The Art of Longevity

After the release of a ‘best of’ collection Everything Hits at Once in 2019, Spoon are back at long last with brand new material - the album Lucifer On The Sofa - a raw, rollicking rock album (complete with new players on lead guitar and bass) recorded as near-as-dammit live. It is an antidote to Spoon’s previous (superb, but far more produced) Hot Thoughts (2017). In 30 years, the band has come full circle in the best possible way. Their first record (“not my favourite” says Britt) Telephono was released on indie label Matador, yet Spoon soon found themselves in a dalliance with a major label for their second outing A Series of Sneaks (1998). While that did not end well, it turned out to be the making of the band in a way, Spoon’s true beginning. The bitter experience of being dropped gave the band its first big song, the naming-and-shaming ‘Laffitte Don’t Fail Me Now’ (featured heavily in The Song Sommelier collection ‘Stick It To The Man’), the second song we discuss on the podcast. Almost two decades later the band was back on the Matador label and in a happy place - having consolidated their unique sound on a run of brilliant LPs. The most indie of bands was somehow destined to make their best work while signed to an iconic indie label. I’m glad to say that Spoon’s hot streak doesn’t end with 'Lucifer'. The album is a fine addition to an outstanding catalogue, already receiving those glowing 4 & 5 star reviews. “It fits perfectly as number 10” in Britt’s own economic language. It does indeed. Not only that but the title track and album closer is something different entirely, an inspired (by the pandemic in part) and momentous stroke of genius from a band at the peak of its powers. The only downer on a thoroughly enjoyable career-spanning conversation is the fact that poor old blighty is losing out big time, yet again. Spoon is touring extensively in the USA but has no immediate plans to come to Europe. That doesn’t stop me trying to persuade them however. In concluding our chat with the suggestion that Spoon comes over to London in 2023 (the band’s 30th anniversary year) to do not just a show but a residency, I’ve set to work on the very idea…watch this space. Meantime, check out the impressive new record and back catalogue of my favourite - and your new favourite - indie band. Ladies & gentlemen this is…Spoon, as brought to you by Britt himself!Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

When it comes to longevity, Feeder keeps coming back around, and the guitar-rock scene is all the better for it. It was back in January 2001 that “Buck Rogers” reached number five on the UK chart (the song remains a radio standard even in its 21st year). Grant Nicholas originally wrote the song to impress producer Gil Norton in the hope he would be persuaded to work with Feeder. Buck Rogers contains a big guitar riff and stream-of-consciousness lyrics about being jealous of his rival’s brand new Jaguar (with a CD player) and whatever else came into his drunken head. Including drinking cider from a lemon.Having a bona fide top five hit was never going to put Grant Nicholas under any pressure to repeat the trick. Songs just pour out of him and while not all of them are as catchy as Buck Rogers, Nicolas knows his way around a melody and a soaring, anthemic chorus as well as any songwriter in the business. When we spoke on The Art Of Longevity I asked Grant how come he hasn’t often been asked to write for others (he has only a little, and I hesitate to suggest he could do more, not wishing to worry Feeder fans we’ll lead him astray). It remains an option, always. Feeder may not be fashionable but they have made it through the music industry mangle - achieving chart success, playing arenas and having made a bunch of very good albums (with Comfort in Sound a genuine rock classic). These days it’s all about the joy of new songs and playing to the fans. Nicholas and his co-founder member/bassist Taka Hirose soldier on as Feeder through thick and thin, yet they operate with an enthusiasm and energy befitting of any up & coming rock band blossoming for the first time. Where a lot of their contemporaries have fallen by the wayside, Feeder stayed on the bus, and it turned out to be a magic bus!Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

When Suzanne Vega played a short residency at New York’s exclusive, super high-end Cafe Carlisle in 2019 (for the second time in her career) she wanted to put on a show, something special:“I thought, let’s make a show out of it. I wanted to make it like an old style revue, since it’s a small and very upper crust place with out-of-towners and locals as well, from all over New York. So I thought we’d make it about New York songs. It seemed to go down really well. I heard the elevator boys talking about it after the show so I knew it must be good”. Who knows if the Carlisle Hotel elevator boys knew who she was before those shows, but there can be no doubt about Suzanne Vega’s mastery of the craft of songwriting, and of performance, something that comes together perfectly for Suzanne’s current project “An Evening of New York Songs & Stories”. The show comes complete with Suzanne the songwriter but also the raconteur and the ‘show-woman’ (complete with top hat) - something she never expected to become when she was starting out in music at the beginning of the 80s. After all, as a child, she hated being looked at. My chat with Suzanne starts with the concept of storytelling through song - but also between the songs, and why that’s so rare on the music scene these days. We explore the early years of course, and the various lives of some of her greatest songs, like ‘Tom’s Diner’ and ‘Marlene On The Wall’. I wanted to know if she still felt that a song should be an essentially sad thing and I had to ask her about one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard and a personal obsession for 35 years - her song Ironbound/Fancy Poultry, from the 1987 classic album Solitude Standing. I was excited to hear about the prospect of a new album of brand new Suzanne Vega songs in 2023 and she is to begin the European leg of the New York Songs & Stories tour early in 2022 (pandemic permitting) - whatever you do don’t miss it. In a world in which music is in great abundance, what Suzanne Vega does is as rare as things can get. Hats off to you Suzanne!Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

