Speaker 1: Loud and Quiet presents Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: It's been a day of final things here at Loud
Speaker 2: and Quiet. Today we put to bed a final issue
Speaker 2: of twenty eighteen, the last one of the year, went
Speaker 2: off to print quite easily. Quite a fun one to
Speaker 2: make this issue. Actually, it's the one that features out
Speaker 2: Albums of the Year list, which is always quite a
Speaker 2: fun thing to put together because it just means you
Speaker 2: can go back and listen to a lot of things
Speaker 2: that you maybe missed. We tend to all of our
Speaker 2: writers vote on our Albums of the Year, and a
Speaker 2: lot of the time I have missed a lot of
Speaker 2: really good records, so it's quite an education for me
Speaker 2: to put it all together. That comes out next Saturday, Saturday,
Speaker 2: the eighth of December. If you're interested in tracking down
Speaker 2: a copy or subscribing, if you subscribe now actually then
Speaker 2: you will, that will be the first one you would
Speaker 2: receive in the post. So yeah, that's all gone off
Speaker 2: to print. It feels good to get to the end
Speaker 2: of the year. There were times when it looked like
Speaker 2: we weren't going to make it, but we've made it
Speaker 2: and now we can have a little bit of a rest,
Speaker 2: take some time off over Christmas and then we'll be back.
Speaker 2: Our first issue of next year is the second of February.
Speaker 2: There's no January issue. A little bit of closure there,
Speaker 2: and this is also the last episode of the podcast
Speaker 2: that we're going to do for the year. Will come
Speaker 2: back probably mid feb early March. Maybe we need to
Speaker 2: go off now and record a bunch more. But this
Speaker 2: has been a really good series series six. We only
Speaker 2: wanted to do ten episodes. We ended up doing thirteen,
Speaker 2: I think because we were just offered a lot of
Speaker 2: people that we wanted to get in there. So I
Speaker 2: hope you've enjoyed it. We've had some really great people,
Speaker 2: so thank you to everyone that has come on the
Speaker 2: podcast so far. I can't believe we're at number sixty
Speaker 2: three in total. And that's tonight's episode, and it's with
Speaker 2: Roshene Murphy who came by our office a couple of
Speaker 2: months ago. Now we recorded this a while ago, and
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's an odd one. I'm not totally
Speaker 2: convinced that Roshan was loving the experience of talking to me,
Speaker 2: if I'm totally honest, but that's fine. A lot of
Speaker 2: people don't. And I listened back to it today. I've
Speaker 2: literally just edited this this evening to put it out
Speaker 2: in time, because we've had the magazine going on and everything,
Speaker 2: and I was kind of dreading listening back to it.
Speaker 2: I thought it might be really awkward. I'll let you
Speaker 2: be the judge of just how awkward it is or isn't.
Speaker 2: I actually think it's better than I remember it. And
Speaker 2: she has a lot of really interesting things to say.
Speaker 2: Roshan has had a stressful year. She tried something new
Speaker 2: this year and attempted to release a twelve inch one
Speaker 2: a month for four months, and it drove her a
Speaker 2: little bit insane. She talks about that during our conversation.
Speaker 2: She was making those records with Maurice Fulton, who is
Speaker 2: an American DJ. I think he's I'm not sure where
Speaker 2: he's I've got a feeling he's from Detroit, but I
Speaker 2: might be wrong on that. He lives in Melbourne now.
Speaker 2: And the two of them put together these four records,
Speaker 2: eight tracks in total, and were releasing them throughout the summer.
Speaker 2: But more than that, Rushing also does a lot of
Speaker 2: extra things. She's not happy to just make the record.
Speaker 2: She makes all of the videos herself, all of the visuals,
Speaker 2: all of the stage show, everything is her. Perhaps if
Speaker 2: you're old enough, you know Rushing from Malco, which was
Speaker 2: her duo with Mark Briden, Things to Make Him Do,
Speaker 2: was the big record. They released their third album in
Speaker 2: two thousand that had sing It Back on it, the
Speaker 2: remix of sing It Back, which is still an absolute
Speaker 2: standout tune if you put that on now, it is
Speaker 2: a great song, as well as the Time Is Now,
Speaker 2: which I think is their best song. But since then,
Speaker 2: Roschen has released four albums herself. She did four in
Speaker 2: total with Moloko. And in this conversation we kind of
Speaker 2: bounce around all over the place. We talk about her
Speaker 2: getting into music. She never thought she was going to
Speaker 2: be a singer. She thought she was going to be
Speaker 2: an artist of some sort, and meeting Mark, falling in
Speaker 2: love with him, forming Melco, accidentally getting a record deal.
