An interview with Richard Fairhurst...
It's a mad world out there. Britpop is in, synthpop is out, and as yet another four-piece trot out for their 15 minutes of fame they're invariably toting guitars. Not synthesisers. So Dubstar's acutely observed three-minute vignettes of hummable melodies, painstakingly painted electronic textures, restrained guitar lines, and wistful, bittersweet lyrics have become some of the freshest sounds around. Their début album Disgraceful became the first quality synthpop album to reach the Top 20 since the last Pet Shop Boys and New Order outings, aided not least by the catchy 'Not So Manic Now' single. A recent nationwide tour demonstrated the width of both their appeal (from teenage indie kids to middle-aged couples) and their influences - as they followed up some distinctly dancier versions of Disgraceful favourites with an a cappella encore of Janis Joplin's 'Mercedes Benz'.
It's even more surprising that all this came to fruition in less than two years: keyboard player (and songwriter-in-chief) Steve Hillier, guitarist Chris Wilkie, and singer Sarah Blackwood only met up for the first time in 1993, thanks to Steve and Chris' shared passion for such decidedly non-electronic music as the Durutti Column and Throwing Muses. It's not even as if those were two years of hard slog sending out tape copies, as Steve explains.
"We didn't send out demo tapes because, frankly, they're a waste of time. Sorry, it sounds a bit arrogant," he continues apologetically, "but it's true. We got signed by doing some recording, and because our management guy knew Andy Ross at Food [Dubstar's record label]. Actually, he gave him a tape with a whole load of different bands on it, and recorded our songs on that - and Andy Ross heard it, and thought 'This is something really good. I'm going to have to go and meet these people'.
"A&R people hear lots and lots of bands; you hear about one in a hundred that's interesting, but then you hear one in a thousand that has that extra something, that actually makes a good band. And that's something that he saw in us - and luckily, so far, he's been proved right!
"But that's how we got signed. They hadn't seen us live until the end of last year."
Since then, though, Dubstar have been touring solidly, most recently putting in a big-name appearance at that week of diehard indie-dom Sound City. The band's vocals-guitar-synth line-up, augmented on stage by a live drummer, enables them to get away with playing electronic music in venues that haven't seen a synthesiser since the 1980s.
"I think when it comes down to it, watching people play electronic instruments isn't really very exciting!" Steve admits.
Out on the road, Steve's kit is surprisingly sparse, with three sound modules and a rackmount sampler all controlled by his Roland JD800. Even the equipment he used on the album was minimal - a far cry from the rows of keyboards in most modern studios.
"I think some bands are really stupid, to be totally honest! If you've got a band that plays only keyboards, then maybe you've got an argument for having banks and banks of kit. But in this band, you've got a guitarist, snare drum, keyboard player, and a vocalist, all battling for the mid-range. Now, no-one in that audience is going to be able to distinguish between the pads on a Wavestation or the pads on, I don't know, some Yamaha. Whatever. The point is that each unit performs a very specific function: you can only have one pad line, maybe three different samples, one bass line, one lead line, and as a consequence, all you need is four synthesisers. And also, if you do have loads, you're going to get yourself in a situation where things get so complicated that if anything goes wrong, you're absolutely buggered!"
Apparently, it's hard enough to keep even this much equipment in working order, which is why most of Steve's keyboard parts are sequenced come show time.
"There's the odd thing that I do live, but most of the time I'm just trying to make sure that nothing goes down. That's why I have a mobile phone - I'd never had any trouble with any gear until I started doing all this touring, and when something goes wrong with a computer-based instrument, it's big, big trouble; you have to be in touch with the manufacturer.
"I had to get a software upgrade for the sampler, and that took ages... and, you know, all these considerations have nothing to do with music. You've got to have a really clear vision of why the hell you're going to have to get this software upgrade - otherwise you could just spend the whole time getting off on 'Hey, wow, time-stretch at 90% of the time'. Yeah... but it still sounds like a load of shit!"
Steve isn't immune to the wonders of technology - choosing the Roland S760 both for its expandability and for gizmos such as time-stretching and sample-rate conversion - but the playthings of keyboard buffs are not for him.
"I think that one thing that will change is the obsession with analogue - that really started because the analogue stuff was so cheap to buy for house music DJs and people like that. And even an analogue sound can't just exist for its own sake - it's '96 now, you really need something more than that."
So presumably he's all in favour of new instruments such as the Korg Prophecy...
"It's nice to think that the manufacturers are coming up with these fantastic things, but I think it's only because the new technology that's coming out isn't user-friendly enough for anybody to walk up and use them.
