END OF TOUR TALKRide Interview 17.5.90
You’ve just reached the end of several months touring, do you ever find the routine of constant touring hard work? Laurence: You find a way to make it work every night, and whatever way it is it’s never turned into a routine which I don’t think about. It’s a routine, but one which is different every night, so no matter what happens I’d always be able to play alright, because I’ve just reached the state of mind, it’s just something you develop on tour. Mark: …The thing is we always want to play a good gig, and the gigs that seem like hard work are the gigs where perhaps you were going through the motions a bit, it’s just harder work if you feel knackered. But what about the routine of doing the same set every night, as you have on this tour?
(The band had played a stunning version that night in which Mark ended up breaking his strings in frenzy!) How’s touring effected your song writing, does it make you more or less prolific?Andy:About the same as usual, we tend to come out with about three in a month. Laurence: Touring doesn’t help song writing… Andy: I don’t know, because you can sit in the hotels and strum around… Mark: And get your landlord up! Laurence: It’s not done in the same way though, you can’t practice.
At the Town Hall tonight, the Council were being pretty pathetic no alcohol was allowed, and drinks had to be finished in the bar, which meant we missed the support. Only 650 people were admitted, even though the capacity is in excess of 1000, the sound was limited, and the lights were on full (for fire regulations) until Ride protested, they were turned half down! What did the band think about the show?Laurence: It was strange, altogether, not enough people in the hall. The balconies didn’t look that full at all. We were thrown in at the deep end and we had a good gig, but I wouldn’t really advise it to other bands to come unless the crowd limit was raised, and the pa and house lights. Bigger venues surely beckon. How are the band going to handle huge concerts, like the Lorelei and the Reading festivals that they will be playing over the summer? Vocalist
Mark Gardener answers: The reason why it works so
well in Is it going to seem strange playing Reading after being unknowns in the crowd last year? Does it ever catch up with you; don’t you lose track of what’s actually happening? Mark: Yes, but you just adapt to the situation and get on with it and play. Yeah, when we get time off I feel happier because I’m out of the band for a bit and realise what we were before, and feel really glad about how it’s all going so well. "Creation are like friends, we trust each other it’s not like a big major label where someone’s going to rip you off as soon as he gets a chance." Recently Guy Chadwick strongly complimented Ride in a Melody Maker interview, and this was followed up with Ride being booked as the support for House of Love concerts at Amsterdam, Paris and Brussels. Just before the Paris date, which was attended by the leading edge of the music press, Ride were the highest new entry in the charts, while ‘The Beatles and the Stones’ sank ignominiously and Chadwick tried to erase their name from the bill. Tell us more… Mark: It wasn’t the House of Love it was just Guy Chadwick, which I suppose was The House of Love. It was just his paranoia. The trouble with Chadwick is that it took him ten years of being a fucked up sort of bloke to actually make any impact. Andy: And it took us four months! Mark: He’s seen us go wheew… and he’s probably envious. Karel asked what the band did in their spare time.
Do you still get a chance to draw at all? (The band all went to Art College) Mark again:Not really no, but I left that for music, it was never really sort of happening, I’d like get back into it, it would be easy… What about cover artwork?…I thought about it, but really at the moment we’ve got no spare time, I mean the last record cover we got together after a Sheffield gig, we just came home, and went through it all night, just to make sure it would all be alright. Creation Records are renowned for the musical and contractual freedom that they give their artists, we wondered whether this freedom was extended to the video for ‘Like a Daydream’? Also who was the woman in the video?