Speaker 2: And although in this conversation she kind of gives herself
Speaker 2: a hard time and seems to think that she hasn't
Speaker 2: really achieved much. I think she's achieved a load. She's
Speaker 2: maybe not been given the jews that she deserves over
Speaker 2: the years, I think, and it started to make maybe
Speaker 2: wear her down, and she's starting to think that maybe
Speaker 2: she's not really done that much. But if you go
Speaker 2: back and listen to her solo records and those Maloco records,
Speaker 2: there's just a hell of a lot of really inventive
Speaker 2: stuff in there, some really inventive music. No one really
Speaker 2: sounded like Melco back then, and I still don't think
Speaker 2: they really do, so definitely worth visiting that again if
Speaker 2: you are unfamiliar with the Molco stuff, and the new
Speaker 2: stuff with Maurice is really good. But she did hate
Speaker 2: putting it out. She hated doing it. You can now
Speaker 2: hear that straight from Rachine. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 2: this episode, and thank you for listening to previous ones
Speaker 2: if you have already. If you haven't, please do check
Speaker 2: them out. We're now going to be on a little
Speaker 2: bit of a break. I feel it's deserved. Thanks to Greg,
Speaker 2: he's done at least half of these over the whole
Speaker 2: of midnight Chats, and yeah, thanks to me, Thanks to me, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've done all right as well. So this is number
Speaker 2: sixty three with Roschen Murphy and if you're interested in
Speaker 2: Loud and Quiet magazine as well, Loudenquiet dot com. Three
Speaker 2: pounds are our new subscriber off for three pounds a month,
Speaker 2: and we're deliver you a copy every time we release one,
Speaker 2: which is nine times a year. New issue next weekend.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to Midnight Chats.
Speaker 3: You know, I had a gig in Belgium a few
Speaker 3: weeks ago that was just I just wanted the stage
Speaker 3: to open up and swallow me. You know. It's really
Speaker 3: everything that could have gone wrong technically did go.
Speaker 2: Wrong right, and to the.
Speaker 3: Point, to the point where, you know, it's like a
Speaker 3: forensic situation for two weeks after to try and figure
Speaker 3: out why this sort of thing catastrophe has gone on.
Speaker 3: You know, a series of catastrophic, catastrophic events have happened,
Speaker 3: and you can't find out. You just you can't necessarily
Speaker 3: get to the bottom of us, and you have to
Speaker 3: go then and do a gig again, not knowing if
Speaker 3: you've sorted out the glitches from the last time. So
Speaker 3: it's really hectic.
Speaker 2: You had you sorted them out.
Speaker 3: More or less, it was, but it could go wrong
Speaker 3: again because we didn't know. Even the next gig after that,
Speaker 3: you don't know, because we don't know really some of it.
Speaker 2: Is there any fun in that? That adrenaline that extra danger.
Speaker 3: Not in that No, there's no fun in that at all,
Speaker 3: But there's loads of fun in touring and doing live
Speaker 3: shows and being a performer. For me is I was
Speaker 3: born to it, really, even though I wasn't, even though
Speaker 3: I didn't think I was going to be a performer,
Speaker 3: The truth is I really, I really am. And as
Speaker 3: I get on with things in life and come across
Speaker 3: other performers, people in the same position as me, and
Speaker 3: I say it's not as easy for them and not
Speaker 3: as enjoyable for them as it is for me. And
Speaker 3: as the years go by, I've become more and more
Speaker 3: kind of grateful for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mean in terms of getting up there some
Speaker 2: people struggle.
Speaker 3: With really, Yeah, I mean in a way that kind
Speaker 3: of surprises me because it just not that it's not
Speaker 3: that I that I think I'm perfect at it, or
Speaker 3: that there is such a thing as being perfect at it.
Speaker 4: But it's just easy for me. It just is, you know, I.
Speaker 3: Just get up, either in front of a camera or
Speaker 3: on a stage or whatever, and it's when you do
Speaker 3: it obviously something that I it's natural for me.
Speaker 2: So when I saw you in the summer and things
Speaker 2: were crazy, was it rehearsals and you had the singles
Speaker 2: were you know that's still coming out now.
Speaker 3: I've ended up doing everything because.
Speaker 2: You're across everything. This is the thing, isn't it. You
Speaker 2: don't just like you.
Speaker 4: Because I'm good at everything. That ended up just.
Speaker 2: Doing it all from the beginning, even like going way
Speaker 2: back to when you're on big record label, when you're
Speaker 2: on EMI and they kind of have like cash to
Speaker 2: get someone to take care of all these things. Were
Speaker 2: you across it all then? Were you Were you obsessed
Speaker 2: in that way then?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, probably, and more so in a way with
Speaker 3: em I because I was more in control of the music.
Speaker 3: So I mean there's part of me now that has
Speaker 3: to compromise. You know. The EMI record is an unusual
Speaker 3: record because it was made at my behest. It was
Speaker 3: made to with lots and lots of different producers, writers, mixers,
Speaker 3: and so the other records that I make are collaboration
Speaker 3: with another guy. You know, Maurice Fulton, you can't tell
Speaker 3: him what to do after a certain point. Matthew Herbert,
Speaker 3: you can't tell him what to do after a certain point.
Speaker 3: Although maybe a little bit.
Speaker 2: More than Murray Okay.
Speaker 3: You know, Mark Brydon even in my loco, I, you know,
Speaker 3: to kind of sit back and let him when I
Speaker 3: wrote sing it back as on a house be because
Speaker 3: that was the vision I had for it, and I
Speaker 3: saw him kind of change it into something else, something beautiful,
Speaker 3: but something else before it ended up on the album.
Speaker 4: You know, they'll go, Okay, I can't push him any further.
Speaker 3: You won't. You won't go any further for me than that.
Speaker 3: But with the my record, I was the boss of that.
Speaker 4: So in a way, yeah, the very stressful.
Speaker 3: Part of that was the end of the making the
Speaker 3: record process was like telling people I was working with,
Speaker 3: I don't like that mix. I'm gonna have to take
Speaker 3: it to somebody else to mix it.
Speaker 2: Are you good at doing that?
