Loud and Quiet Presents Midnight Chats.
Hey, good evening, Midnight Campus. How are we all doing?
It?
Felt like spring has arrived here in London. I hope it's wherever you are as well. It was a tropical twelve degrees today, so things are looking up. Thank you for joining us this evening for another rambling late night conversation with a musician of our choosing. Before I get into that, let's just address the elephant in the room and the fact that there wasn't a podcast last week. We do apologize for this, but we have a good reason.
Last week we finally relaunched Loud and Quiet magazine. It's something we've been working on since the beginning of the year and we just couldn't do both last week. Something had to give and we had to get this issue done. So that's why there wasn't a podcast. But the good news is that the issue is done. It's out there. We're feeling very smug about the way it's turned out. Please do check it out, especially if you're unaware of that side of the things that we do releasing a
music magazine. You can find a stockist on loudon Quiet dot com, where you can also order a copy or a very popular thing to do right now would be to subscribe so to the podcast. Then tonight's guest is Graham Coxon, who, of course you know as the guitarist from Blur as well as a solo musician in his own right. But Graham recently scored his first TV show on Netflix. It wasn't actually a Netflix original, I found out,
actually found out halfway through this chat with him. Originally The End of the Fucking World was shown on Channel four apparently, but you can now watch it in full on Netflix. Eight episodes that all twenty minutes long. So it's very watchable TV, and it is very dark and funny and beautifully scored by Graham, the first piece of film and TV work that he's done, and it sounds
like it won't be the last either. So Graham and I speak about that about the Beatles, which seems to be a recurring theme on the podcast, especially the subject of is Paul McCartney good or a very embarrassing man? And we also talk about box sets, Ryan Gosling and driving in America. Now, well, the only thing that I think I probably should do just before we get started is mention a little bit about the End of the
fucking World. As I say, it's all on Netflix and there's eight episodes in total, and they're all very short. But the story itself is something that we don't actually mention during this podcast, so if you've not watched it, you might be thinking, what the hell is this they're
talking about. So just to give you a very brief outline, the End of the Fucking World is essentially a love story about two misanthropic teens who go on the run, essentially played brilliantly by two British young actors Jessica Barden and Alex Lutha, who are just total fucking weirdos throughout the whole thing, but brilliantly done. And Graham's songs and music is a key part to the whole thing. So yeah,
I'm pretty sure that's all you need to know. Please do check out the issue of the magazine that is out there now, so much great stuff in there, some really good writing from our whole team of writers, as an interview with Nicky Wire. There's the David Byrne cover feature. There's Lucy Dacus, There's what else is in there? There's that band that I've just named after eight Stars. There is a great rapper called Shirt. There is another great
rapper called key Dash. There's loads please do check it out. Laden Quiet dot com is where all that information will be. And also we are just about to announce a new podcast that we will be doing a live podcast series which is coming very shortly, so please do check out Adam quite for information on that. In the meantime, thank you very much to Graham Coxon for coming by our office in East London and having this very relaxed conversation with me. We'll be back in another two weeks without
fail with episode forty five of Midnight Chats. You still Camden based?
I'm around that area, yes, ye, North London, been there for a long time now into the twenty odd years. Yeah. I like coming over this way though. It's like a totally different place and changes and developed and always looks different and more. Hackney Road is actually is where Blurted started rehariting really just along here very very early days.
Yeah, it was that up at Premises. Yeah was it called premises, It's called the Premier.
Says yeah, okay, yeah. We used to just sort of just write and rehearse in there, so.
I know some bands up there now. And did you have like a room that was always yours that you could keep all your stuff in and it was your like base or did you have to just lug your stuff there each time you wanted to rehearse.
No, we didn't have that. We I mean we weren't. We were just rehearsing in between going to university and stuff then, so we weren't anything. But luckily the boy called Jason who worked there, he had the house VW Van and he started to help us out, so he would start to lug. He was sort of becoming a roadie, and he stayed with us for years and years and years and years the premises in the end and just started to be at full time roady.
I mean, this area must have changed a hell of a lot since then. So what year was that would have been like ninety.
Yeah, eight nine, ninety it's changed a lot. It's a lot more funnier graffiti rather than just scary graffiti.
Yeah, yeah, a bit safer.
Yeah.
Yeah. You've been in Canada North for twenty years.
In those days, I was living in Lucia.
Do you envisage a time of leaving London at any point.
I've tried living in the countryside and I went a bit crazy. Whereabouts What did you try in the middle of Kent, Okay, But you have to get in a car to do anything. Yes, I quite like walking around with some headphones on, and I like having a coffee place within reach walking distance, not reach, you know, and
just just convenience. I quite like that a bit of a creature of habit I do similar stuff every day, so I like being able to go to a reasonably healthy place where you can get food and coffee and whatever and browse around.
