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Bis formed a band! Top of the Pops, writing the Powerpuff Girls theme, and hanging by the pool with the Beastie Boys
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Ep. 1: Eddie and Joe talk to the deeply lovely Manda and Steve from the amazing Bis - possibly the most DIY of all the British bands that also managed to break through to the big time. They talk about how the band formed as teenagers; how Manda migrated from the side of the stage to centre-stage, transforming their fortunes overnight; drawing your own artwork; and how they stuck resolutely to their DIY guns - and why this was so important to them.
Oh, and once the band was formed, a load of wild stuff happened: they were the first unsigned band to appear on Top Of The Pops (much to Eddie’s delight); sign to the Beastie Boys’ record label (and hang out with them by the pool in LA); have a bespoke Casio Baby G watch created in their honour; write the Powerpuff Girls closing credits theme song; Bis’s ace song “Kandy Pop" came 49th in an NME reader poll of the "50 Greatest Britpop Songs Ever"; and whole load of other fantastic stuff.
(Also, maybe they weren’t the first unsigned band on TOTP – we find out the SHOCKING TRUTH.)
Anyway, it’s a great chat, and it went so well that after recording it, Art Brut and Bis played some shows together. Oh yes: this was recorded a while ago, so you might have actually been to one of these shows already.
Finally, hang around for after the Bis interview for THE ARGOS CATALOGUE: the part of the show where we try to capture the life, times and tribulations of one Eddie Argos, one absurd story at a time. This one involves extremely smelly feet – but who did they belong to?
Bis bio: Since forming in 1994, bis have continually mutated their initial influences of Synth-pop, Riot Grrrl and DIY Punk into weird and wonderful songs with a natural gift for melodic earworms with a disco heartbeat. Sci-Fi Steven, John Disco and Manda Rin first caught the UK underground’s attention with the “Disco Nation 45” EP in 1995. Its cross-breeding of Huggy Bear, Blur and Devo made it stand out in the dreary death of Britpop, fanzines had new saviours and before long the underground went overground. With the next release, “The Secret Vampire Soundtrack”, suddenly bis were playing “Kandy Pop” on Top of The Pops - as the first unsigned band ever to appear - and riding high in the “proper” charts.
A frantic bidding war resulted in bis turning down big-money from big business and opting to sign for Wiiija Records in 1996, a spiritual home where the band could maintain absolute control. Choosing the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal label in the US was based on the same philosophy. The first album “The New Transistor Heroes” came out in early 1997, the album sold 100,000 copies on release in Japan and saw bis support acts as diverse as Bikini Kill, Pavement and Foo Fighters across Europe and the US. The band were even seen as the ideal candidates to write and record the theme tune to Cartoon Network’s classic cartoon, “The Powerpuff Girls”.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'I Formed a Band'
00:00:04
Speaker
Do you want to open it and say hello? with this Well, hello. Hi, Eddie. Hello. ah Welcome to I formed a band, I guess. You're Eddie Argos. I'm Eddie Argos, yeah. And I'm Joe Sparrow.
00:00:15
Speaker
And who have we got on
Eddie's DIY Inspiration from BIS
00:00:18
Speaker
this show? This one is Biss. Biss.
00:00:28
Speaker
Now, BIS, who are BIS? What place do they occupy in your life? BIS, to me, i think I hit it quite well, maybe, during the interview, but BIS was a big thing. My first band, the Art Goblins, I'd say. but My love of DIY stuff probably comes through BIS, like them name-checking things like Nation of Ulysses
00:00:45
Speaker
made me address Nation of Ulysses you know? i I didn't say it to them in the podcast and I wish I had but things like in Formed A Band when I'm saying like I'm just talking to the kids all that kind of stuff that's me trying to be BIS really like it's me sort of I want to go it putting on a BIS persona You definitely seemed very chill when we spoke them, so I think it didn't it the the fanboy nature did not spill out.
BIS's Breakthrough and DIY Success
00:01:07
Speaker
and This, for those of you who can't remember, were well around what, in the mid-90s? They were super-duper DIY. I used the extra-superlative duper there to explain.
00:01:20
Speaker
They were the most DIY band I can imagine and yet they had quite a big breakthrough. They were... they were Like on top of the pops. They were on top of the pops and we talked about that. They were the first unsigned band on top of the pops. Or were they? Perhaps. We found out.
00:01:32
Speaker
and They were signed to the Beastie Boys Grand Royal label in America which is amazing. We spoke about that. They wrote the Powerpuff Girls theme tune. They wrote the Powerpuff theme tune. They had a baby G watch right after them. Yeah.
00:01:44
Speaker
They had a lot of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Which for for a DIY band that operated out of their little bedroom studios and did their all their own artwork and all their own recordings and with really, really that super DIY aesthetic is a amazing, isn't Yeah, I think it sort of gave me delusions that what was possible to this amazing DIY band have gone top of the pops and are doing all this stuff without without compromising their art.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, that was for me the most interesting thing was that they They hadn't compromised anything then, they really felt that. And that extended all the way through all the decisions they made and their career and everything. Anyway, it was a really good discussion. and but They seemed kind of reticent about that sometimes too. And I thought, oh no, I love it that you're like that. you know They were thinking, oh maybe we'd have more success in this direction or something. And i was like, ah be you wouldn't have been such an amazing force, I think.
00:02:33
Speaker
It was definitely a case with them of they... they burned really brightly for a short period of time and then they sort of carried on and did release lots of albums and had a success but they would sort of then reached the level of DIY success you might expect for a band like that. Yeah, perhaps.
00:02:48
Speaker
yeah not I'm not saying that in a good way but like they they had this explosive start and then perhaps like normal success feels like yeah it's not quite as fulfilling. Yeah, it's incredible how burn how bright they burned. They did this did burn bright.
00:03:03
Speaker
I love them, it's great to speak to them. Yeah.
Recording Hiccups and Eddie's Life Feature
00:03:05
Speaker
Two things to note. ah First of all, of course, in keeping with this is fully DIY approach, um we had a couple of recording issues with mine and Eddie's voice. So occasionally our voices sound a bit wonky, but it's all part of the charm. And secondly, stay tuned at the end of the interview for our exciting exclusive feature where we investigate Eddie's life, the Argos catalog.
00:03:26
Speaker
OK, let's go.
00:03:35
Speaker
Eddie, why do you ask a key question? Well, how did you form a band? Well, okay.
Origins of BIS and Musical Beginnings
00:03:40
Speaker
they this her Our story is ah it's it's very, not insular, but it's and it's based on a very small two streets in the south side of Glasgow because me and John, the third wheel of this band, he doesn't do interviews not because he doesn't like them, it's just because his scheduling is somewhat erratic. I think he would accept that.
00:03:59
Speaker
So me and John are brothers, so we obviously grew up together in the same house. So that I suppose the start of BIS is really just me and John spending our youth trying to, I don't know, just write songs from disparate starting points. We're both very into music.
00:04:18
Speaker
Our mum's a music teacher, piano teacher. Now I was never interested in the practical side of things of learning how to play an instrument. I still am not interested in learning how to play an instrument. But fortunately, John's quite the technically gifted musician in the household and and still in the band. I think that's fair to say.
00:04:36
Speaker
a So in the late 80s, I think. and and I'd be like 10 or 11. um We got like a Casio keyboard, which had the inbuilt rhythms.
00:04:48
Speaker
and And for me, fortunately, inbuilt chords. So if you just pressed a note on the bottom... a couple of a like the octaves, it would play a full chord and it would play a rhythm along to the beat.
00:05:02
Speaker
So it'd be like... do did loy do do dooo do If you just press D. That may not be D. I'm sorry if it isn't. But we basically wrote songs like just using this as a rhythm and ah i only listened to...
00:05:15
Speaker
um But this time I i was just really into New Order as a starting point, into alternative music, having just listened to Adam and the Ants and stuff before that. Seemed to be a big gap between Adam and Ants and New Order. Anyway, I'll try not to to give him a life story, but a essentially I was into New Order and then and stuff like The The and The Smiths a wee bit.
00:05:33
Speaker
But John was like deeply into Iron Maiden, so we've got these tapes that we'd record over... which records over like ZX Spectrum game tapes bootleg versions that we'd get from the Barras the Glasgow Barrowland market and we'd played the game enough we'd use them and make demo tapes and i've still got some of them and it's just like we'd make EPs called like the Sky EP or something and it's like there's a song there's a song and how do they sound now? I mean by they're They're insane.
00:06:00
Speaker
there's there's There's a quick progression, but there's basically... Some of them are like marginally serviceable, but they're just like recycled New Order lyrics. I think there is a song called Corruption and Lies. So you can see what I've done there is just simply remove one element, and then John has kind removed the power, which... I removed the power, which is but Amanda brought back later.
00:06:18
Speaker
ah But yeah, we would just have these sort of weird synth pop songs, and John would just sort a solo over them. I i's like and So we we eventually got rid of the maiden, but there's one song, think it's called Teen Idol, and it's ah what's happened is I appear to have listened to This Corrosion by the Sisters of Mercy and also misheard what I thought was an REM song, but turns out to be that Tom Petty song that's going like, running down the drain or wherever whatever it goes like, and I've just stolen that.
Amanda's Influence and Songwriting Shift
00:06:45
Speaker
from hearing it in a shop. um So yes, if it so eventually we we get better at writing songs and by about nineteen ninety ninety one we've got a proper drum machine and we go into an actual recording studio and we record a demo um which is very sort of Beatles, Shaman, this Beatles versus Shaman, Mandib's probably but one one of the few people to actually hear it but it's sort of, it sounds vaguely proper.
00:07:10
Speaker
um Beatles versus Shaman sounds like a proposition, doesn't it? that yeah i mean yeah i think Which of you is Mr C? is that manice see yeah i I think I was trying to be everybody at the same time.
