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This programme contains some strong language. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:09 | |
MUSIC: "Movin' On Up" by Primal Scream | 0:00:27 | 0:00:29 | |
We wanted to make a classic, a great hit record, you know. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:45 | |
Something that was, like, ecstatic. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:48 | |
We created something which was conceived as completely new. | 0:00:48 | 0:00:53 | |
A song could be, suddenly be anything, | 0:00:53 | 0:00:55 | |
it didn't necessarily have to be verse, chorus, verse, chorus. | 0:00:55 | 0:00:59 | |
MUSIC: "Loaded" by Primal Scream | 0:00:59 | 0:01:02 | |
It was very optimistic, the times, I suppose. Anything was possible, really. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:14 | |
Being a rock band that makes people dance is actually quite rare. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
I can't put my finger on why it works. | 0:01:27 | 0:01:29 | |
I don't know why it's a great record and that's why it's a great record. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:33 | |
I think it's a brave, exploratory record which, for all of that, sums up its time. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:39 | |
The Stone Roses had peaked, the Happy Mondays had peaked, and these bands were imploding, | 0:01:39 | 0:01:44 | |
so, Primal Scream kind of waded into this huge wave of expectation. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:48 | |
It brought so many people together. | 0:01:56 | 0:01:58 | |
I mean, it's a cliche, but it's true. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:00 | |
MUSIC: "Come Together" by Primal Scream | 0:02:00 | 0:02:03 | |
I always just totally believed in Bobby, ultimately. | 0:02:09 | 0:02:12 | |
"You're going to be a pop star." And, you know, 1990, he was. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:17 | |
# I was blind | 0:02:27 | 0:02:30 | |
# Now I can see | 0:02:30 | 0:02:32 | |
# You made a believer... # | 0:02:32 | 0:02:35 | |
We wrote it as a ballad, it was a really slow ballad. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:40 | |
And it was... It sounded absolute crap. | 0:02:40 | 0:02:43 | |
It was piano and a vocal song, like a kinda... | 0:02:43 | 0:02:47 | |
a gospel song. Um... | 0:02:47 | 0:02:50 | |
And we were... We weren't really getting anywhere with it | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
and Andrew came up with the... | 0:02:54 | 0:02:56 | |
the Bo Diddley, Magic Bus guitar riff at the start. | 0:02:56 | 0:02:59 | |
And that was the glue that held everything together. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:02 | |
Picked up the guitar and went, "This is it, this is the intro," | 0:03:02 | 0:03:06 | |
and that then defined the groove of the record. | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
It went from a crappy old ballad, | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
that we couldn't work out to... | 0:03:11 | 0:03:16 | |
probably our most successful song. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:18 | |
Some claps. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:38 | |
Some shaker. | 0:03:41 | 0:03:42 | |
Then...listening? Then the congas. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:49 | |
And we're motoring along now. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:54 | |
I'm not the loudest singer in the world, you know, | 0:03:56 | 0:04:00 | |
I have quite a soft voice, | 0:04:00 | 0:04:01 | |
but we thought if we brought in a gospel choir, | 0:04:01 | 0:04:04 | |
then it would enhance the choruses and make them sound even bigger, you know. | 0:04:04 | 0:04:10 | |
It was just record production, really. And also we loved Phil Spector's productions. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:15 | |
# My love shines on | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
# My love shines on | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
# My love shines on | 0:04:20 | 0:04:23 | |
# My love shines on... # | 0:04:23 | 0:04:25 | |
Jimmy Miller mixed it. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:27 | |
Obviously he'd worked with the Stones and, you know, the Spencer Davis Group and all that, | 0:04:27 | 0:04:32 | |
the records we really like and we just thought, "This is perfect for him." | 0:04:32 | 0:04:37 | |
He was fast and he knew what... | 0:04:37 | 0:04:40 | |
He knew what to do and he taught us a guitar should answer... | 0:04:40 | 0:04:43 | |
singing, you shouldn't solo all the way down something, | 0:04:43 | 0:04:47 | |
you should answer the vocal at all times. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:49 | |
And it should be a, you know, call-and-response thing. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:52 | |
You know, the voice goes you know, | 0:04:52 | 0:04:55 | |
"My light shines on," and Throb goes, "Da, da, da da, da, da," | 0:04:55 | 0:04:58 | |
"My light shines on," "Da, da, da da, da, da." | 0:04:58 | 0:05:02 | |
# My light shines on | 0:05:02 | 0:05:05 | |
# My light shines on | 0:05:07 | 0:05:11 | |
# My light shines on | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
# My light shines on | 0:05:17 | 0:05:20 | |
# Everybody sing it | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
# Gettin' outta darkness My light shines on | 0:05:22 | 0:05:26 | |
# Shines on | 0:05:26 | 0:05:27 | |
# Gettin' outta darkness My light shines on | 0:05:27 | 0:05:30 | |
# Light shines on | 0:05:30 | 0:05:32 | |
# Gettin' outta darkness My light shines on | 0:05:32 | 0:05:35 | |
# Light shines on | 0:05:35 | 0:05:36 | |
# Gettin' outta darkness My light shines on | 0:05:36 | 0:05:40 | |
# Light shines on. # | 0:05:40 | 0:05:42 | |
CHEERING | 0:05:44 | 0:05:47 | |
I knew this much, that we had the track to start the album with. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:54 | |
When we, you know, when this was finished, when Jimmy mixed it, | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
we knew we had a great start to the album, you know. | 0:05:57 | 0:06:00 | |
My first memory of Robert Young is a little kid and he could, | 0:06:02 | 0:06:06 | |
you know, he could play the start to this Clash song. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:09 | |
I was really impressed. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:10 | |
He was about 15 or something, and he lived right across the road from me. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:15 | |
And he'd stick speakers out the window, and he'd, | 0:06:15 | 0:06:19 | |
you know, like, let our street know | 0:06:19 | 0:06:23 | |
that he's got the new Ramones single, | 0:06:23 | 0:06:26 | |
or he's got the new Pistols single. | 0:06:26 | 0:06:29 | |
Cos the other guy that could do the same thing, | 0:06:29 | 0:06:31 | |
when I first met him, was Andrew Innes when he was 15. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
And he could play Never Mind The Bollocks, | 0:06:34 | 0:06:36 | |
the first Clash album, the first three Jam albums, you know? | 0:06:36 | 0:06:40 | |
Um, the Rich Kids, Generation X, you know? | 0:06:40 | 0:06:44 | |
He could play all the punk stuff, plus The Beatles! | 0:06:44 | 0:06:48 | |
And McGee lived, um, just down the road. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:52 | |
I got into punk maybe about... | 0:06:52 | 0:06:54 | |
maybe a month before Bobby. Whatever, I mean, who cares? | 0:06:54 | 0:06:58 | |
It's not like... You don't get a badge for it. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:01 | |
And, um... And he was the only other person in our area | 0:07:01 | 0:07:05 | |
that got it as well, so we kind of were thrown together. | 0:07:05 | 0:07:09 | |
I met him through Alan McGee, | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
we'd sort of, you know, met through trying to form a band | 0:07:12 | 0:07:17 | |
on the south side of Glasgow and he was one of Alan's friends | 0:07:17 | 0:07:22 | |
so we just ended up sitting up, trying to play punk songs together, | 0:07:22 | 0:07:28 | |
he was singing I was playing guitar. And Alan played bass as well. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:33 | |
I think we were called Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:37 | |
I don't think we intended to be a band, it was a bit of fun. | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
We never played a show, except in Andrew Innes's bedroom | 0:07:40 | 0:07:43 | |
and me and Innes were drinking so... | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