I went to the Lake District on holiday last year and what my wife and I had been taking for granted is how eight places are open here because we went to the pub and they'd closed the kitchen at eight o'clock and we just missed it. And they were like, no, there's no food now because we put and I say, it's eight o'clock, but I need to give.
You any cold food that.
No, No, it was like five piles day. They were like, no, it's close. And that's the kind of thing I really take for granted living in London.
New London's coming over here.
Yeah, I feel like I'm starting to get the itch to meet. Well, I don't know. I don't know where i'd move to. You know, that's the thing. I think, like you, I'd feel like if I moved it into the countryside, I would feel I'd feel a bit alone and isolated.
Yeah, I love it, and I love looking out on fields and things like that, but then there's no distraction. I like being out and about seeing things happen around me, looking at people and getting the distraction and this distraction from your own head, but also a little bit of our inspiration from what's going on around you. And you know, you get a bit BUCOLICI you're in the country all the time. I mean, I've thought about where would I go if I had to leave England and you know,
wear an America? Would I would I move to l A or something. I like LA. But America is such a nuthouse and at the moment, I don't know what. You know, it's a that's a tricky one too. But I've got lots of friends there and I always enjoy it out there. I get a bit sick of shorts and T shirts.
After a while, and you do have to drive everywhere there as well. Yeah, that's cool though, is I've never driven in America.
Well, you when I was out there last we hired. I hired this car. It was some they laughed at me because it was just I think it was. It was a soccer mom's car, kind of a mini.
Van, okay, right, like a sliding door.
Sliding door, but you know it was a flipping end. Just huge engine, massive engine, and fitted everybody in and all the cases and stuff. So I quite enjoyed rolling around in that.
Okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm actually going to California on holiday this year to drive the do it the coast, the Pacific coast time. All right, I'm going to get a big one because I just feel like it's got to be a big one, isn't it.
Well the first time I did it, I was in New York and I drove from New York from the Greenwich Hotel out to the Hampton's and it was in one of these huge, huge Fords, massive and it was an x L, so it was even longer, you know,
a massive four wheel drive thingy. And on the way back, I was had to zoom back to get back to that hotel drop everybody off because they were going to see a plate and I had to get back the van back before a specific time, which is which was back up towards the garden gardens the Madison Square and it was hellish and I got stuck on this cross section thing and they were like toddlers, the way American New Yorkers drivers like toddlers. They don't care about anybody
else and they go into any gap. I was absolutely stuck. And then there was this sort of topless bus right and you know the tourists in the top, and he started to turn left. I couldn't move. Someone had wedged me in there, and the back of the bus swung out and scraped all the way down the side of
this big truck thing I was driving. And the car started jumping, jumping up and down, and nearly kind of tipping side was my wingbury got smashed off, and everybody on the top of the bus was looking down and I had to and I just made it. It was the most stressful day of my life, and I just made it to drop the car, but I had to show them that it was totally trashed. Then I had to get a cab back to the hotel within a certain amount of time at rush hour and it was the most hellish day I've ever had.
So what did they say when you kind of turned up? You were so close with you like a few blocks away, having returned it in one piece, and you turned it up just smashed the ship.
Yeah, yeah, it just it was really really horrible. And were they mad that happens? I guess that's sort of. I mean, it must happen, and it wasn't my fault, And just it was crazy New York driving shower. I would never experience anything so stressful.
You're brave for taking it on. What were the Hamptons like?
That was really nice? It was it was it was after we'd played out there, so it was just after Halloween and there was loads of fields full of pumpkins. It was crazy. And we just went there and stayed in this little house, his friend's house, and it was kind of empty, just drove around, went to Mond Talk. I think that's where Louie sort of lived.
He moved out there.
It's right out to the very end. There's there's two places. There's Montalk and somewhere else. We went to and that, Yeah, it's kind of nice. It was sort of rainy and a bit cool by that point.
Well, I've got some questions to ask you, specifically about the end of the fucking world, all right, But yeah, this morning I saw an announcement about this Beatles tribute band.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm discussing that with me our friend Jamie. Yeah yeah. So what's I've forgotten that I've been Yeah, have.
You forgotten about the fact that you've got to learn these? Do you know these songs? So to explain to it to anyone, because this has literally been announced this morning. I think it's for the Teenage Cancer Trust concerts that go on here in London at the Royal Albert Hall. Yeah, Roger Dultry and you're going to be in part of is it Matt? It's Matt Bellamy's projects. He done this before. I got the feeling from what I've heard he's done this.
I've seen some gigs before where they've had various people guesting on various famous people as well, guesting people singing. You know, even one of the Beatles did it. But my old friend Jamie is the guitar player in there, and it's just some of his friends that he moved to la and a few years ago, and so he's one of my dear mates out there and he just hangs out with these these guys were musicians, and I think and they just were jamming around with the Beatles stuff,
I think. But but I think they're more interested in the levery lever claud Hamburg style stuff, you know. So I think it's got a bit of that tilt to it. And he said, well, we've got this show, you want to do it? And yeah, I mean I know half the songs anyway, and I'll be able to get me old my old Cuban heels on again.