00:07:26
Speaker
But anyway, we we we made a fairly serviceable late Manchester sounding demo, but I guess I was 14 and John was 11, we were too young to do things. a And then fortunately, a couple years later, we were we were kind of stuck and writing seeious songs i am in and trying to, we sort of sounded a bit like Blur and Suede. We sort of accidentally sounded like Oasis before they did any of their things as well. So this there's a demo called Born in the 70s, which is a sort of sweeping Britpop epic, which we recorded in 1992. It sounds like denim, sounds like a Lawrence thing.
00:07:59
Speaker
and But fortunately, ah around this time, We meet Amanda and there our songwriting trajectory goes in a totally different direction, which is my my yeah trigger to you to take over the story.
00:08:12
Speaker
Oh no, that's the embarrassing part. I don't have any of the kind of cool learning music, having a mum piano teacher story, but just love music, love playing my parents' records, love Kylie.
00:08:30
Speaker
loved Madonna, these were my first records, just loved it and then I discovered indie music, loving the NME Meldy Maker, felt like an absolute weirdo because nobody I knew liked that kind of thing, and it wasn't a mainstream thing at all, and when it got in the charts it was a kind of one-off, but I just felt like that, yeah, so you I'd get into the Happy Mondays, wearing t-shirts to school and the things and it would be, you'd just feel like a freak. yeah and And I just loved it. But then I discovered John Steven who liked the same kind of thing.
00:09:08
Speaker
and How
Amanda on Female Inspiration in Music
00:09:08
Speaker
did you meet? i was How did that moment happen? Because that feels quite pivotal. Yes, we're at the same school. they live very close to where I lived with my parents. And when they started doing music, i was like, whoa, what is this? And who is that? Cute singer?
00:09:24
Speaker
And yeah, ah Stephen was my teenage croc. and a Absolutely loved going to see them play and was just could ah quite starstruck because I was getting into indie music and there's this band playing and they're just like normal guys and they live around a corner and it's brilliant and then one day I was out with my friends and we got invited into their house to hear some songs and I was like, oh god this is amazing so cut a long story short, Steven started dating And then it got quite heated because then we weren't dating.
00:09:58
Speaker
That's a quick jump. That's three years missing. Yeah. So but's the that's the embarrassing part. But yeah, but through all that, we we managed to do...
00:10:10
Speaker
lots and lots of stuff because i went along to their rehearsals and as i saying i'm not really big musical person but i love just playing by ear and mucking about and they were wanting to make their thing bigger and even said oh do you want to play keyboard i can play extra guitar was like yeah so i just stood at the side doing that and i didn't sing begin with and it just kind of went from there but did Did it change the sound a lot all a sudden when you started playing the keyboards? was that i mean I think it was more like you just kind of did my bits and I was able to do more guitar and so we just did the same songs we were doing.
00:10:48
Speaker
m But then I think, I suppose like our influences collectively changed, didn't they? Because like we'd gone, we were, i mean, we still are very heavily indebted to Blur even though it's...
00:10:59
Speaker
it's sort of illegal to like blur in Glasgow in some certain quarters. and we are We are kind of unashamedly, i mean we are the most, we're we're the most Britpop of the Scottish bands really, if if you discount the Supernaturals or somewhere.
00:11:12
Speaker
But anyway, this, we like, i think maybe like 1993 when we sort of started, we used to rehearse every single Friday night and so I suppose when when we would spend a lot of time together anyway, and we were getting heavily into the Riot Grrrl, especially Huggy Bear.
00:11:32
Speaker
And so we we used to write fanzines, two separate fanzines, but we kind of had this imaginary band, or at least we had the real band, which was best, but we we'd sort of make things up in our fanzine, like we'd done all these things or we'd recorded this this 20 song album that you could buy on tape which we sort of did we'd just make up new songs and just fill C90s and send them to people. And infer, inventive the idea like an imaginary bass and then you slowly became this thing you'd invented through the fandom. Pretty much I'm sure like Amanda's imaginary band was a sort of rival band called Girlbopper and they had an imaginary song called Kill Your Boyfriend and then
00:12:12
Speaker
then a Amanda actually did write the song after after we'd given it a title and everything so ah yeah we can I suppose we we grew up with like once I think once we'd left the the mainstream of indie music if that makes sense and found a real underground we were really excited by it And you know Huggy Bear would just make up different names for themselves every week in terms of identities.
00:12:36
Speaker
And like you know they'd be making up gangs and and stuff. And it's just obviously just the four of them messing up, five of them messing about.
DIY Ethos vs. Industry Pressures
00:12:43
Speaker
Do you know what I mean? in like And we kind of stole that.
00:12:46
Speaker
We stole a bit of Nation of Ulysses kind of ah empty rhetoric chat as well. So we kind of we had all that, but we did have... We sort of had... day you know, more traditional songwriting still in there as well. So we we sort of became... we yeah it was a merging of these influences that nobody seemed to have done before.
00:13:06
Speaker
ah You were my introduction to all of that. I was just saying to Joe before we started, but like, yeah, I bought that EP that was a lot of the pop, so I bought that in our price. I wasn't going into special indie record shops to find or anything. I went and bought that. I was like, what's this about? What's panting culture? What's all of this stuff?
00:13:26
Speaker
I think it must have been for like a whole generation of people, I think. like It must have been that, right? You've got these influences you're pulling in, fanzine stuff. Yeah, i think I think that's like, I do hear that a lot. It's like our legacy is sort of vim as opening the gates for lot of people. been like which But that's kind of what Huggy Bear did for us because Huggy Bear, we're sort of on the verge of a mainstream breakthrough, and we were...
00:13:50
Speaker
you know when we were 15, 16 so we took an awful lot from that and we kind of stole it I suppose but we also just took it I don't want to next level because that makes it all sound very careerist but it's we saw what they'd done and we just thought we could be even we could reach an even bigger audience so But yeah, I think that's, sorry, the point is is like, but i get that sort of, we were the jumping off point to the underground for a lot of people who were on their on on the you know with the peripheries of the mainstream.
00:14:20
Speaker
And we got as far as the periphery of the mainstream and just got through enough to hopefully inspire and ah just educate and agitate. the the youth.
00:14:32
Speaker
and that's It's all sound an empty rhetoric, now but you know what mean. We were copying Huggy Bear. I don't know if seem careerist, but we were sort taking things from Huggy Bear and they should have judicious. That's not fucking a careerism. The Grubin plan was to become successful.
00:14:47
Speaker
It's not hardcore capitalism, is it? It's not, but our our or or critic critics would have said that we were just stealing the best bits and the polemic of these bands and and they monetizing them and mainstreaming them. And there is a there's a slight element to that because we were sort of semi-successful for a while, but very quickly we became unsuccessful, so everything was fine.
00:15:08
Speaker
David Johnson, you were this is big DIY about that, right? Even at the time you were kind of... and you yeahy Yeah, and that's technically insane as to is to write a follow-up single to a hit, which is trying to be super clever and dismantle the industry from the inside during, um you know, by the time we were all like 18 or 19.
00:15:27
Speaker
You're kind of asking for trouble when you do that, but... Yes, but you know that that sort of adherence to the DIY aesthetic was obviously incredibly important to you as a band, right? It was not just a... like a surface defining feature. It was really core to what you did and how you did it.
00:15:43
Speaker
And it was something you managed to take through to, as you said, the the mainstream like that. so And you wrote songs about it as well. So why was that so important? like why was it so you' You've mentioned all the sort of mainstream or big band influences, and you also had this interest in this DIY aesthetic. So why was that so important to you?
Artistic Control and Industry Challenges
00:16:04
Speaker
I mean, I think, Amanda, you were the kind of ah keeper of the artwork. and sense I think what we all shared was a desire to give the fan value for money.
00:16:19
Speaker
So we didn't, you know, the proper old school punk aesthetics of not putting our singles on an album. which obviously we ditched as soon as we realized that's commercial suicide and it's not factory records in the 80s. But in terms of like, Amanda, you can talk about the dis control of the artwork and essentially the aesthetics, really.
00:16:38
Speaker
Yeah, it was what we were really into at the time. And that's what bands like Huggy Bear and all those bands were talking about. And it's all under your own control. And then when the record labels got in touch, we were very, very proud of that.
00:16:55
Speaker
that that belief and we always wanted to say that we wanted to do the artwork we wanted to choose what would be the single I didn't want to get told how to dress and we didn't want to get told what to do on stage we didn't want to get told what instruments and amps we should be using and we just kind of kept doing what but we did and annoyed a lot of people as well and turn up for photo shoots and say this is what you're wearing it's like and no not us but Yeah, it was it was just something we're passionate about.
00:17:26
Speaker
liked doing the artwork and stuff in the beginning wasn't that great, but ah it was fun and it meant it was us. And again, it wasn't someone else. And I think it's nice for a fan that they can see the band's personality coming through and that as well.
00:17:42
Speaker
and what Was it like that from the very start? i mean If we go back to your very first gigs, for instance. Amanda, you were hanging out in the studio but and then at some point you you made a decision together to graduate to making it a ah three-piece band and then were gigging. so Can you tell us about that? and and Was that aesthetic there and as well at that time?
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think we've always been into that kind of thing. Again, just because I was discovering a lot of alternative music and also discovering lots of female artists and bands as well that were doing things non not very conventionally and they just looked quite punk.
00:18:20
Speaker
And they spoke about things that I was so, so interested in and I thought... I like to give that a go, it's incredibly inspiring and because I don't think I'm like, I wasn't like a typical looking person and I'm really small and high and my voice was a bit high compared to lot of singers in chart bands and these bands made me think I could give this a go, it's actually really good fun and I think I wasn't a very confident person back then and I think it's just John and Stephen's drive that kept me going.
