Sinister: In other news...

[Gardiner, Stuart]

OK, to show that I'm really bored at work today... Here's the article from
the Independent...

Big Stu

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Belle and Sebastian: Scots of the arch antics

Forget Travis: Belle and Sebastian are your real sensitive indie band - they
just aren't quite as famous. As Stuart Murdoch tells Fiona Sturges, it
wasn't all about the limelight

30 November 2001
When Belle and Sebastian released their first album, Tigermilk, in 1996,
Travis were still trawling London's toilet venues, Coldplay were at
university and Starsailor didn't exist. Since then, sad, sensitive bands
have become hard to avoid. Yet Belle and Sebastian, who are probably the
saddest and most sensitive of them all, have yet to reach the dizzying
commercial heights of their peers.

I meet Stuart Murdoch, the band's singer and chief songwriter, fresh off the
plane from Japan, where they've been on tour. When I say "fresh", I mean
just that. Tidily dressed in a black polo neck, he looks unfeasibly alert.
He's full of stories from Japan - about how he stood in the street during an
earth tremor, watching people go about their business as if nothing was
happening, and how, with true Japanese hospitality, the band were treated
like kings.
He's a serious-minded and circumspect individual - he doesn't laugh much -
but he's still good company. When I ask if he feels Belle and Sebastian have
anything in common with Travis and Coldplay, he replies: "Well, we all have
a crack at a tune." He pauses for a while, then continues: "I feel very
lucky; I'm quite happy with my group. In fact right at this minute I've
never been happier and I think we'll give them all a run for their money
now. We'll give anybody a run for their money with the way we're playing."

You have to admire his optimism. The fact is that Belle and Sebastian have
always been better, avoiding the empty emoting and formal rock structures of
Travis in favour of a more subtle and pastoral sound. Songs such as "Fox in
the Snow" and "The Boy with the Arab Strap" set flutes and shimmering
strings alongside Murdoch's fragile vocals and splashes of acoustic guitar.

The band, who come from Glasgow, have eight members, none of whom is called
Belle or Sebastian. When they go on tour, the numbers can reach 13 with the
extra fiddlers and flautists. Murdoch is brimming with confidence about
their live performances: "Playing live's been a bit of a pain in the past. I
know we've sounded awful. But we're very organised now. We're learning all
the time, but it's going like a dream."

Still, it seems the recording process hasn't become any easier. Murdoch says
he came "close to a nervous breakdown" last year while trying to finish
their fourth album, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant. The
recording of their latest single, "I'm Waking up to Us" - a fabulously
embittered song about a dissolving relationship - didn't exactly go off
without a hitch either. They hired Mike Hurst, whose previous credits
include Petula Clark and Cat Stevens, as producer. "He's a great guy but he
didn't deliver the finished product," Murdoch explains. "We had to work very
hard afterwards to polish it up. We really need a catalyst, someone who can
harness the creative chaos of the group. I suppose we're dreaming of a
George Martin figure, but it's not going to happen."

If Belle and Sebastian were ever to reach the levels of fame that Travis
have achieved, you wonder whether they would cope. In their early days, the
band were pathologically publicity-shy. For a long time they wouldn't have
their photographs taken, going so far as to stick pictures of their friends
on their albums' sleeves, instead of their own. Murdoch avoided giving
interviews, leaving the talking to other members of the band.

"We didn't quite push away the limelight, as that suggests we weren't
looking for it in the first place," he states. "But we weren't interested in
that side of things either. There were other things to be getting on with.
The band was developing, and for a lot of the time we were in a real mess."

Does he feel like an outsider?

"Yes - but then it's very easy to be on the outside where British music is
concerned. If you're just yourself and you don't bow to the demands of the
press and the music industry, then you're bound to be seen as an outsider."

They're certainly a hard-working lot. They've made four albums in five
years, as well as a handful of EPs, and there are any number of Belle and
Sebastian side-projects - the Gentle Waves, Snow Patrol and V-Twin, to name
just a few. The band were also the brains behind the Bowlie Weekender, the
springtime festival held at Pontin's Holiday Camp in Camber Sands, which
later spawned All Tomorrow's Parties. More recently, there's their somewhat
controversial contribution to Todd Solondz's latest film, Storytelling.

At the mention of Solondz, Murdoch becomes visibly irritated. "To tell you
the truth, it almost isn't worth it, what we did. We had lots of ideas, and
Todd used very little at the end. I know he was having a really hard time
finishing the film, but it was very disappointing for us. I'd really think
hard about getting involved in something like that again."

Murdoch's musical aspirations arrived late in life. Whereas most musicians
spend their adolescence listening to John Peel in their bedrooms, Murdoch
preferred being outdoors and, for a while, harboured dreams of being a
runner. In the end, he says, he just wasn't good enough.

After school, he tried a variety of jobs: as a caretaker, a farm-hand and -
this one's hard to imagine - a barman at Butlins. He didn't even start
writing songs until he was 23.

Murdoch and Stuart David, the band's bass-player, met on a youth opportunity
scheme. "It was something the Tories cooked up to get you off the unemployed
list," recalls Murdoch. "We were learning to be musical engineers or
something like that." The pair then moved on to do a media business course
at Glasgow's Stow college, set up by the part-time producer Alan Rankine.
Every year he helped a group of students to make a record, usually a single,
and put it out on the college label, Electric Honey. On recognising Murdoch
and David's talent, he made an exception and allowed them to make a whole
album.
"We had to do it quickly," Murdoch remembers. "In three months we had to get
a full band together and make a proper record. We ended up recording it in
just a few days. Obviously, we had luck on our side."

That record was Tigermilk. A thousand copies were released at the time -
original copies now change hands for up to £400 - though, two years ago,
because of popular demand, the record was re-released.

It was with "3.. 6.. 9.. Seconds of Light", the third in a trio of EPs
released in 1997, that Belle and Sebastian finally troubled the charts,
albeit at No 31. Greater success came with their 1998 album The Boy with the
Arab Strap, which reached No 12. Just last year they played on Top of the
Pops and performed a show at the Albert Hall. Those are landmark events in
the lives of most bands, although Murdoch, as usual, is underwhelmed.
Then, of course, there was the notorious Brit award. Belle and Sebastian
bagged the best newcomer prize in 1998, to the outrage of the other
nominees. Rumour has it that Pete Waterman, the man behind Steps, called for
a re-count.

"I didn't pay much attention," says Murdoch. "I certainly didn't know what a
big deal it was until after we had got it. But I remember, we were recording
in the studio the day after. All these television crews were coming in and
out - the BBC, ITV, the lot. After we'd finished in the studio we bought a
newspaper. Suddenly we were front-page news in the tabloids - one of them
said "Scots Band Cheat At Brits" or something like that. At first we were
really angry but later we saw the funny side."

Then he adds, with a sly smile: "Let's face it, it's probably the first and
last time we'll ever be on the front page of a newspaper."
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