Speaker 3: Saying this isn't well when you pay them a fortune,
Speaker 3: because you can do that, you know, But when when
Speaker 3: it's like very much a labor of love, like it
Speaker 3: is with Maurice or with Matthew Herbert. Well, Matthew I
Speaker 3: think did get paid. But but nowadays especially, you know,
Speaker 3: I have to be very careful who I choose to
Speaker 3: work with in terms of music because I am not
Speaker 3: going to be able to boss them around.
Speaker 2: Are you a good do you think you're a good boss.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do think I'm a good boss. I don't
Speaker 3: think you'll find many people who will, you know, I
Speaker 3: think the people on the inside who work with me
Speaker 3: have a very different kind of way of looking at
Speaker 3: me than the people on the outside of the actual
Speaker 3: creative part of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, how do you think people look at you
Speaker 2: from the outside.
Speaker 3: I think I'm a pain in the arse, or I'm
Speaker 3: difficult or vlatile.
Speaker 2: Why do you think they why why would they think that?
Speaker 3: What is it that makes that they don't understand me
Speaker 3: or they don't get my humor, or they're not that clever. Maybe,
Speaker 3: but the people on inside were all seriously clever people.
Speaker 3: You know, they're brilliant. They're brilliant people. I work with
Speaker 3: brilliant people, and I am what they have given me
Speaker 3: to a large extent. So that's there is a difference
Speaker 3: from the inside of the outside.
Speaker 2: And how about having a boss? Were you ever? Were
Speaker 2: you good when you had a boss?
Speaker 3: Never had? Have you?
Speaker 2: Never had one? Because you got into singing young, like
Speaker 2: out of college.
Speaker 4: Don't have it, don't have it?
Speaker 3: There wasn't didn't go to college, don't have any archetype
Speaker 3: in this in my family even that had bosses. So
Speaker 3: we were all people who had their own businesses.
Speaker 2: Did you never even like work in a ship path with?
Speaker 4: I did here and there.
Speaker 3: I had like a job in a restaurant in Sheffield
Speaker 3: that you know the trail blazed and brought you know,
Speaker 3: like chicken sees a salad to Sheffield, had like and
Speaker 3: had like said incredibly like mad chef and stuff. But
Speaker 3: I walked in on him one day and he had
Speaker 3: a knife to somebody's throat and it was like yeah,
Speaker 3: because yeah, he was he was so bigetting for you know,
Speaker 3: because he was making chicken caesar salad.
Speaker 4: It's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I never lasted very long in jobs. No, but three
Speaker 3: three days? Five days? Seriously?
Speaker 2: Was it just because you just got there and you
Speaker 2: thought I can't be told what to do in this way?
Speaker 3: I wasn't very good at it. I wasn't good at
Speaker 3: that kind of stress. I'm not a bit well, I'm
Speaker 3: quite dyslexic and you know, and also just doing maths
Speaker 3: really quickly and quite Yeah, I'm very stressful. That stress
Speaker 3: of like running around and remembering stuff that's like banal,
Speaker 3: you know. It just I'm not good at it. No,
Speaker 3: and as I said, no, no way have I got
Speaker 3: any body in the family. There's no one on either
Speaker 3: side of the family that works for anyone. So we're
Speaker 3: not posh people by any means. You're grafted, but we're
Speaker 3: not working class in the sense of we don't work
Speaker 3: in factories and things like that for other people.
Speaker 4: We create our own world.
Speaker 2: Sure. So when we spoke for the magazine, we were
Speaker 2: mainly talking about your time in Manchester when you were sixteen.
Speaker 2: From Manchester went to Sheffield, which is where the singing starts, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and there was a point where you were hanging out
Speaker 2: at a recording studio I seem to remember, yes, and
Speaker 2: you met Lisa Stansfield.
Speaker 3: That was that was intant, stop stop.
Speaker 2: But he was the guy that kind of said to
Speaker 2: you you should be a singer.
Speaker 3: Oh. I didn't take any notice of him. No, I'm
Speaker 3: not one bit of notice of him. But yeah, he
Speaker 3: did actually say you should be something. You know from
Speaker 3: from the trip, I shouldn't.
Speaker 2: Be doing this, no go for it.
Speaker 4: For the listeners.
Speaker 3: I mean in an egg and baking sandwich. He was
Speaker 3: the guy you said. No, he wasn't just the only guy.
Speaker 3: Loads of people said it to me. I actually want
Speaker 3: to think back like.
Speaker 2: Work in music. But they didn't know.
Speaker 4: They wouldn't say that. They would say you were going
Speaker 4: to be something.
Speaker 2: That's all they would give you. Yeah, okay, because I.
Speaker 3: Have no idea it was any even any good at music.
Speaker 3: I thought it was going to be a visual artist.
Speaker 3: I thought it was going to be something a photographer
Speaker 3: and filmmaker. Yeah, So I went to the chip I
Speaker 3: was at Strawberry Studios. My boyfriend at the time had
Speaker 3: like a hip hop act and he was connected with
Speaker 3: all sorts of people who made music. And on the
Speaker 3: same day I met Martin Hannah, which was quite amazing.
Speaker 2: I remember you saying, Yeah, what was he like? Didn't
Speaker 2: you say?
Speaker 3: He was quite sweat sweaty, very sweaty, and all I
Speaker 3: can really remember seem really nice. But so there was
Speaker 3: a lot of sweat pouring out of him while he
Speaker 3: was working over the console.
