transcription of the interview

You've been touring extensively this year to promote your debut album. How has 2004 been so far?
Matt: Pretty fantastic actually.
Trevor: Better than 2003.
Dan: Absolument.
Chris: Yeah. It was very, very good.
Were you all happy with your last French tour?
Matt: Amazingly happy. Yeah. A complete surprise! A total surprise!
Trevor: It was really, really.
Matt, at the end of the Paris show at La Cigale, you said to the audience “You’re fucking good!”
Matt: Did I?
Yes, you did!
Matt: I swore!
It’s recorded and it’s in the video.
Matt: J’apologise (sic) for swearing.
Trevor: He got his mouth in the gutter… He can’t take it out.
You even swore today. You said “merde”.
Matt: That’s not strictly swearing.
Trevor: Yes, it is!
Matt: That’s just a commonplace French expression. That’s “le vernacular”!
Well, “fucking good” is you know, about the same I guess.
Matt: Merde, I said “Fucking good!”, Jesus Christ! (laughs)
Matt, does it mean that you were particularly impressed with the audience’s response in Paris?
Matt: Yeah, yeah, I was surprised. I almost could have wept. (laughs) No really. I was very nervous at Paris . Yes, because, you know, it’s your first big gig in a major city and you don’t know if anyone will come, or you don’t know if they like you or you don’t know if you’re gonna makes lots of mistakes. So if it goes well you just want to get on your knees and pray to fucking god for his…
Chris: You swore again!
Matt: …blessings and thanks…
Trevor: God you've got a mouth like a gutter we can't take you anywhere!
Matt: …blessings and thanks to the redeemer.
La Cigale was particularly hot and successful. Was it your biggest indoor gig as The Servant? There were like 1,400 punters.
Matt: No. In this line-up, yeah.
Chris: Oh yeah.
Matt: We played The Shepherd’s Bush Empire once just before Chris joined.
Chris: They were much more successful before I joined the band.
Matt: I Think The Cigale was bigger?
Trevor: Yeah, no, there was more people there to see us at La Cigale than there were at The Shepherd’s Bush Empire because we were support band.
Matt: We were a support band.
Trevor: We were supporting the Creatures. So, this is probably our biggest show but then there was quite a lot of Astonvilla fans there as well so. That was why we were a little bit nervous because, you know, how many people would turn you couldn’t tell, who was there for The Servant and who was there for Astonvilla. There seemed like there was obviously a lot of Astonvilla fans, which was fine, but you know...
Matt: They liked us.
Trevor: We won them over so that was good. I think the response at La Cigale, they were like “Oh! yeah This is good!” to start with and then they got really into it. So I think we won over the Astonvilla fans, which is good.
Matt: It was definitely the biggest gig that we’ve headlined to this day. And anything that happened before Chris doesn’t count as The Servant anyway because The Servant only really became a proper band when Chris joined. Everything before that was fucking around. (laughs) Well, it’s true! C’est vrai, non ?
Trevor: Oh shut up!
Matt: That’s not French!
(laughs)
Dan, in Paris, girls kept screaming “Dan!!”. And one even said: “Dan, I want to marry you! Do you want to marry me?” Do you mind girls screaming during your gigs or do you rather like it?
Matt: Did you marry her? (laughs)
Dan: Yes, we’re married. Do I mind it?
Matt: Yes, annoying!
Dan: Now, stop it. No, it’s lovely obviously BUT it does get to the point that, when I sing some songs, the crowd sing so loudly I can’t hear myself.
Really? Are you joking?
Dan: Non, non ! Non. And also, sometimes they clap in time with the music but generally kind of clap out of time so I’m trying to play along….
Chris: No that's just us! (laughs)
Matt: Dan, you’re not telling your fans to not sing and not clap along, though!
Dan: I didn’t say that!
Trevor: You can’t say that.
Dan: I wouldn’t. It makes the gig a beautiful gig so I’ll just have to live with the… not singing perfectly.
Trevor: They even clapped today, didn’t they?
And now, Chris, Trevor and Matt, do you mind girls screaming Dan’s name during gigs?
Matt: Girls scream at me!!
Trevor: Go away! (laughs)
Matt: Whenever they see me coming, they scream!
Trevor: Stop it, you’re horrible! (laughs)
What do you think Chris?
Chris: About what?
About girls incessantly screaming Dan’s name during gigs?