God, drinking at 16 what a great advert for the kids, that one(!) | 0:07:46 | 0:07:50 | |
But, anyway, Andrew would be a bit... | 0:07:50 | 0:07:52 | |
Andrew's younger than me by quite a long way. Andrew would be about 14, | 0:07:52 | 0:07:56 | |
so Andrew and me used to drink four cans of Tennent's, each, | 0:07:56 | 0:07:59 | |
and be smashed! | 0:07:59 | 0:08:00 | |
But the one that was even more mental - and he was sober - was Gillespie, who was rolling around. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:07 | |
Me, just rolling around the floor, screaming, pretending I had a mic. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:10 | |
Me and Alan sort of went to London when we were 18, 19. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:16 | |
I just didn't want a real job, so when I started running a club, | 0:08:16 | 0:08:20 | |
I chucked in my British Rail job and I'd formed Creation in '83. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:25 | |
This was the '80s, so, you know, | 0:08:25 | 0:08:27 | |
there was things like Frankie Goes To Hollywood going on | 0:08:27 | 0:08:30 | |
and, you know, a lot of kinda Howard Jones and kinda big, shiny, plastic, chart pop. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:38 | |
So to be influenced by punk, you know, in the mid-'80s | 0:08:38 | 0:08:42 | |
was kinda like a weird thing, really, you know, because it wasn't really | 0:08:42 | 0:08:47 | |
a guaranteed way of having any kind of success, you know. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:51 | |
I'd just finished touring with Nico, | 0:08:51 | 0:08:53 | |
I was with Nico for about six or seven years before she died | 0:08:53 | 0:08:58 | |
and, um there was an advertisement in the NME. | 0:08:58 | 0:09:01 | |
I was looking for a drummer who was into, like, | 0:09:01 | 0:09:04 | |
Johnny Thunders, The Heartbreakers, the MC5, you know, Stooges. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:09 | |
"Beach Boys, New York Dolls," and I thought, "Oh, that's interesting," | 0:09:09 | 0:09:13 | |
applied for it and it was Primal Scream. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:15 | |
I went down to audition and that's it. That's it, really. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:20 | |
Well, I played in a band called Felt from Birmingham | 0:09:20 | 0:09:24 | |
and we were on Creation Records, so that's when we first met. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:29 | |
I remember thinking, "I wish he was in our band." | 0:09:29 | 0:09:33 | |
And when I heard Felt were splitting up, I just rang him up, | 0:09:33 | 0:09:37 | |
said, "Do you you want to come play with us?" | 0:09:37 | 0:09:39 | |
I got involved with Primal Scream | 0:09:39 | 0:09:41 | |
because I lived downstairs from Toby, the drummer, and they wanted | 0:09:41 | 0:09:46 | |
some string arrangements doing for...Dead Skin, which is on the Primal Scream album, | 0:09:46 | 0:09:51 | |
and he shouted down and said, "I've got you some work". | 0:09:51 | 0:09:55 | |
We were still trying to find a voice and trying to find a way | 0:09:55 | 0:09:58 | |
and find a language, you know, we were still kind of finding ourselves. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:02 | |
We went into Bark Studios in Walthamstow | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
and we just recorded an album we wanted to do which is, you know, | 0:10:05 | 0:10:09 | |
a straightforward rock 'n' roll, New York Dolls-y, punky album | 0:10:09 | 0:10:13 | |
that's what we were listening to, that's where we all come from. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:16 | |
# Ivy, Ivy, you destroy me Ivy, Ivy, you destroy me | 0:10:20 | 0:10:26 | |
# Ivy, Ivy, you destroy me Ivy, Ivy, you destroy me | 0:10:26 | 0:10:33 | |
# Ivy, Ivy, you destroy me Ivy, Ivy, you destroy me | 0:10:33 | 0:10:39 | |
# Ivy, Ivy, you destroy me. Ivy, Ivy, you destroy me, you do. # | 0:10:39 | 0:10:46 | |
By the second album, they were in danger | 0:10:46 | 0:10:48 | |
of being a bit of a joke, actually, Primal Scream. | 0:10:48 | 0:10:51 | |
With the leathers and the long hair and the speedy attitude, | 0:10:51 | 0:10:54 | |
they were completely out of step with the times. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
I was doing the press for the group at the time and it was hard, man. | 0:10:57 | 0:11:01 | |
It was really difficult. In fact, I'll never forget, actually, | 0:11:01 | 0:11:04 | |
Andrew Innes, things were so bad, he said to me, | 0:11:04 | 0:11:07 | |
"Can you not even get us in, like, the guitar magazines?" You know? | 0:11:07 | 0:11:12 | |
And I couldn't! | 0:11:12 | 0:11:13 | |
And they just toured and toured and toured and toured | 0:11:13 | 0:11:17 | |
and it was called the Throw Away the Atlas Tour. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:20 | |
They were playing Aberystwyth one night, Norwich the next, | 0:11:20 | 0:11:23 | |
anywhere they good secure a booking. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:25 | |
It was only McGee who obviously knew something, | 0:11:25 | 0:11:28 | |
or hoped something good would come of it. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
I wouldn't give in. I mean, even though all the media hated Primal Scream, | 0:11:31 | 0:11:35 | |
I didn't give a shit. I was just going to win with Primal Scream. | 0:11:35 | 0:11:40 | |
# I don't want nobody else | 0:11:40 | 0:11:45 | |
# I just want you to myself | 0:11:45 | 0:11:50 | |
# I betrayed you | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
# I'm sorry I hurt you... # | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
It was the first song that we'd wrote that I thought, | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
and Andrew thought, and Robert thought, | 0:12:01 | 0:12:04 | |
"This is a really good song, our songwriting's getting good." | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
It is a good... I think it's a classic love song. It's a cheating song. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:12 | |
# Don't you believe me? | 0:12:13 | 0:12:15 | |
# Will you redeem me? | 0:12:15 | 0:12:17 | |
# Don't you believe me, baby? | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
# Stay with me, come on | 0:12:22 | 0:12:25 | |
# Stay with me | 0:12:25 | 0:12:27 | |
# Stay with me, come on. # | 0:12:27 | 0:12:29 | |
Easily the biggest response, the most important response we had to that record | 0:12:29 | 0:12:34 | |
was from a DJ, a guy called Andrew Weatherall. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:38 | |
He gave me a copy and I think, you know, er, | 0:12:38 | 0:12:40 | |
and I think I came back to him a couple of days later going, | 0:12:40 | 0:12:43 | |
"This is amazing, I love this record." He's like, "Really?" | 0:12:43 | 0:12:46 | |
"You are literally the only one," | 0:12:46 | 0:12:48 | |
you know, "You are the only one in the world that likes it." | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
And he picked up on all the ballads, | 0:12:51 | 0:12:53 | |
especially I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:56 | |
A catalyst for a lot of this thing happening | 0:12:56 | 0:12:59 | |
and she doesn't get the credit that she's due is an NME journalist called Helen Mead. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:04 | |
I still remember that phone call, vividly, | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
and it went something like, "Alan McGee has told me he's sacking me | 0:13:07 | 0:13:14 | |
"unless I get some press on this record and at the moment, | 0:13:14 | 0:13:17 | |
"I have nothing. Please, there must be something you can do to help!" | 0:13:17 | 0:13:22 | |
She came up with a good idea. She said, "Why don't we make this work for everybody? | 0:13:22 | 0:13:26 | |
"You're looking for a live review for your group. Why don't we get Andrew to do it?" So off we went. | 0:13:26 | 0:13:31 | |
Andy came down to Exeter, | 0:13:31 | 0:13:33 | |
and we got on right away, you know, he kind of liked... | 0:13:33 | 0:13:36 | |
He liked a lot of the music that we like. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:38 | |
My first meeting with Bobby, I had exceedingly long hair at the time, | 0:13:38 | 0:13:42 | |
shoulder-length, kind of corkscrew hair, | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
and I was sat waiting for him to come in and he came in | 0:13:45 | 0:13:48 | |
and he looked me up and down and went, | 0:13:48 | 0:13:50 | |
"Cool hair, man. It looks like Marc Bolan's. Is it a perm?" | 0:13:50 | 0:13:54 | |
"Thank you. Thank you. No, it's not a perm." | 0:13:55 | 0:13:59 | |
