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28.06.13 Music Week 33
really good lawyer - John Kennedy. We were in a strong position after my first deal with The Commotions to negotiate a good [solo] deal. PolyGram re-signed me because David Munns believed a song called She’s A Girl And I’m A Man [which ended up on 1991’s Don’t’ Get Weird On Me, Babe] was a sure-fire hit. He gave me a big chunk of money to stay with PolyGram, it was a good deal. But in none of these situations did I own the rights to my stuff. I only own things I’ve done subsequent to being on Universal.
You used crowd-funding to get you last album off the ground, and have done so again with Standards. Yes, I did it through my own shop. I didn’t use Pledge, which to me is just another record company. Let’s face it: they’re just shifting the model, getting the money before rather than after from the fans, but they’re a record company. Kickstarter is worth doing if you don’t have a brand, like I already have.
Can you listen to The Smiths’ music without hearing it as your old rivals? I guess so, I was a fan before we actually broke as a band. They were a year-and-a-half ahead of us. It’s probably still easier for me to love the records that were out before I started making records. I remember going to my friend Douglas’s house, hearing Prince’s 1999, and thinking: ‘This is a mad record!’
Would you like to see The Smiths reform? No, absolutely not. In the same way it was great The Clash never got back together. We have to keep our memories - it would be wrong. We did the Rattlesnakes 20th anniversary thing in 2004 [when the Commotions reformed for a limited run of gigs]. We were just young enough; well, actually we were
still too old, but it was the right time. And to be fair, Universal put out a lovely deluxe box of Rattlesnakes.
How much does honesty matter to you on stage? If you’re in a bad mood, the last thing you want is for the audience to know that. You don’t want to fuck up their night out just because you’re not having a good time. To a large extent, you have to be an actor. People talk about honesty in music a lot, but there’s no reason to be honest if you’re in a bad mood on stage. It’s just petulance.
What are your aspirations for your new album? I think I have a record that has a much better chance of being successful than anything I’ve done in 10 years. That’s not to dismiss what I’ve done in the past decade, but there is a perceived sound that people will hear and say: ‘Oh, that’s Lloyd Cole.’ I guess I’m gambling on people saying: ‘Oh, that’s Lloyd Cole - I’d forgotten how much I like this.’ But it’s tough to win people over - I know I don’t need any more Morrissey records, for instance: when he released Vauxhall & I, I thought, ‘I don’t need this. The things this record is doing are covered in stuff he’s already done in a better way.’ He hasn’t done anything since that’s made me want to re-evaluate that point of view.
Have you tried Ringleader Of The Tormentors? It’s a great title, that’s for sure. I won’t go on about Morrissey because I feel disappointed by him.
In his musical output? Yes. I feel that he’s not really stretched himself. He’s found a template he can work with and it’s rather a dull one to my ears… but I suppose it’s good for the world that there’s somebody out there willing to say
ABOVE
Going it alone: Cole has used crowd-funding to support the release of his last two records
things other people are thinking but would never dare. “All reggae is vile” is not quite true, but he’s got a point somewhere in there [laughs].
Do you ever think about Morrissey’s remaining stature compared to yours? Oh yes. Stature is exactly the right word: he’s managed his far better than I did. He did it in the same way as what’s happened with Bowie. Going away for ten years is fantastic, because you can come back. I’m fairly sure that if I died in 1994, I’d be a huge star in the UK by now. The body of work I’d put together by then would have been enough. But the fact I continued to make records and became further and further marginalised as opposed to completely disappearing has not been to my advantage. Unfortunately, continually working has been a necessity for me in terms of making a living. If it was the same the world over, I might have been demoralised enough to give up, but it isn’t - in the US I’m better known for my early solo records than Rattlesnakes. In Scandinavia, my newer records still go in the charts and in Germany, I’ll get the lead review in Rolling Stone for [Standards].
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be? Albums would cost twice as much. I’m serious. Music is too cheap. It’s undervalued. If you’re willing to pay £50 for a video game and you think £1 is too much for a song, I’d like you to watch me in my attic for weeks working 10 hours a day to write the songs I need to make a record - just to get started. It’s a massive amount of work. You used to hear people say: ‘It only costs a pound to make a CD, how can you justify charging £10?’ Because I worked for a year to make it, that’s how.
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