After a number of portentous visits from his undead friend Jack, David Kessler sits nervously in the living room of his girlfriend’s London apartment, trying to concentrate on the book in his lap. Bobby Vinton’s slow and soothing version of “Blue Moon” plays over the scene as David tries to keep his mind off the warnings Jack has brought him from beyond the grave. Suddenly David clutches his head in agony and falls to his knees, screaming…

What follows is two-and-a-half minutes of the most visceral horror cinema ever made as David’s body stretches, contorts, pops and creaks into the form of a bloodthirsty werewolf. His muscles bubble, his bones crack and elongate, and his skull extends into a canine snout as he writhes in the terror and excruciating pain of his own curse.

Amazingly, three decades after Rick Baker’s make-up and special effects set a new benchmark for on-screen lycanthropic transformation, the pivotal scene of John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London remains the standard that all other man-to-wolf metamorphoses are judged by. It can be argued even today, as the landmark film celebrates its 30th anniversary, that advances in computer technology would struggle to replicate the authenticity and startling nature of the straining skin, rancid sweat and coarse hair of Baker’s Oscar-winning turn.

“Even by today’s standards, the picture is very, very gory and violent,” Landis says proudly. “At the preview we had about 1000 people show up thinking ‘this is the guy who did Animal House and The Blues Brothers, it’ll be a riot…’ When Jack is killed by the wolf on the moors, about 150 people walked out. Another 200 or so left when he first turned up as a talking, rotting corpse. By the end of the film, there was about 300 people left. So the next night, I addressed the audience and told them that this isn’t Animal House, it’s a shocking, gory horror movie with lots sex and violence so…be warned. And it was a huge hit. The audience just needed to know what to expect.”

No-one could have expected where Landis and Baker would end up next and how much impact their next project together would have, not only on the medium of film but on the whole of popular culture. Combining the make-up and effects techniques from American Werewolf with the talents of a performer who was about to become the biggest star on the planet by some distance, Landis, Baker and a young man called Michael Jackson set about making history.

“Working with Michael Jackson on Thriller was like working with a brilliant ten-year-old,” Landis says. “I liked Michael, he was a hard worker; very professional, unbelievably talented and creative. Michael was like a neutron bomb; he had so much power. He was such a slight little guy which you could snap in half but when he performed…man! When he rehearsed with the professional dancers on set, he’d be at 20 percent and was still blowing them away. But even in 1983 Michael was a tortured guy; a real tragic guy. By the time I made Black or White some eight years later, he was completely fucking insane but still a good guy.”

By the time Landis worked with Jackson on Thriller, he had already made some of the highest grossing movies of the late 1970s and early 1980s with actors who would go on to become some of the biggest movie stars of that era.

Contrary to popular belief, however, Michael Jackson was not the most difficult person that Landis had to deal with at that time. “I have to remind people that actors like Eddie Murphy and John Belushi weren’t big stars when I worked with them,” Landis says. “When I made Trading Places with Eddie, he was 20. He was fabulous. He was very unsophisticated when it came to acting but he was so unbelievably gifted, a genius mimic. He was great, we had a great time.”

“Then eight years later when we made Coming to America, he was a horror show. He did what I told him to because he’s not stupid but he wasn’t a very happy guy. I don’t know what happened to him during the in-between years but he was not happy…just kinda weird and creepy. Then on Beverly Hills Cop 3, six years after that, he didn’t want to be funny. He took direction but he wanted to be seen as a serious actor and everything I tried to make him funny again just failed. I found out that Eddie was having a hard time dealing with the fact that guys like Wesley Snipes, Denzel Washington and Sam Jackson were all doing serious action movies while he was still seen as a comic.”

Comedy is a staple in all Landis movies, even in the darkest of them. An American Werewolf in London is peppered with blackly humorous moments which makes it an even more uncomfortable viewing experience. From juxtaposing light-hearted music with gratuitous gore to the Monty Python-esque conversation between David and an increasingly decomposed Jack in a seedy Soho porn cinema, Landis manages to keep the chills and the chuckles on an even keel, a style and balance that acknowledges the influence of many of the films which have inspired him throughout his career.

“The great Ealing comedies were all really dark,” Landis says. “My favourite is Kind Hearts and Coronets which is a very kind and witty film about a serial killer and if you look at The Ladykillers, the original not the lame remake, the entire cast has murdered each other by the end of the movie. The Man in the White Suit? Another really great, really dark comedy. I was definitely honouring those movies but an Ealing comedy would never show violence. They were always very discreet about that.”

The Ealing influence is most clear in Landis’ last film, Burke & Hare – the true-life tale of two 19th century grave robbers who find a lucrative business providing cadavers for an Edinburgh medical school. Starring Simon Pegg of Shaun of the Dead fame and Andy ‘Gollum’ Serkis in the title roles, Landis manages to make the gruesome story of a couple of detestable characters into a darkly funny film which he describes as “a romantic comedy based on hugely inappropriate material.”

“The thing that attracted me to Burke & Hare is that these guys are really nasty and the challenge was to make them likeable,” he says. “There have been many films about Burke and Hare but I’d say there are maybe only two good ones; The Bodysnatchers with Boris Karloff and The Flesh and the Fiends with Donald Pleasance and Peter Cushing as a very cold and arrogant Dr. Knox. But most of the Burke and Hare movies have been bad. And they’ve all been horror films. It’s a story about many things. It’s set at the time of the Industrial Revolution so it’s about capitalism, it’s about science. It’s an interesting subject but a lot of people have missed the subtleties of it and gone for the schlock. My version is not a horror film.”