He'd a great sense of humour, as well. He's a really funny guy. | 0:13:59 | 0:14:03 | |
So, he reviewed us for the NME. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
Although this was Exeter on a wet Wednesday and we were in a cupboard and it wasn't very rock 'n' roll, | 0:14:07 | 0:14:12 | |
they gave the most rock 'n' roll performance I've ever seen. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:16 | |
You know, that's when I knew it was in their bones. | 0:14:16 | 0:14:18 | |
He gave them this great review and they clicked. They clicked, | 0:14:18 | 0:14:22 | |
over this love of music. It was that simple. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:24 | |
And the icing on the cake was, was that they gave him | 0:14:24 | 0:14:29 | |
the opportunity to go into the studio for the first time. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:32 | |
We approached him and says, "Look, would you remix I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have?" | 0:14:32 | 0:14:37 | |
We thought, "Well, he can make a mix of this | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
"cos it was done to a click track," cos, you know a lot of times then we hadn't done things to... | 0:14:40 | 0:14:45 | |
to click tracks. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:46 | |
The mix, I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have, which became known as Loaded, | 0:14:46 | 0:14:50 | |
that was Innes and Weatherall. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:53 | |
# I'm losing more than I'll ever have | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
# I feel bad | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
# Feel so bad, yeah... # | 0:14:59 | 0:15:03 | |
He wasn't like a producer, or an engineer, | 0:15:03 | 0:15:06 | |
and he was just like a guy who had ideas. It really appealed to our... | 0:15:06 | 0:15:12 | |
punk-rock ethics. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:13 | |
It's an experiment. Let's see what's happening. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
We've got this song, you're on the dance floor, | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
or you're in control of the dance floor, in the right clubs | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
so, although you may not know what you're doing technically, | 0:15:22 | 0:15:26 | |
you know what you're doing structurally, | 0:15:26 | 0:15:28 | |
arrangement-wise, and how it would work on a dance floor. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
I think he was getting 500 quid for doing it | 0:15:31 | 0:15:34 | |
and he was, he was excited and he was more than a little bit scared. | 0:15:34 | 0:15:39 | |
I was very nervous. I didn't know what you could and couldn't do, | 0:15:39 | 0:15:44 | |
but I was full of what Orson Welles called the confidence of ignorance. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:48 | |
Not that I'm likening the making of Loaded | 0:15:48 | 0:15:50 | |
to the making of Citizen Kane, but when asked, "How did you do it, | 0:15:50 | 0:15:54 | |
"how did you come up with something like that, you know, when you were like 23, 24?" | 0:15:54 | 0:15:58 | |
He said, "It's the confidence of ignorance." | 0:15:58 | 0:16:00 | |
And I was full of piss and vinegar and full of the confidence of ignorance. | 0:16:00 | 0:16:05 | |
I don't know that I'm breaking rules cos I don't know what the rules are. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:09 | |
When he first did it, he was kind of too polite with it and too... | 0:16:09 | 0:16:13 | |
I mean, he'll tell you, he... he didn't want to ruin our song. | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
Mr Innes came in, listened to it, visible disappointment, um, "OK," | 0:16:16 | 0:16:21 | |
and he was just like, "Nah, man, fucking destroy it," was his very words... | 0:16:21 | 0:16:26 | |
You know, that was his... "Dinnae give a fuck." | 0:16:26 | 0:16:28 | |
We put him on the spot, cos he'd never done it before | 0:16:28 | 0:16:32 | |
and it took him six, seven attempts, you know, | 0:16:32 | 0:16:35 | |
"There's a good bit there, a good bit there, a good bit there." | 0:16:35 | 0:16:38 | |
The bass on I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have, | 0:16:38 | 0:16:41 | |
it starts off with... | 0:16:41 | 0:16:43 | |
So, following the chords. But none of that's in Loaded. | 0:16:58 | 0:17:02 | |
The end section of I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have | 0:17:02 | 0:17:05 | |
is E-flat, D-flat, A-flat and E-flat. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:08 | |
It just goes round on those three chords | 0:17:08 | 0:17:10 | |
so this bit of I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have went... | 0:17:10 | 0:17:14 | |
I thought, "Right, OK, it's gotta be a big, epic piece." | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
# I don't wanna lose your love | 0:17:37 | 0:17:40 | |
# I don't wanna lose your love | 0:17:42 | 0:17:45 | |
# I don't wanna lose your love | 0:17:47 | 0:17:49 | |
# I don't wanna lose your love... # | 0:17:52 | 0:17:54 | |
I was...blown away by that mix, I was completely blown away. | 0:17:56 | 0:18:02 | |
It was everything that I loved. It had dub, the space of dub, | 0:18:02 | 0:18:07 | |
guitars like the blues, Elmore James, Rolling Stones, you know, uh, | 0:18:07 | 0:18:12 | |
you know, strings and horns like Curtis Mayfield. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
Bob and Andrew sort of started getting into... | 0:18:15 | 0:18:18 | |
..the dance thing, which I absolutely hated...at the time. | 0:18:20 | 0:18:27 | |
And...I even threatened to leave the band, you know, | 0:18:27 | 0:18:33 | |
cos I wanted the rock 'n' roll thing. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:35 | |
You know, as Quincy Jones always said, it's... | 0:18:35 | 0:18:39 | |
music doesn't change, it's the beat that changes through time, and every generation has its beat. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:46 | |
And Andy brought the beat that was modern. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:49 | |
And then Innes, Mr Innes came up with the idea of, "Let's mix the two together." | 0:18:49 | 0:18:55 | |
You know it was new music, it was exciting. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:58 | |
It was new sounds, it wasn't such a formulaic-ness to it, it could... | 0:18:58 | 0:19:04 | |
A song could just be a horn riff, it could just be a vocal stutter, | 0:19:04 | 0:19:11 | |
a song could be... suddenly be anything. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:13 | |
One Manchester DJ, who shall remain nameless, said... | 0:19:13 | 0:19:16 | |
described it as nonsense, | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
and he used the words, "Soft, Southern-drinking shandy shite"! | 0:19:19 | 0:19:23 | |
Andrew was there the first night it was played, | 0:19:23 | 0:19:26 | |
and I think it was Subterranea, over in west London, | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
and I was still up at four in the morning, and he called me up, | 0:19:29 | 0:19:33 | |
and he was like, "Bob, Bob, Weatherall played Loaded," | 0:19:33 | 0:19:37 | |
and he goes, "The whole club went absolutely crazy." | 0:19:37 | 0:19:40 | |
Yeah, the reaction was insane, culminating in, about halfway through, | 0:19:40 | 0:19:46 | |
the whole crowd doing that Sympathy For The Devil "woo-woo" thing over the top. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:52 | |
When you heard your record getting played in these places and the girls liked it...and, you know, | 0:19:52 | 0:19:58 | |
"I like this. It's better than playing to 20 people in a club in Bolton, on a Tuesday night." | 0:19:58 | 0:20:05 | |
Loaded came in to the Smash Hits office, where I was working, | 0:20:05 | 0:20:08 | |
and we were all kind of blown away by it. | 0:20:08 | 0:20:10 | |
It was like, "Whoa! It's Primal Scream?" "Well, it's a remix, but it is Primal Scream." | 0:20:10 | 0:20:14 | |
It was this sort of thing. | 0:20:14 | 0:20:15 | |
And every time I was putting calls though to, | 0:20:15 | 0:20:18 | |
you know, magazines like Blitz or the Face, people would pick up | 0:20:18 | 0:20:22 | |
and I could hear Loaded being played in the background. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
Acid house had emerged in '88, and we'd heard about these people, | 0:20:25 | 0:20:28 | |
these DJs at clubs like Shoom, | 0:20:28 | 0:20:30 | |
who were playing all this mad Chicago music, | 0:20:30 | 0:20:32 | |
but also playing records at the wrong speeds and stuff like that and I was like, "What the hell is this?" | 0:20:32 | 0:20:38 | |