Yeah. So it's going to be early Beatles stuff, is it.
I think it's mostly early Yeah?
Sure? Did you grow up with the Beatles?
Yeah, it's my bible.
So you just note. So if some I was to say to you were going to put on a show of Beatles covers, you don't even You're just like, I've got it. You just know it, you just know.
Most of it. Yeah, I did. I did. I did the Abbey Road album in a pub in Clark And with Robin Hitchcock and Mark Bedford from Madness and other people, lots of people I forget now, h and that was good. That's a good one to do, Yeah, because and learn all the lead parts to that and and it was fantastic. Loved it. But yeah, the beginning of Octopus's Gardens quite tricky, but yeah, but it's this great fun. It's a brilliant rat record. To play all the Beatles stuff is great fun.
That's how I learned the guitar. You know the Beatles complete open that and strum along all boxers?
Yeah? Is that the one with the psychedelic picture on the front.
That's the other completely We had that one, and then there was the one with the gold coins on, which was the one on which was the one I was after for a while because I think that they were in the same key as the record.
Yeah, and the other one isn't. Yeah. So who at the show? Which Beatle will you be?
I don't know. There'll probably be more too more people on stage than there were Beatles, so I'll probably have to be a kind of I'll go with being a sort of a George.
I guess was George or Beatle?
No?
No, did you have a Beatle?
They all melged into one beast really the Beatles for me, and that I didn't really you know they were they were They were such an amazing mix of voices when they were all singing. But I like Paul.
We've got just down there. Yeah, we get some stick for that. I seem to mention him every time I'm on the podcast. Paul McCartney seems to be the recurring theme of this podcast.
I really what's wrong with Paul?
Because I feel like people I have a really loved Paul. If you're a Beatles fan, you obviously love Paul McCartney. But a lot of people thinking of that embarrassing dad figure and they can't get over that. It's not cool to like Paul for people of a certain.
Some people who are very knowledgeable think the opposite. If you talk to Svonius, he was says so different. I I you know, Paul was actually the more avant garde member of the Beatles throughout their you know, the mid sixties, and he was exploring all the kind of culture. I think, but you know Paul's stuff. You know, my little girl, she responds to Paul's voice. She loves the Yellow Submarine and she loves all those songs that are on that, and they spread over the Beatles whole career. So she
responds to his voice, and I suppose I did. They're very, very melodic. And later on I got into John Lenham Moore. I've got more interested in him as a man, as a person, And I always sort of liked George, but he was he was more of a private guy. Less information about him, really, I suppose, and so and I always thought Ringo was great drummer. And no problem of Ringo, you know, saying whether Paul's cool or not in a
waste of time. I think it's just, you know, they were all brilliant and then in that within that band, they all just they they all fitted together perfectly.
So the end of the fucking world.
Your first score, they call it a score, Yeah, call it a score.
Have you been offered them before and turned them down or no? This is the just the first one that kind of came up, and yeah, how was it as a genuine experience, But it's.
My main Matt He I got to know him. He he grabbed me to write a tune for the end of the Riot Club, right, which was the film about the sort of yeah about that, and I wrote a song for the end of that, and then this came up. He just thought I'd be really perfect for it.
I think.
I think the director Jonathan and Wessel really liked my It was sort of a fan or whatever they exist, and I just thought that would be great. And so they asked me and they sent me some scripts, you know, stuff like that, and I was just like, yeah, I'll do this. It seems like it would be a good, good fun So.
Is that how it works? And they send you scripts rather than footage or yeah.
I got scripts first, and then eventually I got a few ruffs of a couple of episodes, and then we had a meeting. And the thing is the episodes will have a tempt and for those who don't know what that is, they put a song in behind the action as a sort of an indicator as to what they're you know, they think would be appropriate.
Oh so that so it's just kind of like just like holding place. Yeah, they put a song in. Yeah, and I'm guessing they could be songs that did you know the songs were they like well known?