Speaker 2: What was he do you know what he was working on?
Speaker 4: I think he was working on a band called Rigg.
Speaker 3: They were also friends with my boyfriends, but yes, So
Speaker 3: then I went to the chip shop with this guy
Speaker 3: who was Lisa Stansfield's A and R. And of course
Speaker 3: she was massive at the time, Lisa very big figurehead
Speaker 3: for me even anyway, but he said to me, by
Speaker 3: the time I got back to the Proficient ship shop
Speaker 3: from there with the stuff for the people, you should
Speaker 3: be something or you're going to be something.
Speaker 4: And then the other person who said that to me
Speaker 4: was Rob Gordon who sorry Rob Mitchell, who ran Warp
Speaker 4: Records in Sheffield.
Speaker 3: He died a few years ago. For he was a
Speaker 3: brilliant guy and they him and his wife were when
Speaker 3: I went to Sheffield. First they were friends with my boyfriend,
Speaker 3: which is why I moved to another boyfriend, which is
Speaker 3: why I moved to Sheffield, because he was finishing his
Speaker 3: architecture degree there.
Speaker 4: So they took me in kind of in a way.
Speaker 3: They used to feed me, and after I broke up
Speaker 3: with Pete, they remained very good friends of mine. The
Speaker 3: first time I ever my name was ever on a record,
Speaker 3: it was on a Warp compilation and it was just
Speaker 3: it was just he name checked all the people who
Speaker 3: were at a party in his house, which was a
Speaker 3: very small party, but he put us on the back
Speaker 3: of the compilation. So that's the first time I was
Speaker 3: over on a record sleeve. And he used to say
Speaker 3: to me, it's going to be something. And at that point,
Speaker 3: you yeah, I didn't know. I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I went into I went into music with that attitude.
Speaker 3: I kind of went into music like I wasn't doing music,
Speaker 3: you know. I had a different sort of when I
Speaker 3: think back, I had a conceptual kind of attitude to it.
Speaker 3: You know, I was like, not as a singer at all.
Speaker 3: I didn't go into it. I mean even I was
Speaker 3: signed to a record deal before I sang it was
Speaker 3: it was things like do you like my tide sweater?
Speaker 3: And pretending to be a valley girl, you know, in
Speaker 3: party weirdo and things like that. It was more like
Speaker 3: performance art or a conceptual view that I was sort
Speaker 3: of I was giving. That's I think what Mark was
Speaker 3: getting from me, and that was the reason why he
Speaker 3: wanted to go ahead with working with me. And I
Speaker 3: think the main reason probably was because we were really
Speaker 3: in love and just to be together was great. But
Speaker 3: he was a proper important producer at that time, you know,
Speaker 3: and he had built fon studios and you know, he
Speaker 3: was the real thing. So and he was I was
Speaker 3: nineteen and he was thirty three when we met, right,
Speaker 3: So it was a bit of a It was a
Speaker 3: bit of a thing, you know, what's right and doing
Speaker 3: young nineteen for God's sake. But it wasn't an ordinary
Speaker 3: nineteen year old, you know, it wasn't like that. It
Speaker 3: wasn't a I wasn't a playboy, bonnie or anything. I mean,
Speaker 3: I was a handful at nineteen. What was a handful
Speaker 3: at fifteen?
Speaker 2: You'd met Mark at a party right house? Did you
Speaker 2: start working together straight away?
Speaker 3: Yeah? That night, really that night I went working to
Speaker 3: get the know and they wouldn't call.
Speaker 2: It work, but recording, working on tracks.
Speaker 4: He recorded me.
Speaker 3: We went to Farm Studios and he recorded me saying
Speaker 3: do you like my tight sweater? She how it fits
Speaker 3: my body? And it went over this beat that he
Speaker 3: already had, and then he had another beat that he
Speaker 3: didn't have me on, and then he had the week
Speaker 3: after that, we went in and after a party as well,
Speaker 3: in the middle of the night, because obviously we were
Speaker 3: using the studio when nobody was there, and.
Speaker 4: When we were in the mood.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not going to go into why we
Speaker 3: were in the mood, but in the middle of the
Speaker 3: night of a weekend, but when we were in the mood,
Speaker 3: we went in and recorded me being this valley girl,
Speaker 3: you know, because I'd started saying at the party we
Speaker 3: were at that night, we got all these probably weirdo.
Speaker 4: And so he was like, let's go in and get
Speaker 4: that one down and all, you know.
Speaker 3: And with those three tracks, his manager went off down
Speaker 3: to London and got a record deal and didn't tell
Speaker 3: me that he was doing that.
Speaker 2: You're not really even singing at this point, You're just
Speaker 2: kind of talking on these three tracks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm.
Speaker 4: Like, are you sure Mark that you want to do this?
Speaker 3: Were you talking about it?
Speaker 4: It was a sixth album deal, yeah, And so.
Speaker 2: Can you remember that moment when you went down and
Speaker 2: signed it?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I can.
Speaker 2: I can because this must have been So this is
Speaker 2: this like ninety three, ninety four four, which is a
Speaker 2: time when the music industry is completely different to what
Speaker 2: it is today. Was there a big signing party. Was
Speaker 2: there was a big signing parody?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, and it wasn't.
Speaker 4: There wasn't a huge label Echo was.
