Pale Saints

by Squid

RAD: First of all, we want to know what your favorite canned food is.
COLLEEN: Canned food ... I'd have to say artichoke hearts,myself.
GRAEME: Heinz baked beans.
RAD: Alright. Well, I don't have much background on the Pale Saints, I've just been a fan of your music. How did you all get started; how did you hook up with 4AD?
GRAEME: Same way any other band gets started, really. Me and Chris went to school together ... and we've been playing in bands since we were about sixteen ... and, uh, sort of bumped into Ian one day, sent some tapes off; 4AD liked it.
RAD: And then the first thing you put out was "The Comforts of Madness"? Well, after a couple of e.p.'s.
GRAEME: Uh-huh.
RAD: So, what was the deal of why Ian (the original vocalist) left?
GRAEME: (Pause) It just got to the point where we couldn't carry on any longer with him. And he couldn't carry on any longer with us.
RAD: Kinda like a divorce type of thing?
COLLEEN: A mutual parting of the ways.
RAD: (To Colleen) And then, how dlleen) And then, how did you get hooked up with the band?
COLLEEN: I sensed, like psychically, that they were going to be needing someone, so, I sort of went up and started playing with them. That was it, really.
RAD: Were you with another band at the time?
COLLEEN: Yes; I was in London playing with a band called the Heartthrobs.
RAD: The Heartthrobs? (note: the heartthrobs are simply the best band on one little indian records. DEFINATELY check out "cleopatra grip"--ed.)
COLLEEN: Yeah. I think they had one of their albums released over here on a major label. I was playing with them, but it wasn't very much fun, because I didn't get to write my own parts or be involved at all. I was just told what to do.
RAD: Did you get to play on "Cleopatra Grip", the second one?
COLLEEN: That's their first album. No, I joined after they recorded the second one, and I recorded the third one with them.
RAD: How is it, with the Pale Saints, that you get together to create the songs?
GRAEME: We just go to the practice room and mess around until something happens.
COLLEEN: Sometimes people bring in ideas with them, or bring in a sketch of a song, and then we all sort of bash it up, work on it together.
RAD: And do you allDD> And do you all write the lyrics together, too?
COLLEEN: No, Meriel writes all the lyrics.
RAD: That's Meriel over there (at the sink).
COLLEEN: That's Meriel over there.
RAD: (to Meriel) Hi, go ahead and sit down with us, and enjoy your cup of tea.
MERIEL: There's a rule about the amount of people who are doing interviews, otherwise it just gets too complicated. We'll start fighting with each other about opinions ... But thanks for the invitation.
RAD: Yeah. And by the way, what is your favorite canned food?
MERIEL: Uh .. Mumford's corn chowder.
RAD: Corn chowder. That's really nice. (Meriel leaves.) So, where did you start this tour, since you've been in the U.S.?
COLLEEN: Atlanta, Georgia.
RAD: On this tour, what have your audiences been like?
COLLEEN: They're kind of great.
GRAEME: Yeah.
COLLEEN: Enthusiastic crowds, even if it's been some place where there hasn't been as many, maybe only like about a hundred and fifty, or two-hundred. But they all seem to be really really into it. And alot of people who have never heard of us, never heard any of our music, are coming to the gigs, and then afterwards coming up and sort of wanting to buy the records, so thaty the records, so that's kinda neat.
RAD: That's good. More money. (Colleen laughs.) Do you have any goals in the band, besides ... money, or ... You probably don't have that same goal, like other bands.
GRAEME: It's to just keep making brilliant records.
RAD: Do you have any certain musical influences, or some way that you're inspired creatively?
GRAEME: Yeah, I mean, everybody has musical influences. It just depends what you listen to. I think, everything you listen to you take in subconsciously. I wouldn't say that there's any one particular influence that any of us have got. I mean, that's why we've never really sounded like any other band. It's always been like little bits of other bands in our music, but it's all muddled up together.
COLLEEN: None of us, when we're writing, really try to think, Oh let's try to make it sound like this, or let's try to sound like that. We just kind of do it, and it just comes out the way it does. So, it's pretty hard to know. I mean, we all listen to pretty much completely different music, too, so I'm sure that has something to do with why it sounds -- you know, it's not like we are all really into one band, so we try to sound like that or anything. We're all just into completely different stuff.
RAD: So what have you been listening to since you've beeg to since you've been on the road? I noticed the Nirvana "Unplugged" c.d. over there.
GRAEME: Yeah, I bought that the other day.
RAD: That's yours? That's your pick? "Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam."
COLLEEN: Um ... What's that one that Meriel's really into? Like Massive Attack?
GRAEME: Portishead.
COLLEEN: Portishead.
GRAEME: Yeah, that's coming out. Portishead.
RAD: Portishead?
COLLEEN: Portishead, yeah.
GRAEME: It's brilliant.
COLLEEN: Very occasionally there's an album that all four of us actually like. And I think that might be one of them. And what's the other one? The Paul Weller album. We all really like that one.
GRAEME: "Wildwood"?
RAD: Are you very familiar with David Ronback and Hope Sandoval? Because I know that ... Was it on the one the first one you did an Opal song?
GRAEME: I've always been a big fan of David Rohback. Great stuff.
COLLEEN: Someone keeps saying we'll have to do a covers of Rain Parade so that will make it complete.
RAD: So you did an Opal and a Mazzy Star song?
COLLEEN: That "Blue Flower."
RAD: Ok, because they did it before you, and you...
COLLEEN: That's the version, you guys have never heard the originalever heard the original. We got the idea from Mazzy Star.
RAD: What Rain Parade song do you want to do?
GRAEME: I dont know, I never really thought of that. I haven't really listened to the records from Rain Parade in years, I used to be really into them when I was younger. I haven't listened to them in years.
RAD: So when you were younger experimenting on guitar with music, what kind of thing did you do? Like when you were young -- like an embryo of a guitarist?
GRAEME: I don't know. I never really think about what we're doing, I just kind of put my hands on the fret board and go, yeah alright, that sounds shit and that sounds great. I tend to think about it a lot more now, it's a good idea. We used to come out a lot more experimental when we were young, when you don't think about what you're doing. We used to come up with some weird things.
COLLEEN: That's probably when you know less too. That's when you're not educated enough, you just tend to do weirder stuff.
GRAEME: I think now I tend, when I'm trying to do weirder stuff -- I tend to do that with sounds. I try and make weird sounds rather than actually trying to make what I'm playing sound weird. As far as I just used to use normal sounds and actually play weird notes and play things in the wrong place that shouldn't be there. shouldn't be there.
RAD: That was part of my first appeal to the Pale Saints anyway. There would be the really hard guitar and the dreamy sound. Do you feel that, now, on your latest album, that you've gotten more free creatively, or that it's harder to...
GRAEME: Definitely more so that the last albumn. The last album was a bit strange, it was a very weird atmosphere when we were recording that because it was all sort of...I was having difficulty writing songs then. This albumn is a lot more like the first album, everybody is like a band and we write everything together, throwing out their own ideas.
RAD: Yeah, it sounds more cohesive, as a whole. Where did you all grow up?
GRAEME: In Scotland. I was born in Edinburg.
COLLEEN: Meriel grew up all over. Her dad was in the RAF. So, she lived in Singapore and all kinds of weird places. But she ended up going to boarding school in England for a long time.
GRAEME: Chris is originally from the south of England.
COLLEEN: And I grew up in Canada.
RAD: Ok, well, I think we're coming to a close. So any last words? Any advice?
COLLEEN: Brush twice a day and floss once a day.
GRAEME: Eat lots of bananas.