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Pages 12 & 13
CONTINUATION OF SKIDS INTERVIEW
I have to admit being a bit late with the Skids. There's so many about these days a few bands escape. I liked 'In to The Valley', laughed at the twirling dervish
Richard Jobson on 'TOTP' and found 'Days In Europa' a daunting but haunting exercise in how to tackle electronic-slanted new rock without pretending to be a robot or superior being.
And, of course, I couldn't fail to notice the, regular splashing of the Jobson mug in the Wock Pwess hot gossip pages. The Glory of Lig. If you hadn't met the man you'd be forgiven
for thinking he was a tireless poser in a space suit bent on thrusting his chin into the nearest avilable lens.
(IN fact he's a great block a larger-than-life, Scottish nutter, 'character' elite never).
EALIER this year Richard was often seen in the dubious company of those Banshee pissheads, clubbing and pubbing round London. It was on one of my own alcoholic
expeditions with Severin and Budgie that I first met him (Still have a very funny tape of the ensuing small hours mayhem). Similar adventures followed...
SOCIALLY, things might've been fine but as far as the Skids were concerned Richard felt he'd gone through the ice. One night he was stunned, claiming he'd got the
boot from the group. As it happened, there were no bootprints on the Jobson buttocks. The incident was merely what Stuart describes as a temporary "hiccup".
"IT was just the same prima donna stuff that always happens," he explained the afternoon we met at publicist Tony Brainsby's. "We'd been rehearsing for a really long
time and were really hard at it. I was feeling really down at the time and I got arrested! For drunk and disorderly! I went back home and said I wasn't coming back. It was more a
hiccup than anything else. It happens every few months. You think your own feelings are so important you get blind to everything else."
HICCUP safely burped away, Stuart and Richard got in new rhythm section Russell Webb (former Zones drummer) and Mike Baillie, who are a much more integrated part of
the group than previous bass 'n' drummers. They set about moulding a new Skids. The new album's the end product...
INSTANTLY recognisable as the Skids. The Jobbo vocals blur and blend like one of the instruments, the terrace choruses are unshakeable, words a bit obscure, the air
of decadent grandeur... but the major change is the ebbing of the symphonic, electronic pomp of 'Days In Europa' in favour of greater emphasis on Stuart's guitar, which soars,
sky-dives about, duets with itself and creates many a memorable moment. There's also a noticeable injection of ethnic abandon - the aforementioned Scottish tribalism. Not a bagpipe
in sight, mind, it's more the feeling - proud voices; bold, pounding rhythms, chants, even a didgereedoo! Tracks like the highly hypnotic 'Hurry On Boys' and the opening 'Women In
Winter', featuring a mesmerising tribal bellow. Most immediate are the current and next singles, 'Circus Games' and 'Goodbye Civilians', but probably the stunner is the closing 'Arena',
which gives birth to a guitar phrase of majestic, uplifting beauty (couldn't think of another word to describe it).
I suggest to our pair of Skids that 'The Absolute Game' harks back more to the first album.
Richard: "It's like the first album in that it's more guitar-orientated than the second album. That's the only way it isn't really similar musically. There was lots of guitar-work that
was never shown on the second album, cos it was low in the mix. The keyboards were up further.
Stuart: "It's just looking at things from a different angle again."
Richard: "It's technically superior and everything really, arrangement-wise, sound-wise, vocal-wise, everything is better."
WHY'S it called 'The Absolute Game'?
"COS it's a good name," pipes Stewart.
IT'S actually a line from 'Out of Town.'
Richard: "I think the whole feel of the lyrics and the music is that it's basically written about children, the depravity and menace sometimes. They do really wicked things - the
connotations of it could sometimes be quite evil but there's a beautiful aspect too, that naivety."
Stuart: "The mystery of their games is so far removed from the adult world."
Richard: "You can also apply them to the adult world on a mature level, and also see that children end up being more mature than half the adults that are controlling the things
they're doing. The way they look at things in that whole simple manner. Simple simplicity, we call it."
TELL us about the recent upheavals.
"WE'VE always been run along the lines of organise chaos, we're always in bits and pieces. We break uo nearly every couple of months."
Richard: "Remember that we're a Scottish surburban band as opposed to having anything to do with London, even though some of us stay here. It's a completely different attitude
towards life in general. It's a softer approach, more casual as well. We don't take things maybe as seriously as we should do... as London people do anyway, especially the bands.
Obviously we take it seriously to a certain degree but it never overwhelms us. For certain members it was becoming something that wasn't a laugh any more, so...
THE Hiccup!
"WE got over that problem, and it's never going to happen again. It's well and truly sorted out, we grew up. We can't approach it so casually as we have done before."
SO now it's a much more concentrated effort?
"OH definitely, you can feel it. There's much more intensity in the music as well. Now instead of it being me and Stuart who've done all the material we've shared it
between the four of us to get them involved completely, which we've never done before. We used to be very tyrannical, we'd dictate the whole pace of what we would do. This time it's
the four of us telling each other what we're doing."
THE Skids seem to have evolved in a very defined way. First the melodic terrace punk of 'Into The Valley' which went into the windescreen synth-scapes of 'D.I.E.'.
