Transcribed by ESO, translated by —
Is this on?
It's on, Riffology!
Is that a melisma?
It is a little bit at the end.
It did a little bit at the end, yeah.
I heard we're going to do the Manic Street Preachers.
Everything must go for Lindsay.
For Lindsay, dedicated to Lindsay.
The Retenders and Kendall.
What's this, three years?
How long are we doing this for?
Four years, five years, six years?
75 years, yeah.
We've been doing this for quite a while,
and Lindsay has been a listener from a very early stage.
She listened to us on the doghouse.
She's listened to us on all kinds of stuff.
She's listened to us do all —
honestly, I cringe thinking about some of the things
we've talked about over the past few years.
And the other thing is that she would have been expecting this
this morning, because we're actually recording this
on Monday evening, whereas ordinarily we're recording it
on a Sunday evening.
We do, yeah.
night, sometimes Sunday mornings.
Yeah.
Very occasionally Saturday afternoons.
Yeah.
We do all of that, yeah.
And we do, but we don't normally do it on a Monday.
No.
Do you want to tell the boys and girls why we're doing it on Monday?
Because I was being a rock star.
Chris has been a download.
Not just attending, but playing.
You play — honestly, it looked incredible.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Some of the pictures were — Denise was there.
Richard was there taking —
And honestly, it's, yeah, some of the shots that came out
from the gig looked incredible.
The social feedback was brilliant as well.
So you guys crushed it, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
It was absolutely brilliant.
It was a good day.
Good weekend.
It was, yeah.
You were on the same stage as — I can never say —
Apocalyptica.
They were good cellos.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, they're great.
I didn't watch anything.
They started with Metallica.
They did Metallica.
Yes, they did, didn't they?
Cellos, Metallica-y things.
Of course they did, yeah.
Yeah, and now they do all kinds of things.
But they were pretty epic.
Yeah.
A dog-tooth stage, weren't you?
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, we're on the dog-tooth.
But the thing is, after we finished playing —
Yeah.
Because I just went back,
because I was doing, like, managing things.
You had to go and play a wedding.
And so that was the next day.
Saturday was — so Friday we played.
Saturday was a wedding.
And then Sunday, I just went and enjoyed —
Or we played again, actually,
just up the road in the rock retreat.
And then did a — watch Korn.
But I only watched Green Day in Korn.
That's all I watched all weekend.
Did you?
I just —
Because the other guys went out.
You know, they went out,
oh, we're going to explore the festival and do that.
And I'm like, I've got a chair.
And it's very comfortable.
And over there, there's beer.
And over there, there's some ice cream.
And over there, there's some water.
You were in the proper VIP bit, weren't you?
The one with the nice toilets.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm like, I'm not going anywhere.
This is brilliant.
We'll stop here.
Hey, that's brilliant.
It was a lovely weekend, that week.
So anyway, that's what it was.
And I have been — my kids have got exams this week.
So I have been just doing that.
Yeah.
Trying to convince them.
Trying to convince one of them not to kill himself
and trying to convince the other one to do some work.
Like, the difference between the two is phenomenal.
One of them is just like, you know,
after studying for 10 hours, it's like, you know,
I'm worthless, I'm terrible,
and I'm going to have to sit him down and, you know, properly.
Like, it's fine.
You know, it's fine.
It's not that big a deal.
You're doing absolutely great.
And then the other one who's just spent like 10 seconds
skimming some work that he thinks might be on the exam.
And they're like, well, I'll be fine.
I'm like, oh, my God, this is just driving me mad.
So that's how I spent my lovely weekend.
And I'm glad.
They're in exams now, so I'm glad it's over.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I said to you earlier, I kind of came outside and,
oh, it's summer now.
It feels like it's been weeks since I've paid any attention
to the real world.
Yeah, yeah.
It's good to be back.
Yes, yeah.
So, yeah, we're a day late.
So sorry, Lindsay, because you were probably like,
you had your finger hovering over the play button this morning
waiting for it to drop, so you go bang.
I bet Kendall did as well.
Kendall normally listens early.
Kendall does.
spots the mistakes.
Spots all the mistakes.
All the mistakes.
There's loads in this one.
I'm a little bit nervous.
I did the blog earlier.
Yeah.
And you messaged me, oh, that's not right.
No, I was wrong, though.
Get in.
No, you were right.
And I was wrong.
Because it talks about, this is,
so it talked about the use of Fender guitars.
Yes.
Like strats.
Yeah.
And jazz masters and different things like that.
The Gretsch.
And all that, yeah.
And I said, he don't play that.
He plays a white Les Paul.
And that's all he's ever played.
Yeah.
Right?
And I was wrong.
Oh.
Because he plays that a lot on the telly.
Yeah.
And on the stage.
Oh, but in the studio.
But in the studio, there was just lots of guitars about.
A lot of people do that, don't they?
Yeah, yeah.
They all have different guitars for the studio and for live.
And that was his look.
Like, his look was the white.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The white custom Les Paul that he had.
It was a beautiful thing.
I always wanted one, actually.
Did you?
Yeah, that was the one.
I think I idolized him a bit, James Dean Bradfield.
Yeah.
As a performer.
Because he had the most, like, unique voice.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Like, it was quite high, sort of high rate.
It was a rock singer.
Yeah.
But he had quite a high register.
Well, the whole band are quite, it's a unique sound, I think.
They're very in.
They were, like, cool indie, weren't they?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They were kind of cool indie band.
But I think, like, I don't know.
Like, some indie bands, they kind of run together a bit.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
They're, you know, not being, like, a super fan of that genre often.
And I'm sure people think the same of, like, metal and stuff as well.
But, you know, for me, a lot of the indie bands kind of run together.
But as not a super fan, I could pick out a Mannix record from a million miles away.
Yeah.
Like, from all their albums, their first three records sound completely, they all sound different.
Yeah.
This album, every other song sounds different.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, it's got, you know, there's, they, I don't know, it's not, it doesn't sound like
a cohesive record to me.
It's not like, I'm trying to give another good example.
We did another album that was just like this, where...
Everything was totally different.
Yeah, there were, it was, it was just like a list of songs.
And this is, this is not, there's like three, three or four songs that sound similar in, that
they're split up through the record.
Yeah.
But it doesn't sound like, you know, it's not a Def Leppard record.
Yeah.
Where every single song has got the same, you know what I mean, the same intonations.
It's been recorded, you know, the guitar sound, you can copy and paste the guitar from one
track to another and it would sound, and you, you couldn't do that on this one.
There's a lot of, I think there's a lot of differences.
Yeah.
And this record, but, but you still know it's, yeah.
Manic's, you can hear it miles away from the window.
And I think a lot of that is his voice.
Yeah.
Because he's a hell of a singer and he's a hell of a guitar player.
Yeah.
And I don't think that he doesn't, well, I think people who know the guitar know how good he is,
but because he's not particularly like a shreddy guitar player.
Yeah.
You know, he's one of these, like, there was a few of these guys in the nineties, like,
you know, him and there was John, is it John Squire from the...
Oh yeah.
Yeah, Stone Rose, is that right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so.
So, and he was in this Seahorses for a little bit, I think after that, just obviously, you
know, just awesome.
Johnny Marr, again, they weren't shredder guitar players, but the way they played guitar was
totally unique.
Really tasteful, I think.
Really tasteful and melodic and phrase based and, you know, all that stuff.
It feels effortless to me.
Like, it was only been today I kind of sat and really kind of gave this record some time.
And it's like, there were two things that hit me really.
So one, you know, my mainstay is kind of big, thick, heavy metal or big, thick, heavy American
rock or, you know, kind of raucous rock and roll music.
Coming from that to this album, the production was like, it was quite stark.
It is quite, it's like, it's quite clinical.
It's got a, yeah, it's a...
I think you said it's quite bright.
Yeah.
It's quite a bright Simon album.