00:18:58
Speaker
um They were encouraging, they didn't make me feel like a weirdo and I couldn't do it. And that's incredibly encouraging. us ah I don't think I could have done it with without that. How did that first gig feel? I mean, you you were nervous, I guess, the first day.
00:19:14
Speaker
You've in a band, right? It's like, oh, this is one of my favorite bands and now I'm in them.
Live Performances and Confidence Boost
00:19:17
Speaker
How did they feel that? ah The good thing was in the first gigs, I didn't sing. So could just stand, I was just at the side and I didn't even have to look up. And one of the first gigs had a big pillar and I was kind of behind that. I can remember my keyboard behind it.
00:19:36
Speaker
and So again, I just had to get used to it because I was too young to ah drink at the time. wasn't even something knew about or cared about. So maybe if I had, maybe things would have been different back then.
00:19:49
Speaker
So yeah, incredibly scary. And when people heard I was doing music, it they were just like, what? right her? She's like the quietest, keep herself herself kind of person about.
00:20:00
Speaker
yeah like that You just said that, like you, her, she's doing it. But that that was what people identified with, wasn't it? I guess. and Stephen, how did you get to the how did you get the point from convincing Amanda from standing behind a pillar on stage to standing in the front and singing?
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah soons it was i was it was quite a quick turnaround, really. I think... Basically, we had one song, which was Kill Your Boyfriend, which didn't really sound like our other songs. What did we sound like when you joined? It was still a wee bit of a baggy, leftover, rip-poppy type thing.
00:20:37
Speaker
Some of the songs are alright, but none of those songs survived, so the first song that Amanda ever sung for Biss was Kill Your Boyfriend. And after Kill Boyfriend, and may you remember the famous one of playing in in the basement of the 13th Note Club in Glasgow?
00:20:52
Speaker
and it was I think we've got you know a small following by that time, but then it was like, right, we're going to do Kill Your Boyfriend. When Amanda comes on the mic and starts screaming, and there's just people up the back who don't really care, are just like getting out their seats being like, what is going on? What is this?
00:21:09
Speaker
And it's but you know just like people we've known for for ah long, long time just being like, that was the moment when it all turned. And so I think we just ripped up we we just wrappped up all the ah all the rest of the songbook and went, okay, all right, this was meant as a... It wasn't meant as a joke, but it was meant as like, you know, we'd been writing songs that were kind of intricate and a little bit, you know, like, oh, here's the middle eight and now here's... let's Let's key change that bit and let's stick that harmony in there.
00:21:33
Speaker
But then we just ripped it up and just did punk and then... we just we just had, there was a there was a total freedom of having Amanda's vocal piece and then I think something, a song like School Disco was quite soon after that where I was like right we're just doing it, we're just doing it and it's like I don't care that I've stole that riff, I don't care that this is, you know the School Disco just like it's got a disco synth riff, it's got a blur guitar riff and then it's got a bikini kill bit in the middle, and it's just like ah knew I knew then that we'd nailed it and then a yeah just it just became yeah even even like writing the songs that me and John were doing and we were only 15, 16 or John's even younger but we'd become a little bit boring like repeating ourselves and this was like right okay the rule book is ripped up and that gave us ultimately that gave us Amanda's first performance that night gave us
00:22:26
Speaker
That was the real Birth Abyss for me. Just like, okay, here we go. Now the belief was there with all three of us.
00:22:41
Speaker
We were still nervous and young but I tell you what, the self-belief was mental and like I can remember doing a gig in Edinburgh playing to like three people but that was the night that we gave ourselves our stage names so and we were so full of ourselves and we were just like the three people there were just like that's the best thing I've ever seen and I knew like this was like early 95 or whatever and we just totally arrived so.
00:22:59
Speaker
Right, what did that feel like for you then Mander? as As the person who suddenly made everything work? What was it like taking over for me as the main person? but and I don't think I had it in my head that I was doing that I think because I've always stood at the side I wasn't in the centre of the stage and they were just taller than me I just always thought, nope everyone's everyone's looking at Stephen Lee he's in the middle he's the main singer and so I didn't really take it in as that but it also made me think you can be normal in a band you don't have to be this
00:23:38
Speaker
pretentious and kind of made up person that you feel you've got to be in a band. You can just be you and then you actually get your own fans who see that like you're saying and think, oh, she's just normal. Like that's actually quite nice. And that's quite inspiring. Cause I mean, I could maybe do that. And then it kind of stems from there. So but that's where it kind that's how we got a lot of haters and a lot of lovers too. You said you ripped up the rule book and started again.
00:24:08
Speaker
after after Kill Your Boyfriend.
Early EPs and Stylistic Experimentation
00:24:09
Speaker
Did you... So were you slowly adding more new songs or did you just write whole new set? I mean, it felt like we wrote a whole new set, but yeah, we just... i'm trying i don't I think like the very, very first EP, so first record, which is a mad story in itself because it's come out in a Spanish record label about a year after we'd recorded it.
00:24:30
Speaker
But that is the very first EP has got like... it's all over the place stylistically so that's how we used to sort of present ourselves in our imaginary world that we were like you know there's like oh here's here's a shouty one or here's you know here's an epic synth one or whatever so the first EP is like Kill Your Boyfriend's on there it's the first version of which is so lo-fi you can actually hear the band in the next room playing in the intro of it then it's got it's got Sci-Fi Superstar which is actually That probably was one of our old songs, but we we just the maybe um just started up a wee bit, maybe disco beated it a wee bit.
00:25:07
Speaker
It's total blur. and Then Public School Boys on that, which was a one minute follow on from Kill Your Boyfriend, which I think that was the first time John Peel ever played us a But it's got like it's got a song called Improved New Formula on it, which just just sounds like It's all over the place. It sounds like Moonshake or one of those bands that would be 2Pure in the very early 90s because we were enthralled with Stereolab and Moonshake and PJ Harvey and just Ouija and 2Pure, blah, blah, blah.
00:25:38
Speaker
And then I think, yeah, there's another song on it, Caustic Sofa, which is, that's what that's the old, that's the pre-Bismanda on that. It's just like a nice song. It's got a wee bit of a... catchy chorus and the lyrics are shocking because pre-Kill Your Boyfriend i would i would do the early Damon Albarn thing of like leisure era, blur, just nightmarish like I've got a chorus, I cannot be bothered to write a verse and I just go with the nice notes so again, and Kill Your Boyfriend lyrically is funny
00:26:10
Speaker
and and and aggressive and cutting all at the same time. And that's, I give Mand a total credit for like, we just had to up the lyric game massively. And I think that, again, that's just another turning point where from that point onwards, our lyrics were but never inane.
00:26:27
Speaker
They were sometimes ridiculous, but they and and they were sometimes funny, but they were they were always memorable from that point onwards until we went a bit sort of... a a bit stoned in the early 2000s. But anyway, up to that point, it was pretty good. But so, ah yeah, I think be some of the pre-Man the Abyss sounds did come back, didn't they? Because like,
00:26:47
Speaker
Even the new Transistor Heroes, the first proper album, the songs aren't the same, but some of the some of the more XTC classic indie alternative influences finally came back. and we were i think I think the mainstream, when we first broke through, it just assumed we were we were just a punk band.
00:27:05
Speaker
I mean, we never, ever really were. It's like Kill your Boyfriend Candy Pop were our main shouty ones. we didn't really We don't really have too many songs that... in that vein really so much.
00:27:15
Speaker
and that's what I think that's what I liked too. Like I had Candy I was like, what's this band about? And then I had, you know, skinny tie sense around and all this other stuff. And I was like, oh, this is cool. It's like nice, wise,
00:27:27
Speaker
why Yeah, it's like Lowe's to discover. it's not just think you I think it's, you know, I can ah can look back on it now, but like we had we only managed to have two UK top 40 hits.
00:27:39
Speaker
One was Candy Pop and one was Eurodisco and they're nowhere near the same band and there's some there's a weird pride and it sort of have having two hits with with the same band name but with two entirely different sounding songs so I mean that's basically that's insane like you know changing your entire sounding and brand within two years but we were we were just you know I'm talking about pre-Manda singing Kill Your Boyfriend we just we were willing to just rip that that model up so we just we were never never precious about ripping things up and starting again hang on that's that is cliche now sorry yeah we did it we did it over and over again
00:28:16
Speaker
To go back to that point when you'd written Kill Your Boyfriend, which you said was early 1995, approximately. Well, how quickly did things happen then? Because you were on top of the props like a year later, right?
00:28:28
Speaker
So how fast did things move and what did that feel like?
Rise to Fame and Fan Support
00:28:32
Speaker
It was crazy the speed that everything went because once we got that first EP out and that was like our dream, that's all I ever wanted to do was put out a seven inch. I felt like I'd made it.
00:28:44
Speaker
i I don't think I was as... ambitious as you was maybe because he just thought we're going to be big and I just thought I just got a seven in that's a good aim it's achievable but just kind of kept we kept getting offers she wanted to be on a she and Split 7-inch? Yeah you want to go on this compilation? Yeah So we ended up just putting out About million 7-inch singles With anybody who asked Because we had a million songs There's so much spirit You can have that, you can have that Appeal session? Yeah of course And we would just drive his dad's car To take us with all our equipment places So we just kind were up for it anything Anything that was possible
00:29:28
Speaker
and And didn't take long till and the record labels got in touch because as soon as you do your your London gigs and you get your mention in the Melody Maker or the NNE as a ah new band, one people want to discover, then all just kind of went from there. It was crazy.
00:29:46
Speaker
A lot of this was like the support we got from the other fanzines is crucial to this as well, especially in London, where there's obviously loads of fanzines. Like our very first London gig was put on by our friend Dee, who had a fanzine called Dee, all about being friends.
