Richard Hawley (then of the Longpigs) Unpublished Meantime Magazine interview by Roy Moller @ Glasgow Garage 30.09.96.
You’ve supported quite a variety of acts in the last year – Sleeper, Skunk Anansie, Ash & Pulp.
We supported Echobelly last year. We did a tour with Northern Uproar – they supported us.
Has the reaction to your set varied a lot depending on whom you’re supporting?
What’s happened over the last twenty months has been we’ve been nicking the audiences of the main bands we’ve been supporting so now they’re just incredibly varied. It’s quite nice, really, because our music’s just for human beings. The maddest one was this one in Leicester that we did at the Prince Charlotte which is actually quite a small place and just after we finished the soundcheck all these skinheads turned up and we were like “Oh fuckin’ hell!” so we told our security man, Nasty, “Watch them fuckers cos they’re gonna be trouble tonight” and we got to “On & On”, played that and they all started crying. And then on the other side of the audience there’s this old bloke about fifty singing all the words. It’s quite nice, really. I mean music is a bit too ageist. Through history it’s all been centred around youth.
The album is much more unified than the extra tracks on the singles. Was that a conscious decision?
We’d got a collection of songs and they all kind of naturally sounded the same cos they were all written in a relatively short space of time. Cos Crispin’s the main songwriter and we just said “On the b-sides we’ll have a bit of fun & do other things." When we so an album it’s always trying to keep it tighter cos obviously you can get so varied on an album it becomes a bit too eclectic and then you struggle, you know.
“Floss” on the b-side of “Lost Myself” sounds like Cliff and the Shadows
That’s kind of exactly what it was – often our stuff is half serious and half taking the piss. We only had “Floss” and “When You’re Alone” as b-sides so “The Wonder Drug” (a weird mix of drum loop and abrasive guitar) was just written in the studio as a laugh cos we really like the Velvets.
Ah, so the idea was to do a “Murder Mystery” sort of song. Maintaining the Velvets connection, Moe Tucker came to see the Longpigs when they played New York.
I was in another band years ago (Treebound Story) and we supported her on her tour of England and Sterling Morrison was playing guitar for her and he was a really lovely bloke, a really nice guy. I had a Gretsch Country Gent(leman) – that was my dad’s – he used to play in Dave Berry and the Cruisers and that was my guitar from being six, which was when I started playing and the day I joined the Longpigs it got fuckin’ nicked. But when I was supporting them he started talking about guitars and said he used to have a deal with Vox and a garage full of old Vox stuff.
When the Velvets played the Edinburgh Playhouse in June ’93 I was there both nights and it was great but Lou’s vocals sounded rather too much in the vein of his later solo stuff. I guess you could say the same about Lydon when I saw the Pistols played the SECC on their reunion tour earlier this year….
We did Top Of The Pops – we did “She Said” – and the Pistols were filming their Top Of The Pops (appearance). They didn’t mime: they did two live songs and it was fuckin’ great. We were in the first twenty-five people to see them for the first time since they split up. It was a brilliant day cos we just met loads of our idols – Joe Strummer was there, and Edwyn Collins.
2008 note: Back in the dressing room after the gig I’m introduced to the legendary Digsy, immortalised in the Oasis opus Digsy’s Dinner – or as I think of it at the time, Diner, which is maybe better. This is 1996, Britpop is about to enter its final trajectory. The Glasgow Garage is a long way from the Camden Mixer or even the Hacienda.but Hawley’s affectionate remarks regarding fellow local lads made good underline the fact it’s still the era of Britpop party central…
We know Black Grape and we get fucking bladdered with them, but we’re only allowed to see them every now and then because we get so twatted. The most rock & roll band out of all the bands that we’ve ever played with are Pulp. They are fuckin’ animals – absolute animals. I was out with Jarv the other night. He’s just a complete nightmare: he can drink a bottle of vodka easy though you wouldn’t think it.
There’s the notorious incident when Cocker fell out of a window showing off at a party..
I was there the night he did that – he was trying to impress this girl by climbing from one window to another and fell out and had to do all their next gigs in a fuckin’ wheelchair. Very silly, daft cunt.
Do you ever get sick of playing “Far” and “She Said”? Do you change them around to keep things fresh for yourselves?