Chris: Well, you know the lead singer’s got to have all the girls screaming, otherwise there’s no point in being there, no insult!
Dan: The thing is. The girls scream for me and then after the show I come and go “Hi!” and they go “yeah”, whatever, and they all want to talk to Chris.
Trevor: We get our revenge. I’ll get my revenge. They all come out and screaming and fawning over Dan, I come out and they look around at me and then I can make them feel a bit nervous and they disappear. (laughs)
You are far more popular in France than in your home country.
Dan: We are far more popular in Europe than in our home country.
OK. Isn’t your own country a part of Europe ? (laughs)
Dan: When I say Europe I mean…
Continental Europe . The Continent.
Trevor: The British are still under the delusion they are a super-power.
Well, there’ve been loads of very positive articles in the French press and hardly any in the English press. So, why do you think this is? Very poor promotion from your UK record company maybe?
Dan: Yes.
Is that it?
Dan: Yes.
Trevor: We are and we’ve always been a little bit out of sync with what is going in London .
Chris: I don’t think we are fashionable in England . In fact, fashion in music is very imported by fads.
Matt: English people’s attitude to music is very narrow. If you’re not exactly what you are told to listen to by the music press, you have a hard time because everyone wants to be cool, right? So they miss out on good bands, they miss out on good bands.
Chris: It will be fine in the end. It’s just gonna take a bit more work.
Trevor: Yes, they just don’t get us! (laugh)
Dan: All of my favourite bands in England in the last 10 years were initially hated in England: The Stone Roses, Radiohead, Muse, all these bands, England went “we don’t like this”, gave us incredibly crap reviews, they were uninterested, and they went to America or they went to Europe and they were really big and then the English all went “Oh we’ve always liked them, they were always good, we just didn’t say it!”
It’s like I Am Kloot you know. In a recent interview with I Am Kloot, I was asking them if there was anything special about France that made them keep coming over here and Peter Jobson, the bass player, replied: “We find that in France people’s attitude towards music is very open minded - this I believe means people are independent and have strong views - the hype that is swallowed in England accounts for nothing in France - there is a really good No-Bullshit attitude. This suits Kloot perfectly.”
Chris: That’s about the same.
Dan: C’est la même chose.
So you agree with that?
Trevor: Well said.
Matt: Who is that man?
Trevor: Let’s buy him a beer!
Dan: Say hi from us.
Will the album be released in the rest of the world?
Dan: If we can convince enough record companies to do it, then yes.
There are 11 pictograms on the CD. Do they symbolize the CD’s songs?
Dan: Each song has its own pictogram as you call it.
It reminded me of this. This is a Blur Fan Club CD. It’s a special release for Blur Fan Clubbers and so the pictograms here symbolize the songs. So it’s pretty similar, isn’t it? I mean, the idea, the concept.
Dan: The concept of a symbol representing something is pretty old but using isn’t in a pop context.
Trevor: Which is the track that’s got the bit with the cat?
Dan: “Liquefy”.
Trevor: What exactly has “Liquefy” got to do with a fucking cat?
Matt: Pussy.
Dan: Because ..er… to turn into water would require a certain degree of magic…
Matt: And a cat symbolizes magic which is… er...
Dan: Familiar.
Trevor: So it should have been black then.
Dan: It is black.
Trevor: No, it’s red.
Dan: The colour is merely ornamentation.
Trevor: Merely a whim.
“Jack The Ripper”, “Century’s Time” and “Brand New Lover” are the latest songs to have been revealed to the public. I’ve been told that “Century’s Time” is actually an unreleased old song. Was the initial version very different?
Dan: Yes.
Was it not released earlier on precisely because there was a lack of guitars in it? Because Chris’s guitar-playing is awesome on “Century’s Time”.
Chris: Well thank you very much. I can’t remember the…
Dan: The thing with us is that... it takes a bit... it doesn’t take very long to write songs, well it does but, you can write songs quicker than you can release them, so the machine of releasing records is hideously slow and protracted but we want to make songs all the time so I’m always writing songs but, you have to release albums with eleven songs there is thousands of songs kicking around in varied states and forms and er.. maybe not a thousand, maybe…
Trevor: …many…
Dan:… tens, but er... so yes, there’s always…you come to a point and you say “let’s make a record!” and it’s always “which ones do we all want to do?”
