I caught up with Lyndon and Corrin from Welsh band SONGDOG on their recent support to the Go-Betweens. After watching them play a tight but somewhat aloof set to the half-interested punters in the Acadamy 2 at Birmingham, we sat down for a quiet chat:
WH - Your records are quite downbeat, miserable even, yet here you are on tour with the Go-Betweens and with a new album out on a new label - does life feel any better at the moment?
Lyndon - I'm not as unhappy as the lyrics may indicate - when I write I naturally find myself turning melancholy, even if I'm having a great day, so there isn't necessarily a correlation between how grim the words can get and how I'm feeling day-to-day..
WH - I'm glad we did this after the show, because I get to ask you about playing live as well as the record - you reproduce your sound fairly faithfully, are you happy with the way it went tonight?
Lyndon - Yes, we are. Obviously some of the orchestral sounds on the record get left out, although tomorrow we're playing in London and we have a bit more room, we're using a string bass player..
WH - Do you find it hard to play your kind of quiet music in a live environment?
L - The danger is that, like in Glasgow two nights ago, if the audience are talking too much its almost like playing in the corner of a disco! You need people's respect and compliance - tonight's audience was pretty good, they seemed to be listening.
WH - Do you have a Plan B if it's all going wrong?
L - No, I just insult them.. Although in general the tour's been well received..
WH - You're following in an American songwriting tradition really, do you feel that your origins go against you? Would an American accent help further your career?
L - Maybe, but everyone talks about how evocative American place names sound and how mundane English names sound, I'm trying to make it my mission to do something about it..I'm from South Wales, Blackwood, and a lot of the songs, a lot of the place names are from that area, I deliberately don't write songs about San Hose or whatever (a little dig at the likes of the Thrills maybe?)..
WH - There are quite a few references to having sex in your material, do you do a lot of that?
L - I have done, but I'm very old now, no one offers me sex anymore! I'm hoping fame will change all that..(laughs) - its all done on memory..!
WH - The first song on your album "One day when God begs my forgiveness" - sounds like a similar theme to Morrissey's "I have Forgiven Jesus"- I take it your not a religious person yourself, do you think its about time that we started giving God a harder time?
L - Growing up in Wales, my grand parents, my parents were quite religious, you're made to go to Sunday school.. Obviously a lot of the imagery from the bible is fantastic poetry, regardless of the subject matter - I loath the influence that religion has on the world in general, but I suppose growing up Welsh in the era we did, it gets into everything
WH - does it motivate your writing a lot then?
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L - Yes, I think God probably crops up as often as sex does! Its probably just that sex is a conscious reference, I'm thinking about it a lot - whereas a lot of the religious stuff is more sub-conscious, it creeps in through the back door!
Corrin - I think a lot of Lyndon's work is very spiritual..
WH - What would be a good result for this album?
L - Basically to get more attention than the last one! Just keep progressing really, we've signed to One Little Indian for another two albums if they want them - but Whatever happens, we'll keep making records because that's what we do..
WH - Your press release talks a lot about art in music and the movement which has gone on to distance the two - tell us a bit more about your thoughts on that..
L - I'm not a great believer in this idea that rock music is cool because its disposable, its chewing gum - enjoy it then throw it away - I think when you write music you should strive to endure, like a great writer or painter. All the great rock music that I value is on the same level as any other art forms - when I try to write a song, I try to write it as if its forever (although i'm not claiming that any of our stuff will live beyond tomorrow..) I wouldn't be happy just stringing together a cliched set of chords, saying this'll be energetic and get people's rocks off tonight...
WH - Can you think of anyone in particular that has perpetrated that music/art divide?
L - I guess some of those punk bands deliberately tried to be anti-art, you know "fuck art, lets dance" - although ironically time has proved that some of that stuff, the Clash for example, has artistic merit..
WH - Mick Jones and Paul Simonen went to art school..
L - Well they'll tell you they went there to scive, but some of the art probably rubbed off on them anyway.. (Songdog clearly have a deep respect for the Clash, even though their music is worlds apart - in fact the new album features a version of Janie Jones). But for me if I could create a record as powerful as mid-period Joni Mitchell, or Leonard Cohen, Tom Waites, I'd die happy..
And with that I left them to pack up and journey on to London. I'm still not convinced about Songdog, there's plenty in their music that I like, but sometimes it all seems a bit too contrived - however, I have to say that Lyndon seemed like a nice guy, and he obviously knows his music, so good luck to them...
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