|
Dakota Suite are about as contradictory a
band as you can hope to find. Having quietly developed in Leeds
over the course of the past three years, they first came to my attention
through their inclusion as one of the few British acts on the legendary
Loose compilation – perhaps the definitive alternative
country record of our time – but they won’t accept the tag.
Guiding force Chris Hooson claims to love playing live, but his
songs can at times be so personal, so desolate, that you feel guilty
for watching. So not exactly chart material then, but their debut
album Songs For a Barbed Wire Fence and a singles collection
Alone With Everybody are well worth listening to. On your
own. And you have to respect the individuality of a band that can’t
even fill my favourite hole in the wall, London’s famous 12 Bar
club.
The album seemed to take a year and
a half to record. How come it took so long to put together?
Chris: We did it in our spare
time. At that point we didn’t have a deal so we just recorded whenever
Richard (Formby) had spare time in the studio. Whenever we felt
like it and when everyone was around, so that’s why it took so long
really.
Had you been working as a band long
before recording started?
Yeah, but not for that long –
a year and a bit?
Andy Thrower (bass): I lose track now. We done three gigs
and just kept recording really, on the off-chance that something
might happen.
So were you actively looking for
something at the same time?
Chris: Well Andy and I got
together to work on some songs because we thought it might be a
nice idea to do them, and we went to Richard’s studio and just did
a couple of basic sessions. Then Richard started playing a few bits
and bobs here and there. And we had to do a gig at one point, didn’t
we? And we just asked Richard if he wanted to do it and he said
yes and that kind of became our spin from then on. It wasn’t intentional.
Andy: It’s one of those where it would’ve been nice to put
something out. We definitely wanted to record stuff, but whether
it was going to be put out or not I think is another question. But
it’s really just a band for having a band really, because we had
some songs and we wanted to play them.
Why have you gone for a kind of country
sound? I mean it’s not the most popular of styles.
Chris: I don’t think it’s
country myself, I don’t know where that comes from – all that
"alternative country" thing. It’s just what I listen
to; I listen to a lot of Tom Waits, and West Coast things. I think
it’s more West Coast than country. We just use what influences we’ve
got around. Somebody said to me once "Why bother putting
a melody down with a guitar when you can do it with something different?"
It’s like on the album – The Last Thing She Wanted on
the second break has an oud because my sister had just brought an
oud back from wherever she was, Malaysia or something, and we tried
this and it was great. And so it’s, I dunno, what was the question
again?
Why country?
Yeah, I don’t think it’s country
at all.
Does Richard actually play a full time
role in the band?
Yeah. It’s me and Richard really.
I mean Andy’s a doctor now so he’s not going to be around for much
longer. He’s going to record with us but he won’t be doing any more
shows, so it’s just going to be whoever’s around really. I usually
go in with the songs with Richard and we usually work something
out, then Andy comes in and puts bass on it.
Are the photographs on the album cover
really of concentration camps? I noticed the NME review really
had a go about that.
Do you know what? Two days after
that I had the Jewish Chronicle on the phone saying they’d
had some phone calls and were not happy about this. When they originally
put the artwork in it – I’m going to have to tell this story
a lot, so I’d better rehearse it – when they originally did
the artwork I gave them the picture of the front cover, and this
is like barbed wire, it’s fine. And the one at the back, which is
obviously Berkenau, I asked them to crop above the chimneys. I don’t
want it to be an Auschwitz thing; I want it to be a barbed wire
thing. And the guy that did the artwork didn’t, and by the point
at which I knew, it was too late to change it because there’d been
so many fuck-ups with it anyway. There was very much a sense of
"We’re not making any more changes." We like the
picture but I should’ve thought it through really. So I had the
Jewish Chronicle on the phone on the Thursday saying "Would
you like to tell us about this then?" because apparently
there’s some kind of ‘Dark Chic’ going around, like apparently the
Prodigy used a Goering quote on their album. Things like "is
this part of the wider dark chic that’s going on about anti-Semitism?"
and I’m like no, please no. So I said they could print my e-mail
address so if people really felt badly they could e-mail me, so
I’m really going to be in for it. But like I said we went there
and it really had a profound effect on me, and we took the pictures
and we’ve used them. But I wasn’t intending for them to be obviously
pictures of concentration camps, because the front cover could’ve
been anywhere. If I’d known there’d be this much trouble...
I noticed the back sleeve when
I got the album, but it was only when this other article picked
up on it...
Yeah, because it’s not the one on
the back, it’s on the inner. I should’ve made some kind of statement
on it, because this article accused us and said no, if we’d thought
it through and reported like this is not supposed to be offensive
blah blah blah. But it was too late by then anyway, but this
wasn’t my intention anyway, so yeah – oops!
But if you’d done that you’d have
drawn undue attention to it anyway.
It’s irritating isn’t it? Like I
say it wasn’t my intention anyway, my intention was to have just
barbed wire. Because you see I did all the initial artwork at home
and everything, and it’d gone backward and forward so many times
that the people were just fed up with it, because they’d made so
many mistakes on it.
