From: owner-oppositeview-digest@smoe.org (oppositeview-digest) To: oppositeview-digest@smoe.org Subject: oppositeview-digest V3 #78 Reply-To: oppositeview@smoe.org Sender: owner-oppositeview-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-oppositeview-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk oppositeview-digest Wednesday, March 21 2001 Volume 03 : Number 078 Today's Subjects: ----------------- OV: Dels Interview [Hopping James W ] Re: OV: Dels Interview [Darren Holmquist ] OV: Dels Interview [Hopping James W ] Re: OV: OT Europe ["Susan & C. Reid Gardner" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 09:47:07 -0000 From: Hopping James W Subject: OV: Dels Interview As promised. Interview from 1998. Source: Total Guitar, Issue 50 December 1998. Titled: Del Amitri - Not where it's at Interviewer: Jon Jannaway <> [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/msword which had a name of DEL AMITRI.doc] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 08:14:34 -0800 From: Darren Holmquist Subject: Re: OV: Dels Interview Unfortunately, attachments are not allowed on the smoe.org server... Depending on how long it is, you can copy and paste it into several different emails... Or send it to one of the webmasters to post on their website. Darren At 09:47 AM 3/20/01 +0000, Hopping James W wrote: >As promised. Interview from 1998. > >Source: Total Guitar, Issue 50 December 1998. >Titled: Del Amitri - Not where it's at >Interviewer: Jon Jannaway > > <> > >[demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/msword which had a >name of DEL AMITRI.doc] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 16:22:41 -0000 From: Hopping James W Subject: OV: Dels Interview As promised. Interview from 1998. Source: Total Guitar, Issue 50 December 1998. Titled: Del Amitri - Not where it's at Interviewer: Jon Jannaway DEL AMITRI Click. "Hello? The monotonous 5/4 dialling tone gives way to the soft Glaswegian accent of Del Amitri's Justin Currie. Even though it's just 11 o'clock in the morning he still sounds cheerful enough to make the rain outside seem inconsequential. "How's it going? I'm just making a cup of tea." Right on cue, a chinking spoon echoes down the receiver. It may not be the most rock 'n' roll way to start an interview but it certainly makes an honest and refreshing change. And in a way it's a fitting introduction to one of the men behind the most refreshing UK rock band of the last decade. THESE CHARMING MEN Since they first dented the charts almost ten years ago with the acoustic anthem Nothing Ever Happens, Del Amitri have come a long way. From misunderstood teen-idols to highly regarded song smiths, they may never have enjoyed the highbrow regard of Radiohead or the laddish appeal of Oasis, but that's always been part of their charm. From one album to the next they've honed their own brand of Scottish rock with little or no regard for trends or fads, probably why they've enjoyed such lasting popularity. Summer '98 has been a little strange for the band, a hit from nowhere with a World Cu p anthem has spawned a greatest hits LP and a tour, a good a time as any for a bit of retrospective analysis. "One guy asked us if it was strange to be talking to the press about old material, explains Justin. "And in some ways it is. Whereas we're more used to talking about new records and new songs and saying 'here's some new stuff, me and lain are now in the habit of saying 'well, here's some old stuff.--lain Harvie, Justin's guitar playing foil, however, seems more cynical and direct. "It's a little odd because we didn't have much input in the record at all. It seems strange because it can't be a greatest hits in the sense that you'd have one by Thin Lizzy or The Police. Del Amitri is still very much a functioning band so 1 suppose you could see it as premature. Then again, if you've had 17 singles and 15 of them have hit the Top 40 then maybe it does make sense." Justin and lain's partnership goes back to 1982. 1 was at school and wanted to get a band together," Justin reminisces. "So 1 stuck a card up in a music store looking for people who could play guitar, drums, pots and pans... anything. When I first met lain it was great because he really got into just being in a room and wanting to play." An early Dels' incarnation signed to Chrysalis subsidiary Big Star and released their eponymous debut in 1985. Sounding like a harsh hybrid of The Fall and The Smiths it failed to spark a flame in Britain. "That was a fairly weird indie-guitar record," lain admits. "Nobody liked it apart from some people in the States. American college radio picked up on it and all of a sudden we were getting letters from America." Justin picks up the plot:---So we decided to go to America," he states matter-of-factly. It turned out to be the start of the road for the band.