Gay Dad – Interview

going solo with singer cliff jones.

Have you been touring?

Um, No. I haven’t really told anyone this, but I split the band up. I’m making solo records for Warners. I went to Australia and did some stuff out there, some little acoustic shows and no one really knew who I was. I’ve been in Texas doing some production for a band called Young Heart Attack. I played a show with them a few years ago and really liked them. I’m working with a band called the Applicators who are an all girl punk band.

Where are they from?

Texas as well. That is what I’ve been doing and getting some tracks ready for my solo record. I hope I’ll be working with the guy who did the latest Dave Matthews Record, Steve Harris.

Did you split the band so you could go solo?

Not really. We had a problem with a major American label who was going to take the record and release it then it got to the lawyers and everyone was literally about to get on a plane and come over and suddenly they called it off because a guy in their radio department said he was going to walk out if he had a band called Gay Dad on his roster. That put the kibosh on that. So I knew it was over. I really achieved my objective getting Gay Dad in the top ten in Britain and have a bit of fun doing it. There is a point where you have to move on. It was all very amicable. I think we are the only band that split because of musical similarities, rather than musical differences.

I remember one time a relative went on our site and saw the name Gay Dad and they thought I was making a joke on my dad.

My dad sort of loved it. Before he retired he used to get, we were on the Top of the Pops, all his friend coming up to him saying ‘hey, I saw Cliff on television’ and my dad would stress that he was not a gay dad but the dad of a gay dad. I think the name sort of had its day and the music had its day with that incarnation. The name was like a hand grenade, you toss it and it does collateral damage, but it doesn’t laugh. I’m going to move on and make quite a different record.

So completely different formula?

I want an American sounding record. I just had a baby girl and we went to Australia for three months and did some songwriting. I really got into the American rock scene. I think English music is increasingly irrelevant. It doesn’t sound good to my ears. I just want to make records that sound great. I’ve grown up a lot and I don’t want to make English sounding records anymore. They sound so parochial. Far from one or two good ones. Coldplay doesn’t move me. It doesn’t blow my head away. Where as the Smashing Pumpkins do. When they put out that unreleased stuff I got into that. I’ve been listening to a lot of mid-period Prince. Things change and I’ve changed. I think there’ll be a lot more acoustic tracks. I’ve written one tune that sounds like Aerosmith. (Laughs)

I remember something about you being a journalist in a prior life.

I used to work for Face Magazine. I wrote stuff that was in Mojo and Melody Maker. No one in the band at the time were unsigned had a job but me. I started out working for a guitar magazine. I just started doing interviews with bands I wanted to know about. No one did a definitive piece on the Stooges. I got the band and found it was such an amazing story. I was doing similar things and newspaper and others picked up on it. Eventually I started getting calls from bigger magazines. I was doing things like the Face’s first Oasis and Blur cover. It was at the beginning of the whole brit pop thing. So I cashed in on it.

What was it like interviewing them and then there you are playing shows alongside of them?

I saw Liam in a club the other day. He goes down there and we usually just nod to each other. I think what happened to Gay Dad was that we rose rather quickly and we came down the same way. It was a baptism by fire really. I never wrote about music because I couldn’t make a living doing it. People get this thing in their minds that I’d call a few friends and ask for a record deal and they were like ‘sure, okay’. But I never knew anyone at the record companies aside from the press people. No one knew who we were when we got signed. We just made this tape and sent it to this guy at a venue so we could get a gig and he gave it to his friend in A&R. We were trying to rehearse one night and people were trying to track us down. It just got a bit out of hand and it’s hard to come back from that.

So did you feel you had an inside look when you did interviews?

No, not at all. I didn’t know how to handle it. The less I said the more lies got printed and the more it was compounded. The real Gay Dad story is quite different from the one that everyone has read. It’s more fun and fantastic than the one printed by NME.

I often got the feeling that British artists were a bit standoffish at first and then would sort of come around if they felt you were sincere.

Exactly, and I just got to the point where I was like ‘fuck it, I don’t care anymore’. But really the problem with British music is that it smothers its young. It gives birth to great bands but it’s a small place that things get smothered before they get a chance to breath. I think if the Beatles were around today they would have made their first album and then the press would have ridiculed them so much that they would have had to bury their heads in the sand and the press would have got a good laugh at their expense ‘who does this Paul McCartney think he is with his cherubic smile and big brown eyes. And who does this John Lennon think he is? The only cool member is Ringo Starr’. Elton John would have never got a record deal now; people would say ‘you don’t look the part’. It sucks in this country. I don’t want to be part of that anymore. It stopped me from doing what I want to do for far to long. Instead of making great music they are more concerned about your sneakers. It’s like New York a go-go.

I always hear about the Strokes being big over there, but you couldn’t find anyone outside of New York City that knows them.

But you’ll see that the Strokes will get eaten and spit out. The press fights to find the new thing and then be the first to bring them down. You either ride the snake or get thrown off. I got thrown off.

It’s really sad. I think we’ve got a lot of tabloid journalism here, but no one has enough power in the written form to make or break a group anymore.

Right, it’s such a big country there. But I mean I can’t really think of any band here that has come along that has been really good. Maybe you can help me.

Honestly I like Travis a lot. Something about their simplicity that strikes me.

Well you know Travis is an anomaly. We toured with them and they are really nice people. They remind me of Bread. IT really sticks in your head.

You don’t have to dissect it. You get it right away. My girlfriend and I will be listening to music and she loves Travis but when I stick in Pink Floyd she’ll like something for a moment, but when it goes on for ten minutes with nothing but instrumental work she gets bored.

But you know she is right and that is what people forget. Music is a communal activity. You are supposed to inspire people. If you want to do something that is self-indulgent then release it on your own time. I think quality control in music has gone down. Have you heard that new P.O.D. track that goes ‘we are the young’? It sounds like “Another Brick In The Wall”. Its hilarious, but I imagine it’ll be a big hit. I think in music less is more, but I think people have forgotten that.

Simple music often shows the skills better.

I know. I think everyone gets so into these layers. My solo album is much more optimistic and up. It’s about chapters in your life. You can’t have just one thing. If you were Lou Reed and made thirty years of Transformer life would get dull. I’m just lucky. It’s a good thing.

Do you ever let all the things you know about music hinder what you are doing?

I used to. It’s a terrible disease. You sit there and you play something and you are like ‘wow that sounds fucking great’ and then you’ll rack your brains trying to figure out who wrote that before. You stop yourself from writing a good tune because you are worried someone else got there first. Rock ‘n’ roll is out of its adolescence and in middle age. Now we are into something new and I think the business is salvage and reinvention. We salvage the pass and reinvent for the future. If you read what John Lennon has said he can tell you what he ripped off for each song he wrote.

+ charlie craine