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The Long Blondes Interview |
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Words: Everett True
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Photography: Cat Stevens
Pop said. When I was a child, the half-hour walk
to primary school led me across a busy road, the
A12. It wasn’t a motorway, and either side was
punctuated by trees, gravel pits and hidden copses
where if you didn’t run fast and wily you’d quickly
be pinned down, but there was no denying that the
folk who lived on the new housing estate near the
Junior School didn’t hang around with us kids who
lived in the old part of town. We were separated by
a trunk road.
One time, I walked slap bang into a lamppost.
After that, I kept my eyes open.
Do you find that you intimidate audiences?
Kate Jackson (voice, songs): “I hope so.”
Dorian Cox (guitar, songs): “Not intimidated,
but…”
Kate: “I don’t think so. They never fail to come
over to us afterwards.”
Dorian: “The intimidated ones scurry off home
to write on message boards, ‘The Long Blondes
were crap’.”
Screech Louder (drums): “Jealousy, nothing
wrong with it. It’s a human emotion.”
Oh blimey fuck. I don’t know. I’m so unused to
doing interviews these days. You know how to
do interviews. You tell me how to do it.
“Ask us a string of questions about how we
formed and what our influences are and all that
stuff,” suggests Screech. OK. The Long Blondes
formed in Sheffield in 2003 and, after releasing
a handful of singles on a variety of cool labels,
have been snapped up by Rough Trade. Until
recently, Cox worked in admin at Sheffield
University (“It was getting embarrassing, the
number of students asking me for autographs”),
Jackson sold vintage clothes on e-Bay, Louder
was briefly at the Home Office and the other two
members, Emma Chaplin (keyboards) and Reenie
Hollis (bass) worked in a Leeds art library and in
the media studies department of a Rotherham
college respectively.
Their interests are…oh, wait. I get it. I’m
supposed to ask them that.
Do you recognise yourself in the mirror?
Kate: “How do you mean? I don’t know what
you’re getting at! At home…?”
I don’t recognise myself in the mirror.
Kate: “I’m very, very used to seeing myself.”
Screech: “I try to avoid looking in mirrors as
much as possible.”
Emma: “I’m the same, especially if I’m on a night
out. You don’t want to see the sick truth!”
Screech: “Yeah, mirrors and tape recorders.”
Emma: “I don’t like looking at photographs of
me at all.”
Kate: “I do. I look at pictures of me a lot,
because there are lots of pictures of me all over
the place now.”
When you’re singing, do you know what you
sound like?
Kate: “When I hear recordings back I do, yeah.”
How do you do that?
Kate: “I’ve got a good voice, mate!”
lonely this christmas
So I was listening to your single ‘Christmas Is
Cancelled’ earlier, and my wife pointed out that it
sounds exactly like Elvis Costello’s ‘Oliver’s Army’.
“A lot of people have said that,” replies Screech.
“Do you know The Vichy Government? They did
a cover of it and mixed the lyrics to ‘Oliver’s Army’
in, and it sounded great.”
“I’m quite pleased with that,” says Dorian. “It’s
always nice to give Elvis Costello a leg-up. I thought
I’d do what I could.”
Context. This is important. Pop said, trust in
me and if you’re sweet and calm and wear floral patterned
shirts on Tuesdays and keep taking
the piano lessons, maybe I’ll re-introduce you to
some decent music every 16 years. Pop said, it’s
the Christmas records that are the most special,
because they have a head start – they’re already
about a special occasion – and the most special
ones of all are the ones that mix melancholy with
the tinsel, heartache alongside the happiness – and
the reason you fell so heavily, headily for The Long
Blondes, Sheffield’s finest if we leave aside near
neighbours Arctic Monkeys (and we’ll do that for
many, many reasons), is because they did all this on
their free Christmas download of a couple of years
back, a song you placed on play and repeat on
iTunes one rainy winter in Seattle. Yet it’s taken
you this long to realise its similarity to Costello. And
this, after you heard The Long Blondes’ pink vinyl
debut single, ‘New Idols’/’Long Blonde’ (SPC) and
had them initially tagged as a fine reprise of The
Au Pairs’ agonised, political, early Eighties groove.
Where do you fit in with the current pantheon
of music? I’m not clued in on it right. All I listen to
is what I like, and anything else I don’t like I don’t
listen to.
“That’s the best way to be,” nods Screech.