But I think it's because, when we did the interviews, we were going to the interviews, and it says about the use of compression.
And then there probably hardly isn't any.
I think so.
They describe it as a trashy sound, don't they?
Yeah, yeah.
I think I would describe it as almost glary in places.
That's a nice one.
It's got glare, yeah.
The bit that I think is really fascinating is that, like, at the time, like, your heavy metal crew wouldn't have liked.
Yeah.
You wouldn't have listened to this.
You wouldn't have liked it.
And flicking between those worlds, you can kind of hear why.
Yeah.
It's like oil and water.
I mean, it's not a pleasant.
So if you listen to, like, that big, thick American rock sound, and then you flick over to this.
Yeah.
It's quite, it feels quite like...
It's like brash.
Yeah.
And it's hard to, and it took me, I listened to the record through once, and I kind of, you know, the big singles work.
Yeah.
Like, immediately, they work off the bat, and they're huge.
And there are bits through the album that you just think, oh, that sounds really quite cool.
But the album as a whole didn't, like, doesn't hit you.
But then, like, the second run through, you know, when your kind of ears have adjusted a little bit, and they're kind of, you know, the mega death has worn off a little bit, and you're kind of in.
And then it's really weird.
It's got, you just, you start hearing stuff that you didn't hear before, and you start to hear the kind of, and the bass melodies are, like, super cool.
The way they're kind of, you know what I mean?
Just the way that's in there, kind of filling the bottom end.
And like you say, this kind of effortless guitar work.
It hadn't occurred to me how good he was, until you, you know, you've got your headphones on, and you're kind of listening, and you're just thinking, oh, that's really clever.
And that the bits of, like, from nowhere lead guitar work, that just, it just seems to be, like, it's not, like, classic song structure.
It's not where, it's not where Iron Maiden would put a guitar solo.
You know what I mean?
You know, you can imagine Iron Maiden doing a song, and they know exactly where the bridge is going to be, the chorus is going to be, and the solo is going to be, before they start writing the song.
It's like, that's kind of the blueprint.
And then you hear Drex on this record, and it's like, whoa, where's that coming from?
And you've suddenly got this, like, really cool, like, lead melody happening in a bit where you'd perhaps expect a bridge or a chorus to it.
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's a really cool record, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
And the other thing is, the, you said this before, where it makes you want to pick up an instrument.
Yeah.
It makes me want to write, listen to this album.
Yeah.
And, because I've learned quite a few of these songs to play on the guitar, so, and it's really funny, like, I used to play and sing Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky quite a lot.
And I don't think I could remember how to play it now, but it was one that I used to play, you know, and sing quite a lot when I was a lot younger.
And I purposefully learned that, and Australia, and everything was going, oh, it's a huge anthem.
Yeah, it's an incredible song, it is.
And my whole thing behind it was, I want to sing as good as this guy.
Right, right, right.
I want to write as good as him, I want to play as good as him.
So you thought it's like, if you emulated, that would rub off and you'd learn how to do it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I'd learn his shapes, or I'd learn his kind of thing.
And the big one was the vocal, because I, when I first started singing, I had quite an American rock vocal.
I'm still in there now, really.
You're still quite American.
Yeah, I'm still American, but it was quite gruff, it's quite, like Pearl Jammy, like early Pearl Jam.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're definitely, you're 1991 Seattle, that's where you are.
Yeah, but then, I wanted to adjust my range so that I could hit things like Jeff Buckley could hit, or James D. Bradfield could hit, or people like that.
And I really, like, and I've struggled a lot, and over time, as I've sort of increased my range, and practiced, and practiced, and sung for hours and hours and hours every week, I can do it now.
But it's effortless, it's like I can hit the notes, and I don't have to think about them, and I don't necessarily really, and that's interesting that that was the target, you know, to hit the notes that this guy can hit, to sing, because my vocal, in composition, my vocal phrasing is very similar to James Dean Bradfield, very similar.
It's really interesting, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, I remember you were talking about guitar, copying guitar sounds from the Smashing Pumpkins, as well.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's interesting, you know, listening to you talk about your influences, and then listening to music that you've written, and you've played.
Yeah.
You pick it out, you can see all that, I can see.
It's almost like, I thought it was like the DNA.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's all the DNA, DNA, DNA of all this sort of stuff, you know, the pumpkins, and this, and even like, this was, you know, we've spoken about it before, this was my, what was it, 96?
96, yeah.
Yeah, so, so that would have been 14.
So, this, this kind of, 13, 14, 15, 16, where I was really hammering the gazaar, and like, learning that world, and getting into all that sort of stuff, this was the diet.
But this was huge, as well, I mean, this record was, for the UK, this was millions.
There wasn't many people that didn't have a copy of this.
No, no, this was a, this was a big, you know, this was a huge, for the UK, this was a huge, I don't know how well it did out of the UK.
No, I'm not sure.
Possibly Europe, I think they did really well, but yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
While you were talking about lyrics, and about the, the writing of this, we've got to talk about Richie Edwards, as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because these, well, they were going through some stuff, weren't they?
They were.
I, you know, I hadn't, I didn't realise any of this, and I went down a proper rabbit hole with this.
So, the band, there's, the band were a four-piece, just before this record.
Yeah, and they had three albums before this, wasn't it?
Yeah, three.
Oh, God.
Holy Bible.
You're going to, you're going to mock me about now.
I'm in the wrong table.
So, Generation Terrorist in 92, Gold Against the Soul in 93, The Holy Bible in 94, and then Everything Must Go in 96.
And then This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours.
They were the two, like, mega.
Yeah, they were huge, weren't they?
Mega records, yeah, 96 and 98.
If you tolerate this, then your children will be next, well, for that next one, wasn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think that was the one where they were, yeah.
Well, it's both of these two, I think.
But, yeah, on Everything Must Go, they were on everything.
They were playing every, they were in that era.
They were playing every festival, they were on every team.
They were out on tour with the Stone Roses, with Oasis, they were with everybody.
They were just enormous.
But I wanted to talk about that, like, before this album.
So, those first three albums, they were a four-piece.
It's James Dean, Bradfield, Sean Moore, Nicky Wire, and Richie Edwards.
And Richie Edwards, he was rhythm guitar and lyrics.
Can I just, sorry, I know you...
Yeah, do it, go on.
They're a really collaborative band.
Yes.
They collaborate on lyrics.
Yes.
I find that weird.
Like, I find that really weird.
Every band that I've ever done anything with, there's a lyricist.
There's someone whose vision this kind of lyrical world is.
So, for Star From Ivy, it was me.
For obviously, Riding the Low is Paddy.
I find it really...
And you don't stray over the line.
Watching Riding the Low work, it's like you typically get the idea of the song
and how it's going to come together, and you'll kind of do that.
And then the rest of the lads will put their bits in.
So, like, you know, the bass and things will go on to there.
But the song itself has come from your brain, and you'll kind of go,
okay, this is kind of how I think that's going to work.
But then Paddy adds the lyrics to that.
Sort of, yeah.
It doesn't become the song till Paddy's got it, though.
But it's an idea.
Yeah.
It's an idea when I'm playing...
They're basically improvisations, really.
So they're kind of fairly improvised.
They're free flow.
They come through, and then they all go off to pad.
And the thing about that is, like, I've kind of...
They're gone, then.
I've let go of those.
I don't know where they are.
That's the bit I don't...
I find it really amazing that, like, so you've got an idea, you do it,
and then you and the boys will kind of put the...
No, no, it doesn't go near the boys.
Oh, until Paddy's in the lyrics.
Yeah, so Paddy is the songwriter, really.
Right.
I kind of feed ideas in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the song craft, really, is Paddy.
And the world that gets created within the song, that's sort of Paddy's vision.
And then, so once he's done that, then everyone gets together.
Then we take it into a room and work on it, yeah.
