Interview taken from HermAphrodite #9.

The Sneaker Pimps. They toured a lot, released some classy singles, went to America, put out a luvverly album, recorded a duet with Marilyn Manson, and enjoyed a fairly hefty slab of fame pie. Then it went awfully quiet.

Then their lead singer left, it was announced that their guitarist Chris Corner - who has the smallest ears in pop music - would take over on vocals, and the band kept their heads down recording their second album. Then it went awfully quiet. Again.

And now, they’ve returned. With the wake-up call of a cockerel precursing their ‘comeback single’, ‘Low Five’, an album of spider’s web songs awaiting your delectation, and ( Jo Whiley camera style-ee ) sleeve-art of angles of the singer’s head. And as they’re doing us the honour of touring during the summer months, Becca & myself thought we’d do the band the honour of being cornered for a chat. Which pretty much explains why we’re all sitting around in the back of a bus, down a rainy side-street, in overcast Manchester, on an otherwise dull day in August. There’s a little stage-door sign to my right with the band’s name on. ( Just in case. ) Liam’s trying to sleep in one of the bunks, and Joe has disappeared. Around the table we have James ( Chrissie Hynde-haired Pr Pr sweetie ), Becca, myself, pixie Chris hugging a comfort-pillow, Dave, and t’other Chris ( who isn’t in the band, but is generally useful to them ). In the middle of the table we have HermAphrodite #7. Which is a general distraction for the band to busy themselves with as I co-ordinate the dictaphone.

Dave - “This looks familiar.”

me - “That’s because it’s M.C. Escher. But it’s got mogwais on it. So it’s unique. And, um, within copyright.”

Chris - “No no, your fanzine. It’s in their house.”

Bizarre but true, ladies and gentlemen. There’s a copy in his kitchen. It’s not his copy though. It’s The Mighty Boosh’s. Who Dave has just found an interview with. Which he is finding as little peculiar. As...

Dave - “I live with Julian !”

Curiouser and curiouser. Still. Such is the incestuous nature of my exquisite good taste...

me - “Have you seen him in his little blue shorts then ?”

Becca - “Ooh.”

Dave - “Who Julian ? Yeah.”

me - “Niice.”

Dave - “It’s SHOCKING.”

They keep looking through the fanzine.

Dave - “The Mighty Boosh again !”

The number of pages I have devoted to the boys is remarked upon. I explain myself. Six pages of interview, three pages of incentive making quotes for people who haven’t heard of them. Which isn’t that much. Considering.

Becca - “You should see the Rachel Stamp pages...”

They do. They wade through them. They get to the Glastonbury review.

me - “Now you’re nearly there at yourselves. You’ve just got to get through four days of pictures...”

Becca - “Pictures of people you don’t know...”

me - “Pictures of people they might know. You see? Julian Barratt. With a hat on. Feeling his nipples.”

Becca ( giggling ) - “Go on. Do the impression.”

me - “Ooooh noo.”

Chris - “Yes.”

Dave - “Yeaaaah, do the Julian impression. ( pause ) How bizarre, sitting in Manchester watching a complete stranger do an impression of my house-mate.”

And so I do.

me - “Come on me beauties. Clamp onto a teat...”

Much laughter. I suppose you had to be there. And know Julian. Poor James...

Anyways. Then the band find themselves in the Glastonbury review. That changes the subject.

me - “Ah, now you can read the words about your own face. And music.”

Dave - “You lost that little tank-top didn’t you ?”

Chris - “It got stolen.”

We mourn the loss of the floral life-preserver.

me - “So do you think a lot about your stage-clothing ?”

Chris - “Yeah !”

me - “You felt that Glastonbury was ready for a floral waistcoat ?”

Chris - “Yeah ! And I thought it was going to be cold.”

me - “But you were in a tent with a lot of people. You weren’t planning for a lot of people ?”

Evidently not.

Becca - “You were excited - really excited...”

Chris ( grinning ) - “I was excited.”

Becca - “I could tell.”

She asks where the picture that he took of the audience has ended up.

Chris - “That picture is in someone else’s camera. Tim’s - our tour manager at the time.”

Becca - “That you took it meant that that night was really important to you, and I just wanted to check how important it was. If it was really REALLY important to you you’d have had it developed.”

( pause ) Chris - “I’d forgotten.”

Well that answers that one...

Dave - “It was all just a massive act.”

Chris - “No, it was important - it did signify a rebirth of the band.”

And then we bask in the memories of a glorious Glastonbury.

Becca - “Our first dry one.”

Dave - “We turned up with all the newspapers saying ‘Glastonbury is sunny’ on the Sunday morning and it was pissing with rain and blowing a gale.”

Becca - “Don’t lie.”

me - “It did piddle it down a little bit. ( gleefully ) During Travis, actually.”

