Face Magazine

September 1996

The Charlatans always seemed the endearing enduring underachiever of the class of 1990, but by the summer of 1996 they seemed poised for the sort of large-scale success that had previously eluded them. The tragedy struck when founder member Rob Collins was killed in a car accident, they are pledged to carry on but at what cost?

11.30PM MONDAY JULY 22
Monmouth, South Wales

The Charlatans have been in Monmouth all summer, recording their fifth album at Monnow Valley studios. Present tonight, out of the five-piece band, are singer Tim Burgess, guitarist Mark Collins and keyboard player Rob Collins (no relation). All three have already abandoned the studio for a local pub to join friends in celebrating the birthday of one of the Charlatans' engineers.

As they head back to Monnow Valley after last orders, Rob and their engineer are delayed because the keyboard player's red BMW has been boxed into its parking space. Losing patience, Rob shunts the offending vehicles out of the way, triggering their alarms in the process, and speeds down the narrow country route back to the studio. As he drives, his BMW catches the kerb and swerves violently across the road, smashes through a hedge and is propelled up and over a bank. Rob Collins, who is not wearing a seatbelt, is flung from the car upon impact. A local woman in a nearby cottage hears the accident and phones for an ambulance before administering mouth-to-mouth to the severely injured Collins.

Around midnight, a squad car arrives at Monnow Valley. Tim Burgess and Mark Collins learn of Rob's accident and head for nearby Abergavenny Hospital. Mark, in front as Tim parks the car, assumes Rob has probably broken an arm or a leg in the crash, but as a nurse steers them towards a private room, he begins to worry. A doctor enters. He tells Mark that Rob died of his injuries on the way to hospital. Mark repeats the news to Tim, and then to himself, over and over as night turns to day.

The Charlatans are no strangers to misfortune. Even before the death of Rob Collins, their career has been blighted by events that would have driven other bands apart.

In 1991, when they were seeking to repeat the number one success of their 1990 debut album "Some Friendly", original guitarist John Baker left the band, and bass player Martin Blunt was hospitalised with manic depression. In December 1992, Rob Collins was arrested for acting as getaway driver in the bungled armed robbery of a West Midlands off-licence; he was convicted in September 1993, his four- month prison stretch leaving band activity suspended until his release. Last October, the cuffs were slapped on the entire band at New York's JFK airport for "lewd and insulting behaviour", following an altercation with a fellow passenger.

Rob's death, however, happened just as the band seemed set to fulfil the potential suggested by their fourth, self-titled album, released last year. "One To Another", the single they will still release on August 26, should reserve them a place in the winner's enclosure of British pop music. Engineered by Chemical Brother Tom Rowlands, it's a jittery, confused contemplation of a failing relationship that fuses the band's familiar Stones-ish feel with the urgency of bass-heavy dance music. Previous Charlatans songs have often failed to sustain enough pace to maximise their impact. "One To Another", however, takes their energy and - perhaps thanks to Rowlands' D J-based instincts for tempo and beat - constructs a fully realised, highly dynamic four-minute pop journey.

The Charlatans were last in THE FACE six years ago, in an October 1990 cover story which considered them "better mannered than the Happy Mondays and cuter than The Stone Roses", but doubting their staying power after "The Only One I Know" had hijacked the top ten that July. The tag - runtish underachievers of the class of 1990 - stuck. This despite the fact that the band - actually formed in Northwich in Cheshire, not Manchester - have stayed the course longer than both the Roses and the Mondays. They wobbled a bit, though: 1992's second album "Between 10th And 1 1th" was poor, while underrated successor 'Up To Our Hips' was rush-recorded as Rob awaited trial. Yet while the Stone Roses talked great albums, The Charlatans now make them.

On last year's "The Charlatans" (which once again debuted at number one), they found their voice again, melting the Small Faces into Sly Stone. Remix work with The Chemical Brothers, along with Tim's appearance on "Life Is Sweet" on the duo's debut album, "Exit Planet Dust", revealed a band eager to adopt whatever new resources presented themselves. Tim had also fallen in love with hip hop, regaling anyone who'd listen with renditions of "Brooklyn Zoo" and "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" by the Wu-Tang Clan's Old Dirty Bastard - tunes that were among the records he'd play when DJ-ing, for free, at London's Heavenly Social, where the Chemicals were resident.