Yeah? Mostly at the end of the fucking world though, it's got a lot of old fifties interesting songs on it, fifties, early sixties. But then it's got my stuff but a lot of my stuff it wasn't exactly written to. It wasn't sort of like a soundtrack or scoring when it was written to with the action in mind. Almost it wasn't written to score to the action. So it doesn't you know, no loudbits coincide with stressful action or you know,
none of that sort of thing. So I was kind of thinking about what the tempts were and then being inspired by the characters and the situation, and then I tried to write songs that felt like they'd been there for anyway, that they had been picked, rather like the temps. So it was amazing practice for me because I had to sort of genre hop decade hop, and I hadn't been using DAWs and all the rest of it at
home for that long. So it was really great practice, you know, seeing how I can do that, seeing how I could do it on you know, go from sort of early nineties a bit slackery whatever that's called slacker sort of stuff, like early Beck kind of thing. I suppose, sorry Beck slacker, but you know, as it's kind of a loose genre, and then our late seventies and then and then sort of cinematic, kind of very Valvy, Scott Walker, Stroke,
you know, Lee Hazelwood. Some people said a couple of the songs were a bit like Lee Hazewood, but much inspired by Scott Walker, and then and then and then and then a little more sort of the sister album by going Big Star, that kind of thing, Stroke ry kuderish but more essexy. So there was a lot of different things to explore, music to explore, and I was like doing it, you know, going full full time on it. Nine to six.
Can you remember what the original brief was when they came to you and said we've got this thing. Did they outline the story, the characters? How much kind of information did they give you to go on?
And well, it went on a little bit about the story. They didn't tell me what was going to happen. We went over what was happening in the episode, how people were feeling, and this is happening here, and we need a theme maybe for these detectives and you know, these two policemen and then they have a song here. If we want something generally know, she's crying in this bit, we need something kind of gentle, maybe underscoring on this bit.
And so I just sort of come up with, you know, and I'd write a list of what sort of was required, crying bit, you know, and then I It was quite interesting because you know, having a brief and having a kind of some sort of inspiration. I found that I could work quite well without having some sort of an
absolute blank space to start on. It was quite good having having a sort of a brief sort of, so I found that I could work quite quickly, and if they wanted this type of shoe, I could send them sort of three or four of that kind of thing, or maybe two one day. You know. Yeah, but there was there was a couple of big Scott Walker types that went things, and some of the things didn't get make it onto this soundtrack record or the or the series.
You know. So even in discussions I would be going, oh, hang on a minute, and I have to go up go to the loo or whatever and just sing a little idea. And then after the meeting I'd go home and record it and they'd have it at the end of the afternoon. I mean, I was sort of amazed.
But it was good because it got me fast on logic and stuff, you know, you know, it got me really quick, and I got a workflow because before if you just you know, mucking about, you don't actually do anything really, you don't figure out what your workflow is. And so I got faster and faster, you know. Yeah, it would be like automatic, and then there'd be a song and then I'd chuck it over to them and learn how to do that, you know, bounce as audio file. You know, I've never done in the stuff.
Before, schooling yourself rapidly.
And in between watching a quick YouTube video about how to do this.
I will reach for YouTube on literally anything I don't know how to do.
Now.
Yeah, like it's incredible. I love those I love those people that put up you toials on how to change the bulb in your car, and.
Yeah, I know it's brilliant.
It's just like such a selfless thing to do. Yeah, I'm now going to make a video about window wipers, cleaning a window whippers or whatever. Yeah, so when did you see the whole series?
Well, it's funny because I'd see some lockdown and then we'd watch it, and then we'd go to edits and then they'd be still discussing at this and that, and then i'd see the very last one and you know, flip my neck, and just about the only piece of music that was done to action was that extended p that was during the caravan, right right at the end of the end of episode eight. But it was always kind of I was always listening out and looking at things, so I was always in a sort of an analytical
frame of mind. So when we settled down to watch it in its full thingy, I was kind of like, wow, I was really amazed. I was. I was really impressed. It was tons better than I actually thought it was going to be. Thought I thought the first episode, I was really scared that no one would watch past the first episode because because the kids are such an unattractive the horrible kids. But then by two episodes two and three, I think they become really they really grow on you,
especially especially her. She becomes funnier and funnier, and you get, yeah, I know, it's really dispassionate.
It's it's funny should say that, because Greg, who just met, watched it with for me and it said, oh, you know, it's brilliant. He was nothing but full of praise for it, and I ended up absolutely burning through them. But after about like the first couple I was like I'm not sure I'm going to able to get through this because
of that exact reason. Like the kids are just like so misanthropic and so like so kind of like, oh, I can't cheer up, you know, and you know, kind of like these nasty characters, but by the end of it, you're super rooting for them.
The thing that gets you through is the is that is the humor. If that wasn't there, you'd be like, oh, yeah, so why are you talking down? You know that, you know, I mean, there's just tiny little throwaway bits that have me really chuckling and really enjoying characters. She's great writer, So yeah, it was. And then you know, there was
things that I'd forgotten. I put there's this track, will bust up, and then I was like, hang on, they're singing it, and I've completely forgotten that I put some vocals done that because there was in such a rush. I must have done it last minute and gone, I put a quick vocal on here, and then I sent it off and forgot about it. And then, you know, so there were times when I was listening to it almost like it was done so quickly that I'd forgotten a lot of the songs almost and then so it
was like hearing him for the first time. And again that's quite odd.
When it finally went up on Netflix in one bulk, did you sit down and watch it?