Mark: We don’t know her, we met her on the day, she was a model that the director got into it because she fitted the look of what we wanted, it was pretty much half and half (the division of input) we said all our ideas and he said his and we came to a conclusion, I really liked ‘Like a Daydream’ at first, but now I’m really looking for something else but completely different – ‘Dreams Burn Down’ will be the one to do it, much more arty, this one didn’t leave a lot to the imagination. Radio, they’re years behind, all the radio One DJ’s just said it didn’t’ fit into their shows, but we don’t mind that sort of crap because the people buying the records will make their own minds up. How do you maintain artistic control with no formal contract? What would you do if they released something you weren’t happy with? Andy: They can’t release something if we don’t give it to them, and we make sure that everything we give to Creation is done by ourselves, and really sorted out… Mark: Creation advise us, but it’s us who have overall control. They wouldn’t do that (release unagreed material). Andy: We’d leave creation... Mark: … but it wouldn’t happen. Creation are like friends, we trust each other it’s not like a big major label where someone’s going to rip you off as soon as he gets a chance. Andy: It’s much better to have it like that, than to have a contract where it’s all written down, and there’s no room for friendship or trust. Will you stick with Creation?Andy: As far as I can see… Mark:
…In this country yeah. We’ve got lots of
alternatives to think about. Andy: … We’ve no reason to leave Creation in this country… Mark: In America you can’t be anything on an independent label. In America you have to have a major deal behind you, but you can get just an American major deal and stay independent in this country. Has anything happened in America yet?Mark: We were number four in the import chart, but it’s just like on the college level that people are aware of it, it’s not exactly happening yet, we’re touring at the start of next year, and we’re doing some Japanese dates at the end of this year, it’s just fitting them all in. All this attention, and rising fame! What did you think when the last single got into the charts, were you surprised? Andy: A sort of shock really! … Mark: …I had to lay down! I mean Alan (McGee) was saying that he thought it would chart, but he said it would definitely chart if you release a 7”, but we said no we’d be happier doing it on our own terms (i.e., 12” and C.D.). I mean it really should have gone up though, it was the highest new entry, but we didn’t get on Top of the Pops which we should have done. (The producers preferred to show Sonia’s latest single!) It’s the same with radio, they’re years behind, all the radio One DJ’s just said it didn’t’ fit into their shows, but we didn’t mind that sort of crap because the people buying the records will make their own minds up. On a more serious note, why are you unwilling to express yourselves politically other than on the environment and poll tax?
Steve: … I think it’s the political’s views are separate from the band, and we don’t sing about them… Andy: What we sing about is more important than politics anyway… Lawrence: We’ve all got our own personal political views, and if you want to know those you’re welcome… Mark:…a lot of bands just get into it to get some kind of status from it… Lawrence: We didn’t get where we are because we’ve got a certain political belief, so why listen to what we’ve got to say? Also it’s unfair for one of us to say something like that because people will think that’s how ‘Ride’ feel, but I think on things like the Poll Tax we all agree. Are you paying your Poll Tax bills? Steve: I haven’t paid… Andy: I’m not paying. Mark: I’m not paying. Lawrence: I tried to set fire to it today! (General laughter!) That’s typical of the Government isn’t it, leaflets won’t burn! Links
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After the bands recent home
coming gig at the Town Hall, Oxford, myself, Pete Stevens
and Karel Welsh of ‘The Network!’ interviewed
the band, we talked about life on the road, and future
projects.
Laurence: It’s strange
but it really is different every night, there’s only
a few songs that you get to not feel so good about, but
usually those are the songs that eventually get pushed
out. The songs that stay on the set list for a long time
are the ones which will always happen. I mean think how
many times we’ve played Chelsea Girl! It
still works.
the small places is because of the
intensity and because it’s easier to get things
louder in a small area. The trouble we found playing this
tour is that we were playing quite big places and people
were putting in half the amount of P.A. that we actually
needed. We are a loud band, it’s got to be really
loud to come across and actual work. For the next tour
we’ll be taking our own crew… I wouldn’t
want to get to the stage where you couldn’t play
gigs in reasonable sized places; I’d hate to get to
a standard where the only place you could play was a
stadium. I wouldn’t mind playing Town and Country
sized venues in very town. As long as we don’t lose
anything from playing large venues I actually feel
better, feel more confident and enjoy it more when you
don’t have the microphone rammed down your throat,
and have people jumping on you monitors and pedals and on
you.
Mark: Sleeping, and smoking, and
being decent, it’s rock’n’roll ain’t
it! … (Came the sarcastic reply…) No,
just relaxing really, I mean every night there’s a
real tension in you, and it's just nice to really relax
and listen to your music.
Mark: It’s because I don’t
really feel that it’s my position to…
