From: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org (seven-seas-digest) To: seven-seas-digest@smoe.org Subject: seven-seas-digest V5 #22 Reply-To: seven-seas@smoe.org Sender: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org Precedence: bulk seven-seas-digest Monday, January 30 2006 Volume 05 : Number 022 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:31:49 +1300 From: "Kristin Smith" Subject: seven-seas xpressmag.com.au (1 of 3) 1 of 3 http://www.xpressmag.com.au/archives/2005/11/ian_mcculloch_f.php IAN McCULLOCH - From Russia With Love After a four-year absence, Echo And The Bunnymen have released Siberia, their 10th album. In a brutally honest interview, their motormouth frontman, Ian McCulloch fills in the details. As McCulloch's heavy scouse accent comes down the line from his native Liverpool, any preconceptions of .a moody, standoffish interviewee and, in fact, the entire mystique of an '80s gloom rock persona is instantly shattered. Though the frontman sneered and mumbled his way through our conversation, he was also unexpectedly warm and talkative, to the extent that he flatly refused to end the interview, even when our allotted time slot expired. A good 15 minutes later, Macca was still eagerly discussing topics ranging from the mundane (losing his glasses) to the surreal (his bizarre hatred of sand and his plans for rubber beaches). Looking back, the image of Echo And The Bunnymen seems far more appealing today than it did during their '80s heyday, especially since they never reached the same dizzying commercial heights as their contemporaries U2. While most artists tend to lose their spark as they get older, critics and fans alike have been equally shocked as The Bunnymen unexpectedly returned to form with Siberia. By ROBERT PENNEY It's quite unusual for a band who have been around as long as yours to release an album that's been labelled your best yet. Yeah, I know. I'm glad you said that. It's hard in a way because obviously Ocean Rain has always been the one I'd say I'm fondest of, or I think is our masterwork. But when I think about Ocean Rain, I probably wouldn't want to hear a good three of the songs. Killing Moon is on there, Ocean Rain, Seven Seas and Silver, but so is Thorn of Crowns and I don't think it's the greatest song ever written. There is a little bit of youthful, over-angst ridden stuff on there. Take Nocturnal Me for starters. I don't even know what it's about; I just tried to make it sound as important as I could. I think it's just from staying up all night. This album is probably the most complete and every song to me is a joy to hear. I think it's overall my favourite or at least the most playable one. Do you think people's sentimental feelings for the older material can get in the way of the album they truly like best? Definitely. Heaven Up Here is the older peoples' favourite because they discovered the band and they feel like they were in on the 'Bunnymen club' before a lot of other people and before we broke and had hit singles. I can understand all that because I was always pleased that I was the only Bowie fan in my school in May 1972 when I had just turned 13. All of your mates were like 'What?! That queer?! He wears makeup and his hair's orange!' and that made me like him more. I do understand that but I think with this album that hopefully the Heaven Up Here fans or the Ocean Rain worshippers will think that this has pretty much got a bit of everything. I think the songwriting has actually gotten better. There was an atmosphere to those early Bunnymen records but it's maybe not quite as thick and haunting now. But that's how it goes; you have to reflect what you're going through. What age groups attend your shows now? Well, we have been playing a lot of festivals recently and we have been attracting a lot of the slightly younger brigade, the kiddiewinkles. If we had a load of 20 year olds we'd think 'bloody hell, the audience is young', but I suppose I started seeing concerts when I was 13, so 20 shouldn't really be considered a kid and you should know your onions and not like whatever the NME tells you. You shouldn't necessarily like The Killers, even though they write pretty good pop tunes. I shouldn't have mentioned them; they are OK and they like us. I don't know really, we'll know on the tour, but the old fans always come anyway and I think that they still think they're 19! The last few years, particularly in America, we have had a lot more 'proper' music kids who wanna like the cool stuff and they know the difference between us and A Flock Of Seagulls. In America when we were top 20 with the last album, a lot of them actually thought we were A Flock Of Seagulls, (adopts over-exaggerated American kid accent) 'Echo And The Bunnymen? Isn't that that band that sang...whatever'. I don't think they could tell the difference between us and any of that crap. But you get that in England too, an audience who think you're a part of a new movement just because you happened to form a band at the same time as other people. So we'll know on this tour but there will be healthy sprinkle of new people I'm sure. How old are you? I'm 20. Bloody hell! You sound mature. I mean your voice sounds older. Maybe I shouldn't have gone on about young people just now, then. You're 20 and you're interviewing me from across the world which I think is a good sign, unless you hate us? Oh but, you like the record though. Fantastic! That's great because you don't have those preconceptions with a band that you've heard of. That's a good thing because I got into The Velvet Underground after they finished and I loved them. I bought the first album and it was like 'what the fuck is this?!' There was no way I could go and see The Velvets because they had split up. I'm sure there will be some kids going 'I can't wait for that tour because I really wanna see that band to see if they are as good as they think they are' - and we are. Well, the new album has had a lot of good reviews. It's good to hear that. I read some reviews, but only ever good ones. There is no point in reading a bad one because it'll wind me up and I'll want to kill the person who's written it. But I don't go out avidly looking for great reviews to read. I think especially when you know you've made an album that you think is great, that keeps you going. You hear from mates whose opinions you value because they don't say 'wow you're the greatest thing ever' they just say 'that's a really good album, much better than all the other shit you've been putting out'. Obviously if it's a real personal attack, it can get to you, but only to me because I actually do want to go fight this person. That's why it's best for me not to read this stuff because I probably would. I wouldn't think any of it was true, but I'd still want to knock his block off and would probably go seek out the fella. It depends though, if you get too many bad reviews then everyday you have to have a fight and never have a chance to do anything else. I'm sure over the years I've had at least 365 sleep-ins, so I think I'll just get on with playing live. Do you have any favourites on the album? I really like Scissors In The Sand Yeah, it's weird that. That kind of came to life right at the end. I had bits of tunes and I knew that it wasn't going to be as 'songy' as the others. I knew I was going to write words that didn't necessarily make total sense but sounded good. One of my ambitions is to rubberise sand because I hate the stuff. I don't know why it's there. It's just there for people to sun themselves on but it's handy to have because it's a barrier between the water and... whatever. I hate it, it feels crap. The colour of rubber would look crap as well so I suppose it would have to probably be sand colour. It would be good to be able to use the rubber to bounce into the water. Picnics would be better too. The wasps wouldn't be so, err... Aggressive? I'll rephrase that, maybe there wouldn't be so many fucking wasps buzzing around your food. ===================================================================== Bunnymen Online Presence: http://www.bunnymenlist.com * http://www.bunnymen.info * http://www.bunnymen.com * http://www.fotolog.net/sgtfuzz/ * http://www.villiersterrace.com * http://www.angelfire.com/wy2/discog/ * http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-887128-89-6 * ====================================================================== ------------------------------ End of seven-seas-digest V5 #22 *******************************