A hard road to travel...A hard road to travel...In between tragic car wrecks, rip-offs and mass arrests, The Charlatans have built up an extraordinary armoury of music. Nathaniel Cramp grills the band on their 14-year journey from Madchester shuffles to neo-soul.
THE BAND CALL IT 'THE CURSE OF The Charlatans' and it's not hard to understand why. Guitarist Jon Baker left after their first album; bassist Martin Blunt had a nervous breakdown; keyboardist Rob Collins was jailed for his part in an armed robbery and, three years later, died in a car crash; their accountant embezzled £363,000; new keyboardist Tony Rogers was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Any lesser group would have thrown in the towel, but for The Charlatans it all seems to be in a day's work.
As the band prepare for the release of Songs From The Other Side, their comprehensive B-sides compilation, frontman Tim Burgess, bassist Martin Blunt and drummer Jon Brookes talk us through their 13 year recording history.
How did a gang of Mods from the Midlands end up recording an indie debut single with a Northwich clubber on vocals?
Martin Blunt: "I knew [Steve Harrison, Charlatan's manager]. He owned Omega, a record shop in Northwich, and he'd been to see my band Makin' Time. When that band finished I still frequented his shop. I'd played with Jon Brookes in The Gift Horses alongside Graham Day of The Prisoners and I came across Rob Collins [organist] and first singer and guitarist Baz Kettley shortly after.
Jon Brookes: "I knew Rob from knocking about in a rehearsal room. He used to come down with his Hammond organ. It was Martin's inspiration that kicked it off and, as with any good thing, a bit of magic happened."
Tim Burgess: "My group The Electric Crayons supported The Charlatans at a football club in Northwich. I ended up singing backing vocals on one of their songs which was cool."
Martin: "In January 1989 Baz quit. We got Steve to approach Tim and at the some time we got Jon Baker, a guy that Rob knew, in on guitar. We had our first rehearsal in about March and it just felt really right, really special."
Jon: "We had that Mod sensibility - Martin is a massive Small Faces fan, Rob was a massive Who fan - but Martin said the whole acid house thing reminded him of going to soul nights on his scooter when he was a teenager. The music we were making lent itself to that hypnotic groove. Tim used to go to the Hacienda with his mates, and he put the finishing touches to what we were striving to do. The fact that he had a similar swagger to Mr Ian Brown was something we couldn't resist."
Your second single went Top 10, then your debut album Some Friendly hit the top spot. Were you surprised at such swift success?
Tim: 'Yeah, it was brilliant. We got into Smash Hits and when we were on tour we would hear The Only One I Know on the radio every 10 minutes."
Jon: "We were listening to the Top 40 and it had gone up to Number 9 and it was like, This is it, this is what we've been waiting for!"
Martin: "The album lost a bit in the mixing, though. We lost the energy that we had live."
Jon: "It's light on its feet, but that's just because we were young and we were still learning."
By Between 10th And 11th you'd lost Jon Baker, your first guitarist. How did that affect your sound? It seemed to be a lot darker.
Jon: "That record is a reflection of our feelings at the time, just wondering if people really gave a shit any more. Jon had left and Mark Collins came in. He thought he was joining a bunch of guys who were flying high, but we were fucking miserable."
Martin: "That record was our comedown. Instead of doing the second album we tried to do the fourth one."
Tim: "The very least we got from it was Weirdo and some of the sounds are incredible, quite modern. (No One) Not Even The Rain was inspired by e e cummings and another one was from Allen Ginsberg. Reading other people's words inspires me because it can trigger off something in your own mind that you weren't aware of. The title for the next album, Up To Our Hips, was taken from a line in Jack Kerouac's Doctor Sax."
The first single from that LP, Can't Get Out Of Bed, pre-empted the whole Britpop thing.
Tim: "It was our second great single, it was short and had a brilliant hook. It was a call to arms, a message to all my friends on the dole. The whole album was very stripped down. Some of the songs were written in a Small Faces style but it also had a gothic feel to it, like Joy Division, on Feel Flows and Patrol. After the techno vibe of Between 10th And 11th we were learning to write songs, not trying to do anything too complicated."
Jon: "Steve Hillage [producer] had a lot to do with it. The production is really deep and warm."
Martin: "Working with Steve went really well, but towards the end Rob had to go away for a bit. We got it finished in bits and there were a couple of demos where we put our bits over them."
Tim: "The album had a sense of urgency - and hatred. We were thinking about Rob going to prison. We didn't know how long he'd get."
The Charlatans was recorded straight after he come out, eight months later. Did it feel like a new beginning?
Martin: "Maybe subconsciously. We had working titles, but when we mocked up the sleeve we thought it didn't need to say anything apart from The Charlatans. It comes across like it means business."
Jon: "We thought, well, this is just us now. Tim's always good at coming up with historical reasons why we should do things. He'd say, 'No, it should be a double record because Guns N'Roses did a double record!'"
Tim: "It looks like one of the old CBS sleeves. There are about 100 pictures inside which is really just us showing off. At the time we weren't sure whether to release Here Comes A Soul Saver as a single, but I'm really glad that we didn't. It's the kind of track that fans pick up on, about loving music. I like talking about what music we like because I don't feel I own it, even though I've paid for it! It's like in that Victor Bockris biography of Keith Richards, when he's asked what he'd like on his gravestone and he says something like, 'I've passed it on a couple generations.' That's a really good statement."
Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over - a homage to the Stones' Torn And Frayed?
Jon: "The Stones influence became apparent because we were living that whole Exile On Main Street life at Monnow Valley studios in Wales. We were going out catching fish and barbecuing them in the evening, it was all getting a bit ragged."