We always sort of have, really. “She Said” for live has got a different arrangement but that’s probably more for effect. The one song that does constantly change is “Elvis”. We tend to play stuffas pretty near to the album as we can and “Elvis” is the one where we’re allowed to stretch it a bit…I get sick of playing “Far” cos it’s a lot older. It was deliberately meant to be sort of a throwaway pop song. It's actually about taking an E and going to a nightclub and all that. You fall in love with somebody and you can’t work out if it’s the drugs or you really are. It’s taking the piss out of E-heads really.
The Longpigs always seem to be on tour. Not that they’re complaining…
We didn’t necessarily want to be a band that broke on having bullshit written about us. We just wanted to play and build up a fanbase cos you’re gonna be around longer. I don’t think we’re the kind of band that if we don’t make an album in another four months then we’ll miss the boat and if it’s a fashion-based thing you only have a certain amount of time so we’ve just played…it must be over three hundred gigs now.
How do you handle it?
You can go a bit mad. You just have to go with it, really, and that’s the best way to survive it – just go off your head. The cycle of the day is wake up, feel hideous, vom, then sit about moaning for ages, take Resolve or something then do the soundcheck, then go for something to eat – we only eat once a day, at night, then talk a lot of gibberish in interviews for a bit and then have a couple of beers before you play just to stop your hands from shaking and then play the gig and you’re fuckin’ buzzin’ your head off and then you just get off your head.
I always write stuff, and (Cri)’spin does a lot actually, when you’ve got a hangover cos your brain is kind of half-sober and half-pissed. There’s no mental censorship – it just comes out.
Did you write “Tendresse” when you had a hangover?
We went to see Gargbae and Crispin was doing some vocals in the studio for this other track that we’ve still got on tape somewhere and he just sort of lost interest in it and he goes “Why don’t we do that song of yours cos it’s a nice song”. But by this point it’s two in the morning and I’ve been out to see a band and I’m completely off me head, you know. I was quite pleased how that came out because it was just a mic going straight into an amplifier. I just sat there with two amps and one electric guitar and one mic straight in and it’s quite bare and very naked. I write a lot of stuff like that. ‘Spin’s got some great atmospheric stuff.
Richard’s good pal Mark Lewis, now head of Decca, has a treat lined up for him: sorting through Decca’s files to choose tracks for re-release.
I’m the historian of the band from Barrett Strong to fuckin’ whatever. I’m gonna choose what is good stuff to re-release and listen to all the out-takes as well and I’m right looking forward to that. I’m definitely gonna have Marianne Faithfull’s first album reissued and put in the original packaging cos it’s been reissued but it’s all fuckin’ useless and I’ll get all the original artwork and do it all properly and get into it. I want to use the old Decca label, not some hideous modern thing.
How was T In The Park?
Awesome. Every time we play Scotland it’s always brilliant and the one time we ever had a bad gig was in Glasgow – here, actually, supporting Skunk Anansie but that was fuckin’ Crispin’s fault cos there was this bloke who was pissed up and he shouted at him: “You fuckin’ Scottish bastard, fuck off!”
Hmm. Perhaps not the best strategy to use to court a crowd. Hawley then remembers a Caledonian concert that takes the disco biscuit for bad shows.
Cumbernauld Sax was the worst gig I’ve ever played in my life. Small towns are the same anywhere. The people are bored and they turn into nutters.
By contrast, a Pulp support slot at the esteemed Paris Olympia has been maybe the Longpig’s most memorable show of 1996 so far. Impressive as it surely was to tread the same boards as Brel, Piaf, Hallyday and Aznavour, it was the pre- and post-gig shenanigans that seem to have left the biggest imprint on Richard’s recent memory...
I got left in Calais that fuckin’ night. That was completely mad. Got left in Calais completely bladdered: no passport, no money, no coat. One shoe. Cos one of our roadies was pissing about taking me boot off and I ended up running after him and they all shot off somewhere else. He don’t work with us anymore – he was a nice bloke, but he was just a nutter and I was fuckin’ dodging all these French police with fuckin’ guns cos they’d got a terrorist alert and I was left in Calais in the departure lounge for fifteen hours. I turned up about four-and-a-half minutes before we did the gig. I was so fucked by the end of that I went back to the hotel and I met these guys, three black fellas in the hotel, and one was a guy from New Orleans called Corey Harris and a guy called Wayne Baker Brooks. It turned out he played guitar for Prince when Prince was doing something else. It was fuckin’ mad. I can’t remember the other fella’s name cos he was really quiet and didn’t say much.
Richard casts his mind back to the unpromising hours spent in departure lounge hell…
If somebody had said in twenty four hours time you’ll meet these great guitarists…it was the real fuckin’ thing, man. I stayed up till half four with them so I stayed up forty-eight hours.
