Fred Garçe, can you tell us a bit about your influences, what has inspired your music and writing?
Garçe God. Where do you start? If you want to go right back I suppose it would start with bands like Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Led Zeppelin, but then, of course, along came punk which gave us all a big jolt - I first started playing the guitar in bands at that time. When I first started singing in SLAG there was that whole 80’s British thing going on. I was listening to bands like Joy Division, particularly them, Teardrop Explodes, Echo and the Bunnymen, U2, then a bit of The Chameleons, The Smiths, The Waterboys. Nigel and I were both into them. When we started it was an exciting time for music over here. In terms of literary influences I have always been impressed by T.S. Elliot’s “The Wasteland” and the poems and engravings of William Blake. At various other times I have been influenced by people like Joseph Conrad (who wrote “Heart Of Darkness”) and quite a lot of the pastoral Englishness in my songs comes from extensive reading of Thomas Hardy.
Fred In my copy of Epic Garden Music there was an advertisement for a SLAG fan club called ‘Le Club Biscuit’; what was it like?
Garçe Believe it or not Le Club Biscuit actually existed. At about the time of our first London Gigs, when we had a large local following, we would play in some of the most unlikely venues proclaiming, “Le Club Biscuit proudly presents Sad Lovers & Giants,” which really meant we had organised our own gig, got some lights in, dragged along some friends as a support act and generally intended to have a good time. When we put out Epic Garden Music we tried to sell button badges and posters which nowadays would probably be considered hopelessly small time and we used Le Club Biscuit as a separate entity to help entice people to part money for our wares.
Tony I got one of those badges. My Dad wears it now on his apron!
Fred Tony, how did you first become involved with the band?
Tony My brother and I grew up near Watford - where SLAG were from - and we were in a band together, although I’d moved away to London after University. We weren’t doing that much and Liam went for an audition with the Snake Corps and got the gig. He got given the first two SLAG albums by Tristan and used to play them all the time. I started looking for another band and I saw an ad in Melody Maker. “Guitarist wanted, must like Pink Floyd, Felt, something else…”
Garçe “Neu 75”.
Tony That was it. It was a Watford number and I rang my brother to tell him about it. He said “You know who that is, its Garçe and Nigel”! I was psyched. I knew Tristan and Nigel by this point from going to Snake Corps rehearsals with my brother. Anyway, I went for the audition and loved it. As I recall I had to learn “Wire Lawn” straight away, which Garçe wrote on his own, but after that I was coming up with most of the music, which was great. Garçe is great to work with. He has a good sense of song dynamics and, of course, was into the same kind of sounds as I was - I think Feeding The Flame was pretty much in the middle of where I was at at the time. Big sad songs. I used to have an hour’s drive to rehearsals and it was great to drive home with a cassette of what was coming together - we’d record all our rehearsals. Within three months most of The Mirror Test was written and we were gigging. It was all very natural.
Garçe It was obvious from the start that Tony was the right person. It really felt like we kept going with the same momentum as we’d had before, but it was a lot more enjoyable.
Fred I’ve spent years listening to your songs thinking I knew what they were about, only to find in a few brief discussions with Tony that I was completely wrong. Have you found that with other people, and does it bother you, or is that part of the appeal of the band?
Garçe As I’ve never discussed the meaning of my lyrics with anyone other than trusted friends like Tony or Cliff it’s never bothered me that people might have interpreted them differently to how I saw them in my mind when I wrote them. In retrospect I think part of the appeal of the band is the possibility of hidden meanings in the songs and the scope for personal interpretation of the lyrics.
Tony Definitely.
Garçe In truth, none of the lyrics were completed without a series of rewrites over a period of many weeks so whilst I might glibly say “Oh, this song is about politics” or “that song is about incest”, these are often merely my own interpretations, made subsequently, of what amounts to a lengthy stream of consciousness. An constantly interrupted stream.
Tony It was great to hear them taking shape. You’d think you’d know what they were about but Garçe would never really let on.
Garçe I’ve never sat down and said “Hmm, it’s Thursday I think I’ll write a song about tea cakes,” although at times I have thought I really must try and write some lyrics that people understand. “The Best Film He Ever Made”, which is about Montgomery Clift, is one of them. This is, of course, pure ego on my part because ultimately we all like to think we have something to say, when of course most of us can rarely say anything more original than, “Hey, Look at me!” So from now on all I will say about the lyrics is that I have always loved words and the way they sound and that many of the songs contain coded messages about other members of the band or about intensely personal situations and feelings!
Tony Is One Man’s Hell about me?
Garçe No, none of them are about you. Sorry!
Tony I’ve always been fascinated by the process of communication. The older I’ve got the more I believe that the message is what people receive, and that is often not exactly was intended. But that’s the beauty of music. It lives in the mind of the listener. The songs are about what you want them to be.