---It was a life changing experience," Currie continues. "Most people tend to do something stupid in their early '20s, backpacking, hiking, white-water rafting and losing both your legs. That kind of thing." Fortunately things never got quite that serious. 'We went for eight weeks," says Harvie..---It all went disastrously wrong, 1 thought we'd end up dossing in the streets but somehow we made it back." Stories of a Mancunian van hiring cokehead and nights under the stars are recalled with Justin's natural literary talent romanticising what lain is far wore likely to call 'a bloody shambles'. "God knows how we made it back - 1 think we lived on Doritos," laughs Justin. "Then when we did get home, nothing had changed. No-one gave a shit. We'd sold 1,500 copies of our LP and the press hated us, but we realised that if we could survive America, we could do anything. It revolutionised our approach to who we were." THE GLASGOW JOILE "So we came back, got jobs again, worked in bars and played in the afternoon," explains lain. The next the world would hear from Del Amitri would be their hit album Waking Hours. 'We spent years making that, basically we made it twice, the first time with an entirely inappropriate producer." After having sold 10,000 copies of the album, the decision was made to release Nothing Ever Happens, as a single and the band were TV stars overnight. "It was great," says Justin. 'We'd spent three years trying to make Waking Hours. Suddenly we had a hit and were vindicated. Before that we were e Glasgow joke, everyone thought we were blatantly uncool, actually we still are! 'We knew that if we just stuck honestly to doing what we knew then we'd be successful. Er... wait a minute, that's probably how Chris DeBurgh justifies his career - I'm not sure if we want to be seen in those terms yet!" Del Amitri hit the '90s with a series of consistently fine rock albums: Change Everything, some Other Sucker's Parade and 1995's stunning offering Twisted. Their appeal stemmed not from an ability to latch onto a trend but from a knack of producing albums full of wonderful songs. -I don't go for that talk of honest song writing you know? I just like unpretentious music," lain attests. So is songwriting creative or a craft, Justin? `Well, 1 guess it's creative, but then so is making a model. There's probably an argument that says pop songs are art but 1 don't know. I suppose something like Strawberry Fields Forever or Prince's Sign Of The Times could be viewed like that, but most of the time all we're trying to do is make clever little constructions with melodies and hooks that grab you. In that sense 1 don't think Del Amitri's constructions are necessarily any better than Wannabe by the Spice Girls or a three chord punk song." Currie's self-effacement is frightening in a man whose songs are so criminally under-rated in the first place. Del Amitri deserve to be around for a few more records yet, and you never know, they might even get hip. Of course though, they'll be the last to know, and probably the last to care... EM Talking guitars with lain Harvie GUITARS: I went through a phase of buying guitars every time we got any money from the record company. Basically I've got three Lea Paul Deluxes. 1 bad some Teles but they kept breaking. AMPS: Live I'm using the Orange stuff but my favourite amps are things like the old Fender Champ. It's that classic Nail Young kind of amp. No matter what you do with the knobs It still sounds the same. INFLUENCES: When people were copying Jolumy Marr 1 was copying Peter Buck. ON THE FALL: The great thing about learning to play from Fall records to that It only takes about five minutes. ON BRIAN ROBERTSON: (Thin Lizzy): That stuff was always too hard. We play Boys Are Back In Town now and again but 1 still get It wrongI ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 18:52:47 -0500 From: "Susan & C. Reid Gardner" Subject: Re: OV: OT Europe Jane Armstrong wrote: > But it was great to meet Leah in London - it's a shame we didn't have > longer. And if you can slip away for a few hours and come over here Susan > (or maybe we could get a cheap Eurostar trip to Paris) we'd really love to > meet you too! Honey, there's nothing I'd love more than to spend the entire two weeks in England and hang out with all ya'll the whole time!!! I think my Fearless Leader has quite a tight schedule planned for this art trip and you know how men are, they like to run the show. But we'll see... TTFN Susan ------------------------------ End of oppositeview-digest V3 #78 *********************************