You’ve supported quite a variety of acts in the last year – Sleeper, Skunk Anansie, Ash & Pulp.
We supported Echobelly last year. We did a tour with Northern Uproar – they supported us.
Has the reaction to your set varied a lot depending on whom you’re supporting?
What’s happened over the last twenty months has been we’ve been nicking the audiences of the main bands we’ve been supporting so now they’re just incredibly varied. It’s quite nice, really, because our music’s just for human beings. The maddest one was this one in Leicester that we did at the Prince Charlotte which is actually quite a small place and just after we finished the soundcheck all these skinheads turned up and we were like “Oh fuckin’ hell!” so we told our security man, Nasty, “Watch them fuckers cos they’re gonna be trouble tonight” and we got to “On & On”, played that and they all started crying. And then on the other side of the audience there’s this old bloke about fifty singing all the words. It’s quite nice, really. I mean music is a bit too ageist. Through history it’s all been centred around youth.
The album is much more unified than the extra tracks on the singles. Was that a conscious decision?
We’d got a collection of songs and they all kind of naturally sounded the same cos they were all written in a relatively short space of time. Cos Crispin’s the main songwriter and we just said “On the b-sides we’ll have a bit of fun & do other things." When we so an album it’s always trying to keep it tighter cos obviously you can get so varied on an album it becomes a bit too eclectic and then you struggle, you know.
“Floss” on the b-side of “Lost Myself” sounds like Cliff and the Shadows
That’s kind of exactly what it was – often our stuff is half serious and half taking the piss. We only had “Floss” and “When You’re Alone” as b-sides so “The Wonder Drug” (a weird mix of drum loop and abrasive guitar) was just written in the studio as a laugh cos we really like the Velvets.
Ah, so the idea was to do a “Murder Mystery” sort of song. Maintaining the Velvets connection, Moe Tucker came to see the Longpigs when they played New York.
I was in another band years ago (Treebound Story) and we supported her on her tour of England and Sterling Morrison was playing guitar for her and he was a really lovely bloke, a really nice guy. I had a Gretsch Country Gent(leman) – that was my dad’s – he used to play in Dave Berry and the Cruisers and that was my guitar from being six, which was when I started playing and the day I joined the Longpigs it got fuckin’ nicked. But when I was supporting them he started talking about guitars and said he used to have a deal with Vox and a garage full of old Vox stuff.
When the Velvets played the Edinburgh Playhouse in June ’93 I was there both nights and it was great but Lou’s vocals sounded rather too much in the vein of his later solo stuff. I guess you could say the same about Lydon when I saw the Pistols played the SECC on their reunion tour earlier this year….
We did Top Of The Pops – we did “She Said” – and the Pistols were filming their Top Of The Pops (appearance). They didn’t mime: they did two live songs and it was fuckin’ great. We were in the first twenty-five people to see them for the first time since they split up. It was a brilliant day cos we just met loads of our idols – Joe Strummer was there, and Edwyn Collins.
2008 note: Back in the dressing room after the gig I’m introduced to the legendary Digsy, immortalised in the Oasis opus Digsy’s Dinner – or as I think of it at the time, Diner, which is maybe better. This is 1996, Britpop is about to enter its final trajectory. The Glasgow Garage is a long way from the Camden Mixer or even the Hacienda.but Hawley’s affectionate remarks regarding fellow local lads made good underline the fact it’s still the era of Britpop party central…
We know Black Grape and we get fucking bladdered with them, but we’re only allowed to see them every now and then because we get so twatted. The most rock & roll band out of all the bands that we’ve ever played with are Pulp. They are fuckin’ animals – absolute animals. I was out with Jarv the other night. He’s just a complete nightmare: he can drink a bottle of vodka easy though you wouldn’t think it.
There’s the notorious incident when Cocker fell out of a window showing off at a party..
I was there the night he did that – he was trying to impress this girl by climbing from one window to another and fell out and had to do all their next gigs in a fuckin’ wheelchair. Very silly, daft cunt.
Do you ever get sick of playing “Far” and “She Said”? Do you change them around to keep things fresh for yourselves?
We always sort of have, really. “She Said” for live has got a different arrangement but that’s probably more for effect. The one song that does constantly change is “Elvis”. We tend to play stuffas pretty near to the album as we can and “Elvis” is the one where we’re allowed to stretch it a bit…I get sick of playing “Far” cos it’s a lot older. It was deliberately meant to be sort of a throwaway pop song. It's actually about taking an E and going to a nightclub and all that. You fall in love with somebody and you can’t work out if it’s the drugs or you really are. It’s taking the piss out of E-heads really.