Garçe That’s right, its the same with art. The message is what you receive.
Fred What kind of equipment did you use to get the SLAG sound?
Tony Loads of people used to come up to me after the gigs and look down at my effects pedals and ask me how I did it. It was really sweet. I played an old Fender Jazzmaster, which I bought after seeing Elvis Costello one time. Tristan used to use a copy of a Gibson 335, which was great for feedback, but I loved the Jazzmaster, its so beautiful. I’m not a traditional guitar player. I can’t play Stairway to Heaven or do a blues solo - that doesn’t turn me on at all. What I like to do is make a sound that sounds like anything but a guitar. So I’d always use effects. A compressor to take the peaks out and add sustain, a Dimension D pedal to thicken it up and make it chimey, a delay pedal to get the rhythm and spaceyness and loads of reverb. I used a Quadraverb for the last couple of tours. Latterly I was getting into tremolo a lot, and distortion, but you’ll only hear them on the new stuff. In the studio I’d use whatever was around. I borrowed Roddy Frame’s Mesa Boogie amp for the last two albums, that was LOUD! Keyboard wise we stuck to an old Roland Juno 60 or 106, and then I got a D-50 which Juliet used to use live, and a little Yamaha piano module so we could do “Cuckooland” and stuff with her lovely piano lines on. And I must mention Nigel’s “tish ring” - a tambourine he’d fix onto his hi-hat. If you listen to “Your Skin and Mine” that’s what’s on that. The bass was pretty straight in terms of equipment, but all the bass lines were written by guitar players, which Tristan, Cliff and I all were.
Garçe I think the sound of the band came as much from our musical limitations than any particular flair.
Tony I’m sure it did in my case! I actually think that’s true of most good bands. Its what they can’t do that defines their sound. I think Nigel was a brilliant drummer; not because of any technical genius, but because of what he’d come up with.
Fred Do I detect a hint of country music in ‘My Heart’s On Fire’?
Tony If you do I sincerely apologise. I wouldn’t wish country music on anyone. What there is is an approximation of slide guitar playing. In actuality it was the outside of a metal midi plug on my finger - I don’t have a bottleneck. Garçe wrote most of this one and I was trying to come up with interesting guitar sounds to make it swing. The original “La La” lyrics had a line in about “time to make this band swing” and that was my inspiration. There are about four guitar parts on there and it really scoots along. I finished recording it, got on my horse and rode home!
FredI was surprised when I first heard that you had a lot of appeal in continental Europe, you being such an ‘English’ band, why do you suppose that is?
Garçe Yes the continental appeal has often puzzled me, especially the French Connection, as the market there is notoriously hard to crack. I think we were seen as a genuine band with a certain amount of integrity and we never patronised our foreign audiences, unlike many other English speaking bands. In terms of the recorded music I think the spatial quality of our songs appeals to the European soul.
Tony Obviously there’s a lot of purely musical content in the songs that needs no translation. The sax riff in “Things” is what made it a hit in Spain. But, about the Englishness, that can be a very attractive proposition for people outside England, and really apart from XTC and The Smiths I don’t think many bands have actually sounded ENGLISH. But we did, and jolly good show, I say.
Fred It seems the SLAGs have shared many members with other bands, notably Snake Corps. Was this a positive or negative influence on the band, do you think?
Tony Ah, yes, the member exchange programme! Nigel, Liam, Ian, Tristan and Dave all played in both bands at one time or another, often at two times or another. Having left in the first place Tristan re-joined the SLAGs for one tour when I had hepatitis and was bed-ridden. We were friends and relatives. We lived near each other, went to each other’s gigs, listened to each others records, borrowed each other’s clothes even. I’m not sure what effect it had, it just happened. I think the proximity was as much an influence as the actual playing - Liam really influenced the bass lines on The Mirror Test but he wasn’t in the band at the time. I wrote Seven Kinds Of Sin on his left handed bass, upside down.
Garçe Sharing band members with Snake Corps has been neither positive or negative to me really, just expedient. When Tony was ill it was simple to just ring Tristan and say “can you play?” I remember on that tour and he had to play in all these venues with your picture on the posters!
Tony That’s right, how funny. I hope he did a passable impression.
Garçe It was quite convenient for poor Ian after we kicked him out and Cliff joined us again. He had a home to go to!
Fred Looking at the history of the band it seems that you moved from an almost psychedelic perspective to a very personal one, can you comment on that?
Garçe We never consciously attempted to be psychedelic although the original Sad Lovers and Giants had a far more introspective agenda in which the notion of “a front person” was an anathema. The second incarnation of SLAG was a lot more fun.
Tony It wasn’t a linear thing. “Sleep” (from the second album) is about personal experiences as far as I know and “The Sky Is A Glove” is pretty psychedelic and that’s the last song on our last album, so I think both strands were there throughout. Garçe was pretty psychedelic when he’d had a few!
