An interview from BAGGAGE, the music magazine of Warwick University
Dubstar are, at the present, much more famous for the cover to their album 'Disgraceful' than its fluffy pink melodies. Cynics have been heard labelling them as Saint Etienne by numbers, but there is a depth to their music and lyrics that Etienne have not managed recently, if ever. Songs, like 'Stars' contemplate suicide to a lush Euro-pop backing, and 'Not So Manic Now' deals with the attack of an OAP. Matthew and Jon went to their gig at Cov University to ask them about Dubstar, music and inspiration and came back with comparisons to Lassie and insider-knowledge of Zig's penile dimensions.
What influences your music?
Steve (Sequencer): It's the luxury of living a very emotional life, I'd say. Years and years of torment, listening to emotive people like... Bowie, we've been listening to a lot. Last night, for instance, Aladdin Sane, is the first time I heard that which is amazing in a sort of mediocre way.
Sarah (Vocals): Dolly Parton. Voice of an angel. St: Dolly Parton? Why? Sa: She's got such a lovely voice. She writes good stuff, she wrote 'Joleen', you know, and 'Working 9 to 5' as well.
Chris (Guitars): Did Art Garfunkel write 'Bright Eyes'?
St: No, I don't think so. Yeah, loads of influences.
What does music mean to you?
St: It's em, to me, it's actually an essential part of my life, I cant really survive without music. It's almost a catalyst for emotion, a catalyst for motivation, and for enjoying yourself. You can't really have a social gathering without music... Because music's the flux that keeps it all moving. That's what music is to me.
C: Fair enough.
Sa: Me too. You get off on something and it kind of locks into you. It just makes you go 'Ooooh'. It's so funny. That's how I feel. You know what I mean.
St: Yeah. It's such a great thing when you find that somebody has listened to the album or even one of the singles and it's become a pivitol moment of their life. Not necessarily listening to the song itself, just something that was just there at the time.
What did you do before you were in Dubstar?
St: I DJ'ed and before that I used to work for Our Price and HMV, and a record company in London called Pinnacle.
C: I was on the dole and ocassionally I was an examinations invigilator, although I've never been a student. I worked at Tescos once.
Sa: And I was at punyversity.
What were you doing?
Sa: 3D. I did Material and Design for 2 years - passed that and everything. Then I went and did 3 dimensional design. Last year I packed it in about a month before the end of term ... [to Steve] I was always round at your house, in the afternoons, drinking tea and discussing what it would be like to be pop stars. [laughter]
St: Yeah.
Are you afraid of fame?
Sa: Um, it's weird because you look at people in magazines - fame's a funny thing, 'cos I used to look at Louise from Sleeper and think 'God, what must she feel like?' I'm lucky, I haven't changed, though I get recognised.
Can you imagine what it would be like to be as famous as, say, Kurt Cobain, and be forced to take the route out that he did?
C: Heroin helped.
St: But which came first? I think he was in a very different situation to what we're in. You know, Nirvana were - for a very brief period - the biggest band on the planet. I think that's a different kind of fame to what we've experienced so far. And if the question were 'were we frightened of that particular kind of fame?', then, yes, because it's entirely unpleasant. It's very easy to think 'that guy's got loads of money, he makes brilliant record, and everyone loves him', but that's not really what it's like. If you can imagine that he couldn't have walked out of his front door without people knowing who he was, watching his every move and is he was already paralysed...
C: He could have moved to Iceland...
St: Yeah, but would you like to live in Iceland? [discussion about the merits of Iceland]
What are your ambitions for the future?
Sa: For it not to become a job.
C: I hope we graduate from playing universities. [laughter]
St: We've been thinking a lot about the next album, we we've got some interesting ideas for, and a lot of songs ready to go. So that should be interesting. We should probably be starting work on it early next Spring. It's not going to be too long before there's new stuff out. We've just set up a new studio - a very small one - but it's good for what we're doing. We've been doing some sessions down there, we've done some tracks for the b-side of our new single, which is 'Not So Manic Now'. Also we've done some acoustic versions of some tracks from the album, which have been very well received actually.
What is your material going to be like in the future? Can we expect a Dubstar 'triple concept' album?
St: Chris was making plans to write a rock opera called 'Turdy' at one stage. [laughter]
Sa: A plop opera.
St: Sorry! We haven't made any firm plans for developing the style. I know we did the acoustic stuff, but that was really a step sideways, rather than going onwards. It was a way of re-doing the songs, really, just to draw a line under some of them. It just evolved. Who knows what's going to happen?
Can you envisage re-inventing yourselves, like U2, around the time they released 'The Fly'?
St: Maybe, but it's far too early.
C: I think our b-sides are a bit of a departure from what we've done before. St: It wasn't a studied sit-down, thinking about it...
Sa: We're too lazy for that really, anyway.
How did you start to work with Stephen Hague?
St: He was approached by Food [record label], before we were even signed, actually. And he really liked the demo we did at the time. Food recommended him to us. We had a choice, basically, of working with whoever we wanted.