Now it seems like they've assimilated all that and emerged with a beaty new hybrid, sort of epic ethnic punk if you want. Jobbo?
"THE thing with London is, you've got to be a dead legend to be appreciated or some sort of super cult status. And we're neither. We just refuse to get involved with
pomp and circumstances."
Stuart: "Once you get involved with that silly circus you're stuck with it. We've always kept the right to choose what direction we go in. Nobody can dictate that to us."
Richard: "I don't think about ideals any longer. We know what we're doing and it's more a level thing as opposed to carrying a banner,."
Stuart: "Basically it stems from a desire to be something other than the normal, I suppose, rather than being a nine to five person."
Richard "If you want to talk about originality and uniqueness I think we still capture that ourselves without taking it to some sort of vast extremity which cordons people off from
you. We still do it in the manner of being commercial, rather than say, avant garde of London. That's the originality. I feel that personally sounding like David Bowie or Syd Barrett...
I listened to Pink Floyd's first album and it was '154', so that's not original anymore for me. I approach my writing in the way I've taught myself. It's a matter of feel as opposed
to technical knowhow. It comes across better. That's what the band relies on, it's own uniqueness. We don't feel we've got to go to some vast extremity to push that because we're
entirely confident in ourselves, that we're doing some thing unique. Us. Nobody else.
Stuart: "It's like a celebration discovering things, learning for yourself and not how things are supposed to be, where it's got to be good technically and arranged properly. I think
that's what comes over with the band just now.
CONFIDENT words but hear the album. What about this tribalism, then?
Stuart: "Eno said he was getting involved in African music. This is a thihg that we've spoken about for a long time - somebody discovered that he went and read it all up! (Chortles).
We've been trying to involve ourselves in basic rhythmic things a lot in the music. There's a couple of things on the album."
Richard: We had been involved in a sort of mulitant thing for a while. 'Into The Valley', 'Masquerade'... the feel of the lyrics and the music apply perfectly because it was very
militant. The words were fairly gross. I've taken a different approach lyrically this time. Stuart's worked with the lyrics and he's had that seedy ethnic feel to it. It's got a sort
of Scottish tribalism as opposed to African tribalism.
Richard: "You've got your Peter Gabriels, Enos, David Byrnes and David Bowies all approaching this Savanna music sort of thing. To me that's nonesense cos it's, just a fad. Fad music.
They haven't developed anything from it. They've just decided, 'let's do something that's in vogue'. I think that we've approached the same thing that they've gone for but in our
manner and again, with our own uniqueness and our own feel. It's natural because obviously we're all Scottish and that comes out. It's a very nationalistic country. The songs have
still got an aggressive temperament in the music but it's more tempered now than before. It's controlled aggression really.
(GOING well now, Jobbo). Can you talk about individual songs? 'Happy To Be With You' sounds like a love song (but the tunes a rousing belter).
"THAT'S tongue-in-cheek, almost. It's a very aggressive song. I could've given it some twelve-syllable title, but that title applies better to the lyric. It couldn't
have been called anything else."
Stuart: "Some people don't realist that quite a few things you do are quite amusing but they take them deadly serious."
Richard: "'Hurry On Boys' is ethnic - we've got a didjereedoo on it! We tried to get Rolf Harris to play it but we couldn't get in touch with him, so we got some Ned Kelly figure to
come along. It was perfect. We could have used bagpipes but that would have been too obvious, 'Mull O'Kintyre' and all that.
"I don't read much press but the past few weeks I've just been reading interviews to see what they say nowadays and it seems to me all anybody ever does is complain
about getting bad press. We've had that but it's not worth complaining about! Who wants to read about somebody getting low? We ain't, we're happy people. All those new bands do is
moan about bad reviews... the Music Press has got a position but I don't think it's as high as they think it is. I don't take the Music Press that seriously, and obviously they don't
take me that seriously!"
THE partygoing poser...
"I don't know — you've got all those ska bands and you've got guys there with rucksacks going away to hide in a bombshelter..."
"AND putting things in the Music Press that we refuse to speak to any journalists," adds Stuart.
Eichard again: "Those people are so depressing they lack any character. I don't think there's many characters in The Scene. I mean, I'm an amicable person and I enjoy speaking to
people. I'm a shithead. Why do they write about it? Why do they bother? Why don't they just completely ignore me? I'm not gonna stop going out. I enjoy meeting people. If I've got
a character, it's no good keeping it to myself. It deserves to be thrown at people. It's so depressing you've got guys who're going about with smiles that go down that way. They're
all wearing dull clothes and stuff like that. Last year we went out as the loudest band in the world - yellows, Captain Kirks and Mr Sposkc, you know what I mean? A futuristic New
York Folls!"
Stuart: "But it's also easy to stick the depressing things under the carpet, they must be brought out at times. It's like an exercise, once you've got it out, it's quite amusing
to see it written down."
Richard: Especially when you're reflecting on your own and other people's characters. You sit there and you've written something that's quite mentally obsessive. There's no danger of
any of us becoming a dead ledgend. He died for you. No thanks, I don't wanna be a martyr in anybody's eyes."
AND on that optimistic note we end. Things look good for the Skids. The album, gigs in August-September, a new spirit, very healthy for them and us. Over and out.
Kris Needs
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