Fred How did the end of Midnight Music affect you?
Garçe The end of Midnight Music brought a sudden realisation that the royalty cheque really wasn’t in the post. It also meant that the party was over, like at sometime during the previous ten years someone had dropped a cigarette butt in my last can of beer. I was a sad ex-Sad Lover.
Tony For me it was at once both a tragedy and a relief, if that’s possible. Midnight Music opened the door for success and then, repeatedly, banged it in our faces. I am convinced that had the record company been bigger and more professional we would have been much more successful and, who knows, still together. Of course, had they not existed we might not have had the chance to start, but it is only in retrospect that we know the extent of the wasted opportunities.
Garçe That’s a good point.
Tony We are all owed lots of money that we’ll never get but on the other hand I do have five albums of which I’m immensely proud and memories I’ll never better.
Garçe That’s the same for me.
Fred What kind of music do you listen to now?
Garçe I think I’m at the same point that I was before I discovered Joy Division for the first time. I feel there’s a music out there that’s going to change my life in some way and I’m about to discover it. I mean, I quite like Oasis, Supergrass, that new Everything But The Girl single, but nothing really moves me at the moment. I’m quite into the new techno ambient stuff, like The Orb.
Tony You must get B.T.’s album. Its amazing. Unlike Garçe I’m really quite inspired by music at the moment. My favourite things from the last few years are Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, The Blade Runner soundtrack, Popsicle, and a lot of dance stuff like B.T. I was knocked out by My Bloody Valentine - they are an amazing band if you like guitars. I’m still into BIG SAD music. Of course, I’ve been listening to our old records while compiling the Best Of and that’s been fun.
Garçe Yes, so have I. The later stuff sounds really rather good.
Fred Is any of your music or poetry available elsewhere?
Garçe I do a lot of paintings, which I sell, but I don’t have anything else on the market, so to speak. I had an exhibition a few weeks ago and it went really well.
Tony I started a band after I left SLAG that are still going without me or Liam. The singer moved back to Canada and took the other guitarist with her - they’re in love! They are called Lovebabies and they’re amazing. I’m sad I’m not involved anymore but they are two of my best friends and I’m proud to have put them together. They have two tracks on a compilation CD called “Full Frequency” and are recording an album in Victoria. Look out for them.
Fred What sort of things are you up to these days? Do you still get together and jam?
Garçe Tony and I jammed a couple of times last year, and I had a go with Cliff a couple of weeks ago. We did a couple of gigs after we split up, because we enjoy it, and we always wrote a new song for each gig. Tony and I have been talking about doing something soon.
Tony I’m still writing songs and recording them. I have an 8 track at home now. I sing, too, and that has been fun. I was always singing harmonies in the SLAG tour van but Garçe wouldn’t let me near a mike! I have to finish a couple more and then I’m going to try to get a deal. It sounds like Angelo Badalamenti meets Tricky meets The Beach Boys! There is still unfinished SLAG music business and unreleased new stuff we’ve been kicking around, those new songs are partially recorded. Garçe just needs to finish his vocals.
Garçe I love "A Daughter", but I’m not sure about "Submarine Girl" yet.
Tony I think they’re going to be great. They sound quite different - more guitars, less keyboards, more weird - and if the Best Of goes well, who knows, maybe it’ll get released. We have a very relaxed attitude to the band now. Its something we do from time to time. There is a good chance we’ll gig again if we get the call and I’m glad that Garçe and I are going to try something new.
Fred What can you tell us about the new CD?
Garçe It’s called “e-mail from eternity”. The interest from the Internet was a real surprise and that’s really where the title sprang from, I suppose. Just when you put this thing down here comes this voice from eternity saying, you know, “Turn again, Dick Whittington” and it all springs up again.
Tony Its a great title, as usual. The album’s an attempt at a Best Of, but that in itself is difficult to visualise for a band that weren’t about hit singles. It was so hard to get the tracks to fit onto a 79 minute CD because the songs are so long. Loads of stuff I love hasn’t fitted on.
Garçe Yes, I wanted to put loads of little instrumental bits between the songs but they just won’t fit on. Having said that its a good summary of how the band changed over time.
Tony We had to be quite brutal and in the end the demands of the record company and the poll from the Internet site was what we went by. You have to listen to your fans when doing a best-of. Band members have a very distorted view of their own songs, generally because of the bit they get to play. The public know best. Ish!! The sleeve is, I think, our best yet.
Garçe It really is an excellent photograph.
Fred Any chance of getting your other CDs or LPs reissued?
Garçe If the Best Of does very well, there is a small chance that Cherry Red will re-issue them. I’d advise you all to look after the copies you have, though.
Tony And I’d like to release these new songs. I’ve spoken to Cherry Red and they have an open mind. A new E.P. would be nice.