I just find it fascinating that, so you'll go and do that,
and then Paddy will, like, take it somewhere, like, totally different.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So something like, a great example of that is something that's,
I know we're straying right off Paddy, but something like Tommy Hawk, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So I sent that over, and it came back, and it blew my mind,
because I had no idea that's what it would become.
What Paddy...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it becomes the song when he's created the song, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, it does do.
I just think it's extraordinary that, like, imagining it not being...
Imagine, like, Pad doing it.
Imagine Paddy going, oh, I'm going to do it.
And then coming to you going, oh, I need some more melody around this.
Yeah, yeah.
Do you know, I'm not sure it would work in quite the same way.
No, no.
But I don't know.
I just love watching that creative process work, and how it changes things.
And, like, sometimes you'll play this, and you'll kind of go,
oh, I'm thinking about doing this.
And then I'll hear it a year later, after it's worked its way through the machine.
You think it went, you know what I mean?
It turned into this completely different thing from where you started.
It's, yeah.
I think that process is awesome.
I love Songcraft.
I love the creation of music and song.
And I just think it's the most brilliant thing, because it's never a straight line.
No.
It's never a straight line.
But like we talked about before, it's a point in time of the people involved.
Yeah.
Whether you're having a good day or a bad day.
Yeah, yeah.
So, shall we get back to this?
Sorry.
Yes.
Detour.
Slight detour.
So, I was talking about Richie Edwards, who was a rhythm guitar and lyricist.
He did lots of lyrics.
And the story goes, and I'm going to go and get my research on this so I don't get completely lost.
So, the story goes that they were heading off on a U.S. tour.
So, they were about to, well, I guess a week or so time later, he left his hotel in the 1st of February, 95.
The band were due to head off to the U.S. for a promotional tour.
He drove back to his flat in Cardiff in Wales.
His car was found.
At Seven View Services, near the Seven Bridge.
And he's never been seen since.
Wow.
The bits that I think are really fascinating about this is the rumours around, you know, a bit like Elvis.
Yeah.
There's a lot of rumours about, you know, are we still around somewhere?
Yeah, he's singing Brightside in a wedding band.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's a lot of that kind of weird stuff.
I find that really disrespectful.
There's something about that that really does make me feel really disrespectful.
Like, that's really disrespecting that.
He had a history of mental health issues and suffered with anorexia and a bunch of other things.
Yeah.
The bits that I think are really interesting is that apparently he handed, like, this folder full of lyrics as he left almost.
And apparently that was kind of, it wasn't a normal thing, but it was just kind of like, here, here, here, here.
Oh, here's some lyrics.
Yeah.
Almost as if he kind of knew.
He was going to go.
But then we get this album.
So the band then come into this album.
They weren't sure they were going to carry on.
They weren't sure whether they were going to change the name of the band or not.
They were, you know, they were pretty bowled over by it.
You know, they were not, you know, it wasn't like, oh, well, okay, well, we're just, you know, it wasn't a little thing for them.
It was a big thing to deal with, you know, eventually making the decision to stay as a three piece or to, you know, to carry on as a three piece, but also to use Richie's lyrics and some of the guitar.
Well, there's rumours that some of the guitar work is used on the record, but the band have always a little bit vague about whether it was or not.
But, you know, they're his lyrics on a bunch of different tracks on this album.
And, you know, by the sounds of it, most of the people involved were talking about actually the, you know, the guitar work he'd already recorded.
So they just kind of carried on.
Laid it on sort of thing.
Yeah.
There's a lot of myth, isn't there?
There's a lot of mythos around this, this kind of, and I think that's because of the unknown.
I think, you know, when there are gaps, when there are unknowns, people get creative, don't they?
Yeah.
I think people love a mystery, don't they?
That friend of yours does that blog, Fred the Head.
Yeah, the podcast.
Yeah.
The podcast about, is it just about a head that was found?
Was it a head that was found or a body that was found?
I always get confused.
Yeah, it was a body that was found.
In Burton or Trent.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like the remains, yeah.
It's the body.
And so it's just about the history of it and where it went.
I think people love a, people love a mystery, especially where it's like weird like that, where it's just somebody disappearing.
You know, somebody's just like, oh, oh, because that's not, do you know what I mean?
Like if you'd been in a car accident.
Yeah.
Like I'm thinking of like Cliff Burton.
Yeah.
And Cliff Burton died in a car accident or in a bus accident with Metallica.
You know, it's, it's, it's, there's an end to it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's a closure to it.
Closure, yeah, of course.
Yeah, where this is like.
Yeah, there isn't, there isn't this on this, no.
And this is, the internet was around at this point as well, wasn't it, 96.
So people would chat, they would be on the IRC chatting.
Yeah.
Spreading rumours and that.
Everything I was called, the title track was, a little bit of serendipity again.
There's no genius moment there, just it's really simple clues sometimes.
Nick's brother, Patrick Jones, playwright, he had written a, a play called Air from Moscow.
And no, he, there was, there was a title of his, Flirtin' Run, called Air from Moscow.
And there was a, there was a photo that he'd used and it came from Patrick, the title.
And I think Nick had given, I think Nick had given me a lyric.
I remember saying to Nick, Air from Moscow has just been really, yeah, good title.
You know, but a bit, you know, between Nick and his brother Pat, you know, this title,
Air from Moscow had come.
Um, I remember saying to Nick, for once Nick didn't have an album title.
Um, and I was like, I think Air from Moscow would be perfect, you know.
Um, so I came between this, though, uh, the chemistry that the two brothers, Nick and, Nick and Patrick,
had got, I suggest that it should be the album title.
And, but when he gave me the lyric, obviously the lyric is talking to, the lyric is talking,
we're talking to ourselves and we're talking to our audience.
You know, we're saying like something, you know, we're in the, we're amid something, you know, traumatic and big here.
Um, but we, we need to move on for now, whilst showing that we don't forget, um, um, we're still here.
The same guy's, we're still using some of, some of Richie's words.
He's still with us.
He's, the space is still on the stage there.
Um, but we've got to move on for now.
And let's just, let's see how this goes.
Literally, that's what the song is saying.
And it's asking for a bit of forgiveness if people feel upset about us carrying on, I suppose.
Um, and I, so I saw this lyric and I felt, I always feel pressure with some of Nick's lyrics because,
especially then, you know, the lyric is, is really trying to talk to you.
Um, so I, I, I, I flailed around with this song and I didn't have direction for it.
And it's, it's, it's that crap old moment, you know, I constantly live in a B-movie.
Um, I was at, at home and, uh, Be My Baby came on the radio.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
I was like, let's give that a go.
You know, can I find a chord movement that just goes over that?
Yeah.
And so I inverted, I suspended that chord over E major something.
I don't know where, I'm not very good at theory.
So I just, you know, I moved up the high figure and left the, the, the, left the root in.
Then I slid it back down and it just went.
And I was like, okay, got it.
And it all, just from that chord, everything flowed.
Um, and it felt good.
It felt really good.
It felt simple.
It felt graceful.
It felt concise.
And it felt like there was a little bit of nice B-movie serendipity in the writing of it.
You know.
Shots and skin for the breathing.
It's starting to help me with everything.
It felt like you were a little bit too.
How could you be a band when one of the bits is missing?
Yeah.
You know?
It wasn't...
And this is the thing.
kind of like collaborative thing that the Mannix have.
And the way they create seems to be a really collaborative process.
Like when one of the parts of that process is missing, who's a key lyricist, who's a key writer,
you know?
How do you progress?
How do you proceed?
How do you get on?
It's dark, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
I think the album was quite dark.
You know, because it's like Kevin Carter.
Yeah.
Oh, you're going to tell me.
Because I know Kevin Carter was a photographer, but I don't know the...
I don't know the meaning of the song.
My confession is I thought the song was called "Kemi-Carda".
"Kemi-Carda"?
"Kemi-Carda", yeah.
I don't know what that means.
What does that mean?
It's a clothing brand, "Kemi-Carda".
