Andy Bell Interview

This interview was posted on the Oxford based website Nightshift

This month we’ve been talking to former RIDE singer and guitarist ANDY BELL about the new `Best Of’ album and the reissue of the band’s influential back catalogue

Looking back at your time in Ride what were the highlights and the lowlights? Generally speaking, almost everything that happened up to the second American tour was a highlight. That tour was bad, so was the entire recording session for ‘Tarantula’ and then the split, obviously. Going back to the highlights, I’d say the Snub TV appearance in January 1990 was great for the effect it had; it seemed like everybody in the country saw it. The sessions for the first two albums were both fantastic, so was the Sawmills session for the third. It was brilliant to record for John Peel, appear on Top of the Pops and all that. If I had to pick one highlight, it would be coming onstage at Reading Festival in 1990. The sun was shining and we started with ‘Polar Bear’ off the first album. I remember looking out over the crowd, feeling completely blissed out.

When you were starting out Oxford had never produced a very successful band, did it ever cross your mind that things would end up so successful? There wasn’t time to think about it really. We got a following in Banbury first because that’s where our first few gigs were, and when we started playing Oxford we started selling out the local pubs like the Jericho straight away because people were travelling to see us. After a few Jericho gigs we had to move on to the Co-op Hall (now the Zodiac) and the Poly, and from there we played Camden Falcon, and we started to get some press attention. But in the eyes of the music press, Oxford was like a joke place to come from. In our first interviews we were treated as a freak of nature, the way they talked, we were from a place where there are only fields and a university.

What was it like meeting Alan McGee for the first time, especially with Creation at the time being the coolest label around? We met him for the first time during a tour we did supporting the Soup Dragons in 1989. He was just getting into his Ecstasy phase, so he talked about everything in very grand terms, but we got a genuine vibe off him and what he was doing with the label. At the time Creation needed a band like us, and we needed a label who would give us full control, so it worked both ways. The deal he offered us was very simple: an advance, then a 50/50 split after costs, and we’d already recorded the first single so it was very easy to get things going. As the months went on we got used to the Creation way of working. It was a daunting place to visit in the early days - at times it was like something out of a Hieronymous Bosch painting. It was a really cool label for a few years.

Do you think Ride’s part in the Creation story has been underplayed given that you had the label’s first chart hit and near enough kept it afloat during its darkest financial hour? I think the people involved know and appreciate what happened and that’s good enough for me. It was basically just cash flow problems, the same as any label has. It got quite funny at times: we turned up at the studio to start recording ‘Going Blank Again’ and they wouldn’t let us in because Creation hadn’t paid them the last time. The My Bloody Valentine sessions were bankrupting the label, and we bankrolled them for a while. I get a warm feeling inside when I think that our early success helped to pay for ‘Loveless’. Kevin Shields owes me a pint for that one!

Do you think Creation’s demise was inevitable? Creation was Alan, and Alan had a nervous breakdown at precisely the time he was needed the most. He was diversifying the label and trying to channel all the money Oasis had made in a creative way. In the end, because he was sick, it was left to other people to make all the decisions and it all fell apart. When he came back a year later, the soul had gone; it was like a mutant indie label with a gigantic marketing department hanging off it. From then it was really only a matter of time. From around ’96 onwards, McGee was left on the sidelines of his own label.

Do you have any regrets about the way Ride finished? It was very awkward for a while. Creation’s press department treated our split like a selling point; there was a tabloid mentality to it all. Then the press stirred things up terribly between Mark and myself. But for a bunch of 24-year-olds I think we dealt with it pretty well. After a few months had gone by, I turned up at Mark’s door and we forgot our differences.

Would you do things differently if you were going through it all again for the first time? Probably not. I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way but I’ve learned from them. It’s all part of life’s rich tapestry.

How did it feel going back to the earliest demos when you were compiling the compilation? Some of it was pretty hilarious. A lot of tracks never made it because they were awful songs with one good bit, or just us messing about on a four track. Steve did a great job with the unreleased CD - if I’d been compiling it myself it would have been a totally different load of music, probably without any vocals.

What was your favourite Ride song ever? ‘Dreams Burn Down’, from the ‘Nowhere’ album.

Which would you say is the definitive Ride album? ‘Nowhere’.

There seemed to be a gradual shift in the Ride style from ‘Nowhere’ and ‘Going Blank Again’ to ‘Carnival of Light’ and ‘Tarantula’, from a brasher, noisier pop style to a more classic rock-influenced style. Was this a conscious progression or just a change in your tastes and the way songs were written? Both actually. From 1992 onwards, I felt a bit claustrophobic about the sound we’d created. I didn’t want Ride to sound like every other band around. Of course, I ended up moving further and further away from where my natural talents lay, but at the time it seemed like a natural progression. You don’t think about your own limitations when you’re 22.

Odds on a one-off Ride reunion gig at the Zodiac? Slim.

How much contact do you keep with Mark, Steve and Loz? Loz and I stay in touch quite regularly, Mark and I less so, and Steve even less. It’s been good to see them all during the making of this album. I hope we stay in touch more from now on.

Were you a fan of The Animalhouse? I saw them pretty early on and got quite excited. But in the end I felt that Loz was under-used, and their potential never really delivered. Mark came up with ‘Sunday Driver’ which is up there with his best songs, but the rest of it didn’t move me that much.

What are your memories of Hurricane #1? Traumatic. I wrote some good songs for the first album but I lost the plot for the second, and then got writer’s block when I was supposed to be writing the third, which along with the Oasis thing, ended the band. We had to deal with Creation at its worst, and at that time they would have eaten their own mothers for a two-minute slot on Ant and Dec. But despite all that I had a great time with the guys in the band, we spent most of the three years laughing our heads off.

Were you surprised that the press could be so vitriolic? The NME wrote some quite disturbed things about me. Their finger-pointing said perhaps more about them than it did about me, and had nothing to do with the music they were supposed to be writing about.

How different is life now in Oasis than it was back in Ride’s heyday? I have different priorities now. I’m 30 now, I’ve been married almost 10 years, I’ve got a kid who’s almost three... and as I’m the bass player in the band, I just coast through it. Ride was more of a struggle day to day, but I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Is it still possible for a young band to come out of almost nowhere and achieve real success without a major label marketing budget behind them? Yes, I believe it’s always possible.

Which are the best new bands around at the moment? There is a Liverpool band called Coral who are very promising. I also like an American band called Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

A lot of bands still quote Ride as a major influence. Are you surprised that your legacy has survived so strongly, especially in American bands? Yes!

Have you ever listened to a band and thought, “that sounds like Ride”? I probably have but I can’t remember an example.

Is there still an Andy Bell solo album lurking inside you or some locked cabinet waiting to be unleashed one day? Yes, it’s the treat I’m saving for a rainy day. I will get around to it, it’s just waiting for the songs to turn up that suit my voice. I’ve got one so far, give me about five years and I’ll have an album’s worth.

Have you ever met Andy Bell from Erasure or do you just get his royalty cheques sometimes? I’ve never met him. I want to do a record with Vince Clark one day, that would be cool.

Your desert island discs? The La’s - ‘The La’s’; The Beatles - ‘Revolver’; Velvet Underground - ‘Loaded’; Pink Floyd - ‘The Piper At the Gates of Dawn’ ; The Stone Roses - ‘The Stone Roses’; Fred Sonic Smith - ‘City Slang EP’.