I was watching the Live Forever documentary…
“Is that the Britpop one?” the drummer asks.
“Yeah,” confirms Dorian. “I’ve seen that. The
saving grace is Jarvis – and Liam’s hilarious.”
It depressed me.
Screech: “It is a bit…”
Dorian: “…self-serving…”
I’m guessing you don’t relate to Blur…
“No,” exclaims Screech, horrified. “No,” he
repeats. “We’re very much not Blur. I can think of
a few bands around that are Blur. We’re not.”
So what is the context you exist within? What
about these almost mythical labels like the Sheffield
Phonographic Corporation and the Angular
Recording Company you’ve released singles on,
with their anachronistic artwork and fond regard
for vinyl? These people are stars in my world: the
abrasive mix of teen punk and jagged refrains they
keep releasing, scouring the UK for like minds.
I’m talking the minimalist art school frenzy of
Champion Kickboxer, those crafty magpies Smokers
Die Younger, the very excellent Motherfuckers, the
even more excellent Fucks, the Virginian chicken
farmer Charles E Cullen. I’m talking The Violets’
Gothic screech, yes, Art Brut (and there’s nothing
wrong with that), Luxembourg’s glam pout and
The Sweethearts’ gentle femme-pop (“Me, my
housemates, a bottle of Lambrini, a Casio and
a four track,” writes Angular co-founder Joe).
Isn’t this The Long Blondes’ world, not all
those dumb-ass awards ceremonies where Kate’s
been nominated for ‘Sexiest Female’ and a bunch
of skinny boys with perfectly tousled hair and
a collection of Hives and Yeah Yeah Yeahs singles
rub shoulders deferentially with Chris Martin.
“We’ve met a lot of likeminded people on the
way up,” agrees Dorian, “but when we started, we
thought we were the only ones. We thought we’d
be up against macho laddism – soundmen in shorts.
But then these people cropped up.”
Your lyrics: it’s rare to hear a woman singing
them…
“I think it’s rare for males to be singing them,”
corrects Dorian. “I can’t think of any other bands
that are doing it.”
Sardonic social commentary mixed with tearyeyed
heartache? I read somewhere that’s what
the Arctic Monkeys do. I listened to their record
and didn’t hear it myself, couldn’t get past that
horrendous drumbeat, but…
“It’s completely different,” counters Screech.
“Alex is an auteur at what he does – social
commentary in the vaguest sense. But I think, and
this is not necessarily a criticism, they have a very
laddish and braggish attitude. That’s not us. To use
a hideous soundbite, they’re in the gutter looking
at the gutter and we’re in the gutter looking up
at the stars. Our lyrics are much more aspirational.
We’re saying we’re in this situation and we’d like
to escape it, and they’re saying they’re in a situation
and they quite like it.”
dry your eyes, sunday girl
There are so many ways I don’t relate to The Long
Blondes. One: they know about kissing. Two, their
new single is called ‘Weekend Without Make Up’.
Weekend? I spent my entire early twenties
without deodorant or hair styling, in 10-inch
polyester flares hawked from jumble sales (charity
stores were too grand for me) and no, I didn’t
have a girlfriend, now you mention it. All I had
was a plastic bag swinging gaily from my hand,
containing vinyl and crisps packets and spectacles,
as I hopped from one foot to another in abandon,
out of time.
So many different ways: they understand about
cool and poise and chic and why Continental people
are cooler than Brits, and why comic book artists
are obsessed with the Victorians, and what it’s like
to throw up purple puke over your glitter-streaked
face, and how to cherish a pair of shoes, and
the attraction certain icons (Warhol starlet Edie
Sedgwick, Sixites film star Anna Karina) have over
others, and what it’s like to have friends you can
have conversations with. I’m 45 and I still don’t
understand any of that stuff. All I can grasp at
are certain mannerisms, the way a wrist is flicked
downward, a yelped backing vocal, resonance
and pure, clear female voices dipping and soaring
and rising gracefully upward, and yeah, lust etc.
“The Long Blondes,” someone whispers, “are
the ultimate fantasy pop group: Jean Harlow, Mae
West, Nico, Nancy Sinatra and Barbara Windsor.”
A weekend? Man, these kids know how to
make a man feel insignificant. I wish I’d paid more
attention to The Go-Betweens. They’d have taught
me how to wear eyeliner.
What is your favourite item of clothing?