I watched it on all four. I think first it was a Channel four thing. First was it?
Yeah, I didn't realize that.
It was on Channel four. Then it went Netflix went on Netflix on it. Yeah, So I watched them then early early on.
And the character, as we say, like those kids are so so kind of nihilistic and misanthropic. Was there anything in them that, even though you're no longer seventeen yourself, could you relate to them in any way? How were you as a seventeen year old?
I was nothing like that. I was utterly the other way. I was naive and overly romantic. I romanticized everything, you know, and I was just sort of an esthete that flipping extreme, you know, as an art student. Played music. That was my whole thing, you know, music, listening to records. I you know, I was getting busted up a little bit from relationships being tricky and things and losing my innocence
in ways. In a way when I was through my seventeen eighteen and things like that, thinking flipping out, you know, falling in love and having relationships there were this is not what it's meant to be like, this is not what it's like in the Beatles, you know, things like that. Yeah, and sort of growing you know, not quite growing up, and always finding it all a bit a bit difficult, and then going off to London when I nineteen to
go to art school. So I wasn't. I used to read a lot of stuff, and I used to read a lot of existential stuff. I used to I used to love a bit of sartra and I used to want to have a lot of knowledge of why we here? Who are we? What should we do? What? You know, what's the point? Sort of thing. But I was never I don't think I was. I was ever a psychopath or sociopath or any of these things. I think I was just mega romantic, not anymore.
Though now harder than did And yeah, yeah, it's like, Barren, do you still read such? Do you still read sart?
Totally misheard you?
What do you think I said that?
I thought you said you still retouch her?
And I was like, are you talking about slurring accent?
I love a bit of Sarta, the Age of Reason and all that nausea. I really, I really liked it. And then I got into Salinger a lot. And I remember when I was reading Sylvia Plaid and Salinger at the same time, and that was flipping. If you're feeling a little bit moody, that's a good thing, that's a good look. Yeah. I actually found that Sylvia Plaid a lot more comic than I thought I was going to.
What were you reading, Belgium?
Yeah, the old classic. The first half is quite funny, you know, it's got a lot of wicked humor in it. And then before you know it and you don't quite know when it happens. It's like, what this has completely changed And it's about clever because you don't know quite when it's happened, but you're suddenly it's suddenly plummeted somewhere else. Yeah. And I always loved Sallenger. I had a romantic thing with you know, about his characters and the class family
and all the rest of it. You know, I've always loved books and I've always devoured author's really like Jim Thompson, the crime writer, and I was really into his stuff. He wrote Killer inside Me in The Getaway, amongst other things, and then really into Paul Ulster, really into Leviathan, The Moon Palace and the New York Trilogy and The Oracle Night and these incredible genius books, and then even in War. Yeah, there's all such a you know, I get obsessed with novelists,
and so I do love reading. But now I'm on YouTube too much figuring out how do how do you do this? How do you do a fade on MIDI boring?
Distracting it?
Yeah, it's really boring.
Do you do you miss being a teenager? Or any point?
Not? Really, it was all right. It was sort of fraught with feelings of what if. You know, I've always had inadequacy. You know, my main thing is Europe. You know, that's my main internal dialogue.
I think that's quite I think that's quite.
Yeah, it was probably quite natural. Yeah, I mean it was all right. I mean I wouldn't mind doing some of my twenties again. My thirties was all right, a bit lonely. I mean I was on my own quite a lot dur in my thirties, and I was sort of starting out and doing my solo sort of albums. A little bit then. So I was at home a lot, strumming away at a guitar, watching the news on the sofa and looking after my little and who is today? Eighteen?
Wow? Today? What today?
Today?
It's a birthday?
Yeah? Oh wow. Yeah, it's grat It's pretty nuts. So yeah, some of my twenties, I just think I was in a bit of a marred because I wanted things to be a certain way and they weren't. Like getting a bit. You know, the nineties it was a bit you had quite a busy time, and it was busy, and it was all just seemed a little bit like you're having to do an awful lot of pointless stuff.
You know.
I had a lot of chips on my shoulder about about this sort of how I was experiencing it. But really, you know, I should have just had a good time, you know, I should have just no one said, Graham, stop drinking? Will you not have a good time? Just cheer up? You know, it's great. Think about it.
Were you not allowing yourself to because obviously in the nineties there are a lot of people who were really I imagine, filling you with praise and saying how great you were. Did you did you find that uncomfortable that being told that you were great?
Yeah? You do. But it's funny when you're in a band, you're you're you're the others that get told get told they're great more.
What everyone in the band thinks that.
Yeah, probably probably they do. You know, I don't know, you get told you're great whatever, But really, your day to day experience of yourself and your band and whatever is that sort of it's kind of like it's it's sort of you've got to live with yourself, you know. That's that's basically you've got to drag yourself around in your and you're in your own mind and not off. It's not always a great place, especially if you're exhausted.
