Gerard interview #2

[Nick Walters <nickw@bl...co.uk>]

I've cut and pasted my interview below as Virgin email is being wank about
emailing hyperlinks.

NW2

----------------


Interview: The Blue Aeroplanes’ Gerard Langley

❉  The cult indie band’s frontman talks to We Are Cult about the new album 
and
what 2017 may hold for the Blue Aeroplanes.

I’ve been following the trajectory of the Blue Aeroplanes for nigh on 
thirty
years, and so I was honoured to have the opportunity to talk to Aeroplanes
frontman Gerard Langley before the band’s traditional Christmas gig at the
Fleece (which they own) on Friday 16 December. An instantly recognisable 
figure,
in his ray-bans, black garb and tousled black hair, Gerard looks every 
inch the
rock’n’roll beat poet that he is. A man with an encyclopaedic knowledge of 
music
and vast experience in the music business, Gerard is Head of Songwriting 
and
Music Business Tutor at the Bristol branch of the British and Irish Modern 
Music
Institute. Gerard lives in the same part of Bristol as me, so I have 
encountered
him quite a few times in shops or out and around the area (he once walked 
past
my kitchen window as I was doing the washing-up), and conversed with him 
before
and after gigs, but this is the first time I have actually formally 
interviewed
him. As my experience of interviewing rock stars is zero (I drunkenly
interviewed indie band The Wood Children at Wolves Poly in 1988), I was 
quite
nervous, but I shouldn’t have been, as Gerard is an affable dude, clearly 
proud
of his band, and excited about the new album and what 2017 may hold for 
the Blue
Aeroplanes.

We talked in the attic-like dressing room in the Fleece whilst other band
members such as Chris Sharp (bass), Bec Jevons and Mike Youe (guitars) 
came and
went. I made a lame joke about Christmas not being Christmas without a Blue
Aeroplanes gig. ‘Not in Bristol, anyway!’ said Gerard. I started the 
interview
proper by drawing a comparison between the Blue Aeroplanes and The Fall.

NW: It strikes me that the Blue Aeroplanes are a lot like The Fall – both 
bands
have been around for a long time and seen many line-up changes. However, 
the
current line up of both bands is quite stable; with the Fall it’s ten 
years,
with the Aeroplanes, it’s..?

GL: Four and a half years. The main difference between the Aeroplanes and 
The
Fall is that we’ve had a lot of members, but they tend to be line-ups that 
stick
around for a bit, make a couple of albums, then it all changes. It’s not 
people
constantly drifting. But we haven’t had a stable line-up really since, 
probably,
Swagger/Beatsongs [1990-91]. People stick around for a long time but they 
never
overlap a record, so I was always putting out a record with one line-up and
touring it with another. So this is the first time really since the early 
albums
that we’ve had a line-up that’s written the stuff, recorded it, and is now
playing it live. The other difference is, of course, I get on with former 
band
members!

NW: I know you see yourself as a national band first, and international 
band
second, but you are synonymous with the Bristol music scene, you own the 
Fleece,
and Bristol often turns up in your songs. Does it bother you that when 
articles
appear about the Bristol music scene, you are seldom mentioned?

GL: Well, Bristol decided it was gonna go trip-hop and not guitar bands! We
can’t do anything about it. Apparently we’re included in RyanAir’s guide to
Bristol, alongside Bananarama!

NW: The new album is extremely poppy and accessible, in direct contrast to
‘Anti-Gravity’ [the band’s previous album, released in 2011] Was this
deliberate?

GL: To an extent, yeah. ‘Anti-Gravity’ was done a lot around jams with 
various
different musicians, but ‘Welcome, Stranger!’ was fairly stable. It was
basically, initially, me and Bec and Mike, working on loads of material on 
stage
at the Fleece. And the material we came up with was so immediate and really
strong. It’s a long time since Anti-Gravity, so I had a lot of words, and 
I was
picking up all the best ideas from those to make it quite hooky and 
strong. And
then we thought, well, we’ve got all these really good songs now, so we’d 
better
record them properly. So we actually went into a really good studio with a
really good engineer, and thought, right, we’re going to record this to a 
major
label standard, just a lot quicker.

NW: The production is absolutely beautiful, very sharp and clean, it really
brings the songs to life.

GL: But it’s still basically the all band playing live – two or three 
takes,
max.

NW: There’s a very sixties, psychedelic sound to the album.

GL: Sixties but punkier.

MY [Mike Youe, Aeroplanes guitarist]: It was recorded at Vale 
[Worcestershire
recording studio situated in a Georgian manor house renowned for its retro
equipment] using a vintage Neve console, and ‘classic’ microphones, so that
might contribute to it.

NW: The production on ‘Swagger’, your most acclaimed album, in comparison, 
at
least to these ears, sounds awfully flat and uninspired. It seems to 
smother the
songs.

GL: To be honest this is one of the first albums we’ve ever done, apart 
from
‘Bop Art’ [the band’s first album released in 1984], where I actually 
really
like the production. I always thought the production on our albums sounded 
a bit
tame – it should have sounded louder, on things like Swagger.

NW: I like the cover, it somehow reflects the playful mood of the album.

GL: Yeah – I was trying to get people to do artwork based on retro-friendly
aliens and rockets, but it nothing seemed to work so I just bought a rocket
myself!

NW: The guitar riffs in Sweet Like Chocolate, and in other places on the 
album
sound remarkably like the distinctive style of Angelo Bruschini [former
Aeroplanes member and legendary guitarist who featured on Massive Attack’s
Mezzanine album]. Was this a deliberate attempt to sound like the ‘planes 
of old
or was it… how can I put this… alchemy?

GL: Well whilst we were jamming, I played Bec [Bec Jevons, Aeroplanes 
guitarist]
some early Aeroplanes…

BJ: And I said, Wow, this is just like the stuff my band is doing! I’d not
really properly listened to the Aeroplanes before, but it just came out 
that
way, kind of semi-accidentally.

GL: With Mike [Youe, Aeroplanes guitarist], there’s a mutual influence, in 
the
shape of Richard Thompson, who played modally. So did Angelo, and so does 
Mike –
so they’re going to sound similar because they’re coming from the same 
place.

NW: Is the album, and the upcoming tour, a conscious decision to try to 
get new
fans on board? To ‘welcome strangers’, as it were?

GL: Let’s put it this way. This Christmas gig used to do all right, but 
never
used to sell out. Three years ago, it sold out on a walk-up, so on the 
night.
Last year, it sold out a few days in advance. This year, it sold out six 
weeks
in advance. So, there’s a curve, and if I can get that curve into other 
cities
and promoters go with it… Because normally, if a band who’s been going a 
quite a
long time like us, like Theatre of Hate, draw 250, then that’s their 
audience –
250 people. But we’re actually growing an audience here, and in London, 
places
where we play regularly, we’re building an audience as if the Blue 
Aeroplanes
was a new band. We’ve got a promoter on board with that, and if we can get 
the
venues on board with that, and give it a go, like a new band, say right 
we’ll
play 150 in Liverpool then 300 next time, we’ll see where it goes. At the 
moment
we’re literally just writing the songs.

NW: After the forthcoming tour, are you planning further dates later in the
year?

GL: One of the reasons for this tour in January, apart from that’s when the
album’s coming out is, I don’t know if I can manage it, but I want to have 
a go,
is to get two albums out in a year. I can’t guarantee it, because the 
quality’s
got to be there, but if I can, I’ll get another out in October/November.

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