With his next project – the period piece, pistols-at-dawn romantic comedy The Rivals – in pre-production, it could be some time before we get another slice of the macabre from the man who brought an American werewolf to the streets of London. “Where would my next idea for a horror movie come from? People. Just look at the world right now. It’s fucking crazy. It’s in total chaos. People should be afraid of the news. Monsters aren’t real. Something fantastical lumbering about on screen doesn’t scare me. The psychopaths, they scare me. The normal people pushed to the edge of sanity and beyond. Monsters don’t scare me. People scare me.”

Nick Amies interviewed John Landis at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFFF) 2011.

Black Monk Time – The Monks

Considering what was happening in Britain with the Beatles and Stones, the Monks were way ahead of their time in the early 60s. Their direct approach and the raw power of their garage sound has been a huge influence on us. They had very few tools at their disposal but still managed to make an incredible noise. And they looked way-out with their weirdly shaved heads and nooses as ties. They set out to be the anti-Beatles in every way and that in itself was a ballsy move. They didn’t release that much material but what they did put out can be described as high velocity punk about a decade before the term even existed.

The Modern Lovers – The Modern Lovers

Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers are a huge influence on the Vaccines and their proto-punk debut album is still a touchstone. They didn’t write punk and they didn’t sing punk but they sounded punk just by the way they presented the material, the sparse intensity of it. We went for that approach on our album with the same philosophy that it’s not what you play but how you play it. Like the Modern Lovers, we stripped everything down and tried to be as direct as possible. Richman himself is also a lyrical genius so the words are also sublime and have especially influenced Justin.

Lesson No. 1 – Glenn Branca

Branca was the avant garde godfather of the No Wave scene in New York in the 70s and 80s and this album is basically performance art. It’s just noise designed to freak you out. It’s not really music at all when you have 30 guitarists just playing the same note repetitively. He was a big influence on the guitar sounds of bands like Sonic Youth and Suicide. You wouldn’t really notice it but the driving guitar lines he used have really filtered through into our material too. It’s a weird journey I guess to go from Branca’s claustrophobic avant garde noise to our pop music, but there you go!

69 Love Songs – Magnetic Fields

Stephin Merritt is a genius lyricist and has had a massive influence on our songs and even though there is a lot of shit on this record – it is actually 69 love songs – the good songs are absolutely beautiful pop gems. He manages to remove the barriers between the mind and the mouth and its an innocence, naivety and honesty that can sometimes backfire but on this record, or at least some of it, he gets it spot on. This album for pure honest writing and courage of subject matter alone makes it a very significant one for us and has certainly shaped our own narratives.

Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps – Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps

This is early rockabilly stuff at the very invention of teen culture. They were singing about stuff that hadn’t been sung about before. It was the post-war vibe that would explode in the 50s, all these kids reacting against the doom and gloom of the war with nothing to do but go nuts without fear of the draft. They had nothing else to occupy their minds, nothing to worry about so they came up with rock’n'roll. People were going out and maybe just cutting one tune and the stuff they came out with was just so abrasive. Punk can be traced back to this really. This album encapsulates that feeling in a bunch of great rocking songs that a band like us can really relate to.

First published in The Red Bulletin, October 2011.

The side door of the monolithic ebony tour bus hisses open like a space age air lock and Liam Gallagher steps out into the light but constant Brussels rain. He throws a heavy hold-all over one shoulder, lowers his sunglasses from his mop of Brian Jones hair, fixes them in the default position over his eyes and swaggers his way past gawping shoppers in the direction of the hotel lobby. It’s the exit of a seasoned pro; a man who has spent much of the last two decades alighting from heavily tinted vehicles in cities all over the world. As the singer of Oasis, Gallagher has stayed in some of the finest hotels on the planet. But he’s not in Oasis any more and while this particular Sofitel has a certain amount of glitter, it is still a gold star or two below the norm. You see, things have changed for Liam over the past two years but as he explains later over espresso and cigarettes, in his opinion they’ve changed for the better.

After eighteen years of ecstatic highs and violent lows, combustible and controversial British rock band Oasis – perhaps the last to truly deserve the battered crown of king anarchists handed down by the hell-raising likes of Led Zeppelin, The Who and the Sex Pistols – finally imploded. Only those who were there really know what went on backstage at the Rock en Seine festival near Paris on August 28, 2009 and despite vague allusions to the reasons behind the split and the conflicting accounts of the two main protagonists, the true nature of events remains a mystery. What is known beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the fight between Liam and older brother Noel, just minutes before the band were about to go on stage, was serious enough to finally rip the band apart for good.