So the dance music scene was kind of amazing at that time | 0:20:38 | 0:20:41 | |
but the rock music scene was kind of crap. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:44 | |
You had U2 in their cowboy boots and their cowboy hats | 0:20:44 | 0:20:48 | |
and you had Jim Kerr cutting about with his leggings on and giving it all the, "Hey, hey, hey." | 0:20:48 | 0:20:53 | |
So rock music was kind of a bit duff at that time. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:55 | |
When Loaded was a hit, it was the biggest shock in the world to me, cos I was like, "Fuck, we done it." | 0:20:55 | 0:21:02 | |
We got on Top Of The Pops, | 0:21:02 | 0:21:03 | |
which was...had been our...you know, ever since I was a little kid, | 0:21:03 | 0:21:07 | |
I wanted to be on Top Of The Pops, so that was amazing. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
'Just what is it that you want to do?' | 0:21:10 | 0:21:12 | |
# I'm gonna get deep down, deep down | 0:21:12 | 0:21:14 | |
# Said, I'm gonna get deep down, deep down | 0:21:14 | 0:21:18 | |
# Whoo! Hey! | 0:21:18 | 0:21:20 | |
'We wanna be free to do what we wanna do.' | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
Being a rock band that makes people dance is actually quite rare. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:41 | |
And they really have done so many records now, at this point, | 0:21:41 | 0:21:45 | |
that are really great dance records, but they're a rock band. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
And then McGee gave us a wage. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:09 | |
He said to us, "You know, you need a follow-up single. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:13 | |
"This is a hit, you need a follow-up." | 0:22:13 | 0:22:14 | |
So we...we wrote Come Together pretty quickly after that. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:19 | |
The Scream would write the songs and give me their ideas, musically. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:23 | |
I would then add my ideas, musically. | 0:22:23 | 0:22:26 | |
I knew how I wanted it to sound but I didn't know how to achieve that sound, which is where Hugo came in. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:31 | |
Andy was always so positive, actually, in the studio | 0:22:31 | 0:22:34 | |
so it was always... it was always fun, you know. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:37 | |
It was always, like, "Oh, here we go," | 0:22:37 | 0:22:39 | |
and pushing the boundaries of everything I can do. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:42 | |
Hugo played a massive part from that, from Come Together onwards | 0:22:42 | 0:22:45 | |
and then into the album. | 0:22:45 | 0:22:47 | |
Hugo was the kind of glue that held the whole thing together. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:51 | |
A lot of what I, you know, was trying to do was make music to shag to, basically. | 0:22:51 | 0:22:58 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:22:58 | 0:23:00 | |
# Come together | 0:23:00 | 0:23:03 | |
# Oh-oh oh-oh | 0:23:03 | 0:23:04 | |
# Come | 0:23:04 | 0:23:06 | |
# Together | 0:23:06 | 0:23:08 | |
# Oh-oh oh-oh | 0:23:08 | 0:23:09 | |
# Come together... # | 0:23:09 | 0:23:12 | |
Ecstasy, you know, that, that was the single, transformative thing | 0:23:13 | 0:23:20 | |
that happened. It transformed absolutely everything. | 0:23:20 | 0:23:24 | |
# Kiss me | 0:23:24 | 0:23:27 | |
# Won't you, won't you | 0:23:27 | 0:23:29 | |
# Kiss me | 0:23:29 | 0:23:31 | |
# Won't you, won't you kiss me | 0:23:33 | 0:23:36 | |
# Lift me right out of this world. # | 0:23:36 | 0:23:43 | |
I got a phone call from Terry Farley, who I was doing a fanzine with, called Boy's Own. | 0:23:43 | 0:23:48 | |
And he uttered the immortal words, "There's this great club, it's called the Shoom, | 0:23:48 | 0:23:52 | |
"it's full of football hooligans wearing Chevignon, taking ecstasy." | 0:23:52 | 0:23:56 | |
I was going through the dry ice and I bumped into somebody | 0:23:56 | 0:23:59 | |
and they'd a massive tattoo on their neck, and I was thinking, | 0:23:59 | 0:24:03 | |
"Oh, my God," you know, "here we go," and the guy turned round | 0:24:03 | 0:24:06 | |
and went, "All right, what are you doing here?" and hugged me. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:10 | |
"Hey, mate, you OK? Do you want some water? Hey, you look a bit hot there. Hey, how's it going? | 0:24:10 | 0:24:14 | |
"What's your name, where do you come from?" It was quite...fantastic, actually. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:19 | |
Alcohol wasn't being consumed, and that's a very different drug, | 0:24:19 | 0:24:24 | |
very different drug. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:25 | |
I went from listening to Throbbing Gristle's Hamburger Lady | 0:24:25 | 0:24:29 | |
to dancing to Josephine by Chris Rea. | 0:24:29 | 0:24:32 | |
That shows you how dangerous that drug can be. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:35 | |
The first nine months I was going out taking E, I didn't touch a drink. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:40 | |
Just didn't want to. All those early clubs weren't even licensed. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:45 | |
You know, you were drinking Ribena. | 0:24:45 | 0:24:47 | |
It was a spur, um, for dancing, it was a spur for artistic creation, | 0:24:47 | 0:24:53 | |
it was a spur for conversation. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:55 | |
Now, some of that dancing, artistic output and conversation | 0:24:55 | 0:24:59 | |
was absolute nonsense, as with the '60s and acid. | 0:24:59 | 0:25:03 | |
But, um, the core of it, | 0:25:03 | 0:25:05 | |
yeah, the core of it, ecstasy did, literally and metaphorically, open people up. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:12 | |
A song like Come Together was made for...it was perfect for the times, | 0:25:12 | 0:25:17 | |
-and it wasn't -made -for the times, it was made by people who were hip to the times, who -were -the times. | 0:25:17 | 0:25:23 | |
The single version, the original version of Come Together is a pretty straight kind of track, | 0:25:23 | 0:25:27 | |
it's an amazing track and stuff, but then the remix was in the spirit of Loaded. | 0:25:27 | 0:25:32 | |
That's the version that appears on the album and it is kind of amazing, | 0:25:32 | 0:25:35 | |
it captures the spirit of the times and what it felt like being in those clubs at that time. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:40 | |
# Come | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
# Together as one | 0:25:44 | 0:25:49 | |
# Come | 0:25:50 | 0:25:53 | |
# Together as one... # | 0:25:54 | 0:25:59 | |
In the summer of 1990, we built a studio, which was in Hackney, | 0:25:59 | 0:26:03 | |
quite near where the Creation office was. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:05 | |
That part of Hackney's been gentrified now, but back then it was pretty rough. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:09 | |
I think that's why McGee had his label there, | 0:26:09 | 0:26:11 | |
so people were too scared to go and ask for their royalties. | 0:26:11 | 0:26:15 | |
There was no Tube line there, they might have got mugged. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:19 | |
It had a room that was sound-proofed. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
And we had a small computer screen in there, | 0:26:22 | 0:26:26 | |
and the S-1000 and a keyboard. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:29 | |
And we had a microphone. | 0:26:29 | 0:26:31 | |
We had a vocal booth, and we just... we went in there to write. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:37 | |
Um...Andrew, myself and Robert Young. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:40 | |
We realised we had to sort of... | 0:26:40 | 0:26:42 | |
..write things differently, because, you know, | 0:26:43 | 0:26:47 | |
the, er... | 0:26:47 | 0:26:49 | |
..the music was taking a turn. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:52 | |
This is the S-1000, I think it's the second. | 0:26:52 | 0:26:55 | |
The 900 was the first sort of commercial one, | 0:26:55 | 0:26:59 | |
but this is the S-1000, the one we'd got, it was stereo, | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
and it had one minute of sampling, which was quite a lot in those days. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:05 | |
But suddenly, you could... | 0:27:05 | 0:27:07 | |
Suddenly, you could play... but suddenly you could... | 0:27:07 | 0:27:11 | |
People'd give you discs for it, | 0:27:11 | 0:27:13 | |
