TV3

Rip It Up, Issue 184, 1 November 1992, Page 17

TV3

With the release of their third album, 14-odd after the 2nd, TELEVISION’S Tom Verlaine and Fred Smith spoke to George Kay...

Hotel reception, wait a second. It becomes a country-music-on hold minute and then hey, Fred and Tom together, on different lines. "Hello ... hi." Is that Tom or Fred or Fred and Tom?

"This is Tom. Y'know Fred, if you wanna back out of this . . . the phone sound is really weird. Do you wanna do it yourself or do you want me to do it?" "You should do it," replies Fred, who's huskier than Tom, "It's too confusing." "OK, but if you want, why don't you come up here and you can do the second ten minutes. Are you still there?" OK, I'm with Tom? "Yeah, I'm Tom."

So what's been happening? Have you been touring the new Television album?

"Yeah, we've been in Japan and we've done a few festivals in Europe and people threw hamburgers, pancakes and awful sticky things at us and told us to go home. A couple of guys drove cars onto the stage to literally drive us away." You're joking. "No, it's true. One guy had a huge semi-tractor trailer truck that he drove onto the stage

screaming 'get outta here, you're terrible'." Verlaine is laughing. Is this an example of his oddball sense of humour manifesting itself early in the piece? He's never been regarded as the easiest interview, but here we are playing the game with the re-birth of Television, the New York guitar band which spawned a generation of believers with their Marquee Moon milestone. And now they're back. "It's not as big a deal as everyone seems to think. Fred's been on my solo records and it's very casual, very easy to do. We just ran into each other a couple of years ago and thought we must do one of those records again. So everyone's putting a year into the band and after that it remains to be seen as to what happens to solo deals." The new Television album is good, not great but almost on a par with the rest of Verlaine's solos like Flashlight, which it closely resembles in approach. Has the band re-kindled the chemistry and tension that existed on the first two albums? "I don't know. I never listen to them. You work on them and by the time you've done them you don't want to hear them anymore. If you were to write a novel would you want to read it? You'd probably never want to look at it again. "So I don't remember the first two albums that well. We've had to learn a couple of the older songs to do in our live show and _ I've had to listen to those to make sure I remember them." The new Television album is very similar to Flashlight. "I couldn't comment, I leave it to you, although there's half of the band on there, so I dunno." With such glorious past achievements, did the pressure of public expectation weigh heavily on the new album? "Not my problem. I don't think about that stuff." The new album, unassumingly, starts with a typical understated Verlaine narrative, 'IBBO Or So'. "It was meant to be like that. An old fashioned little love poem that you would read in 1880." And from there through "Town Like Walker-ish', 'Shane She Wrote This', to the off-the-

wall histrionics of the finale, 'Mars' you get a Verlaine orchestrated series of songs with guitarist Richard Lloyd injecting enough interplay to avoid a monopoly. "The interplay between Richard and I is a combination of improvisation and rehearsal. The interplay isn't improvised in the studio, although the solos are and sometimes somebody comes up with something that becomes the main part of the song.

"For our first two albums we were much more rehearsed as

we'd been playing live for five years and so we just had to pick the eight songs we wanted to record. But this one was more of a live effort and then we'd fix the mistakes later. I should give you Fred so you can get another perspective." Thanks Tom. "Right," says Fred stifling laughter, "Y'know Tom's making faces here..." "We're having fun with you," Verlaine's voice breaks in like a maniacal schoolboy. "Tom is into the Beastie Boys, he's got a Beastie Boys' hat on right now," Fred adds as explanation. Aahhh the eccentricities of genius. What a guy! Fred is altogether more conversational. He's kept his bills paid by being Verlaine's evergreen right-hand man and by working in the studio with various bands and the odd tour with the likes of the Flesh tones. Modest work for a member of a band whose impact has been immeasurable. "I've read about our impact and U2 have said how much we influenced them. I don't particularly hear it except maybe in the guitars but it's good to get credit, even if it isn't due." Woud you swap critical acclaim for commercial success? "Any day. I don't care what you print about us, just buy our records." Are there any signs this time round that Television could be commercially successful? "I don't think so as nobody in this band knows how to sell themselves. I've had my back slapped by many a record company saying it's gonna be a hit but none of us believe that. It would be great to have some commercial success so we could continue the band." There's no reason why the new album shouldn't sell. It's melodic and accessible and there's no slow burning epics as on the first Television albums. "We weren't thinking that way about epics although live some of the songs are turning that way. Some nights 'IBBO Or So' is fourteen minutes long and it doesn't even hit the third chorus. Live everything has been evolving so if we even make it to New Zealand you won't recognise the songs anyway."

SOME NIGHTS 1880 OR SO' IS 14 MINUTES LONG AND IT DOESN'T EVEN HIT THE THIRD CHORUS.

GEORGE KAY