Tim: "Bullet Comes was our first attempt at being like Sly And The Family Stone and there was a Beach Boys thing and a Stones thing. There was just a lot of messing about in Monnow Valley. We built up the excitement with three singles and the album went to Number 1, so it was a good strategy."
Halfway through recording Tellin' Stories, the fifth LP, Rob Collins was killed in a car crash. A lot of bands would've given up.
Martin: "There were no insecurities in the group and Tim had really found his voice. In the first two weeks back in the studio we recorded four songs, then we went to London to do the video for One To Another and I got chicken pox, so I was sent home. Within a week, Rob had his accident. After the funeral we knew we were going to finish the album and Robin Turner at Heavenly suggested Martin Duffy from Primal Scream. He came and did some rehearsals with us and it worked He bridged a gap for us."
One To Another seemed to break new ground, and fanfared a groovier, more Dylanesque era.
Jon: "We'd opened the doors by then. We got people down to join the party."
Tim: "One To Another come from working with The Chemical Brothers. They had done a few remixes for us, I sang on their track, Life Is Sweet, then we did a cover of Sly Stone's Time For Livin' for Help, the War Child album, so it was the logical next step. North Country Boy was inspired by an early version of Lennon's Jealous Guy where he sings, 'I'm just a country boy' instead of 'I'm just a jealous guy'. Obviously it was also inspired by Girl From The North Country by Bob Dylan and the cover was totally stolen from Nashville Skyline. I first got into Dylan back in 1992 when I bought the book by Robert Shelton. Up until that point I'd always preferred his songs sung by other people."
Your best of, Melting Pot, omitted your first and current singles. Why?
Tim: "I did the running order like a compilation tape. It wasn't necessarily the best stuff, but it meant the most. It allowed us to move on to another phase. It's got the best picture sleeve we've ever had - the cafe was next door to Steve Harrison's record shop and people still turn up there today because of it. It's not exactly Penny Lane, but they do some good sandwiches."
Tony Rogers joined, you signed to Universal, got your own studio and Tim moved to Los Angeles.
Martin: "A friend of mine who ran a venue in Wolverhampton rang me and said, 'There's this guy in a band called Jobe and it's uncanny, it's like listening to Rob.' When Tony turned up somebody really had dealt us an ace card. After Tellin' Stories we knew we couldn't go back to Monnow Valley, so we got a place to rehearse, put a desk in and it grew from there."
Tim: "I didn't want a studio, I wanted to record the next album at Ocean Way on Sunset Boulevard, but it's been a blessing in disguise because when I'm in England that's where I sleep. Moving to LA changed things a lot. I sometimes feel alone, but at the same time I don't need to be in a gang 24 hours a day."
Martin: "When Tim said he was thinking about setting up home in LA I thought it was Lower Accrington, but he meant Los Angeles!"
Jon: "People saw it as a challenge, but it's more like a good twist. When people get killed in car crashes, that's a challenge. When people walk off with all your tax money, that's a challenge."
Was recording Us And Us Only a difficult task? It was the first album that didn't feature Rob.
Jon: "It was a record that had a lot to do with, not an outpouring of grief as such, but a realisation of the turmoil we'd been through."
Martin: "It's quite a sombre album, but we did some growing up on it. Senses and Impossible still blow me away. It's up there with my favourites."
Tim: "We wanted to see what Tony could do. He didn't seem nervous about anything, but the more basic we kept it the more we could do with it, and the more we could learn about each other."
Danny Saber produced Wonderland. What did he bring to the table?
Martin: "After we'd dealt with Us And Us Only, it was like, Right, we know where the next one's gonna come from and ifs gonna be full on! Like you were fuelled on speed, it's gonna be a rush."
Jon: "We wanted to get funky because we'd missed that. That's what makes us thrive. So Wonderland had to happen and it had to be funky. We went and found a funky town to record it in - LA and a funky bloke to record it - Danny Saber."
Tim: "Danny gave us a new impetus - he added a bit of speediness, which was needed. When you're recording yourself you can lose the momentum, but with Danny everything was recorded instantly and in three weeks we had seven songs. Mark wanted a pedal steel on A Man Needs To Be Told and Daniel Lanois had just finished the U2 record. We called him up and a few days later there he was. Jim Keltner [veteran session drummer] came over as well."
Martin: It's a very soulful record. It wasn't a question of British band go to LA to 'rawk', it was British band go to LA to get soulful. While we were recording it we had three LPs on the go: Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, Curtis by Curtis Mayfield and War On Plastic Plants by Regular Fries. We were listening to them and mixing in what we wanted.
Tim: "Wonderland is relevant, but it stands on its own. It's taken a long time for us to be in that position. We knew it wasn't gonna come easy after the first album and at times we've needed a helping hand to get the music across, but the way we are now it's a pleasure, it feels good."
Lastly, are you happy with the B-sides collection?
Tim. "Songs From The Other Side is coming out and it doesn't sound too bad. We've always tried not to throw away tracks on B-sides, so Title Fight is still really strong and Happen To Die is a fucking classic. After all the summer festivals we'll do some demos for the next album. We're all writing stuff so we'll just mash it up. I want it to be a continuation of Wonderland, but someone will probably say, 'No, let's do something different.'"
Martin: "We'll have a 20-piece brass section!"
Tim: "I'd love to collaborate with Kurt [Wagner] from Lambchop and Shelby Lynne. I can do the falsetto when I want and it feels right. But I'll have to come up with something new now, won't I? Maybe a really deep Torn Waits-style one!"