32 Music Week 28.06.13 PROFILE LLOYD COLE RATTLESNAKES AND LADDERS
Lloyd Cole has variously been perceived as a pin-up, a classic songwriter, a Morrissey rival, a forgotten man and a grouch. On his new record, the opinionated ex-Commotions frontman is ready to give his fans what they want - especially if it means he can make ends meet
TALENT BY TIM INGHAM
L
loyd Cole’s brow is rarely not furrowed. It’s hard to tell whether this auto-earnest expression is down to personality-appropriate
genetics, or whether it’s been sculpted by decades of disappointment and self-contemplation. Both loom large in his answers to Music Week’s
enquiries, especially when we touch on matters of his financial security and his modern pop stature versus his indie peers from his days as Commotions frontman in the mid-to-late-Eighties. This purity of frankness, with hardly a droplet of
self-pity, is one reason why he’s an intense and entertaining interviewee. Cole has tasted enviable success on both sides of the Atlantic, but it’s been a good 15 years since his last career boost, when his Love Story LP rose in the middle of the Britpop boom. That positive blip aside, the singer/songwriter’s distasteful experience on a major label plus the natural erosion of his popularity have left him conflicted over matters of fame and legacy. In contrast to his music, Cole’s immediate
characteristics offer intriguing disharmony: having spent more than two decades in the US, his accent battles between Massachusetts twang and homespun Derbyshire thud; the iconic crest of his quiff remains robust, but it’s erected in a telling silver shade reflecting three decades of musical toil. He’s waspish and sharp-witted, but his favourite
pastime is altogether more serene: golf. The leisurely sport provides him with a neat metaphor for the free-and-easy songwriting approach to his first album in three years, Standards. “Working on your golf swing is not the same as playing golf,” he explains. “Try and get the ball in the hole and you’ll play better. Try to think about how you’re going to get the ball in the hole, you’re going to fuck it up.” When Cole and his Commotions arose in 1984,
he was getting his ball in the hole more often than not. Rivalling The Smiths and The Bunnymen as the ‘it’ indie guitar group of the era, the band’s three albums - Rattlesnakes, Easy Pieces and Mainstream - were a lesson in a group not out-staying its welcome, packed with hummable yet thought- provoking material. Then in 1990, Cole struck out on his own with his self-titled solo debut, swiftly followed by 1991’s Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe; the early stages of a half-decade relationship with Polydor Records that would end messily in 1995 as Universal swooped for parent PolyGram. “With Standards, I’m revisiting the idea of those
records,” he says. “It’s not a retro record - there’s a development there. But it does certainly contain elements of my first solo album.” Two of the characters that brought musical embellishment to those early solo LPs, Matthew Sweet and Fred Maher, are back on board for Standards, which is released this month via Cole’s German label, Tapete.
ABOVE
Standards: Lloyd Cole’s new album is out now via Tapete Records. He plays a UK
tour in October, starting at London’s
Union Chapel on the 18th.
“Morrissey has managed his stature far better than me... Going away is fantastic if you can afford it. If I’d have died in 1994, I’d be a huge star in the UK” LLOYD COLE
Are there any musical contemporaries from your Commotions days that previously you couldn’t abide but now perhaps you’ve mellowed to? That’s an interesting one. I was incredibly - arrogant isn’t quite the right word - cocksure back then. I was not afraid to dismiss what I considered sub- standard, which was everything that wasn’t The Smiths or Prince, maybe Prefab Sprout. Prefab I have to say I find slightly disappointing going back: there’s still some amazing songs but overall that production hasn’t aged very well. The only band I went back to recently that I liked that I didn’t previously was Faith No More. I have quite a few friends who like metal music, including Metallica, who I loathe. It’s possible with Metallica they could make the best record in the world and I’d still loathe them just because of the way they look - and the drummer being such a prick. But Faith No More was on somebody’s list of ‘metal’ for me to try, although I maintain they’re not exactly metal.
Are you happy or disappointed that you were only ever on the periphery of popular culture stardom? You were never Prince… No, I was never Prince, but I was somewhere between The Smiths and ABC and I was happy with that. My goal starting out in music was to be on Top Of The Pops and to be on the cover of the NME. And we had that for a while. To be more successful would have been nice, but it wouldn’t have meant anything. Just not having that is really what I miss now. It’s not even being on the cover of the magazines; I miss my album being one of the lead album reviews - that’s what I’m going for with [Standards]. I doubt the UK [media] would dare make me lead album review, but I know I’ll get that in Sweden and Germany. Maybe I’ll get on the third page, then later they’ll wish they put me on the first page.
You have a reputation for being pretty serious. There’s a big difference between taking your craft - I hate that word, it makes you seem like a woodwork - seriously and taking oneself seriously. One always needs to be able to laugh at oneself. It might sound contradictory, but it’s not - almost all great art has some humour in it. Art completely devoid of humour is only really appreciated by teenage boys. If you’re 25 and still want to read The Road, there’s a problem. I tried to read it because I know proper grown-up people who think it’s genius; it made me laugh, like: ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. This isn’t serious art, it’s crap.’
Then new fans might listen to your other albums… Yes, and what would come with that is that my body of work would start to be re-evaluated. And I’d make a lot of money [laughs].
Does your income play on your mind? Oh, yes. Financially I’m not secure. I have one child in university and another who’s going to be in university soon. It’s expensive. I only had about eight years where I never had to worry about money. Since 1995 I’ve always had to think about it.
What about teaming up your music with a brand? A big brand won’t take a chance on a 52-year-old who’s been sliding in the wrong direction for 15 years. This record would have to perform well first.
Do you feel you’ve been let down by the music industry - especially when you departed Polydor? That part of my history has generally been misinterpreted. Making Love Story [1995] was very difficult, and in finishing it I ended up becoming its producer. The song that was the minor hit from Love Story [Like Lovers Do], I delivered to the record company in the first place, telling them it was the hit - they all said no. When I started thinking about my next album, my A&R [Dave Bates] said I should produce it myself because I was the one making the right decisions. So I made the record, but the A&R was fired in the interim. The boss of the record company became my liaison, [PolyGram MD] Howard Berman. Berman didn’t want to release [Cole’s Love Story follow-up]; he wanted to release a Best Of record to ‘reignite my career’ - absolutely in inverted commas. He wanted to put two new songs on it, and for me to co-write some other songs with various people. It wasn’t what I wanted. I felt I was being cornered, but I foolishly went along with it. I felt financially disadvantaged - if I’d have walked it would have been quite difficult. I delivered the two new songs for them. A video was made for the single, That Boy, then at the last minute the market research for the single was bad and they didn’t release it - they just released the album. When all this went down I called Howard and said: ‘I think we should call it a day.’ What I didn’t do, which was very stupid, was negotiate with Howard to take the [new tracks] I had in the can. He probably would have let me because he felt bad about how things ended up. So to be clear I left Universal - I left PolyGram. I wasn’t dropped. I was let go, but I asked to be let go.
Young artists these days seem to be much more clued up in keeping hold of their own rights… Absolutely, but it was almost not done at all when I started in 1983/1984. Almost nobody negotiated a deal to own their own rights. It was only when groups like U2 were re-negotiating in the late Eighties that they started to own records. I had a
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