The Longpigs always seem to be on tour. Not that they’re complaining…
We didn’t necessarily want to be a band that broke on having bullshit written about us. We just wanted to play and build up a fanbase cos you’re gonna be around longer. I don’t think we’re the kind of band that if we don’t make an album in another four months then we’ll miss the boat and if it’s a fashion-based thing you only have a certain amount of time so we’ve just played…it must be over three hundred gigs now.
How do you handle it?
You can go a bit mad. You just have to go with it, really, and that’s the best way to survive it – just go off your head. The cycle of the day is wake up, feel hideous, vom, then sit about moaning for ages, take Resolve or something then do the soundcheck, then go for something to eat – we only eat once a day, at night, then talk a lot of gibberish in interviews for a bit and then have a couple of beers before you play just to stop your hands from shaking and then play the gig and you’re fuckin’ buzzin’ your head off and then you just get off your head.
I always write stuff, and (Cri)’spin does a lot actually, when you’ve got a hangover cos your brain is kind of half-sober and half-pissed. There’s no mental censorship – it just comes out.
Did you write “Tendresse” when you had a hangover?
We went to see Gargbae and Crispin was doing some vocals in the studio for this other track that we’ve still got on tape somewhere and he just sort of lost interest in it and he goes “Why don’t we do that song of yours cos it’s a nice song”. But by this point it’s two in the morning and I’ve been out to see a band and I’m completely off me head, you know. I was quite pleased how that came out because it was just a mic going straight into an amplifier. I just sat there with two amps and one electric guitar and one mic straight in and it’s quite bare and very naked. I write a lot of stuff like that. ‘Spin’s got some great atmospheric stuff.
Richard’s good pal Mark Lewis, now head of Decca, has a treat lined up for him: sorting through Decca’s files to choose tracks for re-release.
I’m the historian of the band from Barrett Strong to fuckin’ whatever. I’m gonna choose what is good stuff to re-release and listen to all the out-takes as well and I’m right looking forward to that. I’m definitely gonna have Marianne Faithfull’s first album reissued and put in the original packaging cos it’s been reissued but it’s all fuckin’ useless and I’ll get all the original artwork and do it all properly and get into it. I want to use the old Decca label, not some hideous modern thing.
How was T In The Park?
Awesome. Every time we play Scotland it’s always brilliant and the one time we ever had a bad gig was in Glasgow – here, actually, supporting Skunk Anansie but that was fuckin’ Crispin’s fault cos there was this bloke who was pissed up and he shouted at him: “You fuckin’ Scottish bastard, fuck off!”
Hmm. Perhaps not the best strategy to use to court a crowd. Hawley then remembers a Caledonian concert that takes the disco biscuit for bad shows.
Cumbernauld Sax was the worst gig I’ve ever played in my life. Small towns are the same anywhere. The people are bored and they turn into nutters.
By contrast, a Pulp support slot at the esteemed Paris Olympia has been maybe the Longpig’s most memorable show of 1996 so far. Impressive as it surely was to tread the same boards as Brel, Piaf, Hallyday and Aznavour, it was the pre- and post-gig shenanigans that seem to have left the biggest imprint on Richard’s recent memory...
I got left in Calais that fuckin’ night. That was completely mad. Got left in Calais completely bladdered: no passport, no money, no coat. One shoe. Cos one of our roadies was pissing about taking me boot off and I ended up running after him and they all shot off somewhere else. He don’t work with us anymore – he was a nice bloke, but he was just a nutter and I was fuckin’ dodging all these French police with fuckin’ guns cos they’d got a terrorist alert and I was left in Calais in the departure lounge for fifteen hours. I turned up about four-and-a-half minutes before we did the gig. I was so fucked by the end of that I went back to the hotel and I met these guys, three black fellas in the hotel, and one was a guy from New Orleans called Corey Harris and a guy called Wayne Baker Brooks. It turned out he played guitar for Prince when Prince was doing something else. It was fuckin’ mad. I can’t remember the other fella’s name cos he was really quiet and didn’t say much.
Richard casts his mind back to the unpromising hours spent in departure lounge hell…
If somebody had said in twenty four hours time you’ll meet these great guitarists…it was the real fuckin’ thing, man. I stayed up till half four with them so I stayed up forty-eight hours.
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