00:30:00
Speaker
um And then other fanzines would get in touch. and we So we did loads and loads of... little London gigs, which really important. them just And our demo tapes would go around this scene.
00:30:12
Speaker
And it cannot be underestimated how big the fanzine scene was at that time. And I i equate it to like the last time... like ah I think the the the breakthrough of the Arctic Monkeys in the MySpace era is kind was kind of like the equivalent of us is coming through the fanzine scene. Because when we hit the mainstream press and the record labels, they were like...
00:30:33
Speaker
they like they didn't realise that there was actually this weight of support behind us already. And kind of like, you know, they we weren't... they A record label, some record labels looked at us as is like, oh they're just teenagers, so like we just we'll take them on and we'll develop them until they're ready for the market. And we were just like, no, we've got the kids...
00:30:52
Speaker
if you pardon they quote, the kids are already there. So that was unusual for for the record labels, I think. and And that's why the enemy and the Melody Maker were a bit confused as they couldn't really They couldn't really build us up to be what they wanted because we already were what we were. So ah yeah, fanzines are massively, massively influential in it.
00:31:15
Speaker
So what were those conversations like when you were talking to labels? They may or may not be aware that you've got this groundswell of support from... you know the kids right so You were saying that some of them wanted to develop you, but didn' it did any of them spot it immediately and go, yeah, okay, we just want to we just want to accelerate? yeah ah think Yeah, I think this process we spoke to so many record labels who wanted to wine and dine us and all we wanted was say some pizza and some free records off them.
00:31:46
Speaker
um they You know, it's very difficult to like, being so young and trying to find out who's, ah you know, who's genuine. That's really difficult. I can always remember a conversation. I think we were quite close to signing to sign into Island Records and I can't remember who was there, but it was very much a kind of like, I had to make a point, you know, that we were 18, 19 and I'm like,
00:32:07
Speaker
do not do to us what you've done to whatever band it was and just like put out a single and then, you know, the albums never quite ready, spend a fortune on producers, blah, blah, blah. we We were really strong minded about how we wanted to do things.
00:32:21
Speaker
And we didn't want, we didn't want a label to give us a hundred thousand pounds to go and spend on an album because that's, that wouldn't work with our sound. So it was just like they would, they would, certain record labels be like going, oh we're going to, you're going to sit down and you're going to meet such and such a producer.
00:32:36
Speaker
like this guy produced Adam and the Ants, like, so obviously we know who it or in tears for fears or whatever, and just thinking, right, yep, cool, but we want to go ah into a basement in Glasgow and just press start on the drum machine and play along.
00:32:48
Speaker
Now, that's essentially what we ended up doing, for better or worse, but, and yeah, we met some really good people along the way who were in big labels that we couldn't marry the bis aesthetic with being on that major label.
Record Label Negotiations
00:33:02
Speaker
Um... you we may have We might have been better off elsewhere, but eventually we knew we were waiting for ah Gary. We'd just forget get the right balance together by having a small label with the history of Huggy Bear and Corner Shop, etc.
00:33:18
Speaker
But with the with the potential to worldwide distribute from there. So we we were canny about it, but... and Yeah, I mean, it was an insane time talking to like you know the person that's just signed this. Like, I've got this new girl band in development. They're going to be called the Spice Girls. It's like, shit, we should probably go be you then.
00:33:38
Speaker
Right, so you were waiting for Ouija. You sort of had your eye on that. You were like, these are our guys. Gary's going to... Yeah, pretty much. i is it' sweet I mean, we probably ruined his label for him, but... But but yeah, we were... ah Yeah.
00:33:54
Speaker
It's a mixture of being sort of... driven but close-minded at the same time and it's i think we were just waiting for gary to get interested which is just mental when you know we had massive labels offering us all kinds of crazy money which you always owe as we all know um and then just waiting for gary to be like okay i will do it so it's a really it's really strange that all these record labels really wanted us but we really wanted gary Did he know were waiting for him? did he I think so, yeah. It was kind of romantic in a way, really, isn't it? It's just like, he just you know you're persistent. There's a true romance in there.
00:34:32
Speaker
We're fortunate, though, because we had a friend who who offered to manage those two of them to begin with. and Then it got too chaotic and one departed. But and we're very lucky because he could do all the kind of...
00:34:46
Speaker
he was 10 years older than us I think and he did all the kind of boring things of going through contracts and saying no you shouldn't do that or you should do this whereas we were all just kind of like excited just had kind of maybe single vision on what we wanted but he would say no you shouldn't do that and we did need it because there's a lot of information and records know for we and We really needed that too.
00:35:12
Speaker
The first time we signed something, it was like, they gave us a contract and said, show it to a lawyer. And we didn't. We showed it to everybody in the pub. and Surely by the law of averages, one of them would have been a lawyer.
00:35:25
Speaker
It's fair you had that guy to like, and Oh we're so lucky especially because he's not like a he hadn't done it before he's just doing for us and but it was it was so so exciting I keep finding contracts and faxes and stuff like that that and the he'd sent us through and it's just so interesting to see like maybe we should have gone with that one actually think that I think the weird thing about the going through all the contracts and stuff that we had on offer is that we weirdly lost our own momentum by being so pernickety about it because our rise had been so rapid that by the time that we'd actually finally...
00:36:05
Speaker
got on board with the right record label and then spent time in America in the summer trying to get that right. there's ah there's a There's a terrible gap of like Candy Pops on top of the Pops in early 96, but we don't release an album until 97 because we didn't want to put any of our songs on an album. and But we were doing the festival circuit and it's just that, like looking back, that's that formative thing. We should have just made an album.
00:36:31
Speaker
with all the songs that we'd done on it and just accepted it. but it was just, well, that wasn't punk rock to do that. It's like saying, I mean, I remember waiting for the album to come out. Yeah. Like, come on, hurry up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
00:36:43
Speaker
they've got It was quite nice because it was all different. Yeah, it was me yeah was like so many like new songs. and There was so many new songs. I'm glad they did that. its meant like I know but i know we finished that we finished that album in October 1996 and it didn't didn't come out for six months, which is just it's just insane. But that's like getting all the international things on, all the eggs lined up.
00:37:04
Speaker
Is that right? All the eggs lined up. no All the ducks lined up in one egg basket. and But yeah, so yeah, that's, I mean, and we're not talking about forming a band here anymore. We're talking about day professional regrets. So I'll try not to dwell on that too much. But ah yeah, it's that that finally getting to album one.
00:37:21
Speaker
It's a really strange way that we got there, and that all starts So you did this record for the Spanish label, and then and then you got together and you sort of... What was the first thing after that that you recorded? Yeah, that's... I think there's Chemical Underground ones, the Disco Nation 45s after that, but the... Yeah, by the time the Spanish record came out, it was they almost came out at the same time in, like, summer 95. the Nation 45, even though it recorded...
00:37:48
Speaker
forty if five even though it was recorded in a few different cheap sessions. it's the That's the first one that sounds like it's a band. Like it's all the songs sound in the same area.
00:38:00
Speaker
it It's a little, you know, there's bits and pieces of ah influences here and there, but it hung together like ah like a seven inch that I would buy. so How did it feel recording that then? Like being, this is like, this is our sound now. It's not the Spanish thing where we sort of, these songs are like, we're this, this is us, let's go.
00:38:17
Speaker
How did that feel in the studio? ah I think we we did the three songs. mean We did School Disco with Plassy People and a song called Pop Socks, which we just dropped because we had our brand new hit single, Conspiracy A Go Go, that we decided just to fire on a B-side.
00:38:30
Speaker
I think that was that was the start of just feeling, i don't know, I felt like completely confident in what we were doing. It felt we'd made something really good and that was proud of.
00:38:41
Speaker
And we carried that on. like into this and the next, yeah, then the Secret Vampire EP. because I was just like, essentially at that point, our ethos was, we'll just put, but doesn't we're not going to hold songs back.
00:38:53
Speaker
We're just going to go, right, how many songs are going to be on this record? Four. Right, well, it's it's our best four just now. And we'll just bend the rest and start again, which is why, you know, the process that ends up with writing 16 songs for an album in about two weeks. So, but yeah, certainly for me, the, like getting the Disco Nation 45,
00:39:11
Speaker
On Chemical Underground Records with the the sleeve or the reverse cardboard and the die cut in the back and the artwork, you know, are cartoon images built with us as babies and blah, blah, blah.
00:39:22
Speaker
ah just It just felt like, and but you know, like we'd we'd hand stamped the labels for our logo and stuff. And ah yeah, I just felt like we had we had a product that I would buy. And Amanda's right, is like I was very ambitious, but also but i I wanted to put out one thing I was very proud of. And I think...
00:39:40
Speaker
I think that's probably still the thing that i look at just being like, yeah, I remember that moment because it got me ah it got me out of a job ultimately. Hand stamping is always nice too, right? I make this. Damp, stamp, stamp.
00:39:52
Speaker
Do you remember the two Pure 10-inch compilations and they'd done hand-painted on the front cover and we just absolutely loved that. so yeah so Again, it's just all the kind of DIY small bands of that era.
00:40:07
Speaker
and Speaking of the Esco Nation 45, it's just as well it ended up sounding pretty good because it was that record that might be bought when he was over in Britain and heard it and decided to offer us a record deal for America, which is quite good the timing of that. I wanted to ask you about this a lot as it as a big fan of BIS and a big fan of Beastie Boys. This is like a really great little moment of union of minds, right? So how did that pan out and what was what was that experience like going from this sort of, let's say, ultra DIY
00:40:43
Speaker
aesthetic, really enjoying being controlled, to then going and working with people in the Beastie Boys who are perhaps the most sort of the the biggest international example of that, of that ultimate control of their own destiny. How was that experience?