there were floppy disks that went in it and people would give you discs and go, "There's tablas on that," | 0:27:13 | 0:27:18 | |
and suddenly you didn't have to learn how to play a tabla, or know a tabla player. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:23 | |
You could play tablas on your keyboard. Or somebody'd give you... | 0:27:23 | 0:27:27 | |
Or a sample them from an Indian record, you know. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:29 | |
Somebody would give you a flute, you know, a flute sample | 0:27:29 | 0:27:33 | |
and you'd put it in there and then you could write a melody... | 0:27:33 | 0:27:36 | |
And you could put the flute sample onto the keyboard and play the melody that you wrote. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:41 | |
If you wrote the melody, you could play the flute sample as a melody. | 0:27:41 | 0:27:44 | |
FLUTE SOUND PLAYS | 0:27:44 | 0:27:47 | |
So there's the flute... | 0:27:47 | 0:27:48 | |
..and to anyone who's listening that probably does sound like a flute, | 0:27:51 | 0:27:56 | |
but I spent ages trying to make that sound better, and I think I made it sound a bit better. | 0:27:56 | 0:28:03 | |
Just because we've got a bass player and a drummer | 0:28:03 | 0:28:05 | |
doesn't mean you've got to have bass and drums in every track. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:08 | |
I like tracks that are just... no bass and drums in it, | 0:28:08 | 0:28:13 | |
just a voice and...some sounds, or maybe just some sounds, | 0:28:13 | 0:28:19 | |
and I like instrumentals that don't have a voice, and you've got Inner Flight, you know. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:24 | |
If we'd used a real flute, it wouldn't have been as psychedelic. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
The fact it was synthetic, cos I think it was a flute sample, so it was... | 0:28:27 | 0:28:31 | |
it was kind of synthetic, gives it a kind of more trippy texture. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
We never did E in the studio, it was, um... | 0:28:35 | 0:28:39 | |
but I think being involved in the acid scene and doing ecstasy informed the record | 0:28:39 | 0:28:44 | |
and that's why the record came out of that, it came out of that experience. | 0:28:44 | 0:28:48 | |
The start of that song, Higher Than The Sun, is a major ninth. | 0:28:57 | 0:29:03 | |
-HE SINGS NOTES -See, I can't sing it, but Bobby can. | 0:29:03 | 0:29:07 | |
Harmonically it's very brave because there's no intro, then there he goes with this big jump, | 0:29:08 | 0:29:13 | |
it's a very ambitious thing to do. | 0:29:13 | 0:29:14 | |
# My brightest star's my inner light, let it guide me | 0:29:15 | 0:29:21 | |
# Experience and innocence bleed inside me... # | 0:29:21 | 0:29:27 | |
Higher Than the Sun by The Orb which is six minutes 43, which is an epic 12-inch, | 0:29:27 | 0:29:32 | |
but these records at the time, they were meant to be 12-inch records, | 0:29:32 | 0:29:37 | |
they were meant to be experimental pop records. | 0:29:37 | 0:29:40 | |
We brought that different element of the ambient side, | 0:29:40 | 0:29:42 | |
the dreamy side of Higher Than the Sun, | 0:29:42 | 0:29:45 | |
which to date is the best thing I've ever done, so I'm quite proud of it. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:50 | |
When I moved into that flat in Bethnal Green with Andrew Innes, | 0:29:50 | 0:29:54 | |
The Orb to him was just like a disease that was not to be played on his stereo. | 0:29:54 | 0:30:00 | |
I remember the first night when I put Little Fluffy Clouds on, | 0:30:00 | 0:30:03 | |
he was like, "Get that crap off". | 0:30:03 | 0:30:05 | |
Six weeks later, Higher Than The Sun. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:08 | |
One of the best mixes ever done, in my opinion. | 0:30:08 | 0:30:12 | |
I just remember the recording process of Higher Than The Sun, and it being so spectacular, | 0:30:12 | 0:30:20 | |
and realising that what we'd done was we'd made another Little Fluffy Clouds, | 0:30:20 | 0:30:25 | |
and I can't give that much higher praise again. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:28 | |
We did a seven-inch edit, hoping that it might get played on the radio. | 0:30:28 | 0:30:32 | |
But if you want the full version, it's the 12-inch version. | 0:30:32 | 0:30:36 | |
But when we were sequencing Screamadelica, | 0:30:36 | 0:30:41 | |
Andrew felt that it was better to put the shorter version of Higher Than the Sun on, | 0:30:41 | 0:30:47 | |
and I thought maybe the long version, cos that was my favourite. | 0:30:47 | 0:30:52 | |
But he said, "No do the short one, I think it's gonna run better within the context of the record" | 0:30:52 | 0:30:57 | |
and he was right, 100% right. | 0:30:57 | 0:31:00 | |
# I believe in live and let live | 0:31:01 | 0:31:06 | |
# I believe you get what you give...# | 0:31:06 | 0:31:12 | |
Somebody called it the hymn to hedonism, | 0:31:12 | 0:31:14 | |
and I suppose that's exactly what it is, I think Bobby sometimes is underrated as a lyricist, | 0:31:14 | 0:31:20 | |
but that's a great lyric. | 0:31:20 | 0:31:22 | |
Higher Than The Sun, it's a hymn to drugs, it's genius. It's a genius hymn to drugs, | 0:31:22 | 0:31:27 | |
I was actually thinking when I actually snuff it, I might die to Higher Than The Sun. | 0:31:27 | 0:31:33 | |
Then the next single was Don't Fight It Feel It, which was strange again cos Bob doesn't sing it, | 0:31:33 | 0:31:37 | |
Denise sung it, but that's how confident we were feeling - | 0:31:37 | 0:31:41 | |
we can do what we want, we can have a girl who's not been in the band, we can have her sing it. | 0:31:41 | 0:31:49 | |
The only demarcation lines were that us three wrote the songs. | 0:31:49 | 0:31:53 | |
Andrew, Robert and me. Together, we put the songs together. | 0:31:53 | 0:31:56 | |
And when it came to the studio... | 0:31:56 | 0:31:57 | |
It was just whoever had a really good idea. | 0:31:57 | 0:32:00 | |
You know, if somebody had a good idea, we would go, "OK, let's try that". | 0:32:00 | 0:32:04 | |
The ego was the last thing, it was put to the side - it was like, | 0:32:04 | 0:32:10 | |
whatever makes it sound good. | 0:32:10 | 0:32:13 | |
Well, basically we ended up doing a showcase at Shoom in London | 0:32:13 | 0:32:19 | |
and I think it was Innes and Duffy that came along, and Throb came to the gig, | 0:32:19 | 0:32:24 | |
Bobby didn't come. So we do this PA and you know, I'm singing and all that kind of stuff, | 0:32:24 | 0:32:30 | |
and as the story goes, as Innes told me, | 0:32:30 | 0:32:33 | |
Innes got on the phone to Bobby and said, "You better get the fuck down here, | 0:32:33 | 0:32:37 | |
"I found the fucking singer for Don't Fight It, Feel It". | 0:32:37 | 0:32:39 | |
# Rama-lama-lama, fa-fa-fa | 0:32:39 | 0:32:43 | |
# I'm gonna get high till the day I die | 0:32:43 | 0:32:47 | |
# Rama-lama-lama, fa-fa-fa | 0:32:47 | 0:32:51 | |
# I'm gonna get high till the day I die. # | 0:32:51 | 0:32:56 | |
We wanted to make it, a soul, '60s soul track, but modern, to fit in with the acid house thing. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:06 | |
# Rama-lama-lama, fa-fa-fa | 0:33:11 | 0:33:14 | |
# I'm gonna get high till the day I die | 0:33:14 | 0:33:18 | |
# Rama-lama-lama, fa-fa-fa | 0:33:18 | 0:33:22 | |
# I'm gonna get high till the day I die. # | 0:33:22 | 0:33:27 | |
You write what you can sing, and if you write something you can't sing, | 0:33:27 | 0:33:31 | |
like Don't Fight It, Feel It, | 0:33:31 | 0:33:32 | |
you've got to find somebody to sing it. We found Denise and she sang it beautifully. | 0:33:32 | 0:33:36 | |
When she sang it, it made sense. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:38 | |
# Dance to the music All night long | 0:33:38 | 0:33:42 | |
# Getting up, gettin' down Gonna get it on | 0:33:42 | 0:33:46 | |
# Gonna live the life I love | 0:33:46 | 0:33:50 | |
# I'm gonna love the life I live...# | 0:33:50 | 0:33:55 | |
But it was just a really weird session and I wasn't used to that sort of session. | 0:33:57 | 0:34:02 | |
I'd been doing sessions in Manchester where you turn up, sing, do your thing, have a listen, | 0:34:02 | 0:34:08 | |
"Yeah, everything's great" and then you leave, whereas this was like a whole day and night | 0:34:08 | 0:34:12 | |
just trying out things and a little bit of a party going on. | 0:34:12 | 0:34:17 | |
It was open, I mean, it was... experimental, spontaneous and experimental. | 0:34:17 | 0:34:22 | |
It's quite odd record, Don't Fight, It Feel It, even at the time | 0:34:22 | 0:34:26 | |
if you play it now, it's stripped down, | 0:34:26 | 0:34:30 | |
the hook's an out-of-tune whistle. | 0:34:30 | 0:34:32 | |