Speaker 3: It was like an independent label, yeah, but part of
Speaker 3: Chrystalis And they signed up publishing at the same time.
Speaker 3: So we were signed to Christmas Publishing, which was great
Speaker 3: actually and turned out to be a great thing for us,
Speaker 3: because they were a really great publishing company. They're now BMG.
Speaker 3: So now all that stuff's on.
Speaker 2: Bmgure And what were you thinking in that moment? Like
Speaker 2: this kind of almost happened by accident in a way,
Speaker 2: and you're suddenly down in London.
Speaker 3: As I said, you know, it wasn't like that I
Speaker 3: was ever going to be allowed to think this is
Speaker 3: it now, I'm going to be a pop star. First
Speaker 3: of all, we lived in Sheffield. Sheffield was a bubble.
Speaker 3: The way I came at it, I didn't come at
Speaker 3: it like that. I didn't come at it as somebody'd
Speaker 3: been in stage school and let's what you trying to,
Speaker 3: you know, get my talent to cross as a singer
Speaker 3: and a songwriter and all that. And as I said,
Speaker 3: I did say to Mark, what the hell are you doing?
Speaker 3: Why do you want to sign a six album deal
Speaker 3: with me? And he said to me very smartly, and
Speaker 3: it's true, he said, it says six album deal. But
Speaker 3: if we get six albums, something is gone extremely light roaching.
Speaker 3: So I really wouldn't worry about if things go wrong, they'll.
Speaker 2: Go roun and that's that, and it'd become a one album.
Speaker 3: One album or two or three or whatever, you know,
Speaker 3: and so it's not like a life sentence or anything.
Speaker 4: And so he was just up.
Speaker 3: For it, I don't you know, and it was good.
Speaker 3: I think he must have liked and was never you know,
Speaker 3: he's never one of these guys that couldn't listen to women.
Speaker 3: He love women and stuff. So usually guys around me
Speaker 3: do they not people who have any problem with women.
Speaker 3: So he was quite happy to just my naive passion.
Speaker 4: It was something he was quite happy to sort of
Speaker 4: soak up.
Speaker 3: Obviously.
Speaker 2: So what happens next? You stayed in Sheffield, didn't you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you didn't kind of move anywhere else. You stayed up
Speaker 2: there until when was it for the first three records.
Speaker 3: I didn't move down to London until around two thousand, right,
Speaker 3: two thousand and.
Speaker 2: One maybe even Yeah, it's the first three were out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, the last album we made, both of us
Speaker 3: were living in London, but we were no longer a
Speaker 3: boyfriend and girl, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, obviously that's not so. The first role came
Speaker 2: out in ninety four, okay.
Speaker 3: So it must have been ninety three that we signed
Speaker 3: the deal, I think, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously around ninety four to ninety five is when
Speaker 2: brit pop goes mad, and it's something that.
Speaker 3: Was really an anathema to everyone in Sheffield, was it?
Speaker 3: People were like, what's going on? Yeah, we work not
Speaker 3: like ourant god experimental music.
Speaker 2: Even with like Pulp being in there, well.
Speaker 3: Poulpe were in London so and had been for a
Speaker 3: very long time. They didn't seem like actually like a
Speaker 3: Sheffield band right at that point. And I didn't know
Speaker 3: anybody who made indie music in Sheffield. I only knew,
Speaker 3: you know, Richard Cook and Parrot and all these people
Speaker 3: who made incredible electronic music. And also the lineage seemed
Speaker 3: to be of that as well with Human League, and
Speaker 3: so it seemed a bit like what's going on here?
Speaker 3: Like excuse me? Did seem retrograde?
Speaker 2: As Malca got bigger at that time.
Speaker 3: It never felt like my loco got big. It just
Speaker 3: it really it never felt that way.
Speaker 2: Even when it back, I felt.
Speaker 3: Like sing it back got big. It never felt like
Speaker 3: that happened to us.
Speaker 2: What do you think that's down to? Like, just like
Speaker 2: the club culture that Malca are a kind of more
Speaker 2: part of, where the tracks.
Speaker 3: Zillion reasons there must be just you know, you could
Speaker 3: probably write a thesis on why, or you could just
Speaker 3: say we weren't good enough. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think I think Malcha did get big. I think
Speaker 2: to you it maybe didn't.
Speaker 4: Feel like it never felt that way.
Speaker 3: I never felt like I'd put my feet up, and
Speaker 3: now you know success has come. I've never felt that,
Speaker 3: and I still, obviously I don't feel it now. I'm
Speaker 3: constantly running to prove it and to be just better
Speaker 3: than the last thing, and you know, and and to surprise,
Speaker 3: and in a sense that's what gives me the hope
Speaker 3: and to keep going like that. I know that my
Speaker 3: next record is completely different to my last record and
Speaker 3: all that, so I know there's still this chance that
Speaker 3: anything can happen. It's not like But what's depressing about
Speaker 3: the industry now is that they literally think they can work.
Speaker 3: It used to be that the business was about hope
Speaker 3: and about somebody would meet you and say, I believe
Speaker 3: in you. You know, I think something's gonna happen. You're
Speaker 3: gonna this is gonna kick off. Yeah, Whereas now it's
Speaker 3: like they look at everything I've done in the past.
Speaker 3: They collate the numbers, they crunch the data, they decide
Speaker 3: how much they're going to spend versus how much they
Speaker 3: are absolutely sure that they're going to make.
