Interview with Marijne and Paul - 1995
You seem to spend a lot of time touring. Does it put a lot of strain in the band being on the road a lot of the time?
Marijne: Yes
Paul: No
Marijne: No, actually we really love it, but if you're camped up in a sleeper bus for, like, three months at a time, which is not what we ever did, of course, but maybe two weeks, then the tension can get very wearing at times, especially between me and Paul. But I can see the tension rising between Paul and the drummer more in this tour, 'cos I think we've mellowed out a little bit. But having said that, touring is what we do most...
Paul: The drummer?
Marijne: The drummer. Rob. Okay...Rob. Touring is what we like to do most of all. I'm really, really, really, absolutely delighted to be back on tour.
Paul: Well, I have to refute all that 'cos I get on very well with Rob, THE DRUMMER, and if there is any tension it's probably, only because I've been sleeping at his house after most..... we've been recording on every night... it's miles to my house so I sleep on his sofa, so we probably ended up being a bit like a married couple.
Marijne: Which is why you both had wanks at the recording studio, 'cos you couldn't do it in the room 'cos...
Paul: It's probably to do with that....But I would disagree, I think we get on really well. I think there's lots of bands who...
Marijne: Oh, we do. We really have a good time.
Paul: ..who get on much worse. We're real friends. We're not a band who's got their members out of advertising and the Melody Maker, so we are proper friends and we do get on well. Of course, that also means that we can be honest to each other and argue and hate each other's guts and I think that's what makes a real band.
Does being on the road a lot of the time make it difficult to write new material?
Marijne: It's different for different people. I tend to only be able to write at home, you know, in solitary, but Paul can just pick up a guitar and go URRK, I've just written a song!.
Paul: Yeah, and I've already written quite a lot of songs for what will probably be the second album. Most of those I wrote when we we're on tour last year, in places like Germany, and I think that it's weird because you're in somewhere like Dusseldorff and you're writing a song that might be very, very English. And you just imagine you're in Morecambe Bay, or something, but really you're in this dreadful German town that we bombed to shit in the war.
Marijne: Erm, the next single after 'Drink the Elixir', called 'Motorbike to Heaven', was written in a little motel in Coventry on the Blur tour that we did about a year and a half ago.
We didn't see very many releases from you last year. What happened?
Marijne: We signed to Island, and the last thing we released on them was 'Your Ma', that was, what, July?
Paul: Yeah. July 4th. American Independence. The last thing we knew, we'd signed this piece of paper and we woke up in a sack in the North Sea and that's why it's taken so long.
Marijne: And what happened was, we then recorded the album over the summer of last year, which the next single was going to come off and we all had plans to, like, release the album in January, or maybe February, but then, oh like really boring stuff, like the record company in Europe changed and they didn't want to release a record until they changed so that we could get good backing from them and all that kind of stuff, and things lead to other things and now it's coming out in May, and it's been a long time and I'm fucking pleased we're back on the road 'cos I couldn't be patient any longer.
Paul: Edit out fucking, by the way...
Marijne: You're so posh.
Paul: Yes I am. I'm very posh. I'm the posh person in Salad. Err,yeah... when we were on our own little label we could do what we want. The thing about being on a big label is there's more ummph behind everything, and there's more money, and you can do more, you can realise things a bit more. But there's so much politics involved and, you know, I would like to have four singles out every year. It makes me really hurt, my skin goes all cracked like the desert because I don't wanna have seven months between two singles. It's horrible, you know, but, what can you do?
Has MTV helped, or would you say hindered your career?
Marijne: Certainly not been an easy cross to bear, you know.
Paul: It's heldnered, which is a cross between the two. Isn't it?
Marijne: Yes. It certainly helped in places like mainland Europe, where a lot of people were really interested because of me, but also in the music, of course. But in England where MTV isn't so cool, I think it has been quite difficult to show people that this is about music and not about representing and fronting a band. We were making music years before I even got that job, which never got anywhere at that point of time. It's taken a long time.
Paul: We have to say this in every interview to get it through, but the point is that me and Marijne were making music, and she took in a video of something we did in to MTV in the hope that they'd show it and they asked her if she wanted to audition for the job. So, music first, MTV second, and now she's not doing MTV anymore.
Marijne: I'm not doing it anymore. No, I left two weeks ago. I've been there for four years, so it was my time to leave, and my head is so much clearer now, 'cos the reason I was getting really tense on tour and stuff last year was 'cos I had another career going. So, even though it's been so brilliant, I'm so happy now.
Paul: I think the MTV angle, though, has been a bit of a bugbear, but in a way that's quite good, 'cos it means we've had to really work hard, 'cos it's as if we've got something to prove. Although, obviously we feel very confident about what we're doing. But it's nice to have had that obstacle, otherwise you get complacent and I think we've surmounted it, haven't we dear?
Marijne: Yes, you have.
Who would you like to play a gig with in a sort of fantasy world?
Marijne: I'd love to play with Elastica. I love them, I think they're brilliant. They're just so spiky, they just create brilliant pop music. Yeah, okay, they're really derivative, but they've put so much of they're own originality into it...you know, you can't just rip people off without a bit of individuality and make it sound as good as they do.
Paul: We'd have to play on the same stage at the same time, so there wouldn't be any arguments about who headlined. I mean I'd like to play with R.E.M., because I think that they've always done exactly what they want to do, you know, they're very true to what they want to do. It seems like they've said 'No' to a lot of record company interference and they've done exactly their thing and they've made it really successful. I'd really like to do that, you know, without compromise, to do exactly what you want and make it work, and I think they make good songs, so I'd like to do that. Do you like R.E.M.?
Marijne: Yeah, I think they've blanded out a bit, haven't they?
Paul: Well, you ought to listen to that song on their new album then, shouldn't you?
Marijne: Crush With Eyeliner?
Paul: No, what's the other one called? The one about Kurt Cobain is really good. I can't remember the title, I never remember the titles of their bloody songs.
Marijne: I do like it...I haven't bought it yet, it takes me a really long time to buy albums.
Paul: What, because you walk really slowly to the record shop?
To close, who in the band makes the best tea?
Paul: I do, there's no doubt about that. You're always saying my tea's good.
Marijne: I make Earl Grey tea.
Paul: You do.
Marijne: Rob likes his tea with Coffee Mate. It's disgusting.
Paul: It's awful.
Marijne: You drink a lot of coffee as well.
Paul: I love coffee.
Marijne: I hate coffee, I make very good Earl Grey tea.