Sa: Andy [Food's boss] got this big file out of the cupboard, and said 'producers - pick one' and slapped it on the desk.
St: They had everyone you could think of. Once it comes down to it, Stephen Hague has worked with lots of other bands with synthesisers and guitars, that are live and sequenced instrumentation. Having met him as well, we knew that we going to get on well. He's a very quiet, methodical worker, and not at all pretentious, and that's kind of nice. We got on fine...
C: He had a nice smell as well...
Are you into smells, then?
C: Oh yeah... I try to not let them know I'm doing it.
You have very contrasting music and lyrics, for example 'Stars', the lyrics are not exactly happy, yet the tune is really poppy. Also, are they, in any way, auto-biographical?
St: Yeah, all the subject matters and everything come from things that have actually happened to us as individuals. I suppose that it never really occurred to me, I don't know about you two [to Chris and Sarah], I didn't really think that the words were particularly hard-hitting or doomy or anything until it was pointed out... copious times. But thinking about it now, it works, it works better, it is like a Lassie film, you always cry at the end of a Lassie film when one of the animals dies, but it would not be so poignant if you hadn't had two hours of schmaltz before it. And that's kind of what Dubstar's like, not schmaltz, but, it is quite often that the best stories are set in juxtapositions of being in the comfort of nice surrounds, but with the emotions that make you feel.
'Not So Manic Now' is about the attack of an OAP - what inspired that?
St: Well, it is not our song. It is not actually by us, it is actually by a band called 'Brick Supply', a band from Wakefield.
C: It was a fairly low key release, I wasn't even aware that it had been released before we did it.
Why did you chose to cover 'St. Swithin's Day' by Billy Bragg?
Sa: Because it's good.
Are you thinking about doing any other cover versions?
Sa: We have, we've done 'One Further Detail' for the b-side of 'Not So Manic Now'.
St: Which was by Astro-de-Burto. We've been known how to play Gary Numan songs. You can snigger, but we do sometimes. I don't think we're going to record any more covers for a while, I think we've done enough now. But, it's good fun to play other people's songs - it's a nice way to relax, and try to pick, not exactly consciously, that people were very unlikely to know before anyway. Okay, Billy Bragg, he's a popular guy, but, a lot of people only really came to find him when he did 'Sexuality' and 'Levi Stubb's Tears', and anything before that was really uncharted territory.
Sa: Some songs just shouldn't be touched.
St: And also, with doing songs that people really don't know, is that they do not come to them with pre-conceptions of the version that they already know. Apparently, Billy [Bragg] was really chuffed, so we've been told. It's so different to his version.
Are there any songs that you wish you had written?
Sa: Yeah, 'Me and Bobby McGee'.
St: 'Not So Manic Now'! Yeah, plenty of songs...
Sa: It really has to be the entire Bob Dylan back-catalogue.
C: 'Born To Be Wild' by Steppenwolf... 'Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath'.
St: 'Moonriver', that's a really nice sort-of record.
Lyrics or music - do you feel one is more important than the other?
Sa: No, I think they go hand-in-hand. One enhances the other.
St: This is one of the reasons why a lyric book is such a pile of pap - Jim Morrison is a good example. Because the two have to go hand-in-hand, you wouldn't read the script of a television play.
C: I think that the music is more important.
Why?
C: Because, you can sometimes get really crap lyrics, and the song is saved by the tune.
St: That's true.
Sa: That's why I think it is important to write good lyrics.
Could you categorise yourselves, into (I) Pop...
St: Electro-romantic...
Sa: [laughs] Have you been thinking about that?
C: Be very careful...
St: Oh no, nothing to do with 'Romo', for God's sake! That's what we were called by Zig and Zag, believe it or not! It's got to be right.
You've been on 'The Big Breakfast' - is that a career high?
C: Sort of is, yeah.
St: That was good fun, we did that earlier this week, though it's not going out until the 12th.
Sa: I had a piece of biscuit in my mouth, so my mouth is all sort of contorted and spraying shortbread crumbs everywhere, it was really embarrassing!
C: Zig's penis is fantastic, you would never know until you see it. Awesome.
What are your favourite records of 1995?
Sa: 'Clubbed To Death'.
St: Chemical Brothers album, 'Exit Planet Dust.'
C: William Orbit, 'Hinterland'.
Finally, what are the best and worst things that have happened to you in 1995?
C: Top 40 single was good.
Sa: Yeah, the Top 40 single.
C: And a Top 40 album.
St: I managed to turn off one of the songs on stage on Thursday, half-way through.
Sa: I was just getting into it!
St: So was I, that was a definite low. Not certainly the worse thing that has happened.
Sa: You were waving your arms around too much.
St: I know what the worst thing about this year was, doing the last load of demos we recorded, that was a definite low. We have been working with someone, we're not working with anymore, but we did some recordings with him - there were tears, and violence, and everything. But out of that came two of probably the best things we have done.
Dubstar were talking to Matthew and Jon.