The Charlatans' principle, says bass player Martin Blunt, is to consume as much of the world around them as they can. "There's been an unwritten rule since we started," he explains "that it's not gonna last for ever. So we get on with it. There's a strong sense of purpose with this band. Not to make the best of what we've got, but to use what we've got to be the best." Splitting up the band, he adds, seems no way to pay tribute to Rob.

3PM JULY 16
Glyndon Estate, Plumstead, south-east London

The Charlatans are filming the video for "One To Another" in the basement of a council estate. When the band are called to perform in front of the cameras, Rob, who has been flicking through the hardback booklet that comes with The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour", insists that the group's instruments be set up to imitate The Beatles' on the pamphlet.

They start to practise and Rob, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, slips himself behind his shiny black piano and tests its keys. Occasionally he looks up, eyeing the video crew with suspicion as they scamper about bellowing indecipherable technical jargon into the subterranean gloom. With his slouching laconicism and permanent fag, Rob Collins is as close to a moody French movie star as the band get. Although inclined to reticence, he seems hungry for attention when he enters a room and answers a glance of enquiry with a long, steady gaze. Collins has a gravitas that acts as a balance to Tim Burgess' perpetual motion and irrepressible optimism.

AUTUMN 1983
Northwich, Cheshire

Tim Burgess, 15, is receiving career advice at school. His class are handed sheets of paper, placed face down on their desks, exam-fashion. Tim thinks someone's done something wrong, but then the teacher begins to speak. "A few of you girls may get jobs in shops. The rest of you had better fill out these." Tim turns over the paper and stares at an unemployment benefit claim form. He leaves school that summer with a solitary O level in English. And a religious devotion to pop music.

The first record Tim bought was The Vibrators' "Jude Says (Knock You in The Head)", when he was 12. But it was Primal Scream's jangly, very pre-"Screamadelica" "It Happens" that was the first to make an impact on him. From then on, he placed his trust in the bands he liked, spending evenings drawing up set-lists for his ultimate New Order and Fall gigs. (Something he does to this day, only with the Wu-Tang Clan.)

Tim's parents had moved to Northwich from Manchester when Tim was seven. His father, along with most of the town, worked at the nearby ICI petrochemical plant. He didn't need the UB40 his school thoughtfully provided, as his dad found him work in the factory mail-room.

"l liked it, 'cause it made me really bored," says Tim. "While I was sticking envelopes down, I used to daydream about all the records I'd buy at the weekend. I had this image of Jimmy from Quadrophenia in my head and dreamed of the day when I could tell them all to shove it like he did." By this time, Tim had cut his hair short, bought a leather jacket and was being lggy with a group of would-be Stooges called the Electric Crayons. He was also going to gigs with a friend, Steve Harrison, who owned a Northwich record shop, Omega Records. Harrison was being hassled by three Omega customers - Jon Brookes, Martin Blunt and Rob Collins - to manage the band they'd formed, called The Charlatans.

JUNE 1989
Northwich

When the Charlatans' original singer left in June 1989, Harrison suggested that Tim attend auditions for his replacement. Martin cajoled him to tone down the lggy shapes and he was in. They wrote what was to be their first single, "Indian Rope", together the following weekend. With "Madchester" about to reach boiling point, it was a time when, according to pop critic Jon Savage, "a new pop bohemianism" was emerging. It was, he wrote, a lifestyle that took "in equal parts from the social organisation of the football terrace, from the holiday atmosphere of Ibizan clubs and from the mass transcendence of acid house parties," a lifestyle that balanced itself "between ambition and solidarity, between radicalism and conservatism, between hedonism and idealism, between androgyny and laddishness, between gentleness and violence".

