INTERVIEW: Nick Heyward (in London)
- Joe Silva
It's one of the few truly pleasant days the heavens have chosen to bestow upon me during my hurried summer trip to the U.K. The temperatures are somewhere in the upper 70's, the cold drizzle has gone off to bother Scotland and the world is actually beginning to resemble something of the July day it actually is. Tucked away down an odd London side street - that's a mix of car repair shops and warehouses is BJG studios. Without even a hint of pop fanfare, you could pass its doors all day and not take too much notice of what might be going on behind its threshold. But it's bigtime stuff to be sure. Dozen of CD sleeves hang in the hallways as testaments to the work that's gone on here. The last Orb record was done here, and from the talk inside the studio, I've just missed Jarvis Cocker by some 24 hours.
But as I arrive at the doors, a muscular, bespectacled fellow is right at my heels as I tap the entry buzzer. It turns out not to be security, but somewhat unrecognizably the person I'd come to see. The last time I saw Nick Heyward close-up he was when he was just turning 21 and was the buzz of the pop realm. It was the heyday of Haircut 100's 1982 Pelican West tour, and Nick had just emerged from a limo to sign what autographs he could through the fence that stood between him and a crush of young girls. But the fellow pushing little slips of paper through the chainlink is slighter and seemingly more inhibited than the man before me now who's cheery and packs an ultra-firm handshake.
Once we are led to the studio kitchen by Nick's frighteningly amiable manager, we settle down for a chat. Nick, who used the same stylist as Pulp for the publicity shots for his latest LP, The Apple Bed , still bears some of the Cocker demeanor in terms of clothes and squared glasses. Oddly enough the spectre of Jarvis' visit here yesterday lingers on the table by way of a magazine cover he happens to be gracing that month.
Consumable: Did you record the new record here?
Nick Heyward: NO, no...I wish. I will be doing the next one (here) definitely. But that was Creation really. They wouldn't be in a place like this. It's more like Do it in your mum's house."
C.O.: Really?! Aren't they one of the biggest indie labels in the country?
N.H.: Precisely. (pauses) Ha ha ha ha!! But that's the indie mentality, innit it? In Britain. Not in America though. In America "alternative" doesn't really mean cheap. And it's actually quite professional. (Shirley Manson-led) Garbage are alternative, aren't they? and I don't see them going in a garage and recording.
C.O.: The first time I saw you, you were touring this record (holding up Pelican West ) and playing on a big pier in New York City.
N.H.: Oh yes! The pier. I remember. With this enormous battleship. That was a really good night. It was a lot slower than we'd normally done because we couldn't find Blair (Cunningham, drummer) for some reason. We'd found him last minute and he was very relaxed. Whatever he'd been doing, he was very very chilled out.
C.O.: That would have been what year?
N.H.: 82.
C.O.: I think you guys had just done American Bandstand. What did you think of Dick Clark?
N.H.: Yeah, American Bandstand and Solid Gold. I thought we were literally the Beatles and this was Ed Sullivan. All those tiny aspects were being lived around that time. You'd stand at the fence and there'd be barbed wire and lots of girls on the other side. Or you're in a limousine with people banging on the windows and you'd think Yep, I've seen this in Help!' It was just a great experience. I'm surprised we'd lived through that.
C.O.: Now you were raised in Beckenham, weren't you? Is that a London suburb?
N.H.: Yeah, South London really.
C.O.: In your videos though, you've always looked the English country gent?
N.H.: That's just me wanting to look like that really. My upbringing was really more Get Carter.' I lived in pubs in London with my Mum and Dad.
C.O.: Can you tell me about the songwriting process that went into this record? Seems like there's a lot more up front guitar on this one?
N.H.: It took me two weeks to record this album. And those two weeks were quite a long time ago. There was loud guitar music everywhere and one thing wrong with being a songwriter is that at any particular time, you're influenced by anything that's going on. I recorded it and I did it that way, and a lot of songs I regretted quite soon after. It was like a photograph of the two weeks during that time. And I've never had to do an album in two weeks before, but that's the Creation thing. When I did it, I said to them that I sort of have to fiddle with it, but they said 'No, that's it. It's finished. We'll put it out next year.' That album reminds me of a Polaroid taken at that particular time. So some of them got the overdubbed guitars and some of them didn't. And I think the ones that benefit definitely are the ones that didn't.
C.O.: That's interesting, because I think you're one of the first musicians of your generation that I've talked to in a long time who keeps up with what's current.
N.H.: Yeah, I do. I don't watch telly, I listen to music. I listen to everything from the past through to the now and on to the demos of the future.
C.O.: A lot of musicians tend to isolate themselves.
N.H.: They do and then they get stuck in a year and champion it. Then they end up being that year. It's a shame. Then you have to wait for your time to come around (again) like Echo and the Bunnymen, and wait fifteen years. Simple Minds will have to wait a long time (laughs)!!