Is it?
No.
It's a great name.
It'd be a great clothing brand name.
Great name for a band.
It is, isn't it?
"Kemi-Carda".
You would be...
I think you would be like a trap drum and bass.
That kind of thing, wouldn't you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Definitely.
And you'd do massive drops.
You'd be...
All of that.
They don't kick in anymore though, those songs.
They go the opposite way.
Do they?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If you ever watch them, they're like build, build, build, build, build, build, build.
They're nothing.
What?
The main hook is like there's just a drum beat or something.
What?
I don't get it.
It's a world coming to you.
I don't know who to blame.
Should we blame President Trump for that?
That would be.
I don't know who else...
I don't know who else you can blame these days.
No.
He gets the blame for everything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He won't even notice.
He won't.
He won't even know.
Riffology have just blamed you for drum and bass being rubbish.
He's like, well, whatever.
And he'll just say, I don't know.
I don't recognise that.
Add it to the list.
What was it?
Oh, yeah.
Kevin Carter.
Again, I've got to go back to my list because I didn't know anything about any of this.
And it was...
I thought it was really interesting.
So, Kevin Carter was a South African photojournalist.
Right.
And people have probably heard of him.
So, he was born September 1916, Johannesburg.
He's best known for this picture, which I'm showing the podcast audience now.
Okay.
Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is the vulture and the little girl.
So, it's essentially a starving...
In the Sudan, there was a famine.
And it shows this tiny, tiny little boy, emaciated.
And the vulture is just sitting there waiting for them to die.
Yeah.
Wow.
He took that picture.
Hmm.
And...
But he suffered hugely with mental health issues.
So, he...
The song is about his life and about the things that he struggled with.
So, not interfering with this stuff.
Being a photojournalist, you know, your job is to record what's happening.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's kind of what he felt.
There's a purity of recording what's happening.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he recorded some horrific scenes.
And then, and then kind of would reflect on, I could have say, do you know what I mean?
I could have...
Wow.
Of course, because he's a photojournalist.
He was capturing the story.
Yeah, I could have...
But I could have intervened.
Yeah.
So, I could have helped that little boy.
I could have helped that, that person.
Um, and didn't...
And committed suicide.
Yeah.
Just, if you've not read about him, he was part of what's called the Bang Bang Club, a
group of conflict photographers.
And there's a bit in here where he ran that photograph of the vulture.
Yeah.
Ran in the New York Times.
Yeah.
Um, and he was vilified for not, um, not intervening.
Yeah.
Like how could you not have...
Yeah, yeah.
Not have helped kind of thing.
Um...
Yeah.
I just...
Extraordinarily.
So...
High time magazine.
High pull and surprise.
Trouble scars.
In technical color.
Bang Bang Club.
AK 47 hour.
Carricader. High-time magazine. High-pullet surprise. Fuck-shot stalks. Rock-rock-life forever. Wasted your life in black and white.
Carricader. Carricader. Carricader.
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The elephant is so ugly, he sleeps his head, machete's his bed. Kevin Carter can fall apart forever. Click, click, click, click, click, click, Kinta Panda.
Kevin Carter, Kevin Carter, Kevin Carter.
So Kevin Carter was strange because I remember Mike Edges and Ian Grimble, Ian Grimble was the engineer on the record.
He was, he was pivotal as well. He was so tasteful. You know, he was the first engineer we've met where we'd say to him, can I compress that a bit?
And he just raised an eyebrow and was like, no. And I was just like, oh, okay. He's sorry. Ah, Mr. Abbey Road. And then he said, compression when it's needed.
I was like, okay, okay. So he was letting things sing. He was letting things be free. I remember Ian Grimble was letting things be free.
And I remember Mike Edges saying that he wanted to be, he wanted the album to be produced trashiness. He had two MOs, produced trashiness. And he wanted, he said he wanted, he wanted that jukebox moment where you get that natural compression in a jukebox and something plays in a jukebox.
And he said, I like Eaton Rifles by The Jam. He said, there's something about that song that just goes, it attacks you. And he said, I've wanted a sign for life to be like that kind of thing.
It might mean bullshitting, but I remember the two things he said. Anyway, I remember, I remember just using my Gibson for Kevin Carter in the tuning.
And Ian Grimble and Mike Edges were like, no, you shouldn't be using, this is like a scratchy song. This is, it's got a little bit of a kind of new wave samba kind of like, you know, you know, use another guitar.
And I had a, I think late 80s jazz master that Nick and Sean, Nick, Sean and Richie had bought me. I think I've had a big fight in Newport and they kind of, I don't know why I'm telling you that.
I got my jaw broken in Newport by a couple of lads. And I think they bought me this guitar to cheer me up. And so kind of, it was in the corner. I'd never really used this guitar much.
And so I just printed the tune in and I went clank, clank, clank. And it was perfect straight away. It was through this Fender, Silverface Fender Twin that I've only just found again out there.
And I remember Mike and Ian, they just thought there was something missing. So they linked it up with the box with the sweater box.
And it just gave it a little bit of warmth underneath. And bam, they were like, no, just one guitar track, nothing else.
And I was like, oh God, I can't track it. And so that put the pressure on, but it was good because they put pressure on us to be a little bit more pure.
Because even though the Holy Bible was played off the ground and it was pure, it was, you know, sometimes I would do it to guitar tech and then I would just back it up in places or track it.
And sometimes you'd be like, no, you're just doing this. So yeah, it was, it was them pushing me to use a different amp.
They didn't let me use my Marshall sometimes and they make me use a different guitar sometimes and no compression.
And, and like, you know, sometimes it's like, no, no stomp box. Just I can hit it harder when the chorus comes.
Yeah. So all those things were, you know, I think they realized they were with a band that had toured a lot.
Yeah. And they were like, you know, you know, kind of this band, you know, if we, this, this band are tight now.
If we tell them to do something, they respect us, they'll respond to us. And we did.
The, the album itself has got quite a lot of, there's a darkness in there, isn't there?
There is. And I think they were going through, they were going through stuff.
You know, you have to think you're, I mean, I don't know whether they kind of expected him to just turn up at the studio.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean? After not, you know, just disappeared. And then apparently he was known,
like Richie was known to disappear for, you know, it would go off and disappear for like a few days or a week and then, and then kind of come back again.
I think he struggled with people. I can empathize with that, actually.
But yeah, he would just go off and like, you know, I don't want to, I'm not doing people for a bit.
But yeah, it's just weird, isn't it? Like, there's no closure. You don't know what's happened to that person, but you, you've got their lyrics and their music.
And you're in a studio working on it.
Because I think it helped that we knew that this, if there was going to be another record, there would at least be four songs with some of Richie's lyrics in.
Kevin Carter, Small Backflowers, A Grow in the Sky, The Girl That Won't Be God, Unremovables are the ones.
And Elvis Impersonator, but that was Nick and Richie, I think.
So we knew that it was at least a third, at least a third of the lyrics on there that Nick and Richie had written together or Richie had written a big part of.
So that helped. We still thought as if it could be a rich, and helping with Richie on, even though he wasn't there.
Yeah.
I've only begun to realise that, you know, about 10 years ago that that helped, really.
It helped them to feel as if some of Richie's words were still.
It helped him to feel as if it could be a big part of his life.
It helped them to feel as if he could be a big part of his life.
It helped him to feel as if he could be a big part of his life.