Discovering a band all to yourself is the best type of music discovery there is. One day in the mid 2000s as my wife and I wandered along London’s South Bank, we were stopped in our tracks by music the likes of which we’d never heard before - jazzy, rhythmic, with a haunting steel drum but also with an element of ‘indie’. There, were four very young men (then in their late teens) busking with a confident authority - more a private performance than a busk, and with quite an audience too. That band was Portico Quartet and we were just two of many thousands of early adopter  fans from those early South Bank busks outside The National Gallery. We bought a copy of the band's very first, self-pressed four-track CD for £5, one of 10,000 sold I recently discovered. When I spoke with Duncan Bellamy (drums and the hang steel drum) and Jack Wylie (sax) for The Art of Longevity, Jack told me:"We'd go off to buy big stacks of blank CDs at Maplins, and we bought this burner machine that could do eight at a time. I think we managed to do 200-250 a day. As a student, it meant we could make a living without working in a bar. It was great fun”. I put it to Duncan and Jack that they would have to achieve 10 million streams to make the equivalent revenues now (20 million if splitting revenues 50:50 with a record label). Who’d have thought that, as part of establishing an early following as an instrumental band, you could create your own perfectly viable business model as well? For the Portico Quartet, those early years of ‘struggle’ were more like an exercise in building a cottage industry. From those early days, the Portico Quartet’s rise was as meteoric as it gets for an instrumental band. In 2008 came the Mercury Music Prize nomination for their full debut album ‘Knee Deep in the North Sea’ and one year later the band signed to Real World Records, the independent label owned by Peter Gabriel. That came with a huge leap in the maturity of their sound (2009’s Isla) and a full stop to the days of busking. As a fan, observing the band’s musical development has been a truly remarkable experience but don't take my word for it, listen to Duncan and Jack's take on things...Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

If one of the secrets to longevity in the music industry is simply taking your time, then Danish alternative rock band Mew are grand masters. Formed in 1995, the band took eight years before a major label deal came along, and with it, international success (the superb breakthrough album Frengers). It did not lead to a rush. Some 26 years into the band’s career, Mew has released just seven studio albums - one every four years. That’s not something Spotify would advocate as an operating model for bands these days, is it?  It’s rare for a European rock band to breakthrough to an international audience and to have a career of real longevity (count them on one hand), but it is even rarer to be so damned cool about it! Yet Jonas Bjerre is unfazed by any concept of FOMO - or the creator equivalent ‘FOBF’ - fear of being forgotten. In fact, when the band released their last LP  ‘Visuals’ in 2017 just two years after the 2015 album ‘+ -’, Jonas’s overwhelming instinct was that fans were not expecting it. Visuals plays from beginning to end like a stage musical, something I put to Mew singer Jonas Bjerre on the Art of Longevity. It may well have been the influence of Prefab Sprout and Paddy McAloon. When it comes to influences, Mew are true musical alchemists. While many ‘rock’ (as in guitar rock) bands have eclectic and ‘classic pop’ influences, very few can meld them successfully into their own sound. Perhaps it’s because of the restrictive formulas of rock, or not wanting to upset fans. Not so with Mew. One minute they’re all off-kilter time signatures and dissonant guitar noises, the next, soaring, beautiful and catchy pop - nicely topped off with Jonas’ angelic vocals. Listen in to hear a truly unique way of working. Jonas and Mew don't rush anything, but the results are often sublime. It is good to hear that the band is talking about another project - even if it is early days and Jonas would also like a break before. Sometimes as a music fan, patience is a virtue and the rewards are all the sweeter. Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