Trevor: “Century’s Time” is always one that we were sort of…
Dan: holding off…
Trevor: …flummoxed by a lack of technology to make it work coz we have this absurd way of playing live at some point where we would like the greatest Karaoke band known to man. We would have loads of things on tape and we had no in-ear monitors so the audience had to listen to everything so we’d kind of go “Oh, we’ll just sort of play along” and it was a really old demo that Dan had done and everything was horrendously out of time but it was kind of charming. (laugh) So somehow we made it work and then we got bored of trying to make it work as other stuff kind of, you know, sort of just seemed to be more polished, a bit more happening. We sort of shelved it for a long time.
Matt: We brought in a super guitar secret weapon.
Chris: We did do another version as well …
Dan: Oh yeah, we tried to do it kind of like Portishead. We’d done that song … Most of our songs have about eighty different versions.
And with different lyrics?
Dan: Oh yeah yeah yeah. There’s always fights because I write lyrics that keep changing and they go we “no, we liked the first one better.” “Century’s Time” would be a good example. It had different lyrics when it began.
What about “It’s Coming”, another unreleased old song of yours I was told?
Dan: You shouldn’t know about that!
Matt: “It's coming”! It's stunning! (laughs)
Trevor: How do you know about that? (laughs)
Matt: Is that big-mouth Plummer? (laughs)
Christopher Plummer told me.
Trevor: Is it Plummer?
Dan: Plummer, shut your mouth! 
Will that one be on the next album?
Dan: Maybe.
Matt: Has anyone got a cigarette for the bass player?
Why shouldn’t I know about it?
Dan: I’m kidding. Just because… it might not be a fresh surprise but it is ….I don’ know how Chris knows it…maybe we heard it live.
Trevor: We have played it live a couple of times, I’m sure.
Dan: The problem is, you have a song. You know it’s a good song but finding a way of doing a song is almost harder than writing a good song. And so we are perpetually trying to find a way of executing a song. I think you know The Rolling Stones were a good example of a band who would go “this is a good song” and they would do a reggae version of it and a soul version and a honky tonk version until they could find a way that best suited it.
Trevor:  “Sympathy For The Devil” took several versions, didn’t it?
Dan: Yes, exactly. And it’s the same with us. And we’ve done a couple of versions of “It’s Coming” and none of them have done justice to the song so we haven’t put it out. And if we don’t find a good way of doing it, we won’t release it. And so if we hit on it, then we’ll release it.
What about “Brand New Lover”? That was written a long while ago I think. I read an article about it in 2002. The article said that you had material ready for the next album…
Dan: There are a lot of songs like “Brand New Lover”. There are a good body of songs that sit in my computer that haven’t been released. And I just wanted to give some presents to people who’ve been, you know, making... giving us attention through our website.
Thank you very much for “Brand New Lover”. I think everybody loves it. Thank you.
Trevor: It’s a demo. “Brand New Lover”, it’s just an old demo.
Is it still a demo?
Dan: Define demo, yeah?
Trevor: It was something that we listened to and sort of went “hmmm… nah!”
Matt: We didn’t feel we’d possibly quite made it as good as we could but, it’s good to give these things life, and put them out, let people hear them!
Dan: at the end of the day they’re sitting there...We’ll never have enough time to do all the songs so I’d rather they were experienced. Most of the stuff we do is interesting, it’s just whether or not, you know…
Matt: Whether we want it to be on the album is one thing. There’s other ways, thankfully, because the Internet, and websites, etc.  Just coz it’s not on the album, there are other ways of setting them free, setting your children free, and letting them run around and kick it over a bit.
Dan, had you listened to Damon Albarn’s “ Mali Music” before writing “Brand New Lover”?
Dan: No, no no, not at all!
Because the intro of the song…
Dan: makes you think of that?
Yes. It really sounds like a Blur song.
Dan: Really? In my mind it was rather like a Stevie Wonder… Stevie Wonder crossed with David Bowie was the aim, but then that shows you how strange my mind is. (laughs)
Are you familiar with “ Mali Music”?
Dan: Yes, I am now but not when I did that song. I think it’s Pre “Mali Music”. We wrote that song way before “Mali Music”. “Brand New Lover” is pretty graphically about me splitting up with someone and when did I split up with *that* woman?
Trevor: Heu heu!! ...*that* woman!!
Matt: I’ve erased the memory of it from the data banks.
Trevor: Well, the girl that used to tell us to shut up every time we tried to make some music?
Dan: That’s the one. Maybe. Anyway, it wasn’t directly inspired by her. Maybe subconsciously, or maybe not, I don’t know…
Matt: Good question though.