Signing with Grand Royal and US Opportunities
00:40:56
Speaker
It's great. I suppose it compares to... We're big fans of Ouija, but we couldn't have done it full-time if we hadn't financially had the support of a larger label behind them, and that's what Beggars Banquet did to Ouija.
00:41:11
Speaker
So when we had Grand Royal get in touch, they had the backing Capitol Records. And again, it's kind of scary when you've got this big, massive, major label in the background, but they are just in the background when they just...
00:41:25
Speaker
fund a lot of it but there's probably a lot more pressure in that respect too and it was just weird to have Mike V as the A&R guy it's so bizarre can't honestly believe it Gary and Ouija had worked with say Beastie Boys on like Hurricane Beastie Boys DJ had done the solo record so Gary was kind of with these people anyway so we we did have a little bit of a a foot in the door already but yeah like I remember as it is again it goes back to the fanzine thing of like I did my fanzine was called Paper Bullets and did a whole like nerdy boy sort of retrospect of the entire Beastie Boys back catalogue song by song song by song whatever and we went to see the Beastie Boys were playing and
00:42:16
Speaker
in Glasgow in 94 but also Luscious Jackson were on tour separately but this bit basically there was one night where Beastie Boys were playing in Glasgow the following night but Luscious Jackson were playing at King Tut's and me and Amanda went and we took our fanzine and Abyss demo and remember I actually genuinely handed it to Mike D I presume it went straight in the bin, but it's amazing that that eventually came back around to be like, we ended up we ended up he ended up signing us and we ended up touring with Luscious Jackson and you know hanging out with the Beastie Boys, etc. it's like
00:42:46
Speaker
So much of this sounds like so magical manifesting. that You sort of invented yourself in a fanzine and then you became that behind then you gave this thing and then magic delay. this is like guess Or not magic because you're incredible, but like but yeah this it' like this kind of thing is like...
00:43:00
Speaker
I think that's right. It's like, I always think now, as I'm older, and just like, ah maybe there's a gig I want to go to, but I can't be bothered the last minute. And you think, oh, but I might have bumped into somebody who we end up gigging with or doing this, that, the other thing now.
00:43:14
Speaker
And in those days, like, we yeah, we would turn up and see a Blur gig and stand there all day waiting for Damon to give him a tape. Or we'd go to the charlatans and give Tim a tape, you know? And like, we were just aggressive, like, wee kids. And then,
00:43:27
Speaker
Yeah, as it's like yeah we did we did sort of yeah you go and make you know make things happen for yourself, blah, blah, blah. is i like It's amazing how many people we ended up working with by just being like, hello, we're little dweebs, would you like our tape?
00:43:40
Speaker
yeah And then again with the fan themes, we used to give a handwritten interview. with a stamped address then woke to some bands to get it in my fanzine and the Beastie Boys was actually one of them and they did do it and sent it back which was amazing and then Sleeper were supporting Blur in Glasgow and they returned theirs but with kind cheeky answers though to a lot of questions but yeah it was answers and quite daring which was you know pretty good to have. Oh it's all.
00:44:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think so that just the Beastie Boys thing again is like it was, again, we kind of took everything for granted because nothing was really surprising because we were flying high on confidence. But I tell you what, on reflection, getting to hang out at Mike D's house in LA, hanging about a swimming pool with MCA and whatnot and just like,
00:44:34
Speaker
That photo of John Disco jamming with MCA on the drums just kills me because we're not in it because we were too shy. So Disco has got the absolute the brass neck to just be like, yeah, I'm good to so i'm just going to jam with MCA. and just like like like but what What was that like? and and when you You people say they have like out-of-body experiences. Was it sort of like that when you were there? I think we were young and we just took it... I think we did take things in our stride then, like, you know, genuinely in the G-Sun studios on the basketball court that we'd seen in videos and, like, you know, like the Pass the Mic videos, there's... Oh, there's the stairs at the back of the Grand Royal offices. So we did...
00:45:09
Speaker
We did get to do all that. And, you know, like i wish I really wish we'd gone over there to record because the'll the setup was the kind of setup that would have worked for us. Like we liked a little tiny room, no else no external pressures.
00:45:23
Speaker
And we should have we probably should have just taken all our stuff and gone to LA and worked with Mario C to do the first album. That's like a mad regret. But a and it's it's just a shame that it never happened. And then, you know, by the time...
00:45:37
Speaker
it's only a couple of years later that Grand Royal becomes a bit of a secondary concern to the Beastie Boys probably because it hasn't made any money in capitals about a week away the financing and then the ah called it kind of all ended a little bit like there wasn't really a kind of farewell party to our Grand Royal experience which is a bit sad so I think the last time I saw Mike D was was like when I walked out in anger during a band meeting in London in like a pizza express which is not the way I wanted it to end but But we did we we saw MCA, God rest his soul, we saw him when we were playing in New York in like the early 2000s and he was with his kid and he was he's the sweetest man.
00:46:15
Speaker
like and ah You hear this, the cliche of nicest men in the business or nicest people in the industry, but MCA's got to be right up there. So it was an absolute privilege to to know him and to have MCA know who you were.
00:46:27
Speaker
That's pretty cool.
Success in Japan and Cultural Experiences
00:46:28
Speaker
I just remember being delighted when I found out you signed to that Larker label. I think it's the thing and Amanda was saying before, like when you saying about how like we're just these normal people. that you know like I think in my scene growing up, you felt like one of ours. You knowre like, oh, Bess are like, you know, they're like our mates. We don't know them, but like, you know, you'd be hanging out with them if they lived here. I mean, was kind of like in our hair.
00:46:49
Speaker
But when you say he signed to Grand Royale, we were like, yeah, Yeah. On your... um Totally. It definitely made lots of sense. You know, yeah the the overlap, but it the fan base is... It really made sense. are The people I knew who loved Ill Communication and those albums also really liked it. Even though perhaps sonically there's ah there's a sort of difference there, the the the mindset behind making the music. Yeah, yes, definitely.
00:47:14
Speaker
and Also, like I remember it did feel like a proper validation as well, because I think even it even by that time ah we signed to Grand Royal, it was like... we had our We certainly had our haters in the UK industry, you know, and it was like, you know, people are saying people saying we couldn't play this, that, the other thing, and then you get validated by the by the Beastie Boys. It's like, right, yeah i come again, come again.
00:47:34
Speaker
Yes. Can you get around that time you've got your own watch as well, or you've got that like Baby G watch that played Biz songs? Yeah, it was just through the record label in Japan because we were, again, it was Ouija who did it through them, but it was Donnie.
00:47:50
Speaker
Well, TriStar was with Donnie in Japan. And that's just amazing. The offers that they gave us out there for crazy stuff. but They started talking about a book that didn't end up happening, but it was just mental.
00:48:04
Speaker
The photo shoot, press trip, she'd be doing interviews from... Nine in the morning till nine at night. It was absolutely mental. We're on the karaoke in Japan. and then yeah, these baby Gs were amazing and a G-Shock watch as well.
00:48:19
Speaker
How was it the first time you played in Japan? Did you play there and you were suddenly very big or were you already big when you arrived? I think we were, yeah, we were kind of already big, weren't we? Like Candy Pop was all over the radio. Yeah, they're very inspired by the British press. I think it was off the back of our NNE front cover that we got over to Japan.
00:48:37
Speaker
And I think the first trip was just a press trip with two in-stores. And it was absolutely mental. We'd never experienced anything like this. Was it like the Beatles arriving in New York in 1965 kind of thing? genuine Genuinely scary.
00:48:55
Speaker
genuinely You see the photos of my face? I just looked and I freaked out and I was freaked out. I always tell the story of when we played I think it was HMV or was it Terror? Maybe it was HMV, that one.
00:49:09
Speaker
and The fans were pushing so much that the stage moved. which is mental, absolutely mental. And they all gave us presents and the record label.
00:49:20
Speaker
So the Japanese s thing of giving you nice presents, they gave us Game Boys. And it was just unbelievable. And then we went back for an actual little tour and it was quite a big venue and we did a few nights in a row in Tokyo at that one venue and it's like,
00:49:35
Speaker
This is just amazing! And then we go to Osaka and Nagoya and saw Nune in our big fight in Tokyo, Snow! There's so many big fights I can't can't quite remember.
00:49:48
Speaker
I got an ashtray over me, that's how violent we got. just an ax That's an accident. An ash-cident? No. Yeah. others you know Tensions were butre very young. and There's there's a there' two brothers and and an ex-girlfriend in the same three-piece, so it's going to get a little bit tasty from time to time.
00:50:06
Speaker
but what What was that part of it like when you were sort of... Obviously, very, very quickly... you you maintained your your sort of aesthetic and and beliefs, so and then you accelerated very, very quickly to being gifted Game Boys and playing to incredible crowds who were desperately trying to grab your clothing, etc.
00:50:24
Speaker
And
Navigating Opportunities and Challenges
00:50:24
Speaker
then tours. and did you you know Artists these days talk a lot about their needs and how they need to survive things in the terms of their mental health and things like that.
00:50:36
Speaker
Was there any of that? Or was it wasn't just like, can you play as many gigs possible? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, meant mental health in bands didn't exist until 2005, so we missed that year out entirely. so and No, we were we were we were running in the ground, but we never but very rarely said no to things.
00:50:51
Speaker
and There was no sense of like, we need to do as much as we can now because it's all going to be over soon. I think we we kind of expected it to be a big band forever, so you don't that does that definitely doesn't come into it. I think if you were a new band now, you might think...
00:51:05
Speaker
yeah It's a bit like a footballer career where you need to just, ah you know, need to make the most of it while you're still young or whatever. But in those, like, in the 90s, it didn't. The music industry was still a big thing when we started. There was a lot of money going about.