Oasis had been close to ending on numerous occasions in the past as the Gallaghers’ often abrasive relationship – one which not only constantly threatened its existence but also powered it – regularly stretched the band to breaking point. On every occasion before Paris, the warring siblings had somehow managed to see beyond the black eyes and foul abuse to reach a rapprochement. However, this time would be different. A statement from Noel, just two hours after at least one guitar was turned into kindling, confirmed that he had quit the band as he “could not go on working with Liam a day longer”. It didn’t take much reading between the lines to see that there would be no reconciliation this time. The fears of those Oasis fans who continued to hope for a reunion were finally realised when Liam announced on November 19 of that year that the remaining members of Oasis – guitarists Gem Archer and Andy Bell, drummer Chris Sharrock and himself – would continue to record without Gallagher Senior, saying: “Oasis are done, this is something new.” Six months later, on May 25, 2010, the final nail in the Oasis coffin was hammered home when Liam and Co. announced that this something new would be called Beady Eye.

Resplendent in a camouflage wind-breaker from his own Pretty Green clothing range and with his piercing blue eyes now unshaded, Liam Gallagher sits back and wearily blows a plume of smoke into the darkening sky above the hotel’s roof garden as he once again contemplates that fateful day in Paris. “I think I wasn’t in the band for about one beer,” he says. “That’s how long it took for us to think about what we wanted to do. After that it was like, let’s keep going. What else am I going to do? Work in McDonald’s?” Liam maintains that his brother “had had enough of Oasis” and just wanted an excuse to leave. At a press conference to launch his solo project The High Flying Birds and his two forthcoming albums, Noel Gallagher rejects that idea, saying simply that he’d “just had enough of Liam.”

After the tabloid-christened Wonderbrawl in Paris, Chris Sharrock returned to his home in Liverpool while Liam, Gem and Andy headed back to London to begin work on the songs which would ultimately come together to form Beady Eye’s début album Different Gear, Still Speeding with producer Steve Lillywhite. The atmosphere, by all accounts, bordered on euphoric. “There was something in the air,” Beady Eye’s somewhat cosmic guitarist Gem Archer says, his eyes lighting up at the memory. “I don’t know if it was the universe just doing it’s thing but there was something magical going on when we got down to working.”

“We always felt like we wanted to do something fantastic and new whether it was with or without Oasis,” Liam adds, brightening up as talk now moves away from the past and turns to the new musical love of his life. “We were always gearing up to do something great. That’s what you live for. There was never a doubt in any of our minds that we weren’t going to knock it on the head. We’ve got to be in there. People need us. We need it.”

With the four ex-Oasis men forming the core of Beady Eye – on tour the band is augmented by ex-Gorillaz bassist Jeff Wooton and keyboardist Matt Jones, formerly of Britpop band Ultrasound – the writing duties are shared between Gallagher, Archer and Bell. The credits also extend to include drummer Sharrock in a show of unity. Both Liam and Gem are quick to point out that Beady Eye is a collective, with everyone sharing responsibility for the direction and every aspect of the band.

“We all do our thing to make Beady Eye happen,” Liam says. “There are no chiefs here. It’s not like as soon as someone has a top idea and thinks we should do it it’s suddenly like ‘oh here we go, he’s getting too big for his boots’. We’ve been there before with someone taking responsibility for everything. It’s a bit late in the game to be fucking around with power struggles and insecurities with your mates. That’s just rubbish. Whoever’s closest to the kettle puts the fucking kettle on.”

“We’re into it to the level of thinking about what lights to take with us on tour, what to have on stage with us other than the amps,” adds Gem. “We’re deep into it all. The photos, the clothes, the artwork – we’re doing it all.”

“With the new song, Andy [Bell] took the photo for the cover,” adds Liam. “We took one look at it, said it looked the bollocks, so we slapped our name on it, stuck the banging tune inside it and away you go.” Suddenly he’s out of his seat, comically mincing around the table. “There’s no need to ponce about with design teams full of geezers called Quentin when we know what we want and can do it ourselves.”

“It’s a top vibe, man,” he continues, sitting down and switching his face back to stony conviction. “Everyone is loving being involved in the creative side of it. It’s not like when Noel would do the lot and we’d be sitting about, twiddling our thumbs. People think I was a lazy bastard and always in the pub. I just never got the call, man. But now everyone’s getting a share of the drug. We’re all getting high from being a band and what makes being in a band great.”

To emphasise their break from the past, Beady Eye took the very un-Oasis-like step of releasing a couple of songs as digital teasers before début single The Roller was unveiled in January. Rather than it being a clever marketing ploy, the band floated Bring the Light and Four Letter Word on the Internet in a surprisingly humble attempt to gauge where they may possibly stand in the post-Oasis musical landscape. “We released the digital tracks and posted videos ahead of the first release because we didn’t even take it for granted that people would know who we were,” admits Gem. “We needed to let them know what was coming.”

“The average Joe didn’t know what was going on,” adds Liam. “People were coming up to me in the shop asking when the next Oasis record was coming out and I was all like, ‘you fucking what?’ I wasn’t getting into it because they were obviously on drugs or living in a can of beans or something. A lot of people thought Oasis was still going so we had to get the new stuff out to them.”

The reaction to the Internet teasers was underwhelming as were those accompanying the release of first single proper The Roller. Beady Eye’s début peaked at number 31 in the UK charts – the exact same position as Oasis’ début Supersonic reached back in April 1994. When the next single, Millionaire, floundered at number 71 it was open season in the British press. For Liam’s adversaries in the media, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Well-worn comparisons of the Gallaghers were once more dragged across the pages of the tabloids, with Beady Eye already condemned to failure for having what many people considered to be the less talented brother in its line-up. Liam admits the poor performances of the singles was a reality check but the media reaction was less of a surprise.