When I sat down with Steve Berlin, the Los Lobos sax player and de facto spokesperson, I was a little more than intrigued. To most people around the world - outside of North America anyways - Los Lobos remain the La Bamba band. How wrong we are.There is a very common thread with the artists we’ve had on the show - and with longevity - every one of the artists (except so far, Laura Veirs and Maximo Park) had a very big song: James, Turin Brakes, Gary Numan, KT Tunstall…But Los Lobos is the most extreme example of a longevity outfit with a big song - the band had no other hits at all. Taking nothing away from La Bamba - a fine record and a justified number one in ten countries back in 1987. But stop right there. Try Googling, as I did, “Los Lobos, greatest American rock band” and there are more than a few articles examining that hypothesis, for good reasons. Built around the soulful songs of drummer Louis Perez and lead vocal and guitar player David Hidalgo (throw in a few rollicking rockers by Cesar Rosas) Los Lobos make solid, classic Americana-rock, but from a Latin point of view - and a deep rooted connection to traditional Mexican music: cumbia, boleros and norteños. Finally, throw the city of LA into the mix and you have the Los Lobos agenda, musically speaking. It’s not surprising that Los Lobos have made a record of cover versions of seminal LA songs (The Beach Boys, Jackson Browne, War, Percy Mayfield) but what is surprising is how long it took to come up with the idea to do just that.“We have a sixth sense of when to do stuff, somehow the muse talks to us. It's important for us to have a boundary - an idea - not just another Los Lobos record. The main thing for us is longevity and being able to do what we do and to answer to nobody other than ourselves, we have such gratitude for that. We have no obligation other than to move forward with our music”. Now that is an agenda for lasting the distance. Yet Steve and I have fun with one idea - for Los Lobos to soundtrack a Netflix (or HBO, or AMC) production of Jaime Hernandez' genius Mexicana soap opera Love & Rockets. What a collaboration that would be.Somebody get Ted Sarandos on the line…it’s Steve Berlin calling, from Los Lobos...Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

On The Art of Longevity, Fin Greenhall explained the ideas behind Fink's new project IIUII: an acoustic retrospective of some of the band's (and fans) favourite, biggest songs. “I’m a better singer now than I was in 2005, so I feel I can do a better job of singing these songs. As a band we are much more loose, grounded and subtle than we used to be - comfortable with who we are”. As such, the idea behind the project is to do a better job of those songs by bringing experience to bear as the songs are revisited and reinterpreted. “I love the fact  that when you write a song, that song exists, but then over time it can be dressed many different ways”. Indeed, we discuss one of the most intriguing concepts in music today - that of making a song something more than simply finite recording. A song should never be set in stone, something Fink seems to understand acutely. Their last studio album, ‘Bloom Innocent’, is a case in point - the band has since released two further versions of the record - an acoustic work and a “Horizontalism” edition (Fink has even sub-branded it’s remix versions under the Horizontalism concept). The IIUII album is the first acoustic retrospective of the whole catalogue, yet already there has been some orchestral versions of some of these songs, in the superb 2013 release ‘Fink Meets The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’. While the music industry is littered with ex-musicians and creatives now working on the management side, Fin Greenhall did the opposite - spending nearly half a decade in the offices of labels (hence ‘Biscuits’), figuring out how the industry worked (and working his way up from office skivvy to marketing manager). He flipped from being an executive to a creator - but seems to have picked up on some clever marketing angles along the way. Along with these reworked versions, the 2015 short film “Less Alone” was one of the first examples of an artist manifesto I’d ever seen expressed through the short documentary format. It’s a nice exercise in artistic branding. That might just have something to do with Fin’s thought processes. Another example is the track selection for IIUII. Fin told The Art of Longevity that: “we went back over the streaming stats and thought about our live shows over the years and picked the songs that the fans feel really represent us”. Savvy indeed, now that is how creatives can use industry data simply and effectively. Considered decisions have been part of the band's two decade career, along with a close knit musical understanding between the three members, Fin, Guy Whittaker (bass) and Tim Thornton (drums). The benign dictatorship is a famous formula for some bands but Fink works a very democratic system. The band still enjoys the shared experiences of touring, recording and creating their unique sound. The way Fink works is what most bands would wish for, so tune in to Fin and co's guide to longevity. Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

Is it possible to make your best record 33 years into a career? That’s what may just have happened with Canadian legends Barenaked Ladies and their 2021 release Detour De Force. The album covers most of BNL’s styles (i.e. a long list of genres) and is a masterclass in songwriting. It starts out with three BNL bangers, before settling into something more reflective, but typically varied and never boring. When I spoke to Ed Robertson for episode 2 of season 2, he himself seemed pleased with the results on Detour De Force and explained how carefully the band had scheduled the record despite the irony of doing that at a time when few listeners have the attention span to listen to entire albums. But with those songs and the order they are in, the band has made another classic alongside their phenomenal debut Gordon (1992) and international ‘claim to fame’ Stunt (1998). The in-between has been the usual roller-coaster ride (all in all BNL has made 17 albums in not including the early demos, live albums and compilations and occasional side projects). There is just so much, we barely touch on matters such as the departure of Page and the band’s steady successful transition to a four piece. But we do talk about their surprise success in the early 90s (yes, they worked at it in those early years despite what looked like a surprise success in their home country), the early days of signing to Sire Records, and how tough it was to make their sophomore album. The tough times continued through the 90s when things became something of a grind - to the extent that Ed Robertson was telling his manager of doubts about carrying on: “I could have made more money managing a McDonalds”. Then came the big breakthrough with their song ‘One Week’ (a US Billboard number 1). Although he had written the song and taken the lead vocal (including that famous dexterous rap) Ed thought the idea of the record label to make One Week the lead single for Stunt, to be a joke. But then suddenly it all got very serious. The band’s peak came at a time of change for the record industry though, with Napster emerging as the century changed over and we discuss being experimented on by visionary manager Terry McBride in the post-Napster, digital music industry in which band’s cannot expect to ‘sell’ anything as far as records are concerned.The band’s chemistry has survived line-up changes (even the departure of co-founder and principal vocalist Stephen Page) and more recently of course, the pandemic live music shutdown. Once BNL returns to real live shows though, expect their dedicated audiences to be chanting along to new numbers like they’ve known them for as long as the classics. One senses that Ed and co will enjoy every minute but not take any of it for granted. Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