Screech: “This Adam And The Ants T-shirt. It’s
an original I was given by a friend. I’ve had it for
about a year. It fits me like a dream. It’s a good gig
T-shirt. It’s white, so it doesn’t make me too hot.”
Dorian: “Favourite item of clothing? Oh Christ!
Suggest one. I’ve got so many.”
Emma: “Your cowboy boots, because you wear
them for every gig.”
Dorian: “You make me sound like Jet! They’re
supposed to be like Edwyn Collins.”
Yeah, well. I never did understand that side
of Edwyn.
Dorian: “It’s meant to be Americana, like the
Davy Crockett hat.”
Screech: “Kind of Velvet Underground.”
Is that what it is? See, I never understood The
Velvet Underground.
Screech: “Ah well, there you go. They are a band
of two halves.”
There was one half I really didn’t like.
Dorian: “And the other half I really didn’t like.”
Kate: “Did you see Lou Reed when he was on
Jools Holland? He had the Tai Chi.”
Dorian: “It was Antony, from Antony And
The Johnsons.”
Kate: “It was like the worst five, seven minutes
of television I’ve ever seen.”
Screech: “He’s a dull man isn’t he, Reed?”
Dorian: “Very Reed.”
Screech: “That’s well Reed. You could use that
as an insult.”
Pop said, place your trust in me and really, there’s
little that can go wrong. Pop isn’t a matter of
throwing money at a wall, or endless years spent
in back rooms ‘paying your dues’, or fitting in, or
tracksuit bottoms and one-star sneakers. Pop is
craft is pride is joy is the knowledge there is more
than one way out of this is filmic splendour is
Shangri-Las B-sides is the odd snatch of a whispered
refrain caught from a car window is sunlit ferry rides
into industrial wastelands is The Royalettes. Pop is
tight-fitting skirts, the charm of Rita Tushingham,
a dimple, smudged mascara, the knowledge that
the illusion you create can be more important
than the reality you face because life is all about
perception, and nothing matters more than having
a nice pair of spectacles. Pop is a three-minute rush
of blood, and to my way of thinking, nothing starts
that blood rushing faster than hearing a perfectly
composed, slightly cruel, femme voice warning
unsuitable types away from getting too close.
When I import my promo CD of The Long
Blondes’ new single, it shows up in my iTunes
folder as ‘Boombastic’ by Shaggy, from the album
My Lover Lover.
That’s precisely what I’m talking about.
sheffield sex city
“I’m Kate. I’m the singer in The Long Blondes.
My favourite item of clothing is my black patent
stilettos, which I wear for every single gig and
they’re now falling apart as you can see. There’s
a rip, the toecap’s come off the heel…[she holds the
shoe up for my inspection >…yes, they are battered.
I can’t bring myself to buy any new ones. They’re
moulded to the shape of my feet and, um, they’re
a classic shape, and, um, they go with everything
I wear. They were from Langton’s Antique Centre
in Sheffield, a bargain at £8.”
“I’m Reenie. I’m going to go for the yellow polka
dot headscarf that I’m wearing. Yellow is the colour
of the season supposedly, and yeah it’s summer, so
it’s time to get out your headscarves.”
Do you follow colours of the season? You’re
wearing yellow eyeshadow.
“No,” Reenie replies. “Because you don’t want
to end up in puce.”
“I’m Emma. My favourite item, I wore it for the
last four gigs we did, it’s my customised cat shirt, it’s
white with little black spots and little black cats all
over it and it goes with everything, all my jeans, all
my skirts, it’s a classic and it was £3 in a sale.”
Pop told me this: it’s important, what bands
wear. Music is not just sound, it’s context: what
you’re drinking (orange squash, thanks), the way
your glasses needle your nose, the lack of overbite in
the jaw, the hum of an overworked computer, the
colour of the walls, the repetition on TV. I imagined
The Long Blondes to be my friends, to be dressed
in suede and velvet and cheap antique clothing way
before I ever saw a picture of them. Gotta confess,
I thought that Kate would have blonde hair but
that’s an old prejudice. Flowery-patterned dresses,
sharp pointed shoes, the odd PiL or X-Ray Spex
badge on the lapel, red handbags…kind of like
my old Pastels crowd up in Glasgow, if I’m honest.
I guess what I’m saying here is: there’s no way
The Long Blondes can disappoint me because
I have little imagination left and hence zero
expectation. So when you get up on stage, do
you dress up?