"Cary your own debt to swing your tired tricks"
"Wanna get out? Yeah, you're pretty quick"
"For the outside, the small black flowers that grow in the sky"
"They drag sticks along your walls"
"Harvest your ovaries, dead mother's crown"
"Here comes warden Christ's temple elder"
"Environment not yours, you'll see through it all"
"Wanna get out? Yeah, you'll see through it all"
"You're, you're bred dead quick"
"Far the outside"
"The small black flowers that grow in the sky"
"You're chewing your tail is joy"
"Mike and Ian were not scared to ask things like this"
"Yes"
"And they weren't scared of a bit of tension as well"
"Yeah"
"I remember once me and Mike were not getting on"
"And you'd go downstairs in the basement of Chateau Rougemont"
"Which was a studio in the middle of France in the middle of Normandy"
"I'm in a place called D'Enfant"
"And you'd go down in the basement of this Chateau"
"And it was quite spooky down there"
"And you'd do your vocal and you'd feel detached from the world"
"Which was quite good"
"Yeah"
"But I wasn't getting this vocal take"
"I think it was small black flowers that grew in the sky"
"Yeah"
"And I remember just like what do you know"
"All the talk about it"
"I was like what do you want Mike?"
"And he was just like you know"
"I just want you to just don't attack those two lines"
"You know I've said it like eight times"
"So I said to him back to him which was quite snidey"
"Which is probably ill-advised because he's six foot five"
"And then I did that take"
"I say how was that?"
"And he was like very sensitive"
"I took his hand off the button"
"I was like this isn't going well"
"So you know we had two hours off from each other"
"Yeah yeah"
"But he wasn't scared at that moment of just like you know"
"Just having it out" kind of thing
"Which is important really"
"Yeah yeah"
"Can't like each other all the time can you?"
"I can tell you that from being in the band you know"
"Yeah"
"I have been an annoying bastard in the control many a time"
"So yeah I think it was a proper"
"Him and Ian were proper grown-ups"
"Also had great fun"
"Good food"
"And ten o'clock would finish and Mike would say"
"I'm not working now"
"We're going out for a drink"
"Yeah"
"So Nick, Sean would say mostly and I'd go out with him"
"Som of the phrasing of the lyrics"
"Some of the phrasing is quite patchwork"
"Right"
"In the sense that you know"
"There's sort of extra syllables or extra words that creep in"
"Or that maybe don't quite rhyme in or that maybe don't quite rhyme in a sort of"
"Yeah yeah I've noticed"
"There's a lot of repetition"
"That's a big thing with the Mannix is they've got like a line"
"Yeah"
"They'll loop that line"
"Yeah"
"And I think that's because"
"I think a lot of the things are lyrics first"
"Ah, like the story"
"And then the music comes and then they kind of patchwork it"
"They kind of work their work"
"I don't know"
"I've never sat with them and spoke to them"
"It certainly feels like"
"You know"
"A lot of it feels like lyrics first"
"Like the lyrics have been written"
"The ideas have been written"
"And then the music comes and then they sort of fit the whole thing together"
"See I kind of assumed it was on purpose"
"Because it adds this like dynamic change"
"So you know if you've got a band like"
"I like the struts"
"Where it's hooks from"
"You're like two bars in and you've already got a massive hook"
"And then the hook is going to come back and get bigger and bigger and bigger"
"And there's no"
"There's no down"
"You know what I mean?"
"There's no dissonance to it all"
"It's just big and punchy and you know what I mean?"
"And bouncy and"
"Makes you want to turn the volume up"
"Like"
"Because it's just this kind of just hook after hook after hook"
"What I get with the Mannix is you kind of get these like dissonant bits"
"Dillinger do this really"
"Very very different band"
"But Dillinger do this really well"
"Where you get these passages of dissonance where it's actually quite"
"Not unpleasant sounding"
"But it's like not very sweet sounding"
"It's not like a pop song"
"And then you get the melody"
"And it makes that dissonant bit before it"
"Makes the melody feel even better and bigger"
"If that makes sense"
"It's like the drop in your drum and bass drop"
"That President Trump ruined"
"It's a bit like that"
"Where there are bits in there where the lyrical phrasing or the song itself will feel a little bit"
"I don't know"
"Just a bit unusual"
"Yeah"
"Do you know what I mean?"
"Like putting the bits of guitar solo in"
"In places that you think"
"Well I'm not sure that should go there"
"Yeah"
"And then the song will kind of go off and"
"The big singles are brilliant for this I think"
"Where there are like bits in there that are"
"Just huge anthemic"
"Yeah"
"Kind of nuggets of kind of cool tunes"
"And then there were bits that are just not quite"
"Yeah"
"You know what I mean?"
"It just adds that little bit of dissonance to it where you kind of"
"But you know the big bits coming back again"
"So you kind of "Oh come on, come on"
"When it does come it makes it sound even better"
"Yeah"
"Whereas I think if you just go from like"
"hook to hook to hook"
"It's not"
"It doesn't have the same"
"No"
"Same impact"
"No that's true"
"And a great example of that actually"
"And I know we're not sort of"
"This is an earlier album"
"But Motorcycle Emptiness"
"Yeah"
"Is a really good example of that"
"Because the lyrics in the verse"
"Yeah"
"They're quite like"
"They're difficult to learn"
"Because they're quite"
"Wordy"
"If they had this ridiculous thing to say but"
"Too many words in the song"
"Well they're just you know"
"They're very considered"
"And they're very"
"They're not like"
"I love you my darling"
"You know it's not that"
"There's more to it"
"They're charged"
"You know there's something going on with the lyrics"
"Something to say"
"I've got something to say"
"Yeah"
"And they don't roll off the song"
"And they're not particularly hooky"
"until you get to that chorus"
"Yeah"
"And the chorus is"
"Because it's that"
"That classic Mannix loop line"
"Yeah"
"You know with a guitar that's looped as well"
"That kind of"
"And it's funny because there's a bit of the"
"The da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da"
"That creeps into Everything Must Go" as well
"Oh yeah"
"There's one of the songs that's got that kind of"
"Yeah yeah yeah yeah"
"Rhythm on one of the songs"
"I like that"
"I like it when bands do like little nods"
"to sort of previous material"
"Previous stuff"
"And there's a couple of those sort of bits with this"
"With Everything Must Go"
"So it was the old Abbey Road desk"
"The old Dark Side of the Moon desk"
"Which he subsequently sold"
"You know about"
"Five, six years ago I think"
"So he lived in the middle of France"
"With his family"
"And myself, Nick, Sean and Ritchie"
"On the Holy Bible"
"We had wanted to use him for the Holy Bible"
"Yeah yeah"
"Because he'd done lots of early Cure stuff"
"And he'd done a record that we'd all loved"
"Cold Story of the Blues"
"By the Mighty War"
"And even though that's a different record"
"It's got orchestration on it and drum machine"
"We just knew he was the guy for us"
"At some point"
"But I remember"
"We asked to use him on the Holy Bible"
"And he got back to us"
"A lot of times people would just go through their managers"
"No"
"Sorry, can't make it"
"And he sent back a nice return saying"
"I really want to work with you"
"But I'm booked up for a year"
"Yeah"
"So we thought, well that's good"
"Because, you know"
"A band on their third album"
"Our ego was still quite fragile I think"
"Because we knew we were in a bit of a tough spot"
"And the fact that he came back was saying"
"I want to work with you"
"We will work together"
"I just can't now"
"That's important stuff like that"
"We're a young band"
"So we went back and asked again"
"And he had just"
"He felt like he was coming up for A"
"He was a big producer again"
"And he'd done Texas"
"He'd done Yes" by McCormick and Butler
"You know, he was on the up again"
"And he did lots of beautiful stuff"
"So it felt right"
"It felt like, you know"
"Because I knew there was so much orchestration"
"In some of these songs"
"Yeah"
"And it felt right"
"So if you work with Mike"
"Do you know a band, I'm just going to go off piste hugely"
"But a band that I like lyrically"
"It is for the lyrics"
"But it's for the way the words are formed"
"And that's the Imagine Dragons"
"Using the kind of consonants of the words"
"To act like a percussion instrument"
"Yeah"
"And I just think it's so clever"
"To be able to not only build the song"
"And build the story"
"And build the lyrics"
"But then choose words that have got the structure"
"Yeah"
"Where the kind of consonant sounds"
"Allow you to, you know"
"Do you know what I mean?"