That was the summer anthem in clubs and that's when, | 0:34:46 | 0:34:49 | |
to me, they really crossed over | 0:34:49 | 0:34:52 | |
because that track was, all these dance kids going up to Bobby G and going, | 0:34:52 | 0:34:57 | |
"Shit, that's your record, it's amazing." | 0:34:57 | 0:34:59 | |
I think it's Andy Weatherall's masterpiece, it's just total drugs. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:03 | |
It is the sound of rushing on ecstasy, | 0:35:03 | 0:35:07 | |
or it's kind of acid-y as well, but it's, it's just pure... | 0:35:07 | 0:35:12 | |
it is the sound of that time. | 0:35:12 | 0:35:14 | |
And the reason that there were so many singles that came out | 0:35:14 | 0:35:18 | |
was that they were so fucked up on drugs, not on heroin at this point, | 0:35:18 | 0:35:23 | |
just on ecstasy and stuff like that | 0:35:23 | 0:35:26 | |
and speed and you know, acid and shit, like we all were, to be fair, | 0:35:26 | 0:35:33 | |
but I could actually get to the office and do things | 0:35:33 | 0:35:36 | |
and they couldn't even get to the studio and make a fucking record. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:40 | |
Anywhere in the Home Counties where Andy Weatherall was DJ-ing, we would kind of call him up, | 0:35:40 | 0:35:45 | |
find out where he was DJ-ing that particular weekend and get a car together, | 0:35:45 | 0:35:50 | |
get our drugs and go and, you know, hang out, listen to him play records | 0:35:50 | 0:35:55 | |
and, you know, get absolutely fucking wasted. | 0:35:55 | 0:35:57 | |
And end up in some stranger's house till, you know... | 0:35:57 | 0:36:02 | |
Monday morning, having a party and having a good time and a... | 0:36:02 | 0:36:07 | |
Then back in the studio on Tuesday. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:09 | |
Or Wednesday. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:12 | |
I think Wednesday night, back late Wednesday night, | 0:36:12 | 0:36:14 | |
we'd start about 11 o'clock at night and then work through the night. | 0:36:14 | 0:36:18 | |
It's just blind loyalty to somebody that we just, you know... | 0:36:18 | 0:36:23 | |
I trusted the guy. | 0:36:23 | 0:36:24 | |
He said, "No, you've got to make an album now, you've gotta get some more tracks, | 0:36:24 | 0:36:29 | |
"write some more songs, make an album. | 0:36:29 | 0:36:31 | |
"You can't keep releasing singles." | 0:36:31 | 0:36:33 | |
And he came up with the goods. | 0:36:33 | 0:36:35 | |
I think an important thing with Screamadelica is that we stopped writing on guitar. | 0:36:35 | 0:36:39 | |
Before that, we were like, three or four guys jamming in a room with guitar riffs and electric guitars, | 0:36:39 | 0:36:46 | |
trying to write rock'n'roll songs. But with Screamadelica, all the songs were written on keyboards. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:53 | |
Or they were written round the sample... | 0:36:53 | 0:36:56 | |
But you know, the actual melodic structure of the chords and the melody was all keyboards. All of it. | 0:36:56 | 0:37:01 | |
The only time that we got together as a band to record was Damaged | 0:37:01 | 0:37:05 | |
We were each in the corner of the studio. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:08 | |
Bobby was in the control room, | 0:37:08 | 0:37:09 | |
and that was the only time we played live together as a band. | 0:37:09 | 0:37:13 | |
# Sweet summer days when I was feeling so fine | 0:37:27 | 0:37:34 | |
# Just you and me girl was a beautiful time | 0:37:34 | 0:37:40 | |
# Ah yeah... # | 0:37:40 | 0:37:43 | |
Throb on acoustic, you on electric, Duff on piano, Henry on double bass, Toby on... | 0:37:43 | 0:37:50 | |
they were... | 0:37:50 | 0:37:52 | |
you think he's just got a ride and a snare. | 0:37:52 | 0:37:55 | |
This is take two, cos I think when we did take one it was pretty good... | 0:37:55 | 0:38:00 | |
but he forgot to do something, like turn the mics on or something, or some technical problem, | 0:38:00 | 0:38:04 | |
and then we did take two, and take two is the master take. | 0:38:04 | 0:38:08 | |
The acoustic guitar, it's just pure feeling. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:12 | |
You know, soft and gentle and just, it's feeling. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:15 | |
When Duffy plays piano, | 0:38:15 | 0:38:17 | |
he plays with as much feeling on the piano as Throb plays on the guitar. | 0:38:17 | 0:38:21 | |
So, for me as a vocalist, you know, it's... | 0:38:21 | 0:38:24 | |
it's there, they've set, they've set the song up already before I even sing. | 0:38:24 | 0:38:28 | |
I mean, I just play, it's kind of a country style, really. | 0:38:39 | 0:38:43 | |
I think we've got a really great feel, you know. | 0:38:58 | 0:39:02 | |
There's real sensitivity amongst the musicians for, you know, | 0:39:02 | 0:39:06 | |
playing this soft and this gentle, but very intensely, with a lot of emotion. | 0:39:06 | 0:39:11 | |
# I'd wake up beside you you'd hold me in your arms | 0:39:15 | 0:39:21 | |
# Nothing and nobody's gonna do me any harm | 0:39:21 | 0:39:28 | |
# Ah yeah | 0:39:28 | 0:39:32 | |
# Said I felt so happy | 0:39:32 | 0:39:37 | |
# My, my, my | 0:39:37 | 0:39:40 | |
# And the way I felt inside... # | 0:39:40 | 0:39:47 | |
Well, he had a left a long-term relationship, | 0:39:47 | 0:39:50 | |
and I had around the same time. I had similarly left a long-term relationship, | 0:39:50 | 0:39:55 | |
so maybe there was a wee bit of sadness in there that came out in Damaged. | 0:39:55 | 0:40:00 | |
That's, that's what I think, you know. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:02 | |
We're Scottish, we cannae be too happy for too long | 0:40:02 | 0:40:05 | |
or we think there's something wrong in the world! | 0:40:05 | 0:40:07 | |
GUITAR RIFF PLAYS FROM EQUIPMENT | 0:40:18 | 0:40:22 | |
Now there's several claimants to who did this. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:31 | |
Robert was supposed to play the guitar solo on "Damaged", | 0:40:32 | 0:40:37 | |
And he wasn't at the studio that night, and I was there with Andrew and Bobby | 0:40:38 | 0:40:42 | |
and I said something like, | 0:40:42 | 0:40:44 | |
"It should sound like Ronnie Wood in the Faces" | 0:40:44 | 0:40:47 | |
so Innes gave me his guitar, "Go on then". | 0:40:47 | 0:40:50 | |
I said, "I don't want to do this, I don't want to upset Robert," | 0:40:50 | 0:40:54 | |
"No, it will be all right", so I played it, Andrew had a go and I had a go. | 0:40:54 | 0:41:00 | |
I think it's a bit of you and a wee bit of Henry, I think. | 0:41:00 | 0:41:04 | |
It's always the same when something's good. | 0:41:04 | 0:41:06 | |
Success has many fathers. | 0:41:06 | 0:41:10 | |
Next day Robert comes in, I said "Look, I played the guitar solo on Damaged with Andrew last night, | 0:41:10 | 0:41:17 | |
"are you ok with it?" "Yeah, no problem it's a great solo", it was easy, fantastic. | 0:41:17 | 0:41:23 | |
If Henry could do the guitar part better, then you do it, | 0:41:23 | 0:41:28 | |
cos we'd got two days to go, and you know, he played the part better. | 0:41:28 | 0:41:33 | |
This is I think what I played on it, my bits of it anyway. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:37 | |
To share your music that way is a fantastic thing, | 0:42:09 | 0:42:12 | |
and it also, it did away the concept of a band where this person did this and this person did that, | 0:42:12 | 0:42:18 | |
it just became a load of people saying "I've got an idea!" | 0:42:18 | 0:42:21 | |
See, this is the history of Primal Scream, | 0:42:21 | 0:42:23 | |
it's a band that's not really a band. | 0:42:23 | 0:42:26 | |
You know, it's, you know, do you know what I mean? | 0:42:26 | 0:42:30 | |
Which is the way we like it. | 0:42:30 | 0:42:33 | |
Slip Inside This House, has got like, I think, 16 verses. | 0:42:33 | 0:42:37 | |
It's like a long, like a... it's like an epic poem. | 0:42:37 | 0:42:40 | |
It's a radical take of a song by the 13th Floor Elevators, | 0:42:40 | 0:42:46 | |
who were a Texan psychedelic band from the '60s. | 0:42:46 | 0:42:50 | |
It's tough to cover bands like 13th Floor Elevators, | 0:42:50 | 0:42:52 | |
like, to me you don't cover Elevators, Zeppelin, Bob Marley, | 0:42:52 | 0:42:56 | |
some stuff you just don't really cover, | 0:42:56 | 0:42:58 | |
cos you don't have much of a chance of doing it as good or better than the original artist. | 0:42:58 | 0:43:04 | |
But that's a great cover. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:06 | |
So when we came to record it, I was supposed to sing it. | 0:43:06 | 0:43:10 | |
And I brought the lyrics up that I'd cut up and stuff, and edited. And, um... | 0:43:10 | 0:43:15 | |
