Interview taken from HermAphrodite #1.

We didn’t just stick with the profound questions all evening you know. It’s just that conversation kept lapsing back that way. Colds induce a melancholic atmosphere. And maybe more prickly responses to that fanzine writer ( oh, let’s just call him Mavis )’s questions than he would have otherwise been faced with.

I still can’t explain the Alanis Morissette conversation away though.

Even listening back to the tape of our conversation, it’s unclear how that one started.

I’d listen to her if I wished all thoughts to be wiped from my head - her music is highly suited to that end. Yet David, who has her album, does not have that reason in mind when listening to it.

‘I’ll be a muso for a second and say that it’s excellent production - it’s got a really nice sound to it. It sounds good on my hi-fi, turned up loud. I think she’s got a big voice, and I like big voices. I like vocal gymnastics for the sake of it.’

Not Whitney Houston. Uh-uh.

‘Totally without any imagination whatsoever. Whitney Houston just pisses me off. A terrible terrible waste of a brilliant voice. She does the same thing over and over again.’

‘What can save her?’

‘Imagination.’

Though David is prepared to be gracious. He does not wish her dead.

‘No, people like it don’t they, they buy it. You’ve got to have everybody’s tastes catered for.’

Yes.

So just who’s tastes are The Bigger The God catering for? Hmm... Just about everybody’s, it would appear. Musical pick’n’mix, dealings in all the universal issues; desperate love, betrayal, incest, alienation, Dannii Minogue. The little things which make life. And save you from monotony...

When I arrive, the band are in the bar staring at the remainder of their tea. Chilli is puddled on the table. Looking at the mess of greasy chips, David is explaining how he prefers his to be bigger, less likely to leave a residue, and with the skins still on.

As Steve astutely pointed out, as potatoes really.

The Bigger The God had spent most of the afternoon in the pub, and were preparing that evening to drive home, ( to Oxford ) before the next day’s gig. And they’d do the same thing on the next night of the tour. And the next. I asked David just how monotonous they all find it - the ‘inbetween-stage-time’. Boring?

‘Intensely.’

He thinks about it some more.

‘I’m not too bad with it - it’s quite nice for me cos I don’t get out of the house very much... I don’t go out, I don’t socialise - this is when I get out. When I’m not on tour I just sit at home, listen to music, watch telly, go for walks on my own.’

Lovely. If that’s what makes you happy.

‘No. I’m not happy.’

And doing ‘this’ ( expansive gesture ) isn’t enough to make him happy.

‘There’s not many people here.’

The music itself, the singing is what makes the night for him.

‘If I sing well tonight I shall enjoy it. But I probably won’t because I’ve got a bit of a cold. I love to sing - and when I do it well it feels good. But a lot of the time I don’t like my voice at all.’ ( pauses, considering )

‘It’s getting a bit heavy and profound, isn’t it...?’

Yup. Ah well.

‘Enjoying the band is entirely dependent on my performance. It is nice when you kind of influence and move people, and become important to them in some way - there are some people who’ve got our album and it is quite special to them; that’s lovely, really lovely. But I work really hard on singing - I have no natural ability whatsoever; everything I can do I’ve learnt by sheer bloody hard work. And I’m not great, but I am more than a pub singer, if you know what I mean. So I am kind of proud of that - it’s what I’m doing it for. If somebody comes up to me after a gig and says great voice, then that’s made it for me.’

But he’s not just with TBTG to connect to people.

‘No, I did this anyway. It’s not about communication. It’s about singing. I just like music.’

Well yeah. Music is something that he has always been involved in. David did used to play drums, but graded himself forward to being the singer. And although he does appear to be quite a self-sufficient bunny;

‘I need to be centre of attention. So everything I’ve said about being in a band has been lies. ( he starts grinning happily ) A big part of it is that I want loads of people staring at me, thinking I’m great; I just can’t get enough of it.’

But that side of his personality only seems to come out onstage.

For the most part, he is a fairly reclusive figure.

And as such, appears set to destroy my ‘Spice Girls’ theory - that everyone in the country has a story to tell about them, whether in relation to themselves or a person they know.

‘I know very few people. So I’m statistically less likely to be one of the ones.’

Though it is established that one of his circle almost certainly could be. And besides;

‘I can’t prove or disprove any theory. I don’t think theories can be proved or disproved.’

‘So it’s just in your own head?’

‘Yeah, everything is. All life, all experience is subjective. You never climb out of your own head to verify whether what you’re experiencing is really there.’

Sound. Though this is the man who was able to ruin my theory of ‘all you need to survive forever is a pen-knife, gaffer tape and a lighter’ by gently pointing out the what-ifs of the lighter fuel running out.

( And the worst of it was that that hadn’t even occurred to me. Some things I just think will be with me forever. I don’t like the idea of finite. )

One of the last questions I asked was who the ‘bestest’ person he’s met / knows is.

‘People are great for different reasons though.’

And there isn’t any one person David can find to name. No Obi-Wan Kenobis for this man.

‘Not that I’ve met, no. I know some people who excite me a great deal, who I think are special people;

And of those he then goes on to describe, all are girls. They’re the ones he gets on best with. Admittedly.

‘I don’t get on with boys very well.’

Yet he’s been in this boy-only-band for seven years, and they do all appear to have grown to each other. Although by this point in the evening they have all run off on him, leaving just the two of us in the bar. But they have, one presumes, just gone to watch the support band and get ready themselves, rather than all gleefully piling into the back of the van and leaving David to sing all by himself...

‘They’ve gotten used to me. And I’ve gotten used to them. But I find men difficult - and they find me difficult. I make them nervous and uncomfortable. But that’s okay, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t relate to them very well, we don’t click very often.’

He doesn’t shy from it. Having painted his nails a ravishing purple - in the bar where my arrival put the ratio of women to men up to one to ten - David sings barefoot that evening in his lovely satin skirt ( the one with the graceful flowers ). But with this he isn’t moving towards a deliberate ‘twisting of your sexual preconceptions’ as Brian Molko is with his kohl liner - nobody would mistake David for a woman. I think that his wearing of a skirt is just something he likes doing ( and it does suit him ) - as well as being an Izzard-esque statement about total clothing rights; women can wear men’s clothes, no problem, so the same ought to be true the other way around... Maybe he likes the attention it gets him. Whatever. I didn’t ask him about it though, I just accepted it, so he may have multiple reasons not stated here. ( He takes a size 10 from the waist down, if you’re interested. )

Some abusive audience members over this tour have proven to have some problems with his stage-attire. But he’s still wearing it. And has been known to go onstage in one of the band’s skinny pink goddess t-shirts. In which he almost certainly receives more ‘hassle’ than I do wearing mine...

But then that’s one part of what makes them special. Because at the other end of the spectrum we find those persons content to go onstage looking like their audience. Or a bus queue. And I know my music tastes don’t lean that way... I need my bands to be a little bit different from the everyday...

But not to be looking like they’re Peter Andre.

Once upon a time, TBTG were supported by a band in London whose lead singer had oiled his chest before roaring onstage, and then had shirt unbuttoned to reveal his slick, toned stomach. David had then come onstage and felt bound to reassure the audience that they would not be confronted by either of his nipples that evening...

I love it.

I love them.

Perverse but not perverted, I think is the message here.

But then you can find that for yourself in the music.

Last revised: 26/07/01