Crazy on the weekend

Rip It Up, Issue 251, 1 July 1998, Page 12

Crazy on the weekend

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Stool rock. Stool bloody rock?! Such is the strangeness of modem life that the press saddles a few unrelated English bands with a label as stupid as 'stool rod/ simply to make for more convenient marketing. Particularly when their strummed acoustic melodies automatically bring to mind Nick Drake, who probably actually was 'stool rock but couldn't get marketed to save his life. Gavin Clarke, singer and. songwriter with the rapidly rising Sunhouse, is getting used to the strangeness of it, having already been built up and knocked down by the NME in an astoundingly short time. Then again, his band's whole career has been astoundingly short. Brought together to write the music for a friend's short film, they managed that in a 1 weekend (hence the title of their 'debut album). With no reason to lose momentum they began rehearsing, played two gigs, then earned off a stunning live performance on the music channel VH1. A couple of tours and suddenly they're off to play the main stage at Glastonbury. It's hard to believe you did it so quick? "Well, yeah, well we didn't have that much time really." And no money either. "Yeah, yeah that's pretty much the case." Did you ever think you'd be on the phone to New Zealand about it? "Definitely not, no." Does that mean you never thought music was possible as a career, or just that you hadn't got around to it? "No, I never thought it was possible as a career — not until it actually happened. The whole thing's taken us by surprise. I didn't feel there was a market for the sort of stuff we wanted to do, so we're just sort of riding the wave. "To have actually made a record is a big thing for me personally, you know?" The only way to do it is for yourself, first and foremost "Completely. I think as well that the best records are actually made through hardship. It's about sincerity I think, and honesty, and all the great records have got both of those, you know? It's actually about music of the soul, rather than wanting to be the next Mick Jagger." I don't think even he wanted to be Mick Jagger in the end. "Yeah, well who can blame him." One of the advantages of being Mick Jagger is that you can live wherever you want. Sunhouse, on the other hand, still live in

Sneinton in Nottingham, where there is a Chinese takeaway of the

same name. You're a father of three, which must make it important for you to actually succeed economically as well as artistically? "How did you know that?" Its in the press release. "No-one knows that over here, that's really mad — yeah I am yeah — well it does. I think also it puts things into perspective. You know, rather than wanting to jump on that whole rock and roll bender stuff, it's more about... the reasons that we're doing it or I'm doing it is to make great music as opposed to getting into sex drugs and rock and roll." Have you still got a day job? "No, we're paid at the moment by the record company. It's worse money than a dayjob, but obviously it's loads better. It's so much better it's unbelievable." You're in a great position, too, because you haven't got a 100,000 quid advance to be paying off. "Well yeah, it's more like a hundred quid..."

Enter the press. Have you been the next big thing in the NME yet? "We have been taken up as the next best thing, and then about six weeks later we got taken up as the next worst thing." They built you up and knocked you down within six weeks? That must be a record. "Yeah. It's a crock of shit, really. It is important that people like your stuff, but obviously there's going to be some people that don't like it, that like that whole Britpop thing, which isn't what we do at all." So you don't take it to heart either way? "Lets face it, if Nick Drake had come around now and released a record they'd have flicked him off. You can't take it on board because either way, there's people with taste and there's people without taste." ; Obviously there are enough people with the taste to have taken up Sunhouse's acoustic melodies, mixed as they are with distorted guitar on some tracks and a touch of harmonica and Cooderesque slide on others. Was Ry Cooder a big influence? Well he wasn't on me personally. I had Paris Texas a few years

ago, but —vocally I suppose it was Neil Young, Dylan, Van

Morrison and stuff. But Ry Cooder had a big influence on our guitarist —actually the reason he learned to play slide guitar was because he heard Ry Cooder, and then after that he got into a lot of slide blues and stuff. It's all about your influences, and you actually learn what you do from what you listen to. So when you say Neil Young... "Have you got Decade? That's just an incredible record, because obviously it's all his own favourite stuff, but it just varies from really high production to, like, backstage at gigs and that's what music's all about... It's about what's got that right feel. You also mentioned Nick Drake. Do you listen to him much? "He had a big influence —what I thought was quite insane was that in his own time he was just a complete failure as regards to record sales and stuff, and yet he's had a massive impact on the way, especially British songwriters write. His impact is massive on a lot of people, so it seems quite strange really to me that he was 50... well he just never sold any records." He knew how good he was and he couldn't understand why he couldn't make any money out of it. "Completely, yeah. So I'm just hoping that doesn't happen to me."

It probably won't. Sunhouse have come a remarkable way in a few short months, and they will undoubtedly go further. The decline in Britpop's stock over recent times has left a hole that bands such as Sunhouse are poised to fill. As Clarke frequently points out, the future belongs to bands whose prime motivation is making the best music they can. After all, in a world where a band can be labelled 'stool rock' just because they play melodic, acoustic music, surely anything is possible? The conversation waffled along for a good half hour or so after that. Clarke was happy enough to chat about anything, and I could faintly hear what must have been his children in the background. Just an ordinary enough chap who sings and plays the guitar and is finding some measure of success with. Happens all the time. Are you comfortable now that you're playing the game? "We feel we've got a responsibility now to play the game, just 'cos we want as many people as possible to play this record now, 'cos we think it's fucking good."

DAVID GLYNN