“I expected to get shit from the press before we started out because I dish it out and I thrive on that so I expect it back,” he says. “They’re always going to be gunning for me but I’m always like, ‘bring it on’ because I’ll always be gunning for them. That will always be there because we need the love-hate thing but deep down they’ve probably all got posters of us on their walls. We’ve got to be on top of our game because we’re there to be criticised. But we’re ready for it. We’re big boys.”

While certain critics ratcheted up their dismissals of Beady Eye once Different Gear, Still Speeding was released in February, the majority of the world’s music press was much more generous. The album, which debuted at number 3 in the UK album charts, was widely praised with many commentators welcoming the band’s efforts to move away from the Oasis legacy. The public’s response was equally positive with the album going gold in the UK within a month of its release.

“Of course, it was nice to get good reviews for the album but it wasn’t like we were then saying ‘we showed you’ to those who’d slagged us off without even hearing it,” Liam says. “It’s nice but we don’t care really. When the reviews are good, you know the writer got it and understood it. They say what we already know and they think exactly what we think about it. We wouldn’t have released the record if we didn’t think it was having it. Bad reviews which say ‘well, he’s no Noel Gallagher’ – I’ve got no time for them. Go back to journalism school. They’re just idiots who just want to take a pop at me because I slagged off Blur in 1992 or whatever. There’s a lot of that what goes on and always will.”

After all this time, Liam Gallagher remains a divisive figure – a situation he admits to contributing to but one he feels is rooted in the behaviour of his younger self: the Liam of smashed hotel rooms, cocaine busts and numerous punch-ups with the public and family alike. He appears to accept that whatever level of success he may reach now or in the future is unlikely to make a lot of difference to how people perceive him.

“Beady Eye’s probably not gonna change the way people see me,” he says. “Nothing I do probably will. They’ll still see me as that 20-year old who made the most of life by going a bit fucking mental. But answer me this: who wouldn’t have done the same in the circumstances? I don’t give a fuck what they think of me to be honest. I am who I am. I was Liam in Oasis and I’m Liam in Beady Eye. If I’m Liam in another band, it’ll still be me and they’ll still have to deal with it.”

“People have the wrong idea about Liam,” Gem responds. “It’s just laziness to keep up this perception of him. He’s full on in this band; from production to mixing to arranging. In addition to Beady Eye, he’s running a clothing line and making films [with production company In 1 Productions] at the same time. He’s not sat on his arse waiting to sing his bits just so he can get off again and go on the piss. He’s as fully committed and invested in this collective as the rest of us.”

Few would have expected Liam Gallagher to have the initiative to diversify but the singer has shown an entrepreneurial bent in his latter years. His Pretty Green clothing label is now in its second, award-laden year and work is continuing on his first film, an adaptation of Richard DiLello’s The Last Cocktail Party which details the rise and fall of the Beatles’ Apple Records empire. “Pretty Green and the film production thing was always probably going to happen, it was always in me I reckon,” he says. “Maybe there were fewer opportunities to explore that side of me when I was younger or maybe I just couldn’t be arsed back then. But I’m nearing 40, man. Things change. Priorities change. You’ve got to keep the brain ticking over, man, or you’ll end up a cabbage.”

As the sky above again opens with yet another deluge, sending everyone ducking for cover, talk turns to the evening’s coming show; a late – but not headlining – slot in the Pyramid Marquee at the Rock Werchter festival. This is the latest open air show of Beady Eye’s début festival season. For any new band, an evening show at any festival would be considered a mighty step up given that debutants are usually awarded the early afternoon slots. But Beady Eye are no ordinary ‘new’ band. Surely the fact that they are four-fifths of Oasis, a band used to playing to tens if not hundreds of thousands of their own fans, would be enough to secure top billing.

“We are where we are, you know what I mean? We’re getting what we deserve right now,” says Liam. “It’s like paying your dues, man. We’re a new band. It doesn’t matter what went before. Half the people at the festival shows probably haven’t heard the record and you have to keep reminding yourself that. This isn’t Oasis, so we haven’t got a big back catalogue of songs which people have already heard over the past 18 years.”

“That’s the good thing though at festivals,” adds Gem. “You’re playing to people who may not normally come to see you. We just go out there and just try and play the best gig we’ve ever done to date and if they like it, all well and good but if not then we’re probably just not the right band for them.”

“It’s all new with Beady Eye, man,” Liam chips in. “It’s all fresh. We’re getting off on it. And we can see that the crowds are getting off on it too. They’re getting it and they’re coming out to see you which is great. We were never so far up our own arses to think that we could guarantee that either. Nothing was taken for granted.”

The festival season comes in the middle of Beady Eye’s first tour, one on which the band have returned to their roots by playing smaller venues that would never have been able to cope with the demands of housing an Oasis gig. Liam explains that this was a band decision based on the current reality and that at no time did they think that Beady Eye possessed the pulling power to continue where Oasis left off by playing colossal concerts.

“We never had this idea that just because we were Oasis we could go out there and start off in arenas,” he admits. “We always had the idea to start again, to start small. We don’t have the songs right now either. When you’re playing arenas and stadiums you’re on for an hour and a half. What we basically have is the album and that’s an hour so we’re happy with that. It’s not like we’re sitting there going ‘I can’t wait to start playing stadiums again’ and moaning about where we are. Someone was looking at us playing a venue of 8000 when we were planning the first gigs and we said no, it’s too early for that. You’ve got to have something to aim for and build up to.”