but I'd, um... I wasn't in the best of shape. And, um... | 0:43:15 | 0:43:18 | |
Acid house flu. | 0:43:18 | 0:43:21 | |
Um, I-I remember it was a really, really hot summer's day. | 0:43:21 | 0:43:26 | |
And, um, I kind of sang a couple of takes. | 0:43:26 | 0:43:29 | |
And then I sort of more or less collapsed. | 0:43:29 | 0:43:31 | |
He was like, he was dying. He was lying on the floor like dying of flu. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:35 | |
So basically we had one day in the studio and I had to... | 0:43:35 | 0:43:39 | |
..somebody had to do it. | 0:43:40 | 0:43:42 | |
And I'm not a singer. Trust me. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:45 | |
But...you know, replicating his voice was... | 0:43:45 | 0:43:48 | |
I just had to do whispering. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:52 | |
And the only song he ever sang. But he sings it good. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:55 | |
He sings it good. | 0:43:55 | 0:43:57 | |
He sings it great, actually. | 0:43:57 | 0:43:58 | |
There's Robert. | 0:43:58 | 0:44:00 | |
MUSIC PLAYS FROM EQUIPMENT | 0:44:00 | 0:44:02 | |
# Live where your heart can be given | 0:44:05 | 0:44:09 | |
# And your life starts to unfold...# | 0:44:09 | 0:44:14 | |
If you listen to any LPs at the time, they're all just like, | 0:44:14 | 0:44:20 | |
contemporary albums, they're all pretty similar. | 0:44:20 | 0:44:24 | |
You know, it's just bass, guitar, drums, you know and so... | 0:44:24 | 0:44:28 | |
and this was, you know, there'd be a song like, | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
like Shine Like Stars, and then a song like Don't Fight It, Feel It | 0:44:31 | 0:44:34 | |
and you can't even... | 0:44:34 | 0:44:36 | |
..say that they sound like they're the same band, or even sound like they were made in the same century. | 0:44:37 | 0:44:43 | |
We had a couple of days to come up with a title for the album. | 0:44:43 | 0:44:47 | |
I was at home with Andrew Innes and Bobby and his girlfriend at the time | 0:44:48 | 0:44:53 | |
and Andrew was adamant that the word Scream had to be in the title, | 0:44:53 | 0:44:58 | |
Adamant. | 0:44:58 | 0:44:59 | |
So this ludicrous conversation started | 0:44:59 | 0:45:02 | |
and it was like Scream Next, Scream Out, Scream Off, Scream This, Scream That | 0:45:02 | 0:45:06 | |
and then the conversation just petered out. Some hours later, | 0:45:06 | 0:45:12 | |
Andrew was playing his records | 0:45:12 | 0:45:14 | |
and he put this tune on. I said, "This is really good, what is it?" And he was like, "It's Funkadelic". | 0:45:14 | 0:45:19 | |
And I just sort of went. "Funkadelic. Screamadelic". And he went, "What did you say?" | 0:45:19 | 0:45:25 | |
I said, "Screamadelic." And he went, "That's it! Screamadelic! Screamadelic!" | 0:45:25 | 0:45:30 | |
That was it. | 0:45:30 | 0:45:33 | |
The sun was a detail from an enormous painting | 0:45:35 | 0:45:38 | |
from the mind of a guy called Paul Cannell. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:42 | |
Bob had gone over to Paul's house and looked at Paul's work and found the sun, the detail, like, | 0:45:42 | 0:45:48 | |
"I don't want the whole picture, but that, I want that." | 0:45:48 | 0:45:51 | |
It kind of looks like a sun that's taken a pill. | 0:45:51 | 0:45:55 | |
You know, that's what it looks like, and it just, and it's psychedelic, | 0:45:55 | 0:45:59 | |
it was everything that the record stood for, it was kind of warm and psychedelic. | 0:45:59 | 0:46:05 | |
We thought it was gonna be, like, an underground classic, | 0:46:05 | 0:46:08 | |
you know like Tago Mago by Can. | 0:46:08 | 0:46:11 | |
Or Metal Box by Public Image, you know. | 0:46:11 | 0:46:13 | |
Records that weren't big commercial hits, but they were really cool, | 0:46:13 | 0:46:16 | |
and they were pop, but they were experimental at the same time. | 0:46:16 | 0:46:20 | |
We pressed 60,000 records, thinking... | 0:46:20 | 0:46:22 | |
Not because we thought they were a bad band, we loved the record, but we just thought, | 0:46:22 | 0:46:28 | |
"It's a cult record", and it sold 60,000 records in the first week | 0:46:28 | 0:46:33 | |
I thought "My god", and I went out of stock from the Monday to the Wednesday | 0:46:33 | 0:46:37 | |
the following week, we were pressing up about another 100,000 records. | 0:46:37 | 0:46:40 | |
You know, suddenly Creation would say "You're in Woolworths" | 0:46:40 | 0:46:44 | |
and the sales went, but people love the weird stuff as well, so it's good, | 0:46:44 | 0:46:50 | |
I think we took people on our trip. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:52 | |
It got nominated for the Mercury Prize, and we're like, "Whatever, it's not going to win | 0:46:52 | 0:46:56 | |
"so let's just go down for the party have a drink, something to eat." | 0:46:56 | 0:47:00 | |
The first Mercury Prize, I mean, everybody kind of forgets | 0:47:00 | 0:47:03 | |
but it was dreamt up by a marketing man at Virgin Records, | 0:47:03 | 0:47:07 | |
the guy that put together all those Now! albums and stuff like that, so it was a marketing thing. | 0:47:07 | 0:47:12 | |
Bobby and Andrew refusing to attend, for reasons that elude me, | 0:47:12 | 0:47:17 | |
so the rest of us rock up to the Savoy. | 0:47:17 | 0:47:20 | |
There's some photographers there, and I think one flash went off | 0:47:20 | 0:47:24 | |
and I heard someone go, "Who's this lot?" | 0:47:24 | 0:47:27 | |
Start ordering drinks, the prices were exorbitant, | 0:47:27 | 0:47:30 | |
so someone was sent down to an off-licence and bought six bottles of Jack Daniels which were concealed | 0:47:30 | 0:47:36 | |
under the table, it was like, "We'll have 24 Coca-Colas please". | 0:47:36 | 0:47:40 | |
"And the winner of the Mercury Prize..." | 0:47:40 | 0:47:43 | |
we're just like, we're pretty half-cut now as well, | 0:47:43 | 0:47:46 | |
"The winner of the Mercury Prize is Primal Scream", and we were like, totally shocked | 0:47:46 | 0:47:51 | |
cos it was up against U2 that year, there was some really big names about. | 0:47:51 | 0:47:57 | |
We won it, and they couldn't give a shit. | 0:47:57 | 0:48:00 | |
We left the building, not fulfilling any of our media obligations. | 0:48:00 | 0:48:06 | |
I've got the cheque and I lost it, the cheque went missing. | 0:48:06 | 0:48:10 | |
We never got to the bottom of it. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:12 | |
You have talked to Martin Duffy, haven't you? | 0:48:12 | 0:48:16 | |
It was him. | 0:48:16 | 0:48:18 | |
So I had to call up the Mercury PR department, | 0:48:18 | 0:48:21 | |
who were obviously less than impressed that they hadn't really got much out of Primal Scream | 0:48:21 | 0:48:27 | |
in terms of media coverage and said, "I am the manager of Primal Scream, | 0:48:27 | 0:48:32 | |
"we've lost the cheque." Deathly silence. "Could you possibly bike another one?" | 0:48:32 | 0:48:37 | |
And I've still got the award, but I've lost the bulb on top. | 0:48:37 | 0:48:43 | |
To win the first one, I suppose it's good. | 0:48:43 | 0:48:45 | |
There is something irresistible about that music, | 0:48:45 | 0:48:49 | |
and I think everybody caught it at the time | 0:48:49 | 0:48:54 | |
and it really showed its full potential when the band ended up going live. | 0:48:54 | 0:49:00 | |
The first gig was, I think it was up in Glasgow, Glasgow Barrowlands, | 0:49:00 | 0:49:06 | |
I think we were up there, and it was just incredible, | 0:49:06 | 0:49:10 | |
cos we were used to playing in front of 200 kids maximum, and this was ram-packed | 0:49:10 | 0:49:16 | |
and there was thousands there, and I remember we were walking on stage, and there was this huge roar. | 0:49:16 | 0:49:22 | |
Me and Andrew just looked at each other and thought, "What's this about?" | 0:49:25 | 0:49:29 | |
It was like, totally alien to us. | 0:49:29 | 0:49:32 | |
We were tying to basically recreate a night out at a rave, not the usual rock show, | 0:49:35 | 0:49:41 | |
7.30, 8pm, the support slot, we wanted a full night | 0:49:41 | 0:49:46 | |
we wanted Weatherall DJing, you know, get the right atmosphere. | 0:49:46 | 0:49:52 | |
And just turn it into a rave, basically, not just a normal rock show. | 0:49:52 | 0:49:55 | |
# Rama-ramma-ramma Fa-fa-fa | 0:49:55 | 0:49:59 | |
# Gonna get high till the day I die | 0:49:59 | 0:50:03 | |
# Rama-ramma-ramma Fa-fa-fa | 0:50:03 | 0:50:07 | |
# Gonna get high till the day I die...# | 0:50:07 | 0:50:12 | |
I got a phone call from their manager saying "They'd love you to come on tour with them", | 0:50:12 | 0:50:18 | |
and I was, like, "I don't know about that, I don't think so", | 0:50:18 | 0:50:22 | |
and then I thought, "I might actually learn something here, it might actually be a good laugh, | 0:50:22 | 0:50:27 | |