"The virtual sample reproduction, the mathematical modelling stuff, to my ears, doesn't sound as good as samples. How are they going to sell something that's supposed to sound exactly like a real instrument, but doesn't sound as good as a sampler? They have to put these extra performance features in," he continues with disdain. "And you know - a virtual oboe. When was the last time you heard an oboe on a record?"
Although there's definitely a dance side to Dubstar - as the single remixes by the likes of Motiv-8 and Way Out West suggest - songs such as 'Just A Girl She Said', 'The Day I See You Again', and opener 'Stars' are defiant throwbacks to the days of proper songwriting, employing an old-fashioned verse-chorus-middle eight structure rather than the techno approach of dropping the same repetitive parts in and out throughout the track. Again, much of this can be put down to Steve's perspective on technology.
"I write on a piano, mostly, just an upright piano at home. I don't go anywhere near keyboards or computers when I'm writing. I normally use Cubase software, and Cubase is set up as a recording instrument - it's like a 4-track, or a 16-track. You can do arrangement, you can edit things as much as you like, but if you don't have the song in the first place, then you just get bogged down in the arrangement so it sounds like a load of programming... and that would be Erasure!
"You get a real physical response from the piano. When you've done something that's right, somehow, the piano responds - only something like each vibration on the keys, but you get this kind of response that confirms in your own mind that what you're doing is right, which you don't get with computers and synthesisers. It's very inspiring."
Some of the most striking moments in Disgraceful are to be found in the arrangements. It sounds professional, it sounds complete - but try to isolate each instrument, and you notice that this effect often comes from no more than three synth parts at any one point. In particular, the huge 'washes of sound' employed by many electronic artists (even the mighty Pet Shop Boys) are notable by their absence.
"It's funny. You have to be really careful with pads. I've spent years not wanting to use any at all, because they fill up so much sonic space: it's a bit of a cop-out most of the time. At the beginning of 'Stars', where this big heavy string sound comes in, it's like "Hello, hi" - you know what I mean? - rather than just filling up the arrangement.
"I really think that if you need to fill up some space with a pad like that, then there's something wrong with the arrangement. And it doesn't really make for dynamic music - a lot of the Dubstar stuff is supposed to be rhythmical, and you can't really have rhythmic pads, can you?" he chuckles.
The professional sound can also be credited to Dubstar's canny choice of producer Stephen Hague, veteran of the Pet Shop Boys and New Order.
"Obviously, his reputation precedes him. But when we met him, we found he was a very nice man, totally unpretentious. A real professional, but not in a snotty, stuffy way; he just knows how to deal with musicians. He knows how to make them feel comfortable, make them feel valuable - which is something you need, because people can get very paranoid that their contribution isn't worth as much as anybody else's.
"He didn't change the arrangement, he didn't change the songs. So his job on the album was really perfect, because all he did was a bit of percussion addition, and that was about it. And record the thing well - the best it could be recorded."
In fact, Dubstar's recorded output is much greater than the track listing for Disgraceful might suggest. Most electronic artists these days back up their single releases with third-party remixes; indie and rock groups accompany them with live tracks or 'original 4-track demos'. In contrast, each Dubstar single so far has been packaged with three new tracks or cover versions - almost a whole album of material. It's a nice way to treat their fans.
"Yeah, exactly. I mean, we do the remixes as well, but if you want to have people with you for the duration of your career, people have got to feel that they're valuable and that they're not being shat on. I know the bands that I've been into - like the Cocteau Twins, the Smiths, Billy Bragg, most of the 4AD bands - have tracks that have already been prepared, and they've put them out as EPs. And that's a really good way of keeping some of the interest going, because if all you're buying is an album every year and a half, then how involved are you in the band?"
And it won't be that long before Disgraceful's successor is unveiled.
"We're doing that fairly soon; personally, I want to see it out in the autumn. There's 'Elevator Song', which will be the last single from Disgraceful; there should be a new single in the summer which isn't from the album; and that's it. It doesn't sound very much, but actually it involves a hell of a lot of work. We're going to be doing new B-sides for every single release."
With live airings of their forthcoming summertime single suggesting another chart hit is in the offing, the future looks bright for Dubstar. And it's not often you meet someone who combines studio boffinry with such a relaxed perspective on technology and a genuinely friendly attitude. Halfway through the interview, the dictaphone was thrown off kilter as the support band cranked up the amps for their sound check; completely unfazed, Steve used his knowledge of acoustics (he used to write for our late sister magazine Music Technology, you know) to muffle the vibrations with a cunningly-placed coat. What a star.