“Hmmm, I suppose,” muses Reenie, “compared
to what we’ve been wearing in the van.”
“Where have the cosy socks gone?” Kate
suddenly asks, aghast, looking around the tour
van where the interview is taking place. There’s
a montage of Diana Dors that Kate’s been working
on for the new single sleeve slung over the back
seat, a few discarded croissants and bottles of
water, plus a copy of Mojo. I’ve seen far worse.
“Ah no, they have disappeared, Katherine!”
exclaims Reenie. “The boys must have hidden them.
They’re far more concerned about image than us.”
I don’t normally prep for interviews but I made
a special exception for you because, Gosh darn it,
I like you kids. So I noticed all the questions thrown
at you are about image, and either refer to Kate
as a vixen, a vamp or a…
“Or a style icon,” the singer laughs. “How
does it feel to be a style icon? I get that all the time.
It’s fantastic, fan-bloody-tastic, fan-fan bloodybloody
tastic!”
So I was watching Live Forever last night…
“Did you like it?” interrupts Reenie.
It reminded me of how much I hated Britpop…
but The Long Blondes remind me of Britpop and
I don’t know why.
“I guess it’s because we’re all of that age,” Kate
extrapolates. “When we were teenagers and going
out, Britpop was huge. We loved those bands.
Suede were massive.”
“You know, the good bands, not your Northern
Uproars,” Reenie reminds me.
God, don’t tell me. I interviewed them once
on a council estate in Manchester. Man, it was
depressing. Nice lads but…depressing.
So you liked the poncey bands?
“Yeah,” they reply in unison.
“Have The Long Blondes made you want to
revisit the Britpop era any more?” Kate asks coyly.
No. It made me think I should stop listening to
The Long Blondes! I fucking hated Britpop. Except
Pulp, of course…and, well there’s the rub, there’s
the game right there, the money shot, the billion
dollar payback, the green, the focus, the moment
where pound signs start to appear in A&R people’s
eyes (and boy, do we care for those sparkly, cheery,
dimpling A&R people’s eyes). Because. Well I may
as well state it. The Long Blondes remind me of Pulp:
the same sardonic wink, the same literary liturgy,
the same elegant, cheaply-dressed charm, the same
fucking city for God’s sake, the same disregard for
convention, the same love for Sixties girl pop.
No bad thing.
Here are some Long Blondes songtitles I like.
appropriation (by any other name)
“Eighty per cent of lovers never forget their first/That
significant other whose departure makes it worse.”
Man, these lyrics lacerate. What would you do if
I didn’t come back tonight/I’m not always at your
beck and call.”
Ever had a love attack? You’re equal but
different. This was the quintet’s third single,
backed by ‘Lust In The Movies’ and ‘My Heart Is
Out Of Bounds’. The song is spiteful and jarring
and sassy and smart and boasts a melody line that
wouldn’t have been out of place on an early (delete
as applicable) Blondie/ABBA/Motown album. There.
I’ve given more of the game away. There’s little left
now except fascination.
Honestly? I much prefer life on random. Because
life is random, as the slogan rightly states.
Do you ever look at press releases?
Dorian: “Only our own.”
I hate the way artists always get compared to
the same 10 groups – Gang Of Four, Joy Division,
Nirvana, My Bloody Valentine, Radiohead, Coldplay,
R.E.M., Huggy Bear…
Dorian: “When we started, we put on our
website that we don’t listen to The Beatles, The
Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix or The Doors, because
they were the bands that anyone who was in a band
looked up to. They’re all fine, in moderation – apart
from The Doors…”
Murmurs of agreement.
Screech: “And possibly not [Bob > Dylan.”
Reenie: “I don’t mind Hendrix. I’ve got a best of
somewhere.”
You don’t need it. He’s only got one song.
Reenie: “There’s a new list now.”
Screech: “Joy Division are top of the new list. The
Clash, Talking Heads…”
Dorian: “We’re from a different generation to
you. What have we got to rebel against?”
Arctic Monkeys.
Dorian: “You look at their faces and it’s like
an Oxfam advert. You can’t help but feel sorry
for them.”
weekend without make up
“At the start, I see an isolated woman,” explains
Kate. “By the end, she’s triumphantly overcoming
what she’s been struggling with, ie: a guy, always
a guy – and ends up going out and dancing. So
yeah, go out and dance when you hear the record!”