Being in Leeds, shouldn’t you just be
in an indie band like everyone else?
Leeds has no music scene at all
really. It just doesn’t have a live music scene, I mean we never
play in Leeds. Well, we played ages ago. There’s just no point,
there’s no scene, it’s just – yeah – indie bands. I hate
indie music; I hate anything like that. Nobody likes indie music.
That was my era – indie kid.
Ha ha, I hate all that shit. You
see at home I don’t listen to, like with the country thing. I like
a lot of Townes Van Zandt and that sort of stuff. The most stuff
I listen to at home is like Arvo Part, all the ECM stuff, just all
that. I listen to a lot of Kiss as well. I do, I really do! I listen
to loads of Kiss at home and I’m not afraid to say it. But yes,
it’s usually instrumental music and stuff – Arvo Part and so
on like that. Tom Waits. So yeah, indie music is shit. Allegedly.
It’s funny – I was doing an interview with an Irish magazine
last week and he said about comparisons with Lambchop and I went
"oh, I hate Lambchop" and then went oh please don’t
print that because we don’t want to get into the bitchy band thing
and he went OK and the bastard printed it. Bastard. So I
have to be really careful now. I should really write to him about
that because I asked him, I said I don’t want to get into slagging
bands off. Bastard.
Has it actually gone in then?
Yeah. Bastard. Bastard. Mind
you I’m getting used to it now – you read an interview and
go "I never said that!" But I was a bit annoyed
because I specifically asked him not to print it.
We mentioned this earlier, but what
do you think of being absorbed into this alt.country thing?
I dunno, we’re not really in any
scene are we?
Andy: I didn’t know we were classed under that kind of scene.
Chris: I don’t know really. It’s like when we go out and
play nobody ever comes and sees us anyway, as we will witness tonight.
Don’t say that! I’ve come
all the way from Norwich.
Yeah, it’s a real shame because
we’ve come all the way from Leeds. I hate it, I really hate it.
We played the Loose night and it was great, really good,
but it’s just that I can never imagine us having any sort of pull
ever. I can imagine confounding the locals and stuff, but I can
never imagine us having any kind of pull at all.
Andy: Why do we bother?
Chris: It’s a shame because it’s a hell of a lot of hassle.
Andy works, I work, Richard runs a studio, and John’s a session
drummer so he just sits around. You know I’ll go into work at nine,
I’ll get back tomorrow morning at four and then I’ll be up at seven
for work. It is a bit depressing.
What do you actually do?
I work with kids in care, which
is shit; it’s really depressing. I can’t think how or why we do
it, so the kids will get short shrift tomorrow – "shut
up! I don’t care!" – oh dear, so it’s a bit of a bind
having to do this. When you think we’ve spent a load of money coming
down – why? It’s sad.
I think we’ll always be an album band,
first and foremost, so we can do it at home. The shame is I do like
playing live actually. I was saying to Andy that it’s going to be
a Mark Eitzel thing where Mark couldn’t afford to keep the band
going, because it’s a really expensive business. We’re playing with
Mark when he plays in London, so we’re going to see how that goes
actually. Richard and I are going to come, and Colin’s coming as
well – the cello player – and if I thought that was working
I’d just never tour with a band again. Although I really like my
own band I just wouldn’t do it again, too expensive. We should be
more like Shed Seven – we could have a bus and everything!
With video games and lap dancers.
Does Richard produce everything on Amos
(the label that put out Barbed Wire)?
No, nothing.
No? Because he did Triumph
2000.
He is Triumph 2000.
The records just say "Produced
By".
That’s his picture on the back.
That’s amazing really because he just does all that on a computer
on his own. It’s really the antithesis of what we are, totally,
because all that is built up on a computer, it’s one of his live
tools, really bizarre – he’s a man of many talents.
Doesn’t Triumph 2000 come from
him spending too much time with Spacemen 3?
You’d have to ask him that. Richard’s
very eclectic though, like me. I mean I listen to a lot of Coltrane
or Arvo Part and he likes a lot of Indian ragas, and he likes drone
stuff. I don’t know what’s more him really, but he did spend a hell
of a lot of time doing it, doing something. But he doesn’t
produce anything else for Amos. Well, Amos doesn’t do anything
else – that label was set up to do our first single.
I see that you wrote all but one song
on the album – is this primarily your thing?
This album really feels that way.
We were going to call it Bereavement & Loss forever until
everyone said it was too depressing. I said after that album that
I wanted the next one to be much more "bandy", and it
hasn’t worked out that way because we never get together to rehearse.
I’ve already written enough tracks for another album, but I don’t
know if we’ll have another album. It depends if somebody wants to
put it out. We’ve got the compilation album on Glitterhouse, and
at that point we had two new songs which were put on because otherwise
they might not get out. Every chance we get we might as well put
everything on it because I just feel like I might not get to do
another album.
|