And you know, when we first went to America two months tour or something like that, in a bus where your parents aren't there, no one's going to tell you what to do, and you can do what you like, flip an egg, and you don't realize that you're testing the limits of your sanity until you're you're breaking down and crying for no reason. You're like, what's going on? All I've been doing is drinking every night, and for six or seven or eight weeks and you know, suddenly
you're you're having a flipping breakdown. You don't really know why.
So did the rest of the guys know how to deal with that kind of tuff.
Some people just didn't have to escape as much as I did. But we were partying pretty heftily. Yeah, yeah, it's a funny one. No one tells you. You look, man, it.
Slowed down, you know, honestly, that's the nineties, the age of the excess.
It was.
It kind of turned out that that was pretty I took it to a cab drive on the way and he recognized me. He was talking about were great, weren't I? You know, and and I think were In a way it was. It was the sort of record industry's last hurrah. It was when they still have money and you could still have big launch parties for albums and your albums didn't get leaks as well, which is pretty cool, and people buy them. Yeah, people would buy them. There was
money knocking about. You could have daft, big silly parties and all the labels had these big conferences that weekends where everyone just let their hair down a bit too much. Probably so in that way it was kind of great. No one knew what was around the corner, although they were warned actually quite often. Quite they were worn quite a lot that they had to really keep on the case. As regards the Internet, but I suppose no one thought
it would really collapse in the way it did. So Really, the nineties really was that last era of recording of being sort of a thing. Like the seventies, eighties, and nineties, they were these decades of excess.
I suppose I wonder if bands now, like young bands, kind of do kind of go for it as much as you guys did them.
Well, yeah, and we just thought that's what you did, you know. Growing up, I wanted to be in a group like the Who you know, and they were sort of role models. It's pretty dangerous role models to have. But I've watched The Kids all right, that movie. Yeah, there was tons of swearing, there's tons of smashing guitars obviously, tons of drinking, you know, and mayhem. And I just thought that's what being in a band was, you know.
But nowadays I think people come at it from a bit more of a business side, you know, you know, you go to school to learn it. Now you don't see in your bedroom and learn tons of blues licks. No anymore, you know, you come out more from a business angle. But I'm sure there are bands that are
flipping mental and still still doing all the crazy stuff. Yeah, but you know, in the very early nineties, we go to the Camden Falcon and they'd be Shane McGowan and they'd be early bands like the Venus Beads, and they'd be gosh, who who were that Terry Biggers group after
the House of Love. And there was a lot of really strange, mad, insane and kind of dark characters around and you'd be playing poor with them and you'd be and suddenly you were you were a space pilot or something like them, and you'd be part of some weird group of people and who were all lovely and I see still see around, they're still looking about. But it was a very dark and weird scene and it was
very funny. But it seems to have totally disappeared, and it's turned very very shiny and very professional and a bit wingy.
Right now, we're obviously going through a huge nineties kind of rose tinted view of it, and everything's nineties and fashions nineties, and everything's kind of like, what the nineties great and celebrate to it. Yeah, yeah, I was going to ask you all clothes. I was going to ask you how it feels having like been in the thick of it and now having to experience all these people saying how great it was or kind of have an opinion on it. But as this passed you by the fact.
Well, the nineties we were just trying to be the sixties. It was trying to be our own sixties, and there were some terrible people. Would like the blow Up Club, you know, I'd go there every week. You know, you have a pinted larger. I'd drop my Parker off at the old think cloak room whatever, and someone would drop some something zoomy into my drink and off we go.
And I'd look around there, going, he's got a fed perry on and a tie on a fed Perry and then a zip up added he's got And I was like, oh my god, this is not right, this is all totally wrong. But I suppose nineties fashion was rip rip jeans and plaid chirts as well, you know, and it was all sorts of things, wasn't it. But the rippop thing, it was pretty awful. It was. It was kind of quite oiky, I think, is that a terrible thing to say?
Oh? I think you. I think that's fair. And it was.
It was good. It looks good we did it doesn't look good on everyone, you know. It was kind of mardish. I mean, I suppose blurb was sort of quite mardish and messed around with with d ms and loafers and Harrington's and things like that. I got kind of bored of it quite quick.
So in terms of the film work, the scores, Yeah, it's is that something you've been wanting to do for a while or is it just something that's kind of this is a little project and maybe it will be the only thing that you do for film or would you want to do Yeah, I.
Quite like to do more. I'm not very good at doing loads of things at the same time, but definitely i'd like to do I'd like to do more. I like the idea of, you know, I can just work at six in the morning if I want in a dressing gown, just you know, because it is at my house. You know, I've just got this sort of room where I set up my stuff and it sounds all right.
I haven't really treated it or anything. But there's a lot of old tweed jackets and overcoats everywhere, so I suppose that sort of acoustically treats.