Despite fronting numerous concerts including the mighty Knebworth shows of 1996 where Oasis played to over a quarter of a million people over two days, Liam admits to a bout of nerves before taking Beady Eye out onto the road for the first time on March 4 this year. “There were a few nerves but we just wanted to get out of the rehearsal rooms and get playing in the end,” he says. “We had these tunes we believed in and wanted to get them out there but because it’s new, you never really know what’s going to happen. We didn’t know if everyone was going to start shouting for Oasis songs. We could have played it safe and took off to some tiny little foreign hole to début but we chose Glasgow Barrowlands and they were fucking immense. The jocks will call you on it if you’re shit – Glasgow’s a hard school – but they were top notch. The nerves soon went after that.”

“Big gigs are a piece of piss, you know what I mean? The crowd are miles away. With these shows we’re doing they’re right on you and you’ve got to be on it. You’re all in it together in these smaller venues, in the trenches, and it’s instant. You kick off and suddenly the whole place is rocking and you’ve got to keep that going.”

Later that evening, under the cover of canvas, Beady Eye certainly gets Werchter’s Pyramid Marquee rocking…and rolling, swaying, seething, ebbing and flowing with their Different Gear set-list. Welcoming the crowd with a chipper “Good evening brothers and sisters” it’s clear the surly, bating Gallagher of old is tucked away for the night. Throughout the evening, Liam’s banter with the audience is jovial and there are even smiles from the stage to match those beaming back from the steaming mass. Reconnecting with the fans has been key to the response the band have been getting on tour and from the opening fusillade of Four Letter Word, Millionaire and Beatles and Stones to the crescendo finale of World of Twist’s Sons of the Stage, both band and audience seem to feed off the energy generated under the sweaty canopy. The performance is as tight as you would expect from a group of seasoned campaigners the majority of whom have been playing together for the best part of a decade but there is a new lightness of spirit and atmosphere which helps these songs of hope and belief soar. It’s clear throughout the show that the shackles of the past have been cast aside.

“I don’t feel any pressure,” says Liam. “If being in a band is pressure then you’re in the wrong game, mate. We’ve been at the top and we want to be at the top again but we’re not young lads chasing the dream. We’ve all been round the block in this industry a lot of times and we know it’s hard but we’re dead relaxed, man. We’re doing our thing. We’ve got nothing to prove.”

With new material already written, Beady Eye are eager to keep the juggernaut rolling with another album pencilled in for 2012. “The thing with Oasis was that we could have made more records and it’s a shame we didn’t but with this we’re not going to sit around for five years before putting new stuff out,” the front man says. “Hopefully by the time we get the next record out, there’ll be more people digging us and knowing what we’re about.”

And what will the future hold for Beady Eye? Can it get as big as Oasis?

“We don’t go about saying we’re going to be as big as Oasis, despite some of the quotes people have me saying. I’m talking about the music. I believe in the music and the quality of it and I’m talking about that not that we’re bigger or better than Oasis. People on the whole get that. They see where we’re coming from and give us respect for that.”

“Beady Eye will evolve. It already is. We’re listening to stuff we’re putting together for the next record and it’s already changing. It’s Beady Eye and it’s our sound because that’s what we do but these tunes are blowing our minds and we just hope they’ll do the same for other people. We’ll do what needs to be done, man. If it needs to rock, it’ll rock. If it needs to swagger, it’ll swagger.” A wicked glint flashes across those heavy-lidded blue eyes again. “And it’ll be the bollocks.”

First published in: The Red Bulletin (September 2011)

Related content: Andy & Gem: In the Belly of the Oasis Beast (2005)

Give ‘Em Enough Rope – The Clash

I was about 15 when this came out in 1978 and was sharing a bedroom with my brother Adrian at the time. Ade kept a secret radio under his bed for when the lights went out. He’d put on Radio Luxembourg and we’d listen to bands like the Clash through a shared ear-piece. The excitement generated by punk was massive and this album made Ade and I start our first band; him on a cheap guitar and me singing. It was the first time I’d sung anything other than school hymns; from Our Father who art in heaven to Drug Stabbing Time, it was quite a departure.

Hunky Dory – David Bowie

Bowie was one of those artists who inspired total devotion in his fans, like Morrissey would ten years later. Bowie fans at our school would listen to Bowie and nothing else. My eldest brother Mark was a Bowie fan but not a fanatic; he listened to all sorts. But this stood out for me when he played this, usually very loud. Bowie’s voice is softer and more adventurous here than on his more operatic 80s albums; he has a higher range. I based my own style on the singing on this album; listening constantly and copying his vocals.

This is Soul – Various Artists

I first got into soul thanks to our local second-hand shop. You could pick up dozens of old albums for about 50p a pop. This one opened the floodgates for me; it’s a catch-all compilation with all the stars: Aretha, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge. I loved everyone on it and sung along to every song. My soul voice and some of the early Housemartins style started here. But I got greedy and began buying 50 records at a time, just revelling in the stories and delving into the knowledge behind the music. This opened up my horizons and gave me endless new references.