Speaker 4: And there is no mystery anymore.
Speaker 2: There's no like it's like a science.
Speaker 3: They think so, But of course, how can that be
Speaker 3: with art? I mean, I just don't know how person
Speaker 3: I would give up if I thought like that, I
Speaker 3: would not have the energy.
Speaker 2: Would you have liked to have been huge?
Speaker 3: That's very that's an impossible question.
Speaker 2: Were you aiming for? It was? When when you're making
Speaker 2: my local records? Is that was that the aim?
Speaker 3: No, I don't think so. Actually, it wasn't the aim.
Speaker 3: The aim was to be brilliant, I guess, to to
Speaker 3: to make records that you know.
Speaker 4: It certainly wasn't the aim to avoid it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was perhaps the aim too more than
Speaker 3: aim to kind of just make great records. And we.
Speaker 4: You know, I never got I was never on the
Speaker 4: slee leave.
Speaker 3: Until the very last record. The picture of me was
Speaker 3: never on the front front of the sleeve and all that.
Speaker 3: And at the beginning, we were meant to be three dolls.
Speaker 3: We were going to be these three dolls that were
Speaker 3: dressed in raincoats, raincoat sisters, and we did a photo
Speaker 3: shoot with the with the dolls and they're on the
Speaker 3: first single, and the photo shoot didn't give us a date.
Speaker 4: It was not enough.
Speaker 3: Emotion in the first photo shoot, so we had we
Speaker 3: had them shot again right, which did come with a
Speaker 3: bit more emotion. But it ran around that idea because
Speaker 3: there wasn't much else we could do with those dolls.
Speaker 3: But it was never on the agenda that I would
Speaker 3: be pushed to the forefront of Malco as a as
Speaker 3: a pop star, and definitely not what I got into
Speaker 3: it for. I didn't know how I got into it,
Speaker 3: as I said, I got into it with line you
Speaker 3: don't be doing I said, Jacks, come on, let's do this.
Speaker 3: You know, I was little like tear.
Speaker 2: Away, you were a sonic you fat?
Speaker 4: I was, Yes, I was.
Speaker 3: That's part of me too, But I would by that point,
Speaker 3: I was really into all kinds of music, and especially
Speaker 3: into dance music.
Speaker 2: What was it that got you from segue from like
Speaker 2: sonic youth and kind of punk and no wave into
Speaker 2: club music? Can you remember?
Speaker 3: But it's all the same, you know, the more I
Speaker 3: grow up and look at it now and I kind
Speaker 3: of look at you know, it's just all the same.
Speaker 3: It's all the same. It's all got if it's gotten.
Speaker 3: I mean the genres that you're talking about, the music
Speaker 3: that I love, it has the same energy, whether it's
Speaker 3: like Rose Royce or Sonic Youth. You know, when you
Speaker 3: look at her singing in Rose Royce, she's a punk.
Speaker 3: You know, she's like she don't give her f like
Speaker 3: she's just in it, like totally it is totally so awful,
Speaker 3: you know, And that's what I like.
Speaker 4: There's there's no good there's no types of music that
Speaker 4: are bad or good. It's just bad or good music.
Speaker 4: And that's a cliche, but it's true.
Speaker 2: That's true. But I suppose to make art, you have
Speaker 2: to like kind of.
Speaker 4: Choose your Why was I not making son it?
Speaker 2: Well you have to, Yeah, you kind of had to.
Speaker 2: Sound'm going to be in a band. I'm going to
Speaker 2: make disco music and I'm still a punk and I
Speaker 2: still make it with that spirit. But the music I'll
Speaker 2: be making is like club music. Like you still have
Speaker 2: to choose one or the other, don't you.
Speaker 3: I don't. We didn't choose club music anyway, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: My local did not choose choose club music. I had
Speaker 3: a bit of a struggle trying to get Mark to
Speaker 3: go back to club music. It had experienced the very
Speaker 3: sort of furnace of it in this country.
Speaker 4: It's a huge hit with.
Speaker 3: With them house arrests and like in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 3: so one of the first house records that became a
Speaker 3: hit that was homegrown and and the Doll been doing it,
Speaker 3: and the Doll been in competition with each children in
Speaker 3: Sheffield as well. Now definitely there's been a lot of
Speaker 3: that going on that was quite funny as well in
Speaker 3: a way the blokes quite bitchy.
Speaker 2: Well, Malka did very much become its own thing. Did
Speaker 2: you get lumped in with other people though? In the
Speaker 2: Britain like it felt like with britpop, if you were
Speaker 2: a guitar band, you were instantly a britpop band trip
Speaker 2: hoop and you became then a trip pop thing and
Speaker 2: part of the kind.
Speaker 3: Of local work, you know, not being funny, But we
Speaker 3: existed before the term trip hop. So maybe we're partly
Speaker 3: to blame for it. I don't know, but certainly we
Speaker 3: weren't making trip hop when we made the record. It
Speaker 3: was finished, the finished record before anyone had termed the phrase,
Speaker 3: coined the term trip hop. So it was rather disappointing,
Speaker 3: and it was a really crappy name, even for a
Speaker 3: type of music. It seems so flighty and flyaway to
Speaker 3: kind of put these notions together, jam them together in
Speaker 3: this postmodern way. Hip hop and you know, LSD or tripping,
Speaker 3: you know acid, they don't really go together first of all, anyway,
Speaker 3: And it's just a kind of I don't know, it
Speaker 3: just seemed.
