morphine

Rip It Up, Issue 199, 1 March 1994, Page 6

morphine

Morphine don't sound happy. I guess baritone sax does that to a band. Especially when accompanied by a vocalist like Mark Sandman. How the hell did your voice get like that? "Whaddaya mean"

You know, really deep. Likea bottle of rye and a million cigarettes a day deep. "Well I've always had a voice like that - since I was two years old, man..."

Talk to the guy. You'd believe it. This Boston three-piece look like your average rough round the edges American rock band. But there are no guitars. Sandman, a former construction worker and commercial fisherman, leads them into darker depths with his 2-string slide bass.

"It started as this search for a one stringed instrument. Cos I heard some one stringed instruments in various places around the world and it appealed to me. I don't know why." Easier to play?

"Yeah it's a lot easier to play. It's much harder to hit the wrong note." So where do you pick up one of those? "It's easy - you just pick up a couple of wire cutters, and then grab a slide." It's a unique sound - how did you come up with it?

"Well you know that movie Close Encounters, where you're just compelled to do things and the reasons will be explained to you later?" Right. So Morphine were visited by aliens?! "Well that hasn't happened yet."

So what has influenced you? "If I had to name one person it would have to be Prince. I just feel tuned in to where he's coming from when he puts his songs together. Like how he records them and writes them, not

to mention the fact that he's an amazing singer, player, performer and everything." So how important are drugs to the band? Big pause. The type of thoughtful 'the PR person said avoid these questions' pause. "Nah we're not about (another pause) drugs, that's not where we're coming from..." They call themselves Morphine,-they have songs that go "One day there'll be a cure for pain/that's when I'll throw all my drugs away" and "I've got a head with wings" but they're not about drugs at all. Sure.

You produced some of the tracks on the album - what difference did it make producing your own songs?

"In this case the difference meant that I could take all the time I wanted and work when I felt like it because the stuff I produced I did at my own studio.

"\Ne record sessions here all the time but it has a sort of a sound and I wouldn't want a whole album with the sound of this studio. Every studio has its own sound and I don't want an album sounding like it had come from any one place. We record in a lot of different places at a lot of different times and we just pick through what we got when it comes to assembling the record. We've already started recording some of the new songs."

Is it fun being in Morphine? "Oh yeah, it's great. Does it sound like fun?" Er, kinda. I guess with all the baritone sax and low end bass and your deep, troubled vocals, well, it's hardly New Kids On The 810 ck... "Yeah, I know it," says Sandman like someone being caught red-handed, "It's kind of amazing that we're getting away with it." JOHN TAITE