00:51:19
Speaker
it So it doesn't it didn't feel like this was a... You had to carefully calculate every step. so but You were young as well. I looked last night, I found the video on YouTube of you on Top of the Pops, which was, I've got the date here, the 14th of March, 1996.
00:51:34
Speaker
ah ninety ninety six So actually, nice we're recording this, yeah almost on the anniversary of that. right ah But it says, it introduces you. I mean, you come on stage, it flashes up on the screen. It says, from Glasgow, average age 18. Yeah.
00:51:46
Speaker
yeah that was the That was a bit of information that was given out but no of course that does imply that one of you could be 40 and two of you could be 7. It was me, I was 40. Yeah, no I was the old one, I was 19 but I was about to turn 20 the next week.
00:51:59
Speaker
So yeah, I was only a teenager for that that last period. Pretty soon they'll be living in luxury. this is This is Biff!
00:52:18
Speaker
So I mean, you you were young enough to to do all this this stuff, but also you, you know, I guess you just threw yourselves into it and experienced all these big things at a very young age as well.
00:52:31
Speaker
We got criticized because we were, we sort of, people looked down at us because we were too young and we couldn't play or whatever. But there's there's a there's, for me, the age thing is really,
00:52:41
Speaker
It's kind of brutal because we but the time we got to album three and the music industry had left us behind and we were we sounded like a different band. We'd gone all serious and there ah introspective and then we started losing our record deals about 2000, 2001 and always think...
00:52:57
Speaker
two thousand and one and i always think It's really funny that it's sad and funny that we started losing the record deals when when I was 23 and John was like 21, but we were a spent force. do you know what I mean? just like It's like, those years were the only years that we ever ever made any money from being in a band. And it's like, God, imagine any under any other industry where you've been like, I see your success as a 17 year old, but now that's you 20, that's you done. It's like modeling or something, you know?
00:53:23
Speaker
It's like that Lady Tron song. yeah a So yeah I mean I think the youth thing it just meant it meant we were seen as quite disposable I think um especially in the UK it's kind of like why are these why are these oiks growing up so I suppose growing up had we started in our early twentyent s we probably wouldn't have been seen as grown up in public so much and it was we were definitely judged on that basis It's mad to me you were so young because that to me, with Ash as well, um I remember like it, like you were like these sort of legendary pun characters to me releasing singles and doing all these things.
00:53:58
Speaker
You were only like a year two years above me at school. Do you know what It's mad. I forget i forget that how young Ash were as well because we toured with Ash and even like, because we would go and see Ash in like 94.
00:54:10
Speaker
And it see when somebody's like six months older than you when you're 16 or 17, it's like a world apart, you know. um But like even Supergrass, who were like technically ancient, they were only like like a year.
00:54:22
Speaker
Gaz is like only a year and a half older than me or something. It's it like there's a lot of really young. That's that early to mid 90s period of really young, really talented songwriters. and Us not included, but yeah you know, I mean, it's a kid's good time to be young.
00:54:37
Speaker
When you look back now, with the fullness of time, none of us who are talking here particularly old, but compared an 18-year-old on top of the pubs, that's a big difference. What are your feelings about it now? At the time, you were processing it with a teenage mind.
00:54:52
Speaker
like What do you feel about it now as an adult?
00:54:57
Speaker
I think got lots of regrets as you probably judge and I think like you were saying oh did you have time to think about yourself and mental health and it's like no it's all just like go go go and we never got sick we never had to cancel a gig we just kind of we're always just on the go it was just go go go and I think after all these years it's maybe kind of taken its toll on us because we're now kind of you're still and you're like you can get really down just thinking what's going on today what have got I can't just I can't just think of a day of nothing I got to think of it myself today it's like no I need a thing I got to have my stuff
00:55:39
Speaker
So yeah, there's there's pros and cons to it, but there's also a lot pros I think for just getting on with stuff and not thinking too hard about things. And of course, you're
Commitment to DIY Philosophy
00:55:49
Speaker
still releasing records.
00:55:51
Speaker
So how does that how does what you've learned then feed into the the records you make now and how you do that? It's just a totally different thing. It's like, like, you know, we There's a lot of bands, and people even people I know, that have just had like one big hit and haven't really had to work and just get to make music as a hobby that sort of self-funds. And we we are absolutely not in that category. We record for free at home.
00:56:12
Speaker
We don't make any money from record sales or gigs. But we sort of we can't really give up. and you know we all We just all do jobs. and I'm going to sound really bleak now, but we just do jobs and get on with it. and geographically we're challenged, John's up north and we just we don't really do that much and doing a record just means a real splurge of concentrated energy and then you put something together that you think this is excellent and then and then you're you know without the odd moment aside you just kind of like go ah all that energy dissipates and and it doesn't get on the radio and it doesn't get reviewed and you're like
00:56:45
Speaker
but you've kind of got to do it, you've got to keep doing it and it's like, it's I feel like it's true to our initial ethos is just to keep going, you know, its so like justify it ourselves and and the the idea of stopping is is bleaker than the idea of continuing.
00:56:59
Speaker
ah love that, i think I think I'm very attracted to bands i like that are in it for the arts, like the Nightingales and bands like and yeah the bands and whose records I still love, your new records are brilliant, you know, like I love it that like That's I'm in a band. know, so I can't not make things. I have to do Yeah. Nightingales is a really good comparison. i think just like, I also kind of like the fact if I was a fan of our band, I would kind of admire that it's just been the three of us.
00:57:23
Speaker
Like, you know, we would flesh out things live with a drummer from time to time or like a bass player, but it's kind of like, it's the it's the same three. It's the same three. And it's just like, this is the journey that they're all on together. So I kind of want to,
00:57:35
Speaker
you know we're we're too old to leave a nice tidy legacy now but if if we do get rediscovered then it's we're probably quite you know we're quite nice and ripe and set up for rediscovery and like our wikipedia timeline and membership will look pretty tidy yeah just straight lines straight lines three people they yeah
00:57:56
Speaker
I've been looking at your Wikipedia page, by the way. and it's It is fascinating. and in that it's it's i mean When you put your achievements together and the things you did and all the things we talked about here, it is actually very it's an amazing story. right um though there are some there's some stuff there's some little I always find it interesting with Wikipedia pages if you go and and click through to the discussion page where people people who create the page are discussing what is a fact and what isn't a fact. okay So i I just wanted to clarify something.
00:58:24
Speaker
Maybe this will actually make it to the page. and and Because there's quite a quiet discussion behind the scenes about whether you were or were not the first band on top of the Pops who were unsigned at the time that you were on top of the Pops.
00:58:37
Speaker
Some people say was swayed. Some people are trying to argue that it's not true because you were signed to Chemical Underground. What is like what is the what is your story here? Let's show you this up once and for all. Well, i'll a sorry to jump in, but yeah, ah I've spoken to the people at Chemical Underground even very recently about this, the Dorgados have reformed.
00:58:57
Speaker
am And yet, we we don't know who' who said it was okay to put that on a screen because it's... It's not true, is it? It's not remotely true. um It's just a producer somewhere wanting to hype up our appearance so much that that's become that one sentence has become our legacy. So if you if you want to talk about the the music industry machinations of it, then you could absolutely argue that New Order never signed a record deal.
00:59:23
Speaker
ah we We certainly we never put pen to paper with Chemical Underground, that's for sure, but I guarantee you that and that there was many, many 80s indie bands that didn't have a formal contract ah either. so it's And what happened was that I think that made it sound like Chemical Underground was our own record label and that was a bit of a shame because we were just taking the thunder off the Dolgados.
00:59:46
Speaker
God, I wish Chemical Underground was my own record label. and And you know, even even today you've got like Ray, who's supposed supposedly self-funded, even though it's all distributed by a major. It's not the unsigned thing, isn't really a thing that is or was new even in 1996.
01:00:04
Speaker
i don't want to I don't want to get involved in a Wikipedia discussion page because I've only just realized that they exist, which is ah troubling. One, I should know that, and two, you should never have told me it. ah So I'll just wade in. It's the rabbit hole of rabbit holes. no michael Oh my goodness. mr root arguing very, very firmly about the quality of sources around things like, but were you the first unsigned band? I love of the Box.
01:00:31
Speaker
i but But the reason that i is that it's like seeing you on it as well, like as a teenager. All my friends were like stoning their heads. I didn't have any sort of indie friends. I remember watching it with them and they were all starting to handle it.
01:00:44
Speaker
It suddenly like, what's Top of the Pops has gone wrong? well What's going on? I was like, i to put that this is amazing. This is what I love about it. How did it feel for you playing of the Pops?
01:00:58
Speaker
meant So this was in the middle of us doing our first tour with the Super Furry Animals and we got the call in the middle of the tour and it was just like, what?
01:01:09
Speaker
Just completely, because we we hadn't put a single out for chart purposes or anything and it was just the producer who was a fan wanted to put our song on as an exclusive And that just doesn't happen anymore. I wish it did. I wish programs like that did exist, especially on BBC One with an audience like that. It was just stunning.
01:01:33
Speaker
So, of course, we were saying yes, and we had to cancel one gig of the that tour to do it. and But then we watched it live on TV when it aired in, was it Stoke?
01:01:46
Speaker
Yeah. Where were going in? You mean Hanley the stage? Yes. Because the Super Furries had a proper hotel with a TV in it. we We didn't have that in our hotel. So we went to their one to watch us on TV. and it was in It was a mental thing, though. I will say for the unsigned band thing, I think hope what...
01:02:08
Speaker
what the top of the pop single will be, it wasn't like a major label exclusive that like you would get, you know, it was like Chemical Underground had released two seven inch only singles and this was the first you know, records that I'd got on the radio was independently distributed by a very small distributor.