On the Art of Longevity Series II, Episode One, KT Tunstall tells me that albums can feel like a ‘flash in the pan’ despite all the work that goes into them. But albums like Wax (her latest, from 2018) will stick around in the ears for a long time to come. KT Tunstall was the classic ‘overnight success’ i.e. ten years in the making, having busked her way around the St Andrews and Fife scenes since the mid 90s. It all ‘began’ with that performance of ‘Black Horse & The Cherry Tree’ on Jools Holland (2004) - an old fashioned breakthrough moment. As remarkable as she came across working with just the guitar and the delay pedal, she was simply doing what she had been for the previous 18 months - busking her way through it. Except this time, it was on UK national television on the only music show that mattered. What followed was a version of the classic Art of Longevity career curve: the stratospheric rise, the pressure drop and the years of wrestling between her own creative instincts and the commercial demands of the industry. But through it all KT understood that the record labels' job is business, while what she does is make art, and that attitude has seen her navigate the industry mangle to come out the other side stronger, more rounded as an artist and, if you listen to Wax, still making platinum grade pop-rock. Meanwhile, KT will always be on the music scene thanks to those immortal songs from her debut. She has come a long way from the rainy streets of St Andrews to the arid canyons of Topanga. It seems like she has much further to go. Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

The Coral is a band revered on the music scene - a real artist’s band. They are very accomplished musicians who first got together at school in the small Wirral town of Hoylake. The band members bonded over their many music icons, from The Beatles and the Small Faces to Acker Bilk and Del Shannon. Listening to a record by the Coral is a dizzying fairground tour of Liverpool’s music hall pop heritage mixed with American West Coast psychedelia and a lot else besides. Sometimes all in one song. Yet it sounds like no other band except The Coral. Funny then that some 20 years after their debut, The Coral has made an album that sounds more like themselves than anything else they’ve done. ‘Coral Island’ is themed on the romantic ideal of the faded seaside town. The band has had an ongoing obsession with the sea since day one, but Coral Island is different. The band collaborated with artist Edwin Burdis to actually build the island and once it became a physical thing, the band’s imagination was stretched further to bring it to life with stories, characters and poetic interludes narrated by the Skelly brothers’ own Grandad. The album is an end-to-end modern classic, yet the band’s singer James Skelly told me he expected the album would linger in obscurity, but it reached number two on the UK album charts and has received critical praise across the board. It’s probably their best record so far and if it’s too early to tell, then let’s say Coral Island is a potential masterpiece. It’s nice to see a band as good as The Coral come full circle over the course of two decades.   When the band was elevated to the top of ‘Britpop’ mania in 2002 with their song ‘Dreaming of You’ and their Mercury Prize nominated debut album, they had a great time basking in the limelight and usurping industry etiquette (a Freddie Mercury impersonator stood in for them at the Mercury Prize ceremony). However, The Coral also lost touch with reality. When they released a third album of spooky psychedelic jams, they thought it might get to number one (like their second album ‘Magic and Medicine’). It was perhaps an act of subconscious self-sabotage. A self-correcting mechanism. But at the time it’s just what the band wanted to do, though their judgement was somewhat skewed by skunk. In episode 7 of The Art of Longevity, James Skelly walks me through the rest of this remarkable band’s story in a conversation we both thoroughly enjoyed, partly because I was very impressed by the combination of working class ambition, humble wisdom and complete dedication to artistry. There is no doubt when you hear James’s account of the band’s character and history, that The Coral would work their way through the mangle of the music industry and come out of it relatively unscathed. And, creatively speaking, even better. In particular though, it’s the songs. Skelly and co do not lack a way with melody. As I put it to him, he could write Coldplay songs all day long, but then there are these things called minor chords...and The Coral never minded a little darkness and spookiness mixed in with the melody. No need for them to call Max Martin in to help write the next few hits (though I suspect Max is a fan). As James says himself, in The Coral’s early days he would kill for a song. Some 20 years in, he’s no longer in need of such morbid thoughts. Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/