Dave - “We turned up at eight am and at eight am it was pouring with rain.”

me - “Ah. Well we weren’t up at eight in the morning...”

So that settles that one.

And during all of this, little James is smirking. He’s never sat through one of our interviews before...

James - “I’m just admiring your interview technique - you’ve really honed it, haven’t you ?”

Sod. People never start work the second they arrive - as both Billy Conolly & Alan Davies have pointed out - my perambulatory preramble is where I’m metaphorically clearing my desk...

But now he’s said that...

I thank them for touring during the summer - a time when most bands seem to forsake their fans for the European festival circuit and the occasional London gig, seemingly forgetting that the majority of the students who make up their core fanbase will still be able to go to gigs even when they’re at home... And then ask them if they’re excited to be back on the road again...?

Chris - “We’re very excited. We’ve been off the road for about a year doing this record...”

me - “So it hasn’t lost its’ magic ?”

Chris - “It’s better this time. It feels great.”

me - “So you do still like everyone you’re with ?”

Chris - “What, this lot ?”

Becca - “Because she’s got a theory.”

Chris ( warily ) - “What ?”

me - “Well you’ve lost Kelli, and when you started off it was ‘hey look at my face I’m a pretty lady’, and then there’s your [ Chris’ ] face going ‘hey, I’m a pretty boy’, and then if you leave it’ll be Liam and then Dave going ‘heyyy’...”

Dave - “ ‘I’m not so pretty...’”

me - “And then it’s be just the drummer like Dick van Dyke doing everything going ‘look at me I’m in Mary Poppins’.”

Well, obviously this is the worst case scenario. But still. I’m worried that they’ll keep on shedding members. Because if they got rid of Kelli because they didn’t like the way the media focused attention on her ( she might be female but she’s not the heart of the band ), why then move Chris into a similar position ?

me - “Why do you feel you have to have a front-person ? Now it’s your picture that’s all over the sleeve-art, posters, videos...”

Chris - “I know it is. It was a deliberate thing.”

So there is a plan behind it ?

Dave - “We thought it was quite a laff to do that.”

Maybe not.

Dave - “The whole point was that we never wanted Kelli to be put across as the central character. But she was. All the time. And so this time round we just thought ‘ah fuck it, we’ll do the central character thing...’”

Becca - “But if that method didn’t work last time, why are you doing it again ?”

Dave - “Because she wasn’t the person who wrote the music, she wasn’t the central character. ( he pauses, enunciating carefully ) She was a fake central character. Now we have a proper central person who’s written all the songs and sings them.”

But they could have taken the opportunity to put forward a ‘united’ band front with this comeback, for them all to be visible...

Chris - “But sometimes that dilutes the picture.”

Dave - “Taking a picture of four people is a nightmare.”

Chris - “Filming a video with four people is a nightmare.”

But all that is fairly inconsequential to the point they’re trying to make. And that is a faith / conviction in their new man.

Dave - “We felt we had to make a point of this new person singing.”

But this current situation does make the rest of the band seem, well, almost faceless.

They’d rather see themselves as integral background players.

Dave - “Everyone was going to be looking for ‘who’s the new singer ?’ So that’s why a lot of the artwork is just a tease - the back of his head, or his chin, or whatever...”

Chris - “The next video should have the whole band in it.”

me [ to Dave ] - “But don’t you want to have your face all over the place too...?”

Dave - “Yeah, very much so. But... For the first bit, we’re going to put Chris at the front. So people can see what this new singer looks like. Then, they can... work out what we look like in the background. ( pause ) We all want to be famous. Visible. Noticed. Recognised. Whatever. We think about these things a lot, but we decided the best thing to do was to replace something that was visibly quite important with something else that was visibly quite important. The four of us would be too diluting.”

But that leaves Chris with all the media focus and pressures.

me - “Didn’t you want to share out those responsibilities ? It makes YOU look as though you’re the only one with the voice of the band...”

Dave - “It’s always going to be the case that in an interview they’re going to want to talk to the singer, even if we pushed Chris to the back.”

Becca - “Keep him back, gave him sing at the back.”

Chris - “And you drum at the front.”

Becca - “Yeah, why not ?”

Chris - “We used to do that.”

Dave - “Yeah, we want to do that. ( happily ) We want me at the front... Yeah, next time we do Top Of The Pops. It’ll be just like the Bay City Rollers in the 70’s.”

But um, just with the band’s positioning. Thankfully.

me - “Or you could do the Dick van Dyke thing of putting the bass drum on your back and just wander around in front of him. Geeing up the audience...”

Heh-heh.

And then we digress off onto Monty Python’s fantabulous stage-presence, and the under-used possibilities of roller-skates in rock. And then back to the interview in hand...

>>> Part 2

Last revised: 26/07/01