iopk like we?” "‘93."! waged-Eon;
more depth. We're not still writing songs about ‘The Beautiful ()nes’ or ‘Star C razy‘. Which were great at the time but you can't be that person forever. We all changef
Adds the 25 year old with the wisdom of youth: ‘We're not just making music for the Camden scene and we're not just making music for a bunch of goths in Germany. And we're not just making music for the All/Iii. Universal is what we want to be.‘
Anderson himself becomes almost expansive on matters lyrical. "It‘s about celebrating natural things like the rain coming down or enjoying simple pleasures like the morning. Rather than a quest for money. drugs and sex . . . something a little more wholesome I suppose. That‘s going to make it sound very boring but I hope not. I don‘t think people should confuse actually re-finding your lust for life with just getting old and ridiculous.‘
There‘s been a lot said about the ‘new‘ Brett in this respect. but if he has escaped the ‘urban life‘ then it must only have been a Wit/mail and 1 weekend away. Listen to the lyrics of the new record and for all the love of nature and positivity-levels of a self-help author. there‘s a lot of concrete. insects. ennui and Brett Easton Ellis. This is not a dull rehab record.
Forget the aptly-titled single ‘Positivity‘. which doesn‘t quite come off. There‘s energy. wit and insight here. freshness even. Matt compares the process of making the LP (which they eventually recorded with Smiths/Blur producer Stephen Street) with their debut record. ‘You don‘t sit down and think what kind of band Suede should be.‘ he says. ‘You play the songs and everyone tells you. And it was almost the same with this one. We started off with loads of ideas about what kind of record it should be and ended up just letting the songs tell us.’
Time to rewind again. Precocious princess of music journalism Caitlin Moran wrote in 1994: ‘If pop has become product. Suede are a trolley-dash around 'l'iffany‘s with someone else‘s credit cards.’ The band clearly mattered to her and to plenty of others. The question is. ten years on and three years since [Ivar/music -- their last and least successful album to date both in commercial and critical terms — do Suede still matter?
Matt: ‘You'd have to ask someone else. I wouldn‘t be making records if I thought they were just noise. We could always do what a lot of bands do in those three years to generate a few stories. It‘s not hard to go out to the right clubs and gigs and openings and date
14 THE LIST l/ iii ()0! 700?
the right people and have lights in public.‘
Adds Brett: 'For a band that people perceive as being quite manipulative and media-sussed. we really can’t be bothered to do all that sort of shit. Sometimes you think: “Oh maybe we should." but everything comes from the music. It has to. I‘ve never felt comfortable with the idea of promoting a record through my personal life.‘
Matt: ‘You get on with what you‘re doing and worry about it when the records out. But I‘m sure from outside it must look like we‘re the laziest band on earth.‘
In fact Suede have. to revisit the bottom theme. gigged their arses off in Europe over the summer. And it's paid off for there‘s a swagger and insouciance about them. something again reminiscent of their early days. They are once more a great rock'n‘roll band and they know it. They still have that chutzpah to go with those cheekbones. and are happy. like contestants on Radio 4’s Just a Minute. to tackle any subject. As Caitlin Moran (her again) squealed: ‘l‘ve found a band that can talk!’ Alas there is no space to elaborate on Matt‘s insights into the psyche of David Bowie or his theory on a ‘united states of suburbia‘. nor Brett‘s schoolboy Tommy Steele look or his wish to work with Kate Bush. Shame.
We do though get onto the subject of their first ever Scottish gig * 1992 in Rico‘s. They can laugh about it now but . . .
‘We came back to the hotel after the gig and there were two people shagging in my room.‘ recalls Brett unfondly.
‘We had a few years in London of playing to five men and a dog.‘ says Matt. ‘And suddenly a switch was flicked and we could do no wrong. Pandemonium. Whatever we did seemed to come off. And the first gig we did outside of London was Greenock. But there was something less of the level of adoring acceptance of London‘s media darlings than in Camden. I can remember some people at the back and a huge gap and then at the front this one guy with a Mohican . . .‘
‘Shouting: “EFFETE SOUTHERN WANKERS!” adds Brett.
Matt: ‘And later me and Bernard [Butler] in the toilets pissing next to him and the guy asking me: “Do you know where any of Suede are?” Another fine mess.
Suede play Barrowland, Glasgow, 30 Oct. A New Morning is out now on Sony.
Suede rocked Rico’s in Greenock long before they were massive and they’re not the only ones to have enjoyed the ‘varied’ Scottish gig circuit. Words: Mark Robertson
Take That Perth, 1992. Robbie. wee Mark. fat Gary and the other two were seen roaming Perth one night in search of a gig only to find it was at Roxanne's. a venue so salubrious no one complained when it burned down.
Oasis Gleneagles Hotel. 1994. The Gallagher brothers were booked to perform for a gaggle of Sony execs. but instead made off with a bunch of golf carts and proceeded to terrorise the corporate leaders before traumatising Jamiroquai's Jay Kay. Noel Gallagher recalls: ‘We go to the bogs. and who‘s there having a slash but Jamiro-fucking-quai. Liam goes to have a waz in the urinal to the left of him, me to the right. Suddenly, in mid- slash, he leans over. and right in Jamiroquai's ear, he goes. [Jay Kay voice]: "Did-di-dit-ditde-deee-dit-di- deee!" I laughed so hard I pissed all over my trousers.‘
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Nirvana Edinburgh, 1991. The evening after a set at Calton Studios on the Neverm/nd tour, Dave Grohl and Kurt Cobain played a five song acoustic set at the Southern Bar. The gig organised by their support act the JOyriders was in aid of a children's hospital. Less than three year's later Kurt Cobain was dead.
Jamiroquai Perth, 1993. Jay Kay was also spotted playing his first ‘hit‘ ‘Too Young to Die' several dozen times for TV show Talkin' Loud. an arts show set in Strangeways. Stuart Cosgrove's local boozer. He was upstaged by wee Burnie, the late actor who played the malcontent son of Rab C Nesbitt.