Dan, you have listened to Damon Albarn’s Democrazy release, haven’t you?
Dan: Yes, I have. Someone very nice gave me it.
Damon used a 4-track recorder to record those little bits of demos.  I wanted to know if you ever start with a four-track recorder as well and is your songwriting process very different from Damon’s?
Dan: I can’t claim to be intimate with Damon’s songwriting process but I don’t use a 4-track. I generally use a laptop. I have. I had. When I began writing songs, I had a 4-track and spent a good many a year playing with 4-tracks but I always found it very frustrating because…
Matt: The quality is appalling.
Dan: Yeah. I don’t really like the whole demo - do a demo, do a real song thing. It always frustrates me because you capture something magical with a demo and you’re forever chasing this moment, so with a computer to a degree that’s lost. Coz you can use what you did on the demo and mix it, whereas with a 4-track you’re kind of trapped.
I’ve read that you were initially interested in working with Ben Hillier.
Dan: Yes, that’s true actually.
What attracted you to work with him in the first place?
Matt: With Ben Hillier?
Dan: His production with Elbow I think and I also really liked the “Music Is My Radar” single. (“Music Is My Radar” is a Blur song from 2000)
Dimitri Tikovoï is also mentioned in the credits of The Servant (the album) for collaborating to the mixing of “Beautiful Thing” and “Body”.
Dan: He mixed them yeah.
Do you intend to work with him again?
Dan: We are in fact talking now about doing some mixes on the next single so yes. We see him a lot.
What should the next singles be?
Dan: What should it be or what is it?
What is it? Have you decided? Are you still fighting about it?
Matt: It’s going to be “Liquefy”.
Dan: We have the wonderful pleasure of being able to argue over what the next single is as opposed to trying to find a single.
So it should be “Liquefy”?
Matt: We got too many singles.
Yes, each title actually could be a single.
Matt That’s our problem.
Dan: I should have written more rubbish songs.
Matt: You haven’t heard “Suck Me Baby, Suck” yet!
Well, talking about the single, I would like to show you sth. There were polls that I did on the mailing list. So there were questions. What should single # 2 be?  11 people voted out of 41 members so have a look at the results, it’s interesting.
What should single # 2 be?  
  o Cells  4
  o Beautiful Thing
  o Liquefy  6
  o Body  1
  o Devil
  o I Can Walk In Your Mind
  o Not Scared, Terrified
  o Jesus Says
  o Get Down 
  o Glowing Logos
What should single # 3 be?  
  o Cells  2
  o Beautiful Thing  1
  o Liquefy  2
  o Body  1
  o Devil
  o I Can Walk In Your Mind  1
  o Not Scared, Terrified  1
  o Jesus Says  2
  o Get Down 
  o Glowing Logos  1
What should single # 4 be? 
  o Cells
  o Beautiful Thing
  o Liquefy  1
  o Body  2
  o Devil
  o I Can Walk In Your Mind
  o Not Scared, Terrified
  o Jesus Says  4
  o Get Down   1
  o Glowing Logos  2
Total votes per track: 32 votes
  o Cells  6
  o Beautiful Thing  1
  o Liquefy  9
  o Body  4
  o Devil  0
  o I Can Walk In Your Mind  1
  o Not Scared, Terrified  1
  o Jesus Says  6
  o Get Down  1
  o Glowing Logos  3
Dan: “Cells”, “Liquefy”, “Jesus Says” are the leaders. That kind of ties in with what we were thinking.
Matt: People want “Jesus Says” to be a single? It’s so confusing having all this information.
Trevor: “Get Down” has got a vote!
Matt: Come on!
Dan: Trevor hates “Get Down” for the record.
Trevor: Thanks Dan!
To each member, would please tell me: your full names, DOB, where you were born and grew up, about your families, what you studied at school, college or university, the jobs you’ve had, the various musical instruments you play, the bands you’ve been in or are still in….
Chris: Christopher John Burrows.
In 64, 25^th of 9^th 1964 in Manchester . I was brought up in Manchester . The first job I ever had was a butcher’s lad when I was 14, scrubbing the block for the butcher. The little money I got from that I spent on my first guitar and amp. I’m not in any other bands. I played for a few bands, a band called The Godfathers, years ago. I was very young.

Daniel Edward Black.