C.O.: So how have the singles and the album done over here?
N.H.: Commercially...terribly. They didn't get played by any radio stations at all. And I'm not just saying one or two, I mean (absolutely) none. It was just amazingly ignored...completely. Which I found slightly, ironically warming. I thought 'Well if it had come out and not done very well, it would have been okay.' But this came out and didn't do anything. And that had a lot to do with being on Creation. It was such a wrong place for me, that it became very apparent when it was put out because nobody knew, or would listen to the record for its own merit. It's almost like Creation is bigger than the acts on (the label). Everybody has a pre-conceived notion about Creation acts. If not, why are bands like Teenage Fanclub, who I think should be bigger than...uh..
C.O.: Oasis?
N.H.: No, than R.E.M. It's like Grand Prix is a really gifted album. And for it to be kind of a cute indie record here is a crying shame. It's just a lovely, beautiful record. And there's lots of things like that on Creation. They can spot things, like Super Furry Animals, but there is this preconceived idea. An the indie market here is really narrow. They've got these kind of Punk ethics. And that was what, twenty years ago. It's like walking around, dressed like a Mod. It's just very odd. And so, I had to be sold through that. And I'm never ever going to go through that (again). The way I look at, I like the word popular as in Pop music, but where the credibility is when it comes to me is when your enormously successful like ABBA. They are credible for me. A band that just sells 20,000 records and then disappears or does some gig at Glastonbury, and is alright one minute and then crap the next, that's not credibility to me. That's shit. Boring. And I was in that market. I'm never going to feel comfortable in that.
C.O.: So this was your last record with them?
N.H.: Yeah, we're on good terms, but it wasn't probably worth doing again. There does come a time when you think Yeah, is there a point to this?'
C.O.: Considering what you said about this being sort of like a snapshot, have you been doing a lot of work since?
N.H.: Yeah, I've just started. I don't want to pigeon-hole myself into a singer, songwriter, solo artist in that way. I've started to write and produce with people. I really do find that nurturing. It's a pleasurable experience. Not just with anyone, but I've been working with Mark Owen who used to be in Take That. And he did an album last year called Green Man with (producer) John Leckie. Really good album and I've been working with him. A real juxtaposition of people, and I've been learning from everyone. And I'd like to start up my own record company and really start off from the basics that everybody seems to forget, which is songwriting. I'd like to gather just some really naturally gifted songwriters.
C.O.: Isn't that tricky in this day and age?
N.H.: What I mean is I'd rather be a Burt Bacharach figure, where if I did gigs there'd be other people there singing the songs. I just don't want to promote myself as an artist if you like. I've been writing loads and loads of songs and I want to feed them out and produce artists. But I have to do that from a center. There has to be a structure. It has to be from a company that has an image, that has a name.
C.O.: When do you envision this getting in motion?
N.H.: Oh, it's in motion now.
C.O.: Now you've been married and have children. Just out of curiosity, do you see anything else that's been an influence on these earlier records that doesn't necessarily hang with you now in terms of the new album?
N.H.: Well, I just see those records and they are just snapshots of what you're going through at that time lyrically. Now I've just started the second period of my life. The glorious second half!
C.O.: Did you do the arrangements for this record?
N.H.: Yeah, I just get the musicians in and sing it to them. I'm not musically trained and I never want to know. I know enough to get by and not get intimidated in the studio. I've always thought that when people get too musically trained, they don't experiment enough. So I'm very wary of that. I want to stay enthusiastic about music the whole time. It's almost like shutting your eyes and letting it travel through you. You're doing something that's creative. You're not doing something that's been done before. I really don't think all the best has gone before. I do see stunning stuff, but I want to be inspired by the past. Up until now I hadn't really seen that and I'd just taken from the past.
C.O.: Well what inspirations do you see in the Haircut stuff? At the time it seemed to come very much out of nowhere.
N.H.: Well that's good because that's a band. So naturally you have six different influences in that.
C.O.: But as far as the songwriting, the influences aren't really obvious.
N.H.: I did take in this sort of Beatles/Talking Heads kind of thing. All of us were into what was going on at the time. There was this Brit-funk thing going on. That and Earth, Wind, and Fire. They were the Gods at the moment. More so with Les (Nemes, bass). And he's still really into dance and R&B. And then you had Mark (Fox, percussion), who was into Kraftwerk and Brazilian percussion. Phil (Smith, horns) was into Tower of Power. And Graham (Jones, guitar) was into the Clash. And Blair was into Kool and the Gang and Al Green. So bring it all together...and that's what I do like about bands. I've suddenly realized that left to my own devices I'll try to re-make Revolver every time. But I want to push myself next time. I sort of use Revolver now as a template for songs and not for the sounds. I like many different things and I want to use many different things. You've just got to write the best songs you can possibly write and later think about how you're going to record them.