"Build almost like this percussive instrument"
"With the words"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah"
"I don't know"
"I think that's dead clever"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely"
"Yeah"
"What was the other thing I was just going to say about this?"
"Oh, the arrangements"
"So the arrangements of the gear"
"You obviously got the big chunky"
"You've got these beautiful quite angelic picked"
"kind of guitar work on it"
"Bass travels lovely"
"The drums are really good"
"The drums are that classic sort of big, big 90s"
"kind of, you know, couple of toms"
"Yeah"
"Few big cymbals"
"There's not much compression across anything"
"Anything"
"Anything is there?"
"No, there isn't"
"But consider it, it's an interesting record"
"Because if you listen to this compared to like 'Morning Glory'"
"Yeah"
"That's compressed to high heaven"
"And there's no detail in it"
"I mean, our people are going to throw, like the indie crew will be throwing things at their stereo sets"
"But I think that's not a good sounding record"
"I don't think 'Morning Glory'"
"I don't think it sounds great"
"I think there are bits in there that sound really good"
"But as a record as a whole, it's just too much"
"For me, it's just too much compression"
"If I listen to 'Definitely Maybe'"
"Yeah"
"I think that's got"
"A bit more space in it"
"Yeah"
"Yeah, it has"
"Whereas this, recorded in '96"
"It doesn't fit the loudness wars"
"No, no"
"Doesn't feel like something that's had the compressors wound up to"
"You know what I mean?"
"Yeah"
"It doesn't feel like one of those records"
"You know, it feels like something that was perhaps recorded five years earlier"
"Yeah"
"You know, in the early 90s, that kind of"
"Well, I mean even late 80s"
"Yeah"
"It had that kind of"
"Yeah, I don't know"
"There's a dynamic edge to it where there's quiet bits and loud bits"
"Yes"
"You don't get that on much that was recorded at this time"
"No"
"But there's also really pretty elements like the harp"
"Yeah"
"The harp's quite a key instrument on this record"
"And the strings, there's beautiful string arrangements all over it"
"I couldn't figure out why all this had happened"
"You know"
"So that's the first emotion"
"We were still trying to deal with this deeply strange thing that had happened"
"And every time you're checking yourself because you know in the background"
"His family count first"
"So you'd find yourself caught in this narrative of a bandmate"
"And all of a sudden we'd known all our lives"
"So I've got to say that"
"It was more than a bandmate really"
"Especially for Nick"
"But of course then you'd have to catch yourself and go"
"But it's worse for his family"
"So it's all those"
"That emotion which is"
"I suppose everybody would assume that"
"And then waiting for that"
"Six months or so"
"And just thinking well what do we do?"
"We don't know what to do"
"Are we in status forever?"
"Do we just be in this kind of state of suspension and just wait"
"Or should we just carry on and see how that makes us feel?"
"So what came under the banner of that was"
"Well let's try and write a song"
"Because that's where everything starts from"
"And literally the first song we did try to write"
"Without Richie being around"
"Was Designed for Life"
"I've told that many a times"
"And it was two lyrics that Nick had sent me"
"One was called The Pure Emotive"
"And the other was called Designed for Life"
"And I could see that"
"They were both driving towards the same thing"
"Way in my head anyway"
"So he'd sent me those lyrics and I fused them together"
"And he seemed happy with that"
"And then the song just came in 10 minutes"
"And you know they were"
"I think there were two chords in there"
"Which I'd never used before"
"Which I"
"You know anybody that tries to write music"
"Knows how much of a cheap thrill that is"
"You know when you've like"
"You're searching for something"
"And you find the chord and you go"
"Well that's the chord in my head"
"And that's how it looks"
"And this is how it interacts with this other chord"
"And so that was a lovely moment"
"But it just felt graceful"
"It felt literate"
"But it also felt"
"As if it was trying to communicate to other people"
"Something that we were going through"
"So to write that song was the thing that made us"
"Feel as if we could carry on"
"And I remember we had a rendezvous in Cardiff"
"In Sound Space Studios"
"Which is where we had recorded the Holy Bible"
"And we played the song and it just clicked"
"And Sean just found that rhythm"
"Ding"
"And Nick was right in point with it"
"And Nick said no"
"After the second chorus it should just be"
"Everything should just empty out"
"And just have those chords because they're so"
"Those chords are so articulate"
"They just have no singing"
"It's just"
"Obviously we're going to put strings here"
"You know"
"And everything just felt in place"
"And Mike Hedges and Rob Stringer came down"
"Rob Stringer is the guy that signed us"
"Now he's the boss of Sony Worldwide"
"And they both picked up this song"
"Life always gave us power"
"Then what camera made us feel"
"What price now?"
"For a shallow piece of dignity"
"I wish I had a bottle"
"Right here in my dead case"
"I wish I had a bottle"
"Right here in my dead case"
"I wish I had a bottle"
"Right here in my dead case"
"I wish I had a bottle"
"Right here in my dead case"
"I wish I had a bottle"
"Right here in my dead case"
"I wish I had a bottle"
"Right here in my dead case"
"I wish I had a bottle"
"Right here in my dead case"
"I wish I had a bottle"
"Right here in my dead case"
"I wish I had a bottle"
"And I wish I had a bottle"
"I wish I had a bottle"
"Right to wear my pretty face"
"I wish I had a bottle"
"Right to wear my pretty face"
"To wear the scars"
"To show from where I came"
"We don't talk about love"
"We only wanna get drunk"
"And we are not allowed to stand"
"As we are told that this is the end"
"I designed for life"
"To show from where I came"
"I designed for life"
"To show from where I came"
"Get fired for that"
"That's what it's all about"
"Our design for life"
"Meanings and stuff"
"is essentially"
"They describe it as"
"an anthem for the working class"
"We don't talk about love"
"We only want to get drunk"
"Pride, struggle, dignity"
"Which I think is really interesting"
"Everything must go"
"is about moving on and accepting change"
"It was inspired by the need to let go"
"of the past while honoring it"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah"
"Clearly"
"Yeah, totally"
"Related to context"
"It's the context there, isn't it?"
"Yeah, exactly"
"Kevin Carter"
"We've talked about"
"So that's"
"We've already talked about those"
"Touring"
"They went everywhere"
"Everything Live"
"was released"
"on VHS"
"in 1997"
"Later got a DVD release in Japan"
"Because they like that kind of thing"
"They did"
"They toured this hard, didn't they?"
"Oh, this was huge"
"They toured this hard"
"There's a bit here in my notes"
"Oh, a special concert at Manchester Arena"
"for 20,000 fans"
"Yeah"
"Which is a big"
"That's a lot of people"
"Yeah"
"They did"
"Oh, yeah"
"13 dates"
"All of the big"
"U.K. things"
"Basically"
"Notable moments on that tour"
"including guesting"
"from Liam Gallagher"
"at Kentish Town Forum"
"Which"
"I think that's really"
"I don't know, that's really"
"He guests everywhere, doesn't he, Liam?"
"Yeah"
"I quite like Liam Gallagher"
"Yeah"
"I think that the world needs more"
"Liam Gallagher"
"Do you know what I mean?"
"Rock stars aren't rock stars anymore"
"Are they?"
"No"
"But I just can't"
"I don't know"
"It's quite cheeky"
"But like not"
"I don't know, I never"
"I never feel offended"
"by anything Liam does"
"No"
"Do you know what I mean?"
"He could offend me"
"He could say something critical"
"about me personally"
"I don't think I would get offended by it"
"Because he'd have a bit of a grin on his face"
"and he'd be like"
"You know?"