The space and you soundproved you're tweed.
Yeah. Yeah, basically eighteen years living in Camden sort of worth of tweed. So yeah, I quite like it. I like the idea that I can I go up there and it's my own space and it's where I put things. They stay there, and I can sort of get absorbed whatever I'm doing. I can get into it and work quite well. So yeah, i'd like to do more. I'm pretty unsure as to whether they're going to be any more.
End of the fing world hasn't been discussed, and I know there's too sort of some people think it'd be a great idea, of think it'll be a terrible idea.
But I think it's that that I don't want to spoil it for anyone who has not seen it. But the ending is so kind of it's kind of perfect as it is, isn't it. Yeah, But I understand that these things kind of are sometimes too tempting to leave alone.
Yeah, but I think I think it's an incredible story that that. You know, Jonathan found this comic in a bin, you know, and he's picked it out of a bin, and at the end of the that looks interesting and and really liked him, thought this would make a great series.
I didn't realize he'd found it in a.
Yeah, and any contact to Charles who'd done that made them who had self published this comic, you know, in the States, And so it's kind of a lovely sort of fairy tale.
Yeah, it is.
And he's capable of writing tons of great stories. Yeah, it might not even be about them too, you could, you could write stories about other people, other things. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, who knows.
Do you go in for box sets generally and binge watching kind of a season of something that?
Yeah, I love a bit of a binge.
What's what are your favorites?
My favorite all time would probably be Breaking Bad.
I've not seen Breaking Bad yet, My god, I'm not I'm actually not very good at a box sets. But I have seen all of End of the fucking World.
Yeah.
I think it helps that there's there's eight and they're all like twenty eight. Yeah, and I can cope with that. But yeah, I'm currently halfway through season two of Stranger Things. Yeah, have you seen that one? Yeah, I've seen those and I'm into it. But I feel like if I basically take my foot off the gas and if I don't, if I go a day or a night, if I go a night without watching one, I kind of think I can live without this, you know really. Yeah, I've
not seen Breaking Bad, but that's your one course. I love that, which is related, okay, but you need to.
And I really love mad Men. I really love Broadwalk Empire. You know, I've I've watched I watched a lot of them. I've always kind of watched them. The Old House of Cards so you used to watch that years ago, like ten years ago, into watching the Old House of Cards and.
The original one, not the Space one.
I haven't watched the Space that's another one. Yeah, probably I'm sort of saving. But the Strange Things. Yeah, I really love the Big Little Liars? Is that Big Little Lies, Little Big Liars?
Is that the one about the girls, the group of girls?
No, my wife watches it's spoon.
Oh no, no, that's not it. I don't know that one.
Yeah, I mean that was just a one season thing. I really thought that was that was fantastic beautiful soundtrack as well.
I guess you've done the Wire? No, have you not done the Wire?
No, there's a few I haven't done that people want to hear.
I've done that one, and I don't really do that. The problem is with that one is I feel like and everyone says that's the best one or breaking bad actually, and I feel like I've peaked because that was one of the first ones I did, and now any ones I've seen after that aren't. That's good. It's five seasons, so it's it's pretty manageable.
Campire is pretty good.
That's that's the scor one.
Yeah, semi prohibition.
What do you what about Game of Thrones? Yeah that as well.
Yeah, I love a bit.
I had to give that one up.
Did you when did you give it up? Because was it when it was just all getting a little bit too like sort of like shagging and killing basically all the time?
You know what? I gave it up. I'm kind of almost embarrassed to say after five I watched five seasons and then I just thought this isn't going anywhere. Yeah, the Dragon Lady's not even got over the river at this point in the second five seasons. But she's still thinking about it, and what did I got my friend who's read them all to ruin it for me. I was like, tell me everything that happens, so I don't have to watch this anymore. She told me everything, so
then I felt at peace with it a bit. But I've heard it's got good again now and it's actually, yeah, it's rewarding the people that did stick with it. Well.
I thought after a couple of seasons, like I was feeling a bit sick. It was like too much, like oh my god, And then it started to get good with that red wedding thing, and then I really love Homeland as well. And the last two series of that seasons I hate calling them seasons, but the last two of those it seems to be like, like I think that it's the same as the Game of Thrones. It's just it's just blokes walking around with sort of leather
chest plate things on having conversations. For most you know, on the side of a mountain. It's like, well whatever, and it's you know, I want to see some a bit more of the gratuous.
You've now you becometuity. Yeah, you've become like kind of institutionalized by the violence. Now there's not enough violence.
Yeah, it's not enough violence, and it's not enough sex. So I need loads of that in my just general life. So that's nighttime, that's generally I'm up to, not really and Homeland. Homeland is as well. It's like people in corridors having conversations, mostly because the story is ridiculous. They have to have these long sections where there's just then there's a bit of excitement, and then the last episode is ridiculously intense. But the series has been totally boring.
