Alt-pop mavericks R.O.C. are back in action some two decades on from their first releases. There’s a new EP in the pipeline, live shows and ultra hip label Metal Postcard have decided to reissue their classic debut album, which contains many of their best known tracks (‘Dear Nicky’, ‘I Want You…’ and ‘Hey You Chick’) and gained kind words of priase from a weird array of diverse supporters from Radiohead to Dannii Minogue and Andy Coulson.
With the LP due in the shops next week (September 21), God Is In The TV’s Ben Willmott decided it was time to drill the band’s three members Fred Browning, Karen Sheridan and Patrick Nicholson for answers….
How did this reissue with Metal Postcard come about?
Fred: Sean (label boss) wanted to do it. We’d been doing some new stuff and it just seemed to dovetail.
Patrick: He approached us last year and said ‘I’m going to try and buy the rights from Setanta’ (who first released it). We left Setanta on bad terms around the original release and although we’ve spoken politely since then we weren’t sure how they’d respond. Suddenly Sean said ‘I’ve done it’ and we were impressed enough to put together a plan including gigs and something new.
Where was the album recorded and what are your main memories of putting it together?
Karen: Most of it was recorded in Patrick’s flat and at Pete’s House (Pete Burgess, band-member and producer for ROC’s first five singles).
Patrick: Then more recording and pre-production at Gareth’s (Gareth Huw Davies, musician/recordist and bassist on several tracks on the album and later releases).
Fred: Then Matrix and Orinoco studios with Danton (Danton Supple, producer).
Patrick: I remember lots of evenings – we were holding down jobs – putting all these songs together, amazing
Karen: So, commitment.!
The album was released in 1995 – what other music was inspiring you at the time?
Fred: 95 – just post-Nirvana, just pre-Britpop…
Karen: We’d been to Nirvana gigs, Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins.
Fred: Buju Banton Shiloh, Buju goes conscious, groundbreaking.
Patrick: Massive Attack.
Karen: I certainly wasn’t listening to Britpop. Tricky and Portishead were coming up.
Patrick: Prince.
Fred: David Lee Roth.
A recent review said that you “belonged to Britpop like cats belong to the sea….” Discuss!
Patrick: It never occurred to me that the thing to do was become some 60s-copyist lads band.
Karen: I know exactly what I felt about Oasis. I had a lot of contempt for them, emperor’s new clothes, all my friends were going for it and within two years the backlash had happened.
Patrick: Did you have contempt for the band or the audience?
Karen: I felt contempt for the whole scene. I just thought ‘I don’t get this’.
Fred: We never fell for it.
Patrick: Obviously we didn’t go into making the record thinking about Britpop, it barely registered. We were on a different wavelength. But it is interesting now to look back and think we were making quite a kaleidoscopic unruly record while all those people were restricting themselves to making proper classic rock or something. I don’t think anyone really listens to any of that now, even at weddings.
There are some really weird ‘intervals’ between the songs on the LP – what are they all about?!
Patrick: It’s like tuning a radio.
Karen: Or your mind jumping around.
Fred: What’s he talking about?
Having been signed to mega major Virgin, what are the advantages are being on an indie label like Metal Postcard?
Karen: He’s a real fan of the music, he wants tone best for it.
Patrick: It’s a whole different frame of mind, not careerism, it’s more ‘we’re all doing this together for the hell of it’.
Karen: He loves the album. Virgin were trying to figure out where we sat.
What other Metal Postcard acts would you recommend?
Patrick: Ollo.
Fred: Yes.
Karen: The Indian all-girl band The Vinyl Records, they’re very good.
Fred: Rake Wickman.
Patrick: I also like Cambodian Space Project and Never Heard of Zeppelin.
You’re back in the studio again – what have you got planned and when do you expect it’ll see the light of day.?
Karen: We’ve recorded an EP.
Patrick: Beginning of next year.
Any live shows in the offing? Will you be doing a ‘start-to-finish’ heritage performance of your classic album?
Patrick: We’ve been playing some shows in London, we have a launch night for the reissue on 25 September in Dalston. Also a few other shows around the UK will be confirmed soon. I don’t see the point of doing the whole album start to finish, albums aren’t classical symphonies. It becomes a completely predictable show. The audience should wonder what’s coming next, a gig is a chance to mess about with things.
Karen: I quite liked Patti Smith doing Horses but she forgot one song and had to come back on to do it. In my mind, this is an unpredictable album, why do it predictably.
Fred: It’s a very fashionable thing to do.
Patrick: Something about it feels like you’re banging a nail into it. A heritage performance as you say, there’s something finished about that.
Fred: It’s another gimmick.
You’re also well known for your out-of-the-box videos – see ‘Hey You Chick’ (from this album) and ‘Cheryl’ (from its successor ‘Virgin’) – are there any more in the pipeline? What would be your ideal location be?
Cheryl video –
Fred: LA, Ibiza, Kolkata, Costcutter.
Karen: Something that reflects the song
Patrick: Something inner
Fred: What, like the brain?
Karen: An MRI scan
Fred: Has anyone had one?
Patrick: I have
Fred: My brother was going to have one, he freaked out ‘I can’t do this’.
Patrick: You go in a tube. If you like industrial music it’s fine, there’s this incredible noise
Fred: Does it hurt?
Patrick: No, it’s just claustrophobic
Fred: Like a sunbed. They should combine the two!
Listening back to the album debut after 19 years, what one thing would you change about it if you could?
Fred: I’d put the original ‘God Willing’ single on.
Patrick: I’d lose ‘Plastic Jesus’, it doesn’t sit quite right.
Karen: I agree.
Patrick: I think it was indulging me.
Karen: I think it’s a more famous song than we realised at the time. We thought it was just something off a movie but it had been used considerably.
Fred: I think you sang it quite well.
Karen: It’s still a lovely little version.
Patrick: I wouldn’t change much more about the album at all but I’m actually pleased with the shortened vinyl LP version despite a few fans being upset about it. I think it breathes in a different way.
R.O.C. by R.O.C. is out on vinyl and CD on September 21 via Metal Postcard.
www.facebook.com/pages/R.O.C/49089635101 // www.R.O.Cmusic.com // www.metalpostcard.com
The band celebrate its re-release with a show at London Daltston Servant’s Jazz Quarters on http://www.