"Yeah"
"I liked it"
"Do you know what? I really like Liam Gallagher"
"When you were playing the Peaky Blinders"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah"
"thing"
"And Liam was there"
"I thought about that"
"And I was trying to find a cup of tea"
"Yeah"
"And we hadn't got any tea"
"Yeah"
"And I noticed there was tea on this trolley"
"Oh yeah, you nicked Liam Gallagher's tea"
"But I didn't know whose tea it was"
"So I kind of went and I was trying to make myself a cheeky cup of tea"
"Yeah"
"And Liam came out and he went"
"Oi, that's my tea"
"And I was going, oh look, sorry dude"
"We ain't got no tea"
"And he went"
"Back up lad"
"And he kind of, he literally made me a cup of tea"
"And he got the tea and he made me a cup of tea"
"Lovely guy"
"And it was like 40 degrees or something"
"It was stupidly hot that day as I remember"
"Still had his coat on"
"Yeah, still had his coat on"
"He was just, he was brilliant"
"He had his mind just with him and he was just"
"Yeah, I don't know"
"You know, you talked about last time there's people that you'd want to go and have a chat with"
"Yeah"
"But he's somebody I reckon you'd have such a good laugh with"
"Yeah"
"Do you know what I mean?"
"It would not be dull"
"You wouldn't have quiet moments"
"A moment"
"Anyway, yeah, back to the facts quickly"
"So the first album as a trio"
"Yeah"
"Brave thing to do"
"Yeah, it really is"
"Switching down"
"Five tracks that had got Richie's lyrics on"
"So, Kevin Carter, Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky"
"That's my favourite, definitely"
"Yeah"
"It's good"
"Our Design for Life"
"That was the one that won the best single for the 1996 NME Awards"
"And yeah, the artwork was designed by Mark Farrow"
"It's been used, it was used in the Gran Turismo"
"We talked about Gran Turismo last week"
"Yeah"
"It was in there"
"Which one was?"
"Everything Must Go"
"Really?"
"Apparently so"
"Yeah"
"Motorcycle Entus" is on that classic album compilation that I always talk about"
"That was another, you know, that's where it's got word up on it and all that"
"Oh yeah"
"I made a run to the hills"
"Motorcycle Entus" on it as well
"God knows what the album was, but it's full of bangers"
"Banger after banger"
"Yeah"
"The music press just gushed over it, five out of fives"
"Even the NME gave it eight out of ten"
"Yeah, yeah"
"Which they don't give anything that high"
"Q gave it like, you know, all of the awards"
"The Independent called it the most immediate assured and anthemic British hard rock album since Oasis definitely made it"
"Wow"
"It's just extraordinary"
"Vox described it as the most approachable Mannix album"
"Rolling Stone called it the most underrated album of the year"
"Wow"
"It's extraordinary"
"It's high praise that"
"It is, yeah"
"They got it"
"The Guardian re-reviewed the 10th anniversary and said, achieved the zenith of the band's ambition to conquer the mainstream"
"Yeah, that's great, a great line actually, yeah, it did, yeah"
"Very, very cool"
"And that is it for facts"
"I'm all factored out now, if that's it, I'm done"
"Right, so we're now going to, because we've recorded this quite straight through"
"Yeah"
"So I'm now going to put the interviews in place"
"Yeah"
"We'll play a song"
"Not decided which one it's going to be yet"
"From Toot Record"
"And then we'll talk about what's next, shall we?"
"Yeah, I want to do Terravision next"
"Okay"
"Yeah, let's play the song"
"There's still a few, I want to go through, let's go through the list of ones we've got left to do"
"Because I think, I was really torn about doing Stereophonics or not"
"And I'm wondering if Stereophonics fits"
"Well, the logical next step"
"Yeah, but I really want to do Terravision"
"Yeah"
"And then"
"So while you're listening to the song, you can think, should we do Stereophonics or should we do Terravision?"
"And then we'll decide afterwards"
"Yeah, what else is missing, we've got to be missing some other stuff"
"We'll miss loads of stuff"
"I'm going to find other British stuff from the 90s"
"So what else is missing from the 90s?"
"And then"
"So what else is missing from the 90s?"
"I wanna play a lot 'til it hurts"
"I sleep for a while and speak no words"
"In Australia"
"I wanna play a lot 'til it hurts"
"I sleep for a while and speak no words"
"In Australia"
"I'm praying for the winter come now"
"It must be for the very last time"
"Let's travel back to midnight"
"There must be someone to pray"
"I wanna play a lot 'til it hurts"
"I sleep for a while and speak no words"
"In Australia"
"I wanna play a lot 'til it hurts"
"I sleep for a while and speak no words"
"In Australia"
"I wanna play a lot 'til it hurts"
"It's lit for a while 'til it hurts"
"In Australia"
"I thought this would be a short one"
"17 hours long"
"An hour and a half"
"Oh"
"They're all settling about an hour and a half"
"You know"
"I don't want to run out of stuff to say"
"That's how it works"
"Right, what is next?"
"What are we gonna do?"
"Are we gonna do 'TerraVision'
"or are we gonna do 'Sterephonics'?"
"I think 'TerraVision'"
"It's really hard"
"I've found, I've been on a bit of a"
"You've filled out a hole"
"Yeah, well, Chris has been faffing with"
"What are you faffing with?"
"I was editing everything together"
"Yeah, it's because"
"because what we did with them was
"we just did a load of talking"
"and then what I've got to do is go back into it"
"and then find where to put the bits"
"Turn it into something entertaining"
"So that takes life"
"So Chris is dead good at that"
"and while he's doing that"
"I just dick about listening to music"
"But there's some stuff I've found"
"that we've not covered"
"which we could cover"
"So Honeycrack"
"Honeycrack is CJ Wildhart"
"when the last time the Wildhart split up"
"The boys went off and created Honeycrack"
"which I think is really quite cool"
"I'm going to go through my list of things"
"You're going to have to stop touching your mic"
"Am I?"
"You won't hear that? You think you hear that?"
"It's there, I can see it on the waveform"
"Bubbly, bubbly, bubbly"
"Right, let me go through and look at other things"
"that I thought were interesting"
"Wolfsbane"
"Wolfsbane is off of Tamworth"
"Yeah"
"which is just down the road"
"The problem is my favourite Wolfsbane album"
"was kind of an EP"
"it was all hell's breaking loose down at little Cathy Wilson's place"
"in 1990"
"and I can't find it on streaming sites at all"
"Blaze Bailey"
"went on to front the Iron Maiden"
"I Iron Maiden"
"So was that after Wolfsbane then?"
"Yeah"
"I remember seeing Wolfsbane in Tamworth"
"which was epic"
"Where do you play in Tamworth?"
"We used to play in Tamworth"
"we used to play the assembly rooms when we were kids"
"There was a place called the Isles"
"No it was a pub"
"It was just a pub"
"Was it?"
"Really?"
"It was a pub"
"It would have been like 88"
"Mate Tamworth and Litchfield were our stomping grounds for music"
"There was nothing in Burton"
"No"
"There was nowhere to play"
"So we used to go down the road to Tamworth"
"which felt like miles away"
"It felt like going to the next country"
"They speak funny in Tamworth as well"
"It is like being in a different country"
"Yeah"
"So there was the art centre"
"which had a sun mural on the floor"
"I remember that"
"which is wicked"
"Yeah yeah I remember that"
"And then the assembly rooms"
"which is like when you did the bigger gigs"
"Yeah yeah"
"And we used to do like battle of the bands"
"and all those sorts of things"
"Yeah yeah yeah"
"And then there was the fields"
"They used to do it on the"
"On the castle"
"On the castle grounds"
"Was it the castle grounds?"
"Tamworth Castle"
"Must have been"
"And that was called"
"Oh god what was that festival called?"
