INTERVIEWS
Ross McGibbon travels less than five hundred miles to meet Craig and Charlie Reid, The Proclaimers.
Backstage at Leeds Academy, I meet The Proclaimers, now on the grey side of ginger. Rather than the food and drink-stuffed rooms I normally see, the lads is spartan – they don’t like to eat after lunch on a gig day – it spoils their voices. These are lads who take their work and fun seriously. Charlie: We’re opening for The B52s all over Australia and New Zealand. That’s a strange combination! How many gigs do you do a year now? Craig: Probably about a hundred this year. Charlie and I started doing acoustic stuff in March this year in South By South West and a couple of acoustic tours in the States – very short ones. An electric tour with the band in Canada. Festivals…… Charlie: Along with that there’s a lot of promo work at each gig. The question has been burning for a couple of years for me; Wreckless Eric – why that cover? Charlie: We just liked the song. It’s just one of our favourite songs from that era. And then Eric got in touch and he did a few shows on the British tour two years ago. It was great. Had he cheered up at all? ‘Cos he was a miserable bastard. Laughs all round. Charlie: He seemed alright. He’s off the drink, so. I think he’s one of those whose personality changes when he’s on the drink and he was stone cold sober when he was working with us. Are there any other covers you like to do? Charlie: We’ve done a few over the years. There’s one on this album by Moe Bandy – it’s a country song and one called Sing All Our Cares Away by an Irish singer called Damien Dempsey. I know him – amazing voice. Charlie: It’s good to do other people’s songs now and again – it adds a bit of texture.
Craig: I think there is no formula other than having songs you’re happy with. If you’re not happy with the song, then don’t put it on the album ‘cos if you put it on an album, that’s it there forever. You’ve got to be able to sing them every night. We don’t sing every song on every album every night but we do sing a hell of a lot. What amazed me on the album I heard was the mix - from the cynical to the jolly to the life-affirming. How do you go about assembling that into an album? Charlie: You don’t! You write the songs that you write and the mix comes out as it comes out. Once we’ve got twelve good songs, we’ll make a record. It disnae matter what the balance is like – we don’t really look for a balance, we look to write the best songs we can in that amount of time. If there’s a balance it’s by accident not design – it’s just a collection of songs really. The public image is happy, jolly singles but there’s obviously a lot of things you want to say – you want to have a go at God, you want to have a go at politicians, people who are sucking up for public honours. How does it feel to have that split between perception and what you do? Charlie: We’ve always had it, since the first album. We never thought there was a dichotomy between the political songs and the universal songs. If you go and watch any artist that has a level of political work in what they do or social commentary; it’s relationships and all sorts. It comes from the same root. How about in terms of how people see you? Charlie: I don’t think you can do much about it. There’s large numbers of people who’ll come tonight who know far more than the hits, who know the depth of the work – then there’s others who just know the hits. I think, from the beginning, we found people’s attitude changed dramatically towards us when they saw us live. They didn’t really get it on record. That’s why we play as much as we can. I think we edge towards being better live performers. Is there a live album or DVD? Charlie: On the new record there’s a selection of stuff off the last tour on a bonus CD but it’ll come – there’s never been enough we’re happy with. How does it feel to you to be playing songs you were playing fifteen years ago? Charlie: If that’s all you’re doing, it would be hard work but most of the shows we do, we’re playing an hour and a half and we’ve had very few hits so there’s not many of them to play. There’s maybe about seven or eight songs you have to play and the rest of it we can pick and choose. It’s good to play stuff from your past – you should play your better-known songs but if you want to retain your own enthusiasm as an artist, you have to keep writing new songs. Do you find people receptive to the new material? Charlie: They are. This tour, every night, you’re spotting people in the audience who know the song straight away and are getting it straight away and stuff is going down really well. I was curious about the musical – Sunshine On Leith, that someone did. Did you have anything to do with that? Charlie: We didn’t have anything to do with it, other than saying “yes, you can use the songs”. I’ve seen it two, three times and it’s pretty good and the response it got in Scotland was phenomenal. It was a great honour to get asked. We thought it wouldn’t happen and, even if it did, no ones going to want to see that. What’s it like to see someone perform something you’ve written? Charlie: Very strange! One of the most surreal things I’ve ever seen. Are you aware of any other cover versions of your songs? Charlie: You get the PRS stuff and you know someone’s doing it. There’s lots of people doing “I’m Going To Be (Five Hundred Miles)” in variety shows at theatres round the coast and pantomimes.
Charlie: At home, probably the stuff I listened to when I was twenty. Or stuff my kids listen to. I don’t like to block anything out. When I’m writing a record I don’t tend to listen to much. Craig: I’m the same – I’ll listen to anything. I listen to Northern Soul records, classical guitar – Segovia, Frank Sinatra, Warren Zevon, Steve Earle, James Brown (a lot, still, after all these years). The important thing is not to listen to the same thing all the time. Laughs as he remembers something. When we were kids we bought singles. We didn’t have much money so you bought a few albums a year so you got a good listen to them. I wonder if people listen so deeply now – I suspect they don’t. What do you put on before you go out? Craig: Probably James Brown’s ‘A New Day’ or Sammy Davis Jr ‘For Once In My Life’ (laughs). And you? Charlie: Dexy’s or James Brown or Sam Cooke or something like that. I’m looking forward to tonight. You do get a lovely audience. Craig: We’re really lucky, I don’t know what it is. We get a pretty bright audience. And we get a good mix of male / female / younger /older. That’s why I like playing some of the smaller towns in Scotland or Ireland – you get everybody turns up. Sometimes you get the dog running up! (Laughs). We always wanted a broad audience, we don’t want a narrow audience – for one, it’s death eventually, for two, it’s a bit boring, y’know. And with that, the interview is over, but not before they have both agreed to make an announcement encouraging people to counter-demonstrate against the English Defence League’s gathering in Leeds. And they kept good on their promise, wearing their political hearts on their sleeves.
|