The Charlatans, formed in the period, have always denied any significant links with Madchester, while acknowledging that a cultural shift was taking place nationally. "There were a lot of people listening to new ideas and new sounds at the time. But for us, it didn't feel like we were trying to be involved in it," explains Tim - who in July last year, also told THE FACE that, "People look back on that time and tend to remember the stupid clothes and stuff, but it was really important. People gave up school or jobs and went out, took drugs and enjoyed themselves. It was a shock to the system." Sadly, most of the bands which emerged from that North-western epicentre fell out or faded away. But if any group from the time could be said to have shown how those new hedonistic values could be worked out and developed with some sort of purpose, it is probably the Charlatans.

Madchester and its fall-out prodded rock music out of post-Smiths gloom, with a new manifesto which insisted that everything, from Krautrockers Can to Donovan, could be of use. It may be that keeping faith with that credo - as opposed to, say, the puritanism of Brit-beat bands like Ocean Colour Scene or Cast - has led the Charlatans to try to keep track of the textural and rhythmic innovations of modern dance music. Modern rather then Mod, they are as at home at the Saturday Social as they are supporting Oasis at Knebworth.

FRIDAY JULY 26
Northwich

Band meeting at manager Steve Harrison's house: the Charlatans and Harrison are working out what do in the light of Rob's death. The need to continue had been made more apparent two days earlier, when Rob's lay preacher father, Les, telephoned Harrison to say his son would have wanted them to carry on. However, the band are concerned that they'll appear to be cashing in on tragedy, and a planned appearance at that weekend's Oasis concert at Loch Lomond is cancelled.

August dates, Oasis' Knebworth show and the Chelmsford Festival with Paul Weller, remain on the schedule. Primal Scream have offered the services of their keyboard player Martin Duffy on a temporary "free transfer," and the album they were recording in Monmouth will be completed in October.

Harrison and the band prepare a press statement outlining the band's decisions. The last line is an indication of the group's fragile emotional state. It reads: "There will be no change. We are fuckin' rock. We've lost our mate."

THURSDAY AUGUST 1
Shortheath Church, Willenhall, Wolverhampton: Rob Collins' funeral

Rob Collins' funeral is a family-centred service. The Charlatans are present, but the focus is on Rob's parents, his estranged wife Joanne, and his four-year-old daughter Emily. Tim, who'd never met Rob's father until now, is crying like never before, sinuses flooded. Gaggles of Charlatans fans have gathered outside the church, although they maintain a respectful distance. The local press do not, and as the congregation files out on their way to the crematorium a reporter approaches Jon, notebook in hand, and asks him for a comment. "I've got two words for you, mate," is the response. "What do you think they are?" Mark and Tim's car gets lost on the way to the cremation, being held in nearby Aldridge. They make it inside just as the curtains are about to be drawn across the coffin. As the casket slides towards the flames, one of the congregation places a packet of Benson & Hedges on its lid. An old Charlatans track, chosen by Rob's father, begins to play. It is their single from 1994, "Can't Get Out Of Bed".

2.30PM / FRIDAY AUGUST 2
Click Studios, east London: Charlatans photoshoot for THE FACE

"This is weird for us," says Tim Burgess self-consciously. "It's the first time we've ever done anything as a band without Rob. It feels very strange. Whaddyareckon? Do we look good as a four-piece?' He takes me to one side. "Y'know, I never thought I'd know Rob for ever. He would have self-destructed anyway, whether through people he fell in with or drugs or whatever. I think... I reckon, right, that after he got out of prison he was on some weird fuckin' death trip. He just did not give a shit. Loved the group, loved his daughter, liked pretty much nothing else."

Drummer Jon Brookes arrives around four that afternoon. His post- funeral commemorations took place at his local pub, which had a lock-in until 4am. He wanders over to a large open window at the back of the studio for a quiet smoke. "I don't feel too bad today, considering," he says, in a tone that suggests he's trying convince himself. Brookes draws a black rectangle fromhis breast pocket, unfolds it and hands it to me.

"It's Rob's wallet. His dad gave it to me. It was on him when he died. It's even got his prison work card still in it." Jon points to a small plastic laminate, with Rob's picture on it, underneath the words, HMP Shrewsbury. Next to the prison ID is a passport- sized photo of Rob's curly-haired daughter, Emily. Jon takes back the wallet, refolds it, and pushes it back into his jacket.