Spotlight On… Al Green

There has to be an album from the reverend in here and this 24-track double album ticks all the boxes. It’s a comprehensive collection and one which led to my total obsession with Al Green. I got this in 1983, just a few months before the Housemartins began, and I immediately started taking my soul voice in this direction. I’d tried a more bluesy feel and a bit of jazz but this nailed it for me. Al’s rhythm and harmonies just kill. I now own over 30 of his albums on vinyl alone and each one is like a religious artefact as far as I’m concerned.

King of America – Elvis Costello

It could have been Get Happy because I was influenced greatly by his early lyrical style but this one, although it’s later, around 1986, represents a huge step up for his writing. It really inspired me to raise my game because he’d really pushed on. Costello could deliver a single line and sum up exactly what you were feeling. Also his politics were a lot more subtle here. We hammered ours home on the first Housemartins album but this record, with its mixture of love and politics, really helped the Beautiful South strike the right balance when we go going a few years later.

Stop Making Sense – Talking Heads

There’s a certain obsession with this album in the band because its so touchingly simple and it’s a style we’ve always aspired to. Simplicity is one of the greatest and hardest disciplines to learn and David Byrne excels at it here. The circular rifts that float and repeat; the stark backdrop to each songs which slowly builds up with layers of sound, the easily accessible melodies and that unusual vocal delivery. It’s an almost perfect intellectual pop record. Plus it’s a live album which doesn’t feel like one; it just feels as though this is how the songs were always mean to sound like.

Now Here is Nowhere – Secret Machines

Coming out of the New York new wave scene of the mid-Noughties at the same time as The Strokes and Interpol, these guys were pretty much overlooked – but not by us. This is their sophomore album and it’s hugely under appreciated in our opinion. It can genuinely rival anything ever done by some of the biggest bands in rock history – it’s that good. It’s not perfect but that’s what makes it so excellent. It sounds rusty and sloppy in parts but the production is so good that you can see that it’s meant to sound that way. It has such amazing writing on it too. There’s no gloss but it’s a wonderfully atmospheric and orchestrated record.

Live at the Royal Opera House – Björk

It’s such a humbling experience listening to Björk; she’s so prolific, inspirational and original. This performance really inspired us during the making of (debut single) Unfinished Business. Her structures, chords, rhythms…they’re all so unconventional and progressive. It should really be an uncomfortable listening experience but it’s not. It’s actually very relaxing. The version of Hyperballad on here is just incredible. Again, like the Talking Heads album, this is live but it doesn’t come across as such. It has a real flow to it and a narrative despite being, essentially, a greatest hits set featuring the best of her output up to 2002. To think she is still pushing the boundaries now is frightening.

Mimikry – Alva Noto & Blixa Bargeld

We were pretty underwhelmed by new music at the time this came out in 2010 but this just blew us away. It’s an uncomfortable journey through the avant garde from start to finish; full of minimalist soundscapes, spoken word recitals and spontaneous fuck-ups. At one point there’s even a collection of anomalous sounds which are apparently the recordings of computers going wrong. It just reinvigorated us. There were no real influencing factors on the material we working on at the time but it just brought our interest back to life.

The Ideal Crash – dEUS

It may not be their best album but it has something very life-affirming that, despite what people might think about White Lies, really appeals to us. For all its faults, it’s an amazing record. Some of the lyrics are awful; the writing’s corny and odd in places and the melodies can be a bit cheesy but it gets away with it due to the kitsch factor. The musicianship is pitch perfect, however, and channels something of Radiohead’s experimentation in places. There are dissonant wig-outs where it sounds like they’re all playing different songs but it works. And then there’s teenage, sugary pop songs too. You can never second guess where they’re going to go.

The Catalysts.eu is an information, ideas and connections exchange forum, serving as a networking portal for experts and correspondents from diverse areas of the media, culture and policy arenas.

Art Rockers Everything Everything caused more than a few ripples with their debut album ‘Man Alive’ at the end of 2010 and are currently touring their “mystifying, impenetrable, beautiful” music throughout Europe. Jonathan Higgs, the band’s singer and guitarist, talks to Nick Amies about the five albums which had the most influence on his life and music.

Nirvana – Nevermind

I first heard this at my friend’s house, when I was about 12 or 13. To say it was ‘instantly arresting’ is a bit of an understatement. Over the years that followed I spent a lot of time trying to work out what made it so unbelievably exciting. It’s the directness of harmony and great melodies, his voice, the mythology, but towering over it all is this simply gigantic drum sound. It’s a classic album and it influenced all my early bands, and can definitely be heard in some of Everything Everything’s songs.

Radiohead – OK Computer

I was about 13 and I remember falling asleep and drifting in and out of consciousness while this was playing on loop. All these totally new sounds washed over me; the song writing, lyrics, performances and overall atmosphere just took me so far away from reality and to new depths of what felt like understanding. The influence of this and all Radiohead’s albums on our band is probably obvious; it’s huge. Only a few of the very best bands made me jealous as a teenager, and this album was a bastard. It’s such an amazing sounding record.

The Prodigy – The Fat of the Land

There’s a real primal bombast to this album that just really fires you up and it sound tracked many a stupid night. I loved the way they had incorporated vocals into the sound, and it was before it all got a bit formulaic. The production is simply perfect, I can remember my brother putting on ‘Climbatize’ when he was really stoned and just watching his face as that bass line came in; just priceless. I still throw massive, unnecessary break beats over our demos, which are usually shot down, but it’s probably because of these chaps that I do it.