Speaker 4: It sounded terrible in a word. It was it was doomed,
Speaker 4: you know, it was a doomed.
Speaker 3: Bad phrase.
Speaker 4: For music, a bad name for a style of music,
Speaker 4: a terrible name.
Speaker 3: So what is like?
Speaker 2: Now? What do you consider success? I don't think about success,
Speaker 2: not at all.
Speaker 3: Try not to other one I will get probably depressed.
Speaker 3: I just keep going every day. And as I said
Speaker 3: to you, the the the details, and people outside of
Speaker 3: the creative part of it don't understand that that sometimes
Speaker 3: I get bogged down in the details. The details. The
Speaker 3: details have to be right. The color of the grade
Speaker 3: has to be right, the edit has to be perfect,
Speaker 3: the music has to be great, the sleeve has to
Speaker 3: be gorgeous. There's no you know, I checked the spelling
Speaker 3: on things. You know, it's like it all adds up
Speaker 3: to the experience, and I'm so busy thinking about those things.
Speaker 3: And I also to think about success because what I
Speaker 3: have is not I don't think it has proven itself
Speaker 3: to be relatively successful.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, you don't consider yourself.
Speaker 4: Successful, not relatively, you know.
Speaker 3: I I think if I went around saying I'm really successful,
Speaker 3: there'll be plenty of people come along and go, what.
Speaker 4: Do you mean you're successful?
Speaker 3: Your last record.
Speaker 4: Didn't even chart or you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: There would like there's plenty of things that you could
Speaker 3: say are not successful about in my career.
Speaker 2: You know so well, but you must think that's a
Speaker 2: certain amount of it successful. Otherwise you want to be
Speaker 2: like I have my.
Speaker 3: Moments, like if I'm standing on stage and as the
Speaker 3: gig is going really really well, that feels like a success.
Speaker 4: If I'm at a club but Maurice drops.
Speaker 3: One of these records that we've made and it's in
Speaker 3: that context works perfectly, that's a success.
Speaker 4: If I put.
Speaker 3: A video out and you know, people who know what
Speaker 3: they're talking about it's brilliant, that's a success. If I
Speaker 3: create a look that then becomes something that's you know,
Speaker 3: a designer references or that's a success, you know, those
Speaker 3: those are kind of successes. They're small successes. And as
Speaker 3: I said to you, I'm looking for the compound effect. Really,
Speaker 3: I'm waiting for the compound effect of all those little,
Speaker 3: tiny successes too, maybe hopefully in retrospect, will create a
Speaker 3: bigger sense of success within me, a bigger sense of achievement.
Speaker 2: So that is success if all of those things could
Speaker 2: come together at the same time.
Speaker 3: Better A yeah, No, I mean, at some point it
Speaker 3: just better be like compound interest, you know, at some point,
Speaker 3: it just better be that regardless as to the certain
Speaker 3: areas that I have been excluded from. You know, one day,
Speaker 3: the compound of everything that I actually have achieved will
Speaker 3: override all that. And that's what I believe that otherwise.
Speaker 4: I couldn't go on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what would you do if you weren't doing this?
Speaker 3: I'm doing everything, so I wouldn't be doing anything. Do
Speaker 3: you understand what I mean?
Speaker 4: Everything that I can do, I'm doing every day.
Speaker 3: I'm making film and making visual and making pictures and
Speaker 3: performing and making music and talking to you. I'm doing
Speaker 3: podcasts now myself. So I'm doing everything. So I would
Speaker 3: either do this or do nothing at all, Like I
Speaker 3: would either get into I would pull the covers over
Speaker 3: me and go to sleep for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2: Sure, in terms of like what the music industry is now,
Speaker 2: there's all of these different things to do. Do you
Speaker 2: like the way it is now compared to the way
Speaker 2: it was? It sounds like even back then you were
Speaker 2: really hands on across anything anyway, But now that there's
Speaker 2: all of these extra things, it'd.
Speaker 4: Be nice it us a bit more, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, in a way, the more I do, the
Speaker 3: less grateful the people who other people who have to
Speaker 3: gain from the work that I put in are that
Speaker 3: I find really difficult to absorb. You know, I've delivered
Speaker 3: videos in the last few months and my record label
Speaker 3: don't get in.
Speaker 4: Touch with me. They don't even say is it because
Speaker 4: thanks for that?
Speaker 2: Is it just because people are expected to do everything
Speaker 2: themselves now?
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean there's this awful culture of asking
Speaker 3: I was reading a very interesting piece about this last night.
Speaker 4: This is awful culture of asking creative people to do
Speaker 4: stuff for free. Dreadful like.
Speaker 3: And that cliche of where you wouldn't go into a
Speaker 3: restaurant and say give me the food for free for exposure.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like what it's dreadful, dreadful culture of
Speaker 3: that and the music industry as a whole, it had
Speaker 3: a very bad time a few years ago, for sure.
Speaker 4: But the numbers are that last year was the best
Speaker 4: year of the music industry's entire existence ever.
Speaker 3: There was more money made in the music business than
Speaker 3: ever before, but not the artists. It wasn't the same
Speaker 3: for the artists.
Speaker 2: But are those numbers not skewed in the favor of
Speaker 2: like the major labels and that Spotify.
