Hi lovely sinistereens! As some of the listees have asked to me and I believe I must do it I have translated the interview with Stuart to English. I hope all you will be able to understand it because I’m sure there are many translation mistakes in it as my English is very bad... Obviously, the words I have translated are not exactly the same that Stuart wrote. I’m sorry about that and also about that fact that I should have translated it to English the first time I posted it. I have been a naughty girl... If you don’t understand something or if you have any doubts, please e-mail me and I’ll try to help you. Love to all you, maria ________________________________________________________________________ INTERVIEW WITH BELLE & SEBASTIAN Although their first record ‘Tigermilk` is from 1996 now with ‘Fold your hands, child, you walk like a peasant', their forth album, they have become popular (into their arguable elitist circle). They were formed in Glasgow in 1995, they have upheld their privacy and their provincial condition as well, that hasn’t avoid that their songs and their ‘naif` vision of pop, in addition to the small fondness they have towards the press and the big shows, make them deserving of an exclusiveness atmosphere, even of snobism. This mask was blurred by our as Stuart Murdoch (singer and leader of B & S) replied via e-mail all of our questions that our brilliant editor Sergio Vinade, and although he was a bit a quick-tempered person, he knew how to use his developed British arrogance with good humour. Their new record is a masterpiece of pop and in it the world breathes far away from the stress and the showy pretension that Belle & Sebastian claim. Here it is the best pop band of the new millenium... What are your pretensions about your new album, taking into account the high level you have already reached in your previous records? We haven’t got pretensions, just hopes. When we are in the studio we require a lot to ourselves, but in the moment when the songs are recorded, the fact is out of us. Obviously, I hope it will sell millions, but depends on the public. I easily think that it’s our best record. Maybe this is the first time since ‘Tigermilk` that we feel we have made everything we have planned. Are you a group of friends that make what you really like or are you taking your carreer in a more professional way? Your records still sound ‘amateur` and professional at the same time. I believe we are in the middle of the territory. We are friends but most of us were it before joining the band. Obviously we are in a way a band with an exclusive dedication, but not always. Possibly we recorded the album in a more professional way but we haven’t decided it to be like this. We are always used to working that way. It’s offensive that people think that the record sounds ‘home-made’. We haven’t spent 18 months in the studio to make a ‘home-made’ record. Lyrically the record may have some ‘naif’ contents, but I can’t stand with anybody claming that musically we sound like amateurs. What bands were your predecessors in the way you consider pop music? Which artist are you more indentified with at the moment? The Beatles and The Beach Boys are the predecessors of everybody in the world of pop. The are the original. The wrote the rules and they broke all of them. In fact I don’t know if we particularly feel close to anybody. We like the music of some people. Some times I believe we are similar to The Beta Band, because we both seem to fuck people to do the things that we enjoy. I can’t understand why somebody goes over this fact in his mind. We just live our life and we don’t bore anybody unless they want to. How do you organize the order of the songs in your records? Why have you left a jewel like ‘There is too much love’ at the end of the album? That’s a stupid question. Are we supposed to write a filthy song to not to finish the album with a good one? As for me, any of the songs of the album is a jewel so that it wouldn’t be easy to avoid that the last song of our record were it too. Somebody will tell you that it’s very important that a records finish okay. We organize the song listening to all of the themes in different orders until we find the best way. Obviously the opinions are different but if anybody shows a strong feeling against one of the combinations, we are used to admitting it and doing it that way. What do you know about Spain, do you know anything about the Spanish music and culture? I’ve been in Spain a couple of times and I’ve enjoyed them a lot. I don’t know anything about Spanish music but I like Spanish football. Except of you were shit against Norway. Should I change my mind about your football? (Belle & Sebastian replied to Linaceroexpress the day after the ‘glorious’ debut of the Spanish Team in the last Eurocup). Are you going to give soon any concerts in Spain? I think it will be at the end of the year, when we’ll be ready, but I know we must visit Spain soon because it’s a while since we last played in there. How would you .like to be remembered? What kind of image would you like to show to the people who buys your records? Only like a band who makes splendid records. It sounds boring but that’s the aim when you are in a band. Tell us something about your record company ‘Jeepster’, which is their philosophy and the forthcoming projects... If there is a philosophy in Jeepster it’s just singing up bands and make records that we have fully faith in. That’s the reason why we relatively have a small number of bands and we don’t usually have to put a fight against other companies. We have a couple of possible singing-up at the moment but we are not going to do anything until we are absolutely confident about them. At the same time of these projects we will publish new stuff of Snow Patrol, The Gentle Waves and Salako in the autumn and perhaps another E.P. of Belle & Sebastian. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+