Sinister: Stuart Murdoch interview

[idleberry]

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."

'I'm Waking up to Us' is out now on Jeepster. Belle
and Sebastian appear tonight on 'Later... with Jools
Holland' at 11.35pm (BBC 2). The band play Queen
Margaret Union, Glasgow University, on 20 December and
Mandela Hall, Belfast, on 21 December 

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/interviews/story.jsp?story=107508

=====
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/corduroysmoke and the world did get covered in a thick haze of corduroy smoke. And it felt good.

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