It finished.
Now I'm really looking forward to another one going on, and I think that's one coming up soon.
Must they dragged them out? Prison Break was one I watched which got so unbelievably ridiculous. Yeah, like, the first seasons good and the second one is good, but you can tell that they rode it as too, you know, and there's this point when it should have ended, and they obviously got offered too much money to not end it, and then it just becomes absolutely the most ridiculous thing
you've ever seen. But you're you're like, you've spent all these hours on it, You've got to see it through to the end, and it just got it's absolutely mental, you know, like dead characters coming back to life.
I really like Dallas excellent.
Yeah, that kind of thing. But I mean, i'd recommend it if you're into if you're you know, if you're into that.
But they dressed in magical clok. No, no to life. When any game of Friends, you can kind of there's a bit of witchcraft in that, so you can kind of come back from the dead.
No, this is just contemporary, modern day. Just someone go, it was faked you.
Yeah, it was somehow dreamt.
Yeah, that kind of stuff.
Was it, Bobby Ewing dreamt a whole a whole series of yeah, Dallas or something.
Yeah, yeah he did, didn't It was all just a dreams and dream I always thought that would have been a good ending to Lost. Yeah, if it was just someone was watching it on a plane.
I never watched that.
No, I watched. I watched the first episode and was out.
Yeah. I know, there's the girl in that silly film, So this is forty Paul film. I love all those silly films. There's a girl who's obsessed with lust and that.
Yeah, I've not seen that film like I do quite like those silly films. Idea yeah, is that your genre, your go to genre? I do quite like that stuff.
I like wander lust and you know it silly, I mean a bit puerile and I love you, love you man, and this is forty.
The forty year old Virgin.
Yeah that's about stuff.
Yeah, yeah, the Judge appetitle kind.
Of yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, I quite like that, kind of quite like Seth Seth thing me Rogan quite like his laugh.
Yeah, it's like a bear.
Yeah. So it's worth it for every few minutes.
So what would you like to soundtrack next? Is there anything you'd like, like, any type of thing? Would you like to soundtrack one of those films Judd apatowity he got on the phone.
I mean, what what sort of soundtrack do they have? They just have silly means kind of like they might have a little bit of kind of scar punk or skate punk.
Yeah, and a bit of like kind of a hangover from the American Pie soundtrack. It's like that kind of thing.
Yeah, that would be fun. Yeah. I can write. I can write a novelty song. I write a couple of novelty songs that were even too stupid for for the end of the fucking world. I said, what about these you know that that song I wrote, you know, the really silly novelty, sort of old fashioned. I wanted it to be sounded like it was made in the forties. What about that? No answer? Okay, they're totally not even entertaining.
It's just never responded.
But I might make a different version of it and try and and just you know, punt it around a bit. Wants it. It's pretty funny. Yeah, it's got a whole kind of vocal sound solo. It's not words, it's just vocal noises and lips sounds. But it's a solo. I want to hear I wonder what it's like one of those It's like one of those really ridiculous old novelty records, you know. It's kind of like Spike Jones and the City Slickers or the Goons or something mixed together.
I want to hear this.
It needs to be better version. Maybe that was it?
Did you watch La La Land?
No? You know what?
I love that?
Yeah?
I did.
I did. I'm getting mixed thingies about it.
Yeah, I mean, I I suppose my my genre of choice is probably romance and rom com more and more these days, and I did like that. I'll also watch anything with what's his face in? Ryan Goslin?
Really, yeah, what to answer for, isn't it?
Really?
It's his fault that a state agents. Now Look how they do their tight suits in their Ivy League haircuts. Oh my god. Another sort of Gosling in smaller Gosling.
Yeah, the Goslinization of the world.
I mean, I love old gods, but criky, everyone wants to look like For a while, I wanted to look like the gods, didn't they. I saw this great film called Mister Roosevelt. Have you seen that? Really daft film. I had some really good music in it too. I have no idea. It's one of them feel good indies. We often settled down to feel good indie and now look it up. It might have a picture of a cat on the front. Mister Roosevelt is actually a cat. But it's about a girl who goes from La back
to her hometown because the cat had passed away. She goes back to where she she sort of just walked out on her boyfriend. She goes back into that situation and he's found himself a new girlfriend. And it's just how they are in this situation and which yeah, they go back to Austin, right basically, uh, And it's just
the silly, daft film, but you know, good funny. It's just one of those things that you just think you see the cover and you go, oh, yeah, it doesn't look like you know, but then you're like, wow, this is really nice and really funny and yeah and daft and it's just nice and nice film. You know.
I'm going to check it out and check it and check out La La Land. It's the State Agents dancing around.
Midnight Chats is a loud and quiet podcast, music courtesy of gold Panda. Search Midnight Chats on iTunes for more episodes and to subscribe. For more information, visit loudanquiet dot com