giving more interviews to the press, and there are more pictures of the band. Did you find it hard, now that the band has become more popular, to maintain that type of "media embargo"?
"I suppose we did, but that's not really the reason that we've done more stuff. I think we always did do stuff, but Stuart didn't. In the start, we were only on Jeepster [the band's British label]. Once you start doing deals with other record companies in the world, then I guess they have their own promotion on the agenda. They kind of ask you to do more stuff. I think, compared to most bands, that we have quite an easy time of it when it comes to promotion and that kind of thing. I do remember doing a lot of interviews for the last album. I guess you can always just say 'no'! I think that people think we still have an agenda of not talking these days."

What is the biggest misperception people have of you as a band?
"Probably that: that we don't do interviews! I must have done 50 or 60 - at least - for the last album. We did these press excursions, and I went off to Berlin and Paris for that. It was good, really enjoyable. That's kind of a misperception. People still think that we're like that."

'Storytelling' was recorded a while ago. Have you been working on new stuff already, and do you notice a different direction things are heading in?
"'Storytelling' was really only about finished four or five weeks ago. That's kind of really all we've been working on. Then there's the tour at the moment. I think the next album will probably be towards the end of the year, when we start working on it. Stuart says he's got some stuff kicking about, but none of us has actually heard it yet, so it will be quite interesting to see what that's like. We've all each been working on bits and pieces. We did some new songs for the Peel Session [BBC radio show] last year. One kind of came out of Chris just having a loop and working that out. That was quite good. I think it's probably going to be more of that. If we get a producer, then we can just all concentrate on the songwriting aspect of it. That's the important thing for us. I don't suppose that there are that many records by bands that do songs - as opposed to dance music - that all of us really love the sound of these days. Unless we get The Chemical Brothers to produce us or something like that!"

http://www.kindamuzik.net/interview/belle-and-sebastian/belle-and-sebastian-1452/1452/
Meer Belle and Sebastian op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/belle-and-sebastian