Sinister: Look at me, I'm on TV...

[Gardiner, Stuart]

[This message edited on request from the author and Banchory Management]

Well, as some of you may be aware, I spent two days last week in the company
of a certain band. Sorry if anyone's jealous, I just got lucky...
Anyway, here's some mammoth Reporting Back for you!

Chapter 1: Thursday morning, 13th February. Way too early in the morning.

The flight Katrina booked me onto left East Midlands airport at ten past
seven. So I'm half asleep when I get to Glasgow and am introduced to Blair,
who is producing the DVD. Still, it could be worse - Sarah's had no sleep at
all on an overnight flight from New York. So we're both delighted to be
filmed walking across the airport car park, and interviewed about our
history of B&S fandom on the drive into town (well, once we've managed to
find our way out of the car park at least). After coming out with some
vaguely coherent answers, we get to the hotel in the middle of the city. Of
course, it's still too early to get into our rooms, so a healthy (?)
breakfast is called for, while we talk about what the next couple of days
has in store; the first surprise comes when we are told that Stuart M wants
to be interviewed in the bath... Our cameraman, Jim, and director, Blair, go
out to film some background shots of the city, and Sarah & I head upstairs
to relax. At about this time I start to feel a bit embarrassed about having
under three pages of questions written down as preparation, whilst Sarah has
printed off copies of every interview the band have done EVER.

At lunchtime, Katrina turns up at the hotel, and we all go to get some
sandwiches. Time to get down to business. We drive round to the band's
rehearsal room, where Mick, Richard and Chris are trying out all sorts of
technical stuff which I don't understand to get the demos of their new songs
finished. We leave them to it. An hour or so late, Richard is finally
finished and ready to be our first interviewee.


Chapter 2: Thursday early afternoon - with Richard.

The first interview is to take place in the front room of Blair's flat. The
lights and cameras are set up, the three of us are miked up, and Katrina
makes the tea. Well, it got her out of the office for the day, she may as
well make herself useful. I won't bore you with all the technical details of
filming an interview, suffice to say that Richard clearly knew what he  was
doing, and Sarah & I didn't have a clue. So we just did what we were told
and let them get on with it.

Richard is Mr Chatshow. Very comfortable being interviewed, and very good at
it - we just asked an inane question and he's talk for a couple of minutes
answering. He talked about his favourite B&S material (Tigermilk, because of
the innocence and the way it was recorded in just 5 days) and his least
favourite (If You're Feeling Sinister, because the sound wasn't what they
wanted). He talked about the new material, and how optimistic he is about
it. The band are taking a couple of weeks off now, before going down to
Oxfordshire to start recording the new album. Earlier in the week they'd
spent a day recording demos of the new songs, and apparently they're
sounding great.

Other answers were as expected (he enjoyed the night out at the Brits, he
loves playing gigs, etc). Oh, and once the filming was over, he admitted
off-camera that he does gurn on stage, mainly because he's trying to
remember what comes next in the song. Overall, Richard was very friendly and
chatty, and generally a ridiculously nice bloke. And his catchphrase seems
to be "I'm only the drummer"...


Chapter 3: Thursday late afternoon - with Stuart.

One interview done, and we're already about two hours behind schedule. So
we're in a bit of a rush to pick Stuart up from his house, drive him to our
hotel, do the interview and get him back in time for his football game in
the evening. And yes, he wants to be interviewed in the bath.

The nicest bathroom available was in my hotel room, so we all piled in there
to get set up. Lights, cameras, a TV monitor and lots of wires were
installed in the bathroom, and we left Stuart to get ready. Sarah & I sat on
the side of the bath behind him; our cameraman Jim filmed the three of us in
the bathroom mirror, Blair was sat on the shelf monitoring the sound, and
Katrina was also perched on the shelf filming with the small camera. So you
can imagine how cramped it was. Of course, about ten minutes into the
interview, room service turned up with some food and drinks for us all; with
all the wires and talk of Stuart taking his clothes off that was coming out
of the bathroom, we're sure she thought we were making a porn flick. Once
we'd got our composure back, be got back to the questions, until Stuart had
finished shaving.

During the interview, Stuart was very open, he answered fully every question
we put at him. He came across as very intelligent, articulate and
thoughtful - - there may not have been a master-plan involved in the band's
progress, but you can be sure each individual stage was thought through. He
also thinks Tigermilk is his favourite B&S work, and he also mentioned
Jonathan David as being a favourite; and he firmly believes the best is yet
to come - they haven't yet made the album they're capable of. Maybe the new
album will be the one, who knows? He wasn't happy with the sound of the IYFS
album, and he told me later that he'd even considered re-recording some of
it, but decided not to as it was a record of a time. In common with Richard
and (as we later found out) pretty much everyone in the band, his favourite
B&S experience was the gigs they played in Brazil, for the atmosphere, the
size of the crowd, the travel, and the memories. The band all believe that
the Latin countries are wonderful for playing gigs in, they all enjoy going
to Spain to play as well.

He's certainly happy that they're more organised now; part of the reason was
that when playing to bigger crowds they felt they owed the fans a good show.
There were tough times in the band for a couple of years, but they are much
better now. I know there's people out there who see a band that has lost a
couple of members, left their record label and not released much recently,
and think the band are nearing the end of the line; well from talking to the
band members and Stuart in particular, I'm certain now that their future is
looking better than ever.

Certainly he took the lead in getting the band together in the first place,
pursuing people for weeks to persuade them to join. One thing where he
doesn't take control is in the cover versions the band play on stage - he
genuinely respects Stevie in particular for being able to play and sing so
many songs, when Stuart can't even remember the words to ones he wrote
himself.

We could easily have spent a lot longer interviewing Stuart, he always had
plenty to say. There wasn't time to talk about his faith, or to ask about
the meanings of any of his songs (except for that "The Boy With The Arab
Strap" and "Loneliness Of the Middle-Distance Runner" amongst others are
about life in the band). Everything we asked he would answer fully and
deeply. He comes across very much as a normal person, but thoughtful and
fascinating to talk to.


Chapter 3 and a half: Thursday evening.

It was already 8pm by the time Stuart left my hotel room to get to his
football game, which was quite a bit later than he said he had to be
 there - which just shows how accommodating he was. Having taken all the
equipment down to the car, Sarah, Katrina and me went down to the hotel bar
for a couple of pints and chat about everything from the band to
international  politics. Then a takeaway pizza, and off to catch up on a bit
of sleep.

Other little tit-bits of information that you may or may not be interested
in:

Ten minutes or so before each gig, Stuart likes to get the whole band
together for a little talk. The pre-show ritual also seems to involve every
band member going to the toilet.

Not only is Stuart a vegetarian, but he also hasn't drunk alcohol for a year
or so. No wonder he's in such good shape.

In an attempt to prove that the band aren't twee, we asked Stuart to
describe the band's most rock and roll moment. So he told us the story of
when Stuart David tried to throw a CD player out of his hotel window.
Unfortunately the window wouldn't open far enough so he didn't manage it.

Aaah, bless.

OK, that's enough for Day 1. I'll be back tomorrow with the second half!

Big Stu

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