01:02:27
Speaker
So I guess from a mainstream media point of view, this is, that's as close to unsigned as you're ever going to get for And it was, and to be normally a band, you know, when when I was young and as Amanda was talking about earlier, when one of our indie bands got into the charts at number 20, you're thinking, are they going to be on top of the pops? But you had to get into the charts first to get on top of the pops. So this, this was mental, like to just to be like,
01:02:50
Speaker
this is ahead of release Radio One are playing it and it's on a tiny indie label run out of someone's bedroom in Glasgow so I get the romance of that but I actually got a little bit of a spine tingling moment there when I said that so yeah as it was it was bananas I think like I'm sure if I remember rightly the NME was kind of covering as ah But the melody maker hadn't really touched us.
01:03:14
Speaker
And then all of a sudden it was like we were on just like one of the captions on the front cover, just like this on top of the pops, what the F is going on? And so that was that was a real, it was it was our equivalent of Huggy Bear on the Word, really, you know, like in terms of our musical moments growing up, just like, whoa, that's big.
01:03:30
Speaker
And the fact like our us on top of the pops is much bigger than Huggy Bear on the Word in terms of like getting, as you say, like watching it with people who are just like, what is, what's gone wrong? You're a Snowden you can view. I was like, hey, this is um but this is for me, right? I was like, fine, this is exactly what I'm looking for.
01:03:48
Speaker
think there have been so many people like me at the time that were just like, ah, ah i was I'm a bit younger than you, though I didn't know about Huggy Bear or anything, you know, I didn't know about them. And just seeing you guys, that I was like, oh, I found my thing. This is like a yeah this is what I like.
01:04:02
Speaker
And there must have been so many people watching and thinking that, I think. And you really stood out from who else was on the show. I'm just going to get the details here. Also on the show that week was Gambriel, Techno Head, Robert Miles, and Take That with number one.
01:04:18
Speaker
mean, you were on just before they announced Take That performing as number one. I mean, there's a gap between... yeah How you perform and what you are to those other artists, right? i mean Tell you what, though, see the best song on that list is I Want to Be a Hippie if by Technohead. That is an absolute banger.
01:04:37
Speaker
Like, I can't, like, we were not the best song on that show. You cannot, you cannot, how is that on mainstream telly? That seems, yeah, us and Technohead, us and Technohead back to back all night long.
01:04:48
Speaker
They played a Beatles song as well. They must have been when they were three of the bird periods. It'll be real lovely. Oh, ah well, Beatles take that, Bess. What line-up.
01:04:59
Speaker
Yeah. Take say that was just a pre-de-cord, though. They weren't actually there. I'd like i like to have said admit oh that's right met them all, but no. We just used there their dressing room, though, yeah because their names were in the wardrobe.
01:05:12
Speaker
It was just like, that's... Again, before the days where you have a smartphone on you to take pictures of things like that, it's amazing. You could have given them a fanzine questionnaire from the film by hand, right? That would have been amazing.
01:05:25
Speaker
God, of course. But we did actually meet Gary Barlow in Japan when I got photo with him. That's in my Me With Famous People photo collection. You with famous Tories.
01:05:36
Speaker
yeah
01:05:39
Speaker
And I did think that we were an unsigned band on top of the box because it wasn't an album deal we had. So maybe that's what I maybe had in my head. You're a signed band.
01:05:49
Speaker
If it was an album you're putting out and because this was just a seven inch. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, it's really followed us around that little nugget of information. Although nobody cares and, America, nobody cares in Japan or Europe really. they they just most Most other places we ever go or have been are just like, ah, Powerpuff Girls, yeah, best Powerpuff Girls, yeah, i know that.
01:06:09
Speaker
They don't know what Candy Pop is. They might know what Eurodisco is, but most of the world has not got a first clue about Candy Pop because it wasn't even on an album. Tell us about the Powerpuff Girls thing. How did that happen then?
01:06:20
Speaker
you've got you've gone from You've got Top of the Pops, you've got your own watch, right, and then Powerpuff, Grand Royal, and then Powerpuff Girls.
01:06:33
Speaker
Yeah, I mean this is is very much a kind of like we just seem to get fans in influential places and I suppose what Eddie's saying is just like we probably were a big moment into like yeah ah you know the opening into worlds of music that people didn't wasn't weren't aware about before so they just Craig McCracken, the guy that created the Powerpuff Girls but just got in touch and was just like, please write a theme song. So again, we again we just had we had so many pieces of music cutting about. I think this that song was, I think we had the music, but we hadn't really written the words. And it's like, ah, okay, that's that's catchy. Let's just do this. So again, you don't think about it at the time. You just be like, sure, we'll be writing in cartoon theme tunes a for the rest of our life. So this one's not really that important. So and and yeah, it's just the one of the biggest things
01:07:18
Speaker
It's still one of our biggest tunes, which is insane. when we We genuinely did it in less time than it took to do Candy Pop. yeah Again, you just kind of get on and do it if you're asked to do stuff. And it reminds me of when I the Billie Eilish documentary and it showed you her getting asked to do the James Bond distinction and then you just kind of write it when they're on tour and you see them recording and it's like, you just go, go, go and you just do it.
01:07:45
Speaker
And I think, not that will ever be as big as that, but it's that same kind of mentality where you just, that's just your life, that's what you do. You don't have to worry about children, paying bills, anything at that point, no job to worry about. you That's your life. You just make music and go.
01:08:03
Speaker
I think there's still scope for a this James Bond theme song, by the way, for the next one. Well, if he's listening. To sort of and start rounding things up a bit, and we've we've covered this incredible story like that. Perhaps a couple of questions for perhaps what might have happened on an alternative timeline.
01:08:24
Speaker
So, Nigel from spinal tab said that if he hadn't, if they hadn't been successful, he'd have been a habit. So Amanda. but does so manda What do you think you might have done if you hadn't formed a band?
01:08:37
Speaker
Oh, gosh. Well, the plan was the plan was to go to uni and be a primary teacher, which is very sensible and boring. And I'd probably be out on strike for more money and things like that doing things like that.
01:08:51
Speaker
But I don't know. I really don't know. I've always liked the creative outlet. I'd love to have done in a better way like a more creative. like spelling art, doing my own things.
01:09:06
Speaker
So I don't know. I think the sensible one would be proper job, but I do don't know. I don't know. I could, some of your art on my wall, by the way. i have ah i have one of your, um I have the Blondie painting.
01:09:18
Speaker
I didn't know that. I bought it in the book. It's on my wall. i say I love your art, by the way. It's not as hard like any left. It's like a wee tiny, tiny pile now. And I'm getting so into a lot of art at the moment that I would, I could still do that.
01:09:34
Speaker
Maybe I will. Yeah, I love your art. There we go, a rekindling of a passion there, that's always good. And ah Stephen, what about you? What what would you be doing? you ah i mean, this sounds sounds ridiculous, but yeah, I mean, I worked in ah i just worked in record shops before, like I left school, I had no intentions of going to university because I just wanted to be in a band.
01:09:53
Speaker
a So alternative alternative career paths would have been um probably into senior management in their music retail. I would have thought I mean, i like I run pubs now, so like I'm in the basement of ah one of my pubs, and I suppose it's that's kind of like a natural am development from you know being in a band. is like like I mean, I don't serve behind the bar too often, but essentially you know i I still deal with the public, and that I like ah like setting the playlists for the bar.
01:10:24
Speaker
you know um We're known as kind of music-based pubs and whatnot, so I was never going to be able to stray too far from music because it was just too much of my life and I wasn't wasn't good enough at football. Although still play football. so m So I'm afraid, yeah, I think I'd probably, yeah, I would have fallen into music thing one way or another.
01:10:43
Speaker
um it' it probably would have been less so damaging overall if our band had never been picked up because I would just be managing the nice and sleazies or something and just tour managing or something like that you know and so yeah but yeah I don't have an artistic bone in my body lot not like Amanda and Eddie who can just ah do lovely pieces of art that people will spend money for I can i can barely draw my own face
01:11:08
Speaker
So that was never an option. You did the cover for the transmissions in the teensy top. Case in point. Case in point. That was you, right. Okay.
01:11:19
Speaker
No drawings. Just cutouts of like the Beano and the Dandy and then ah ah like a mother care catalogue or something. It was a Boots catalogue with a potty. ah yeah So you remember better than me.
01:11:30
Speaker
yeah No, no. what I like to give artwork ideas, but I'm not an an executioner of the art. author thought That sounds like a grim title. Executive producer, I think. Exactly, yeah.
01:11:43
Speaker
That's what I meant. Yeah, not executioner. Eddie, any final questions for you to wrap things It's our birthdays. or What are you what you're doing? you You're playing a show in Glasgow, right? And you're playing a show in London. Yeah, we're we're kind of doing bits and pieces.
01:11:56
Speaker
Fortunately we kind of have the the benefit of nobody can remember if it was late 94 or early 95 when we started playing. I think there is evidence that it's 94 so we can have a 30th birthday in 2024 and the following year. So yeah yeah we would love to do more.
01:12:12
Speaker
like ah I would it'd love to be nice and tidy and be like here's another best of anniversary edition special thing hand painted artwork but and we've We've been making up as we go along for the best part of 25 years so there's no there no like there's no reason to stop now. so yeah and thank you like You'll hear this from every band that's still active. We just really do want to make new music and and do justice to the music that we've made. so um
01:12:44
Speaker
doing a couple of festival things. We're doing a we're doing a big thing with Belle and Sebastian in Glasgow for it's like their Bowley Weekender anniversary show as well. So there's another anniversary, but that's 20 or 25 for that one.
01:12:56
Speaker
So we weren't involved in the first one, so it's quite nice to be to be playing a big festival thing in Glasgow. So we'll treat that as part of our... We'll just hijack that and treat it as our own thing.