"I'll always have this with me....And whenever I get into anything deep..." He taps the pocket. Mark's mobile phone rings, lt's manager Steve Harrison, telling them that pre-sale figures for "One To Another" are already 50,000, with over three weeks to go before its release. Woolworths is making it its single of the week. It's the kind of talk that points towards a potential number one, but Harrison's news fails to alter the restrained mood. "I just hope the Smurfs aren't releasing anything that week," mutters Martin Blunt.

MIDNIGHT I FRIDAY AUGUST 2
The bar, Marriot Hotel, Swiss Cottage, north London

The band begin Knebworth rehearsals tomorrow. Tonight they are gathered to drink and remember Rob. "I feel numb," says Jon. "I never knew what grief was until now. I've lost one of my best friends, someone I love and respect." You're hardly allowing yourselves time to mourn.

Martin: "The grief just hits us at different times. It seems to come in waves and I think it'll really hit us further down the line." Mark: "We realise straight away that it's never gonna be the same again. It's gonna feel strange without him on stage, but we won't know until we do it." You must feel as though there's some sort of curse over the group. Jon (snaps): "Don't believe in curses. No, we've fallen back on each other a lot more than I realised, I've valued being in a band during the last week. That I ain't got to go to work and do a job, but that I can be with people I love and respect." What's your most abiding memory of Rob? Martin: "The last time we did Top Of The Pops, for 'Just When You're Thinking Things Over' [last autumn]. Whenever we had to share rooms, I'd share with Rob. We went back to the hotel afterwards and I went to sleep. When I woke up about 10.30 the next morning, I noticed the fire alarm was missing from the wall. Rob gets up and says: 'Are you deaf or something? Didn't you hear that alarm last night? It went off for about ten minutes, about six o'clock. I couldn't stand the noise, so I ripped it off the wall. It's in the wardrobe.'

The rest of the band and the whole of the hotel, along with fire engines, was waiting outside and rather than get up and get dressed, he tore the alarm off the wall!"

Jon: "Rob was reckless, but I never thought he'd die. It's not as if it's his first crash either - everybody l know has been in a car crash with Rob." Mark: "We had the grille of his MG over the mixing desk when he totalled that last year." Will you put more pressure on yourselves because of this? Jon: "I don't know. It can't get any harder than this, man - the way I feel at the moment."

In January this year, Rob Collins conquered his infamous interview phobia for the Charlatans' fanzine, in the course of the conversation he was asked what, if he died tomorrow, his epitaph would be. He laughed, then said, "He just ran out of time."

2AM I SATURDAY AUGUST 3
In the Marriot Hotel bar

The Charlatans say that they don't feel like survivors, although people are always telling them that they are. Mark believes they "just get on with it, because there's a lot of things we've yet to accomplish, like making a perfect album". The band had felt their move into pop's big league was approaching before the events of July 22, and now they believe that the only way to honour their absent friend is to do their utmost to ensure its certainty.

Tim: "The next two years were mapped out for us before this, and they still are." Jon: "This band has got more depth than any other band that's come from Britain. It's got character, a real life to it. Part of our job is to put that into the music and it's starting to come now. Things like this only reaffirm it, make it stronger. I've always felt we were gonna be massive, right from the start. My thoughts were that this single was gonna go to number one, and I still think that."

Mark: "Rob's still around in his way - when we play back the tapes or put the video [for 'One To Another'] on, he's there. Someone with that strong a character and personality doesn't just go. A person lives on as long you remember them. And I know I'm never gonna forget him." Jon raises his glass in a toast, pushing it forward, to be met by three others.

Bottles continue to be drained throughout the night. Later on, Tim, wandering away from the group, searches for words. "I want to make Rob into a Gram Parsons, turn him into a fuckin' legend. I know his parents might think 'Oh, no, that's fuckin' terrible,' but the pop fan in me really wants o do it for him. " He pauses, lost in thought. "And I just don't know how to do that yet...".

Gareth Grundy