"it might actually be something that I might end up really liking," | 0:50:27 | 0:50:31 | |
so I said yes. | 0:50:31 | 0:50:33 | |
# Stoned love Stoned love singing | 0:50:33 | 0:50:39 | |
# Stoned love Stoned love singing | 0:50:39 | 0:50:45 | |
# Stoned love Stoned love singing...# | 0:50:45 | 0:50:50 | |
So she became a part of the live band, and it was great, you know? | 0:50:56 | 0:51:00 | |
Just another... I think that's the way bands should be. | 0:51:00 | 0:51:03 | |
# Moving on up, now | 0:51:03 | 0:51:05 | |
# Gettin' out of the darkness | 0:51:08 | 0:51:11 | |
# My light shines on Shine on | 0:51:12 | 0:51:17 | |
# My light shines on | 0:51:17 | 0:51:20 | |
# My light shines on | 0:51:20 | 0:51:22 | |
# My light shines on | 0:51:22 | 0:51:25 | |
# My light shines on | 0:51:25 | 0:51:27 | |
# My light shines on...# | 0:51:27 | 0:51:31 | |
With success comes a bit more money, comes better drugs, | 0:51:31 | 0:51:35 | |
comes better, you know, whatever. | 0:51:35 | 0:51:37 | |
And if you've got that kind of personality, then that's what you'll go for. | 0:51:37 | 0:51:42 | |
We'd finished the record, I went on tour with them, | 0:51:42 | 0:51:45 | |
it was a huge eye-opening experience. | 0:51:45 | 0:51:47 | |
I had never seen anything like it. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:49 | |
I'd been out clubbing before, I'd partied, you know, but it was... | 0:51:49 | 0:51:54 | |
I was like, "Shit, what's going on?" | 0:51:54 | 0:51:57 | |
This is a different level of experience. | 0:51:58 | 0:52:02 | |
Backstage, we had a big crew, lights, you know, roadies and what have you, | 0:52:02 | 0:52:08 | |
we didn't have that before, and catering, didn't have that before. | 0:52:08 | 0:52:12 | |
Riders, copious amounts of alcohol, whatever we could drink, basically. | 0:52:12 | 0:52:19 | |
I think there was one time there was 12 bottles of Jack Daniel's - | 0:52:19 | 0:52:23 | |
this was for the band - four litres of vodka, whatever, | 0:52:23 | 0:52:28 | |
it was all there, and it got drunk. I mean, me and Throb were going on stage with pints of vodka | 0:52:28 | 0:52:36 | |
and, um, we had, you know, our own drug dealers with us, | 0:52:36 | 0:52:40 | |
our own personal drug dealers. | 0:52:40 | 0:52:42 | |
They came along with us, and that was what we were getting up to. | 0:52:42 | 0:52:47 | |
With every tour I've done where it's been a bus, | 0:52:47 | 0:52:50 | |
there's the back lounge which was the party bit | 0:52:50 | 0:52:54 | |
there was the bunk bit, where everybody fell into after the party | 0:52:54 | 0:52:59 | |
and the front lounge was for those people who read Classic Car Monthly | 0:52:59 | 0:53:04 | |
and gardening magazines and listened to free jazz. | 0:53:04 | 0:53:08 | |
Who was in front? | 0:53:08 | 0:53:11 | |
Me and Denise. | 0:53:11 | 0:53:13 | |
That was their business. I didn't get involved in it. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:16 | |
I didn't judge them for it. If that's what you wanna do then that's what you wanna do | 0:53:16 | 0:53:21 | |
so long as you're kinda happy. | 0:53:21 | 0:53:23 | |
I dunno, how much excess do you want? I mean, you know, we just enjoyed ourselves. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:29 | |
It was insane. It was insane, | 0:53:29 | 0:53:32 | |
but it was... | 0:53:32 | 0:53:33 | |
you know, I'd like to say it was fun and I think it was, | 0:53:33 | 0:53:39 | |
but there are parts of me that do sadly regret it, | 0:53:39 | 0:53:44 | |
you know, cos it did take its toll on me. | 0:53:44 | 0:53:48 | |
There was one time in America I ended up in a bar at four o'clock in the morning on my own | 0:53:48 | 0:53:54 | |
and this guy pulled a gun on me in the toilets and, like, put a gun to my head | 0:53:54 | 0:53:59 | |
and he was trying to scare me and I said, "Look, mate you're not scaring me, honestly, | 0:53:59 | 0:54:04 | |
"just pull it, you'd be doing me a favour." | 0:54:04 | 0:54:07 | |
We went to Australia, something happened to me | 0:54:07 | 0:54:10 | |
and I was found by this friend of mine | 0:54:10 | 0:54:14 | |
looking for the steering wheel of the Sydney Opera House | 0:54:14 | 0:54:17 | |
so I could drive it to Atlantis. | 0:54:17 | 0:54:19 | |
Yeah, it got dark. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:22 | |
And... | 0:54:22 | 0:54:24 | |
..this is a tough, tough subject to talk about. | 0:54:29 | 0:54:32 | |
End of '91, it started to get really... | 0:54:32 | 0:54:35 | |
It was finished. It was over, you know. It was negative. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:38 | |
And it kind of fucked us for a bit, because creatively, we never recovered from that for a long time. | 0:54:38 | 0:54:45 | |
We went through the mill, we've done it all... | 0:54:45 | 0:54:48 | |
Been there, done it | 0:54:50 | 0:54:52 | |
and all come through the back end... | 0:54:52 | 0:54:55 | |
Is be-bop, Charlie Parker, the sound of heroin? | 0:55:00 | 0:55:04 | |
I don't think so. | 0:55:04 | 0:55:06 | |
I think it's the sound of the of be-bop despite the heroin, | 0:55:06 | 0:55:10 | |
it's the sound of Charlie Parker despite it, so... | 0:55:10 | 0:55:14 | |
I'd like to think that Screamadelica is the sound of some... | 0:55:15 | 0:55:19 | |
..you know, very intense, | 0:55:21 | 0:55:24 | |
creative musicians who weren't, I don't think, trying to make anything new | 0:55:24 | 0:55:30 | |
but were trying to make something, passionate and important | 0:55:30 | 0:55:34 | |
and something that mattered. | 0:55:34 | 0:55:37 | |
And I think that's what the sound of that record is | 0:55:37 | 0:55:40 | |
as opposed to the sound of some little pill. | 0:55:40 | 0:55:44 | |
We recorded this song, Shine Like Stars. | 0:55:44 | 0:55:47 | |
It's beautiful. | 0:55:49 | 0:55:50 | |
I'm not gonna say it's like a comedown, but it's like, really... | 0:55:52 | 0:55:56 | |
You know, soothing, yeah. | 0:55:58 | 0:56:00 | |
Makes you glad you're alive, I think. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:03 | |
I wouldn't go that far! | 0:56:03 | 0:56:05 | |
-I think this song's like a lullaby. -Yeah. | 0:56:10 | 0:56:12 | |
Just like, you know, going on drifting off to sleep, you know. | 0:56:12 | 0:56:16 | |
When Jimmy Millar finished the mix for Moving On Up | 0:56:16 | 0:56:20 | |
and we knew that that was gonna be the opening track on the album, | 0:56:20 | 0:56:23 | |
just sounded like a great start to the record. | 0:56:23 | 0:56:26 | |
When Weatherall finally mixed this, Shine Like Stars, | 0:56:26 | 0:56:31 | |
we knew we had the last track for the record, you know, it just sounded perfect. | 0:56:31 | 0:56:37 | |
The album is definitely a journey. It is the weekend, a night out, | 0:56:37 | 0:56:43 | |
it's for getting ready to go out, | 0:56:43 | 0:56:45 | |
it's for chilling out and sort of floating off into sleep | 0:56:45 | 0:56:49 | |
satisfied at the end of it - it's everything, it's perfectly put together. | 0:56:49 | 0:56:53 | |
It just captures that moment perfectly and, um... | 0:56:53 | 0:56:58 | |
I think it always will, it's just that album, you know, that's the album to have. | 0:56:58 | 0:57:03 | |
I've always loved that tangled mess of beauty that they seem like, you know. | 0:57:03 | 0:57:07 | |
They really do seem like you couldn't untangle them, you know? | 0:57:07 | 0:57:12 | |
But why would, what would you want to do that for? | 0:57:12 | 0:57:15 | |
It is the spirit of the times, just the fact it's this big melange of all this stuff, this gospel music, | 0:57:15 | 0:57:22 | |
Stones, space rock, dub, psychedelica, you know, it's just absolutely brilliant. | 0:57:22 | 0:57:27 | |
And it got the, you know, it got DJs and rock musicians together, | 0:57:27 | 0:57:35 | |
brilliant, really good. | 0:57:35 | 0:57:36 | |
Throb's a genius, basically he's a musical genius at playing rock'n'roll | 0:57:36 | 0:57:42 | |
and Andrew's an incredible talent that seems to be able to play any kind of instrument known, | 0:57:42 | 0:57:47 | |
give him a clarinet, the guy could get a tune out of that. | 0:57:47 | 0:57:50 | |
These two are really talented. The one that's really clever, though, is Gillespie, to be honest, | 0:57:50 | 0:57:56 | |
but then he plays it down, | 0:57:56 | 0:57:58 | |
he's one of these guys who loves to play dumb, but he's a smart, smart, smart guy. | 0:57:58 | 0:58:03 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:16 | 0:58:19 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:58:19 | 0:58:23 | |
# Shine like stars | 0:58:23 | 0:58:26 | |
# Shine like stars | 0:58:27 | 0:58:32 | |
# Shine like stars | 0:58:33 | 0:58:38 | |
# Shine like stars. # | 0:58:39 | 0:58:45 |