01:13:06
Speaker
It feels like now, in 2024, that if you take your talk about your DIY aesthetic... and making it yourself. If you look at what like today's the kids are doing on TikTok, where they're putting up screenshots and inserting themselves into videos and doing things in a very lo-fi DIY way, and it's getting worldwide traction, it's almost like it's you know In some ways, this is this is the right moment for Abyss Resurgence, right?
01:13:33
Speaker
We've just seen Shed Stevnigold to number one. It does seem like there's a big resurgence of a lot of the bands that we were into when we were younger. So you get bands like Ride making a comeback, EMF, and Jesus Jones making a comeback.
01:13:47
Speaker
But I think it's always and quite cute when you see a band like yeah EMF touring and they're only doing Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays that surround their jobs. And it's like, it's still possible. I like it.
01:13:59
Speaker
It's funny talking about Shed 7 because they were kind of like my one of my enemy bands because we would, in our sleeves, like we would just like slag off bands in our like and our and her sleeve notes. Even the EPs, we'd have a piece of paper inside it that would just be like, you know, like a no entry Shed 7
Reflections on Rivalries and Shared Experiences
01:14:14
Speaker
thing. And, you know, we would be on the same TV shows and we'd be kind of like banging their doors, trying to hassle them. And now and but every time I see a Britpop documentary and it's like...
01:14:24
Speaker
it's like Ocean Colour Cena, Rick Whitter wetter or you know John Power or any of these people. I'm just like, ah, they're just such lovely people. like Why were we such why would be so horrible? Because we were the we were the they the new breed. Do know what mean? We were like, get these people away. And just like they're just honest.
01:14:40
Speaker
I might not like all of their music, but it's like they're just honest, hardworking musicians. And there's to be the hardworking musicians were the enemy when we were younger. And now I feel... I feel a lot a lot softer towards our former enemies. Because it's really, you know, it say they're just doing the same things as we are.
01:14:58
Speaker
Just trying to, like doing jobs and and still doing music because they love what they do. And if you love what you do, you should always do it. So, um yeah. I'm sorry, Rick Witter, that we ever said you were terrible.
01:15:11
Speaker
um Yeah, just as a human. if I'm sorry I said you were a bad human being. that's that's not That's unacceptable. The music is an entirely different thing.
Influence of Bands like Bikini Kill
01:15:19
Speaker
ah think one of the things that's keeping us going is the bands that we used to really love when they were smaller like ah Bikini Kill and Slater Kenny have got massive. They're playing Auto Academy and Battlelands and it's like, what where did that come from? So we're kind like half generation behind them so maybe our time's still to come.
01:15:53
Speaker
Well there we are, Eddie, that was Biss. um They were great, they were really nice people as well. but yeahs Yeah, awesome, right? We chose them because they're a band really want to speak to. And also because I thought they'd been And it turned out that they were. Yeah, they were both delightful.
01:16:09
Speaker
And they were both very forthcoming on the stories. i was I really wish I'd dug in a bit more and asked them a bit more about the Beastie Boys because of being a huge fan. and But it was almost as if the they were like me going, ha I can't believe this is happening.
01:16:23
Speaker
And I'm sitting in this Beastie Boys studio having always dreamed of being here. and And then that's just the thing that happened in my life. And I find it ah really fascinating that you can get through that point in your career And looking back and saying, oh yeah, I did that.
01:16:37
Speaker
Yeah, right. it's Yeah, it was like speaking to somebody that watched it as opposed to taking part in it a little bit. Yeah. that But like i said to them, really, right, they it changed my life, I think, sitting best on top of the pops. Like set me down a completely different path than what I've been on.
01:16:51
Speaker
I will link to that below the podcast because if you look at it in context of them being on top of the pops, just like but being introduced by the mid-90s rubbish boy band MN8 and then being followed by...
01:17:04
Speaker
take that at number one. It just seems so strange, but also so ah indicative of the time that you could put a band like BISS on mainstream TV and it was fine.
01:17:15
Speaker
yeah Yeah, but yeah it was it was it was a shock though. It was fine, but it was like, it was the beginning of all that, right? So it was like, it really was like a a reality changing, that like a shift for me. It's like, oh, what wow, what? You're allowed to do that? you're allowed to sound like this?
01:17:31
Speaker
I'd be interested, actually, to find out how many other people in your situation had the same experience of seeing that and going, oh, I can do it. Whether it's like making a fanzine, being an artist, being a painter, whatever.
01:17:42
Speaker
That DIY aesthetic and putting it on the most glossy pop show in the country, I think, had a really... definitely i mean For me, who i was ah a fan of this, perhaps not quite as big a fan as you, but I was a fan of this and I've seen them live a few times.
01:17:56
Speaker
It really did make me think, oh, you can do anything you want. but you can You can just draw your own artwork for your albums if you want. That's fine. And I think you can see from the outside, they had like their own artistic control.
01:18:09
Speaker
And I thought, that's possible. You can you know be in charge of your own records and make your own things. That's the fun bit, right? Making the T-shirts and all this kind of stuff. Yeah, fascinating stuff. So, ah thank you, a big thank you to BIS. I hope that they do more stuff and release more stuff as we go forward, as they sort of mentioned at the end.
01:18:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think there are spend them bit afterwards. Oh, really? More things coming up from BIS, I think. Well, that would be good. ah So, we will link to all the BIS stuff beneath the podcast.
Argos Catalogue Segment Introduction
01:18:36
Speaker
Eddie, before we finish, it's time for readers, listeners' letters in the section of the show we call the Argos Catalogue. Hands up, those who want the new...
01:18:47
Speaker
Argos Catalogue. So um you are, of course, welcome, if if you're listening to, send us your emails. It's eddieandjoe at iformdeband.com. And ah what ah the Argos Catalogue is about is forming over time, page by page, a picture of the man.
01:19:06
Speaker
ah So we have a more full understanding of your life and career. Our first letter is from Edith Hazlitt from Ramsbottom. She says, Dear Eddie, I have followed Art Brute on tour many times over the years, despite my advanced years and the need for a regular sit down at your shows.
01:19:23
Speaker
I'm sure you have plenty of exciting stories, though, from the tour van. So my question for you is, what is the worst smell you have ever encountered on a tour
Humorous Tour Anecdotes
01:19:31
Speaker
van? The worst smell I think...
01:19:35
Speaker
i think Oh, I think it's, oh, this is, okay. So I think that i didn't smell the worst. I think I created it, right? Okay. So I was, when we went to America for the first time, there was, had to get our visas.
01:19:50
Speaker
And near the embassy, there was there like a charity shop. I bought these amazing shoes. They said wet look on them and they were like made of foam, like like foamy stuff. And they were like, ah the waterproof bomb, they're amazing.
01:20:02
Speaker
And I love them. And put them on then. i didn't take them, I took them off to go to bed and stuff, but I wouldn't take them off otherwise. I was wearing them as shoes. ah Later, I realized they were like diving. They're like... Like snorkeling, diving, diving shoes. They weren't built for like wearing all the time.
01:20:18
Speaker
I think I loved them so much that I was not aware of how rank they smelled. Wow. And I was sharing a hotel room with Ian and Mike, I think. I took them off and they just threw them out the window immediately.
01:20:31
Speaker
And I had no shoes. Those were disgusting. like So they didn't even, there wasn't even any sort of nice sort of arm around the shoulder. Eddie, we need to talk to you about your feet. they were just gone. Yeah. It was like, what? And they're like, Eddie, they smell so bad. Why are you wearing on wetsuit boots all day long?
01:20:50
Speaker
They reek. And I was like, i just maybe I'm quite tall. but They're both nearer the ground than me. So I'm nearer my feet. But they um I just wasn't aware of it. I imagine that wetsuit shoes are waterproof both ways. yeah they It doesn't come in, but it doesn't also go out.
01:21:04
Speaker
Yeah, I just hadn't really realized. I just, don't know, and some of them with really smelly feet sort of followed me around. it's Thinking about it now, a little older, a little wiser, how long do you think that the smell was lingering in the shared spaces, in the van before? Well, I think about that a little bit. but We went, was in Canada, right? We'd already flown to America. We'd flown, it's a long flight. I think we flew to the West Coast and went the other way around. Right. So I've been on that flight, you know, where am I? Wow, wow, wow.
01:21:33
Speaker
Everyone was sort of getting further away from me. but Why do we want to sit in the front all of a sudden? But I just, yeah, it was me. i I didn't smell it. I got a very bad sense of smell, I guess. But the worst smell I created was my wetsuit shoes.
01:21:46
Speaker
Wow, I ah genuinely didn't expect that answer. and and thus And therein lies the appeal of the Argus catalog, as we peel the onion of the man, the myth, and the quasi-legend. Actually, I wore those wetsuit shoes, I must be before the talk, I wore them on top of the box in Germany.
01:22:03
Speaker
that's when That's when I found out that wear shoes. So there could be video footage of these on the internet? There's video footage of these boots on our DVD, ah which is has clips of like, on the pop side. Okay, well, we' we'll put a link to the DVD.
01:22:17
Speaker
Yeah, are we still selling DVDs? And VHS as well, maybe, perhaps as well, in the BIS style. of yeah give it a go. yeah Yeah, long playing. Transfer, reverse transfer.
01:22:27
Speaker
Transfer from DVD to VHS. That's right, yeah. Taking retro to a logical conclusion. Exactly, right, yeah. and You can put your order in for a VHS now. And I will also see if I can find a link of it on the internet for you modern people to look at as well. You can see the shoes that caused the stank. For a catalogue of answers, Argos takes care of it. Well, more Argos catalogue next time.
Episode Wrap-Up and Future Guests
01:22:50
Speaker
And, well, that's it for now. um So that was BIS.
01:22:54
Speaker
We've got a load of other good guests coming up. But from me, Joe, and you, I'm Eddie. Thanks for joining us. Tschüss. Tschüss.
01:23:09
Speaker
you