…those words you sing, it’s unusual to hear
a woman singing them.
“Well,” counters Kate. “Half of our lyrics are
written by a guy.”
So what half do you write? Do you write the
drippy, sappy…
“No,” she laughs. “Those are Dorian’s!”
I was thinking as much.
“Dorian writes from a female perspective
and I write the more masculine songs like ‘Darts’
[fine, short, punky song about countless student
afternoons spent watching daytime TV > and
‘Separated By Motorways’,” the singer explains.
“I write about sitting in pubs.”
I’m interested to know your definitions of
masculine and feminine here.
“There’s a certain ballsiness, for want of
a better word, about ‘Separated By Motorways’,”
says Screech, “whereas ‘Giddy Stratospheres’ or
‘Weekend Without Makeup’ have a vulnerability
that people associate more with femininity.”
“I wouldn’t ever write myself into a vulnerable
position,” states Kate.
“Kate’s got a very self-assured character,”
Dorian comments, “whereas I don’t, and that
comes out in our lyrics. And the twist is in the
way she interprets them.”
“I sing them quite aggressively,” Kate explains.
Do you like the way she interprets them?
“Yeah, absolutely,” the guitarist enthuses,
“especially now I know what suits Kate’s voice. It
all stems from Motown and the Sixties writers that
wrote for singers like Dusty Springfield and Scott
Walker. The reason they were such great singers
was because they could interpret other people’s
lyrics and make them their own. They took a step
back from that earnest Lennon and McCartney
approach, ‘We write and sing all our own lyrics’.
So what? That’s just a means to an end.”
“Just because you write it and sing it yourself
it,” comments Screech, “doesn’t necessarily make
it a good song.”
lust in the movies
“I just want to be a sweetheart (x3).” Stalking,
talking, the finest song based around a love of
old film this side of The Go-Betweens’ ‘Lee Remick’,
boils away with barely concealed passion, wait
there’s more: “So never, ever, ever tell me it’s
a pleasure being alone/All I have with me are
the books and records that I own/’Nag, nag, nag’
(x4)”…maybe I can relate! The song references The
White Stripes and Rough Trade electronica pioneers,
Cabaret Voltaire…and God alone knows, I do that
every other day.
swallow tattoo
Now I’ve started thinking, Sleeper. And I never want
to do that.
giddy stratospheres
The second single, no wait, this is the Au Pairs one.
Live, it soars; Kate singing at least an octave higher
and with such an engorged tune you want to
snuggle it up in your arms and tell it never to run
away again, hang on tight if need be, but please
– no more Koala Bear noises late at night, they’re
so damn scary. There’s some killer call-and-response
from the other ladies, too. And the B-sides (‘Polly’,
‘Darts’) are even finer…shorter and finer.
I tell Screech he drums like a girl.
He nods, complimented: “My favourite
drummers are girl drummers.”
Me too.
“Do you like Wet Dog?” he asks.
That’s exactly what I’m talking about!
“The guitarist in Wet Dog also drums for Country
Teasers and The Rebel, “Screech continues. “We did
some gigs with them up in Scotland. She is the best
drummer, she doesn’t use a kick drum, she stands
up and she’s absolutely amazing.”
once and never again
“Nineteen, you’re only 19 for God’s sake/You don’t
need a boyfriend.” A song of empowerment for
teenage girls, Kate’s voice cajoling and critical and
knowing and swooning through the chord changes,
backed up by some frantic keyboards and seemingly
random segments of guitar: great break in the
middle too, “You know I’m not so young/I spend
an hour getting ready every day”…
Once again, one suspects a lyric of Dorian’s,
not Kate’s.
“We exist in our own little bubble,” says
Screech. “This single is like a doorway into that
bubble, and if you get it you’re allowed to go
through the door, and if you don’t, then you can
fuck off.”
separated by motorways
This is where we came in. The fourth single. Elastica
is the preferred band of comparison for four out
of five music critics. Why not just say Wire, and be
done with it?
Kate: “It has a matter-of-fact tone you might
associate with…”
I thought it was sad, a comment on the
way nasty modern-day life keeps people apart
with its reliance on all these soulless byways for
roaring monsters of metal and steel, rushing past
continually, no room for human contact…little
children running across motorways…
Kate: “No.”
I had to cross the A12 to get to my school when
I was a kid.