Speaker 3: Amount of money that is being generated in the music
Speaker 3: business was the biggest amount ever last year. That's all
Speaker 3: I'm saying. I'm not going into the details of where
Speaker 3: the money went except to say that only twelve percent
Speaker 3: of it went to the artists, right, yeah, that's that.
Speaker 3: Those are the figures, So even the big artists. You know,
Speaker 3: of course, many of the big artists now are creating
Speaker 3: their own corporations and all this kind of I'm not
Speaker 3: in the position to do that, or you know, i'd
Speaker 3: like to actually, and I think I could do it.
Speaker 2: But you know, how have you enjoyed the singles putting
Speaker 2: out the twelve inch singles that you've done over the summer.
Speaker 2: You've got one more to come, haven't you.
Speaker 3: I haven't enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: You haven't enjoyed it.
Speaker 4: The pressure just has been immense. I don't think.
Speaker 3: I've had worse years, because I've had sadder years in
Speaker 3: my life, but I have never had this hard a year.
Speaker 3: This is the hardest things I've ever been. So when
Speaker 3: you asked me about SASS, I'm definitely not in a
Speaker 3: place where I'm thinking I'm successful, right, I'm just thinking.
Speaker 3: But I do think I'm bloody good. I mean, I
Speaker 3: do think what I do is, you know, more and
Speaker 3: more as the years go by. If anything, the quality
Speaker 3: is going up and up what I do because I'm
Speaker 3: just I have to.
Speaker 4: I just absolutely have to make it brilliant.
Speaker 2: But the singles have been tough.
Speaker 3: It's been tough. Yeah, can't put out four singles. It
Speaker 3: was meant to be one a month. In the end,
Speaker 3: after two, I was totally exhausted, wiped out, you know,
Speaker 3: not because I'm putting out singles, but because of everything
Speaker 3: that goes around them.
Speaker 4: And I have to make everything that goes around them.
Speaker 3: And as I said to you, I have to check
Speaker 3: even the very you know, the fine print of things
Speaker 3: because other people aren't. I don't have like you see,
Speaker 3: I was never one for even knowing what people's jobs
Speaker 3: were in the record companies that I was in with
Speaker 3: a production manager, and I don't I don't have one
Speaker 3: of them, and don't have all sorts of there's all
Speaker 3: sorts of people that are not lots of titles that
Speaker 3: you think I know what they do, but I know
Speaker 3: they're not there anymore, right, Yeah, And I know what
Speaker 3: it means now. It means that I have to check
Speaker 3: absolutely everything, and so it's it's bolic, you know. And
Speaker 3: so after two I nearly had a breakdown. Seriously, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm close again now really because this last video I've
Speaker 3: stretched I've stretched time and space and money. You know,
Speaker 3: I've warped.
Speaker 4: Reality getting this video that's about to come tomorrow. But
Speaker 4: you see, I really think I'm good at it. I
Speaker 4: do think I'm good at.
Speaker 3: It, and be a shame not to do to that.
Speaker 4: Do me, you know, to do me.
Speaker 2: I think it probably comes back to the fact that
Speaker 2: when you got into music looking at it from a
Speaker 2: different angle, from like a more conceptual angle anyway, and
Speaker 2: as someone that thought they might be a conceptual artist.
Speaker 4: So why I don't ever thought would be a conceptual artist?
Speaker 4: Or maybe I did, Yes, I suppose I loath to
Speaker 4: admit it though, now Jesus, what a bunch of arseholes
Speaker 4: they are.
Speaker 2: But you know, you, you came at it from that
Speaker 2: world or that mindset, whereas, like you know, most people,
Speaker 2: a lot of people, I suppose that the standard way
Speaker 2: that musicians think is like, I just want to be
Speaker 2: the musician. Someone else can deal with this.
Speaker 3: That's just like people. I'm telling you, that is so easy.
Speaker 3: It's too easy for me. I just get in the
Speaker 3: studio and before I leave that day, there's a song there.
Speaker 3: I just think to myself, I want to make a record.
Speaker 3: A look around, and there's always someone there in my
Speaker 3: life who's brilliant, brilliant to help me with it. It's easy.
Speaker 4: It's sang I sing, I opened me gop, I opened
Speaker 4: my gob say.
Speaker 3: When I was eleven, I sang don't Cry from me
Speaker 3: Argentina in front of my parents and my grandmother and
Speaker 3: my uncle and mean and the cousins, and they all
Speaker 3: went jeez, roachingk and sing, and then every time they
Speaker 3: drank they ran after me to sing don't Cry from
Speaker 3: my Argentina, and I ran as fast as I want
Speaker 3: to get away from them, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Just like you open your gob and the voice is there.
Speaker 3: It's easy.
Speaker 4: It's not even like I didn't even have to learn
Speaker 4: an instrument, you know.
Speaker 3: That's totally another, like a language that I don't that
Speaker 3: I don't speak, you know. But yeah, making music the
Speaker 3: way I make music, collaborating with these brilliant people, it's
Speaker 3: too easy. I couldn't possibly, I couldn't possibly feel good
Speaker 3: about yourself just doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a piece of piece.
Speaker 1: Midnight Chats is a loud and Quiet podcast production by
Speaker 1: Emma's Music courtesy of gold Panda. Search Midnight Chats on
Speaker 1: iTunes for more episodes and to subscribe. For more information,
Speaker 1: visit Loud Quiet dot com