Craig David – Slicker Than Your Average

I got into this partly because it amused me so much, but after a while the production really snared me, and I ended up trying to mimic it without realising. It’s not a classic album by any means, but it was there for me at the right time in my development to steer me out of the teenage rock I was listening to, and opened a world of new sounds and options which can be found in our band. It was a stepping stone for me and I am still very much amused by it, and I still love it.

Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band – The Donut in Granny’s Greenhouse

This was an old record belonging to my parents. Away from the annoying zaniness, it’s actually really dark and uncomfortable. There are lots of very chaotic, disjointed ambient sounds that you just can’t place and it’s very scary in the same way that ‘Revolution no. 9′ by the Beatles is. The fact that it’s all very close, distorted almost, and you just don’t know what’s making the sound, that makes it weirder. I think some of the Bonzo’s dark humour got into what we do, and in the right quantity I reckon it’s no bad thing.

First published in The Red Bulletin

A lot of new bands arrive on the scene claiming to be impossible to categorise but then produce material which is so clearly formulaic that their album could be called Insert Genre Here. Not so Montreal’s Suuns who are solely responsible for a global outbreak of head-scratching.

“Most of the time, people are kind of perplexed,” Suuns front man Ben Shemie admits. The singer/guitarist is talking about the Canadian art rockers’ debut album Zeroes QC which has been causing furrowed brows since its release in December last year. “Generally people don’t know how to react. It tends to polarize the audience.”

On hearing the record for the first time, one can see why there has a been a certain amount of confusion. Without knowing it was the work of one band, Zeroes QC could quite easily be mistaken for a label compilation. Opening tracks ‘Armed for Peace’ and ‘Gaze’ swagger along in crotch-hugging, dirty rock leather, all guitars blazing, before the album veers off into stylish post-punk droning with the likes of ‘Pie IX’ and the minimalist electronica of ‘Arena’ and ‘Sweet Nothing’. There are even a couple of sweetly-sung ballads thrown in for good measure, pitching the listener yet another curve ball. It’s a collection of songs which has drawn admiration for its diversity and dexterity but also criticism for drowning the album’s focus in a sea of influences.

Shemie is unapologetic about the album’s disparity and explains that far from being a calculated exercise in eclecticism, Zeroes QC is merely a reflection of the multi-faceted world around them. “The main inspiration behind our music is exactly that; where we are from, what we are exposed to, what we see everyday, what music we are listening to,” he says. “The initial ideas at the heart of every song, which is the hardest part to come up with and to feel strongly about, come from our environments and experiences. These things have the biggest effect on us.”

One of the band’s main environments, their home town of Montreal, played a huge role in defining the album’s sound, Shemie says, but he freely admits that the current demands of being on the road may result in even more variety when it comes to recording the follow-up to Zeroes QC. “If we were in Berlin we would produce different sounding music, as we would if we moved to the prairies,” he says. “But right now, writing music is something that unfortunately is slotted into our schedule because we are touring a lot. It’s not our main focus at the moment.”

After criss-crossing North America in April, Suuns return for a whistle-stop tour of European venues in May before playing the Primavera Music Festival in Barcelona on May 31. Buoyed by the reception they enjoyed in Europe earlier this year, the band are looking forward to hopping back across the Atlantic for a summer love-in.

“Europe is amazing and it seems that we are more popular there, which makes sense to me,” Shemie says. “I think the music we make has a more minimal and electro thread which is more readily accepted there than in North America. Maybe the Europeans are just cooler. But the reaction in the US is also great. Canada is a bit behind on us, but they’ll come round soon enough.”

Shemie ponders the possibility that Suuns’ homeland is struggling to process their rapid ascension in much the same way as the band itself. “We are all surprised how fast everything has materialized in the last six months,” he grins incredulously. “Six months ago, none of what we are doing now would have even been conceivable. We’ve played together for 3 years doing local shows and getting a reputation but in the last six months the whole project has rocketed to another level. I think we could have imagined this happening, but it’s still surprising that people have even heard of us at all, even at home.”

“Positive attention is always nice and flattering, whoever and wherever it comes from,” he adds. “I don’t think any of us really feel a burden with the attention being thrown our way. We’re pretty chilled out about the whole thing.”

Multi-award winning rock band Elbow are back this month with their fifth album Build a Rocket Boys! and an extensive UK stadium tour. Singer Guy Garvey took time out of rehearsals for the coming shows to talk to Nick Amies about the five albums which have been most influential in his life and career.

Led Zeppelin 4

 The first time I heard this, I was at home, I was six and it was the first real rock record I’d ever listened to. It generated a lot of confusing feelings in me. Until then I always wanted to be either a soldier or a superhero but this album made me want to be a drummer. When I listen to it now, it still gives me amazing feelings. It’s quite a two-dimensional album in a way – Robert Plant’s lyrics are basically a load of old rubbish – but the sheer power of it and the stories surrounding the album just keep on producing magic for me.

 Santana – Abraxas

My high school girlfriend bought this on cassette for me as it was the cheapest things she could find in Vibes, our local record store in Bury. I just fell in love with it. When me and my mates used to talk about the future, I said I wanted to be in band like Santana. Weirdly enough, it influenced the early Elbow sound although it’s hard to imagine that now. Our early shows would go on for hours with loads of solos and very few lyrics. It was music to groove to, our Santana era.