Screech: “My school was on two sides of a busy
main road.”
Earlier, at Portsmouth’s Pyramid Leisure Centre, as
Kate was pouting and preening and sashaying in her
pencil-sharp skirt in front of squealing 14-year-olds
on the latest NME tour, I was accosted by a couple
of new acquaintances, dance guru and street
performer types.
“She’s good, isn’t she?” they asked rhetorically.
“Got a bit of a No Doubt thing going on…”
I stumbled, perplexed, into a toilet cubicle. The
Long Blondes remind me of many things – overnight
trips to Edinburgh, when the bus has broken down
and we while away the small hours by seeing how
close we can run to the passing 80mph traffic;
a quayside in Manhattan with helicopters whirring
in the distance; boot fairs and the ridiculous delight
to be had in finding Bow Wow Wow, The Muppets
and Rachel Sweet singles for 50p, even though
you own them already three times over; tuning
into a late night dial, all crackly and hissing before
Blondie’s ‘Denis’ breaks through the static; crushes
on girls wearing berets and neckerchiefs and stripy
tops in the late Seventies: arguing late into the night
as to whether Philip K Dick’s work should be entirely
discounted simply because too many hippies like
him; keyboards and cold churches and warm
chocolate – but not ska.
But, y’know. First time I saw them, in some
scummy London industry pit, Plan B Albums Editor
Daniel Trilling took me aside, and said, “They look
like they all used to be in ska bands when they were
younger…” and you just knew he wasn’t being
complimentary, wasn’t talking about The Specials,
Desmond Dekker and Dave & Ansel Collins, but
something more insidious, more Nineties…but
fuck it.
Listen up, Trilling. I’ve spoken to these Long
Blondes kids and they’re products of the Britpop
bedsit generation, swooning in teen tandem as
Brett Anderson flicked his hips and Jarvis lasciviously
licked a lollipop…but wait. Now I think on it, maybe
Anderson was a ska-head in a previous incarnation.
Seems the sort. Did big Jarvis all come down in Texas
to save our skins? It’s a moot point.
mind your own business
So what’s your motivation for being in a band?
Screech: “When I was at uni, I had these hideous
friends who were serious musos and they were like,
‘Let’s sit round all day in a house’. They had a threebedroom
house, and there were two of them, and
they’d turned the other room into a music room
where they’d sit all day and watch bootleg videos
of The Beatles and The Jam. I was like, ‘Well, I can
play keyboards in your band’, and they were like,
‘You’re not good enough’. Fuck you. It doesn’t
matter whether I’m good enough or not. That’s
nothing to do with it.”
Reenie: “Music as a consumer is a really
unsatisfying hobby. It’s so awful. You pay your
money and you get your album and you don’t like
most of the songs on it, and you go to gigs and you
get treated like shit. I thought that if I’m going to be
interested in music I need to be a bit more active.”
Kate: “You’re constantly told that you only have
two options in life, either get a career and be a good
citizen – or be a dropout, a loser. Being in a band is
my third way. You can make your own choices and
be true to who you are, but still be good at what you
do and be successful at it.”
So you’re like Tony Blair…
“I got my third way before Tony Blair!” says Kate
defensively. “Scrap that, I’m in it for the money.”
“We’re all in this band out of sheer boredom,
a way of manifesting our escapist fantasies,”
explains Dorian. “We all worked, we did all the
normal stuff you do until you’re 21. We decided that
if we pushed ourselves we could do something else
– which, in my opinion, is how bands are supposed
to start. They’re not supposed to start by advertising
in the back of a music paper, or in a guitar shop
saying, ‘Bass player wanted’.”
“And it’s always Red Hot Chili Peppers on those
adverts!” Screech groans.
“The more you get into the music industry, the
more the veil is lifted,” muses Emma.
"In the same way that life has a set of formulas,
record companies seem to think there’s a set of rules
to making a band successful and you don’t have
to even have talent,” continues Kate. “Some of
these bands emerge out of nowhere, all over MTV,
with shitloads of money pumped into them and no
one knows who they are.”
It's like that guy says in Dig! Record companies
actually expect 90 per cent of their acts to fail
commercially. No other industry in the world
would countenance a 90 per cent failure rate.
“You don’t get into it because of that,”ends
Dorian. “That’s something you only discover as
you go along, and what happens next depends
on how you react to that.”
This article first appeared in Plan B issue 12 |
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