16th of eleventh 1975. I was born in Leeds . I started studying art after school but I had a choice - I think I could go to New York to record an album with a band so I decided to go. So I left. I started art but I never really needed school. I’d stack shelves in a delicatessen but I got fired. I did catering, I did waiting but I got fired. Why? Because I was shit! (laughs) I wasn’t very good at those things. I polished cutlery in a restaurant. I got fired.
Trevor: Jesus Christ, you can’t even polish cutlery?
Dan: And the thing is they’d come back to me with the cutlery and show it to me and they’d say; “Look at zat!” - they were French. And it would look fine to me and I’d go “Oh, I’m really sorry” but I couldn’t see what the problem was. It was awful.
I can play harp, the balalaika, oboe, trombone, saxophone, bass guitar, drums, horn bassoon, tambourine, triangle. Most instruments I’m pretty much amazing at.
Trevor: He was lying.
I bet he’s lying! (laugh)
Chris: He’s like Roy Castle. (laugh)
Dan: I’m Roy Castle, in every sense.
Trevor: He’s a great drummer, actually. (laugh) And a passing trumpeter, superb! (laugh)
Can you play drums?
Dan: Yes, superb! (laugh)

Trevor: Trevor Sharpe, 8^th of 3rd, 70. I was thrown out of school. I was rightly thrown out of school for hitting the deputy head with a door. I’ve had a myriad of jobs. I was a baker, a pizza deliverer, a fence post hole digger, I was a bouncer at a Triple X night cinema in Soho . (laughs) Loads of things. I don’t know. The amount of shitty jobs I’ve had! I’ve worked in a record store. Most of them I got fired from.
You too?
Chris: I never got fired!
Dan: I was always fired.
Trevor: Yes, I was always fired too.
Dan: My longest job was two weeks.
Trevor: In the record store, I used to hide behind the counter and get that bit of Pink Floyd with all the alarm clocks, I used to queue it up and turn all the speakers up to full, hide behind the counter and press play (laughs) and all these old ladies were just like “whoooooaaaahhh!!!” Heart attacks! (laughs). I used to get in terrible trouble. I was in The Who, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Suede, Can…Tpau… (laughs) I was in Kajagoogoo! I was in Minty, Miranda Sex Garden . Scam 69, unfortunately I am not in them any more because The Servant has become… I got sacked basically because The Servant got too busy. The guitarist fell in love with me so I had to leave. I’ve done loads of session stuff as well but I can’t remember. Actually what’s the name? I’m on Martina Topley-Bird’s album that’s out at the moment. A little known fact, one of the songs on there is me. What was that goth band as well? Queen Adreena. I’ve done some stuff with them. (laughs)

Matt: I was born in the year zero. I was a bass player in God’s own band, “Jesus & the Christs”, and I’ve done very little since then. I’ve rested on my laurels since then, after confessing the blues.
I was born in Acton in West London . I was born next to Wormwood Scrubs Prison and I fully expect to die there.
I was a plumber. I’m a builder. I work on building sites. Look at those hands!
Is that why you’re such a close friend of Christopher Plummer’s?
Matt: Funnily enough, he has the same name but he is not a plumber, he is a painter and decorator. But basically I’m a tradesman. I’m a working-class boy, I’ve worked on building sites all my life. I still do. I go home tomorrow, I go to bed, I wake up, I go back to work.
What are the bands you’ve been in or are still in?
Matt: Jesus and the Christs, Eric and the Claptons, Jimi Hendrix and The Experiences. (laughs) I was in Minty, Un homme et une femme. I have tended to spearhead, be in the spearhead of the London gay (scene). The main band I was in was a band called Greaseball who no-one ever knows, who were all good friends of mine. Some of whom are now dead. That is the band I was in before The Servant. That’s the only band I want to talk about.
Trevor: Greaseball were The Rolling Stones that never quite happened.
Matt: Don’t knock Greaseball, man!
Trevor: I’m not knocking them, I just sort of think they’re too good, they deserve more. (laughs)
Matt: I’ve been playing music all my life but you know.
Are you still in another band?
Matt: No. I’m not in another band.
Trevor: You’re still bumming though, aren’t you?
Matt: Why would I want to be in another band? I can get insulted viciously by these people here. Seven days a week. (laughs)
May I encourage you to keep on writing, releasing and playing music. I believe in The Servant, so all I want for you now is a bit of luck to make it happen. Thank you very much.
© 2004 Maryse (MilkChocolate Girl)