Joni Mitchell – For the Roses

This album stared my obsession with song writing. I progressed from scribbling abusive poems about teachers and love poems for girls to writing about the complexity of emotions after hearing this. Joni puts it right out there: she hates this man but loves him too. There are some complicated topics on there and it’s honest, generous and devastatingly naked. These are words from the heart and it made me want to say things in a very different way. It took a lot of time and work to open myself up to that kind of writing.

Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden

You’d never be able to make an album like this now. To follow up an album of hits with such a brave, sparse, personal album – it just wouldn’t fly in today’s industry. It blew me away. It’s pure art. The music and production are excellent. When I listen to it with my eyes closed I actually feel like I’m physically moving. It takes you somewhere. This record had a profound effect on the whole band and we all agree that it hasn’t aged. I’d love to be able to write a record like that.

Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream

We love a bit of drama in Elbow and this is a series of dramatic events from start to finish. There hadn’t been a rock album like that for years and when it was released, it spoke to me. It has that theatrical quality we try to bring to Elbow but it’s also tight and controlled; those taught drums, the caged feedback. It’s edgy on the brink of explosive but still in control. It’s not my favourite Pumpkins record but for influence, this is the one.

 Build a Rocket Boys! is released on March 7^th on Fiction/Polydor.

 First published in the Red Bulletin.

Copenhagen doesn’t appear to be suffering as badly as other parts of Europe as the seasonal cold snap prompts the majority of the continent to don arctic parkas and thermal underwear. The Danish capital laughs at temperatures which hover just under freezing. It’s practically balmy considering the lowest temperature ever recorded here was minus 29 Celsius. Brooklyn’s indie darlings the Drums, in town for the next leg of their European tour, are equally sanguine about the December chill.

“Brooklyn is harsh in winter so I’ve been enjoying it here in Europe,” Johnathon Pierce, the band’s laconic frontman says, reclining on a chilly leather sofa backstage at Copenhagen’s Vega venue. “We are all very sensitive to the conditions around us. We were very influenced by all the heat we experienced this year and it shows in some of the songs; they have a sunnier, more positive vibe. I’m looking forward to getting back to New York and the cold. It’s a very creative environment for us, to be cold.”

Since exploding onto the alternative scene in a flurry of plaudits and praise in 2009, some three years after forming in New York, the Drums have been pricking the consciousness on both sides of the Atlantic with their sparse, spiky 80s influenced guitar pop. Drawing on the sounds of the The Smiths, early Cure, Joy Division and Orange Juice, the band revisit the glory days of the independent movement, a period before being an outcast became just another marketing tool for the major labels. Some critics have gone so far as to describe these self-confessed weirdos as the saviours of indie. It’s not a title that sits well with the band.

“You do something you love and the whole world spins around you and suddenly everyone has a reaction,” says drummer Connor Hanwick, sweeping back a structurally magnificent quiff which would put a young Morrissey to shame. “The first album was written before anyone had even heard of us so that says that we were just writing songs that we loved. We weren’t trying to save anything.”

“We were all loners as kids and a little out of sync with the world so we deal with praise and accolades with a certain sense of reality,” says Pierce. “We know that everything eventually goes away. Come January there’ll be another big thing, another band to watch. Whether you’re loved or hated, some day nobody’s going to care at all so it just has to be about writing great songs because that will be what follows you to your grave.”

This almost brutally realistic view of life and music sits somewhat awkwardly with the jangly, life-affirming buoyancy of many of the bands’ songs, driven by Jacob Graham’s tightly-strung, twangy guitar and the toy town tinniness of Hanwick’s drums. It’s a dichotomy which isn’t lost on the Drums.

“We have a natural urge to balance things,” says Pierce. “We never set out to write a song which sounds happy but is really about being sad. But those are the kinds of songs we’ve been drawn to our whole lives; those are the songs we hold dear and the kind of songs we want to write. But it’s all subjective; for example, Forever and Ever Amen makes some people cry while others jump around the room with joy. We’re happy dealing with grey areas.”

As darkness falls and the temperature plummets, the Vega fills with chirpy Copenhageners seemingly unaware of the darker side of the Drums. Dressed as if they’re heading to a California beach party, the neon t-shirts and shin-scraping drainpipes bely the fact that the young crowd has just traipsed through the slushy remnants of the recent snow.

In an attempt to achieve the levels of balance they crave, the Drums counteract the gloom outside with a show befitting the upbeat mood of their audience. Soon the crowd is basking in the effortless melodies and wistful ambience of songs like Down by the Water, Best Friend and Submarine which turn the intimate confines of the Vega into a cosy seafront gathering. Let’s Go Surfing’s idyllic surf-pop transports the crowd to a bonfire-lit celebration where they whirl around in board shorts by the waters edge; the top-down freedom of Book of Stories blows through the collective hair like an ocean breeze, while The Future sloshes around the crowd like lazy early morning waves lapping in struggling sunlight.

Who cares if these songs filled with optimistic hooks come with hidden barbs. Whether they intended to or not, the Drums have brought a hint of summertime to wintery Copenhagen.

First published in the Red Bulletin.