"But that was wicked"
"Tamworth Castle grounds festival"
"I can't believe it was called"
"That's what I'd call it"
"I don't remember"
"But then anyway"
"Then we did some similar things in Litchfield"
"There's lots of places in Litchfield"
"We used to play"
"And that was where we were like"
"Town famous"
"If that makes sense"
"We'd be big in Litchfield"
"Yeah yeah yeah"
"That's good"
"We recorded actually recorded"
"Star from Ivy stuff"
"Yeah"
"From winning a battle of the bands"
"If I remember rightly"
"No way"
"And we did it in the cinema"
"You know the media centre"
"Remember that in Tamworth"
"There was a media centre"
"And we had a stage"
"You put the mics on the stage"
"And we recorded it as if we were playing live"
"Oh wow"
"Yeah"
"I bet that was this somewhere"
"I bet that would sound cool"
"I like that kind of live"
"That sounded awful"
"Oh did it?"
"Yeah yeah"
"I like that"
"I normally like that kind of live recording"
"type thing"
"In a studio"
"Yeah yeah yeah"
"With an engineer that knows"
"You know what I mean?"
"Not like you know"
"No he's a lovely guy"
"But it's just the room wasn't right for recording in"
"Other albums"
"Catatonia"
"Yep"
"A bunch of stuff we've done already"
"Feeder's Polythene"
"Three Colours Red"
"Revolt"
"Three Colours Red"
"Beautiful Day"
"What a song"
"It's incredible that isn't it?"
"Yeah"
"Is that what it's even called?"
"Beautiful Day"
"Yeah yeah yeah"
"That started the review too then"
"Beautiful Day"
"Off of Revolt"
"In 1998"
"I like the album cover for Revolt as well"
"I don't know the background to it but I feel like"
"No I like Three Colours Red"
"I like the picking"
"The beautiful picking part on that song"
"It's quite anthemic"
"Proper good guitar sound"
"Yeah yeah yeah"
"Kind of punky and"
"Yeah"
"It's got some guts to it"
"Big strings again"
"Yeah"
"That seemed to be a thing"
"Yeah yeah yeah yeah"
"Well that record was 99"
"Yeah"
"Feeder's Polythene was 97"
"Yeah"
"Polythene"
"Did that have"
"My favourite Feeder song"
"High"
"That was on that one"
"That had big strings on it"
"Yeah yeah yeah yeah"
"So I could be tempted with either of those two"
"Let's do Feeder"
"But then we've also got"
"But then there is Terror Vision as well"
"Yeah yeah yeah"
"We could definitely do Terror Vision"
"So what order do we do it in then?"
"Do we do a poll?"
"Oh I don't know"
"I don't want to do a poll"
"But Primal Scream"
"Rocks"
"The one that rocks on it"
"Screamy Delica"
"We've got to do Screamy Delica"
"Screamy Delica"
"Oh no that's it"
"That's what we're doing"
"We have to do that album"
"But then there's also"
"No"
"We've got to do definitely maybe"
"Unpark Life" I think
"Before we get out of the UK"
"I want to go back to America soon"
"Yeah yeah yeah"
"Oh there's so much to do though"
"We can't"
"I know"
"No we're doing Screamy Delica"
"Screamy Delica"
"Yeah that's what we're doing next"
"Just because of moving on up"
"Because it's like awesome"
"It's the best song ever"
"I tell you what I'd really like to do"
"Is probably"
"You know when we finished here"
"I'd love to do Judas Priests"
"It's difficult"
"Because the one that I really want to do"
"Is British Steel"
"Yeah yeah yeah"
"That was from 1980"
"Yeah"
"That's the one that got me into heavy metal"
"That was your gateway"
"Yeah"
"But we could very very easily do Painkiller"
"We're doing Screamy Delica"
"Other stuff that I think would"
"I'd love to do Carcass Heartwork"
"Yeah yeah"
"That's got Michael Amott on it"
"Yeah"
"And I think that's one of the best"
"You interviewed him"
"Yeah I like Michael Amott"
"I like Michael Amott"
"I've interviewed all of the band in Carcass"
"And I've also spent lots of money on Carcass"
"Carcass have reissued"
"Vinyl"
"Yeah"
"They've reissued the whole lot"
"Every album"
"Yeah"
"And have you bought them all?"
"Yeah"
"Not funny"
"It's got this signed"
"Very excited about that"
"Thank you for laughing at me"
"Other thing is Paradise Lost Draconian Times"
"You would like that's gothic-y"
"Is it?"
"It's dark gothic"
"In the woods"
"Tree wood music"
"Yeah"
"I think you would like that"
"They feel a bit too heavy for where we are right now"
"Yeah"
"I think we should"
"Yeah"
"What I'm thinking is we could perhaps do a couple more indie stuff"
"I'd love to do Three Colours Red"
"I'd love to do Bush"
"Yeah"
"I'd love to do Feeder"
"I've got to do a Feeder album"
"Yeah"
"And then Terror Vision"
"Terror Vision"
"And Blur"
"And Oasis"
"I've got at least two more months here"
"I was never a super big fan of Blur"
"No"
"But every time we've done that"
"I wasn't a big fan of Manic Street Bridges"
"No"
"Manic Street Bridges"
"But I really enjoyed this album"
"Yeah"
"And I think this is what happens with almost all of these"
"They're albums that perhaps weren't massively important to me at the time"
"But when you go back and listen to them"
"You kind of realise why they were so popular"
"Yeah"
"Do you know what I mean?"
"And you start to see them from a different perspective"
"So there's a bunch of records that I would love to do"
"For kind of the park life"
"Definitely"
"So I like definitely maybe"
"Yeah"
"And then I kind of went"
"As Oasis kind of got bigger and bigger and bigger"
"My interest got a little bit less and less"
"Yeah"
"But I love like rock and roll star"
"Yeah"
"You know when they, because they're back doing live stuff aren't they Oasis?"
"Yeah"
"If they don't start those gigs with rock and roll"
"That's just how you're going to begin it"
"It just comes down just howling guitars"
"And just that's got to be how you begin your gigs if you're Oasis"
"So yeah I don't know"
"Have you got a coin?"
"Let's do"
"I haven't got a coin"
"I've got a key fob"
"Shall we do"
"I'll throw the key fob in the air"
"If it lands text up, that's heads"
"So we're choosing between Primal Scream, Screamadelica"
"Yeah"
"And Polythene"
"I thought we already decided this"
"What did you decide? I thought we were going to do Polythene"
"No, we're doing that"
"We're doing Screamadelica"
"Screamadelica and then Polythene"
"And then Polythene"
"Oh okay, let's do this"
"I can't do this"
"This isn't working"
"Just throw it up in the air"
"Okay"
"How are we going to know which sides we're going to say?"
"If the text is up"
"Yeah"
"Then it's Polythene"
"This is such good podcasting"
"If we had a video coming this would be the most awesome"
"If the text is down, it's Screamadelica"
"Okay"
"So text up Polythene, text down Screamadelica"
"Yeah go and do it"
"Just throw it in the air"
"Sure"
"Yeah do it"
"Text up"
"I've forgotten what that was"
"Love you bye"
"You have to love you bye"
"We can't say love you bye"
"Why?"
"Because Scott Mills says love you bye"
"Does he?"
"And he's on Radio 2"
"Oh I don't know"
"We need another sign off"
"I don't know what we do now"
"I'm going to get ChatGPT to create as a sign off"
"That's going to be awful wouldn't it?"
"It's so cheesy"
"Oh no"
"That's like when we changed our name isn't it?"
"Yeah we are Riffology"
"Do you know when we changed our name?"
"Yeah"
"I kept seeing Riffology and I thought oh that looks good"
"And then I'd read oh that's us"
"Do you know what I mean?"
"It was still Dog House"
"You know like not Dog House that was ages ago"
"Monster Shop"
"It was still Monster Shop in my phone for ages"
"Yeah"
"I put in like what we're doing tonight"
"It was Monster Shop for weeks after we changed the name"
"It's weird isn't it?"
"But now it's Riffology"
"I feel like we own it now"
"Do you know if you google Riffology"
"We're number one"
"We come up now"
"Yeah we're good"
"We're important people"
"I don't know how to sign it off now"
"Bye"