Gang of Four (Pt. 2)
How was your relationship with EMI?
JK: It was unusual for the time. We didn’t technically sign to EMI as a band - we made records that we then licensed to EMI. In most record contracts there are clauses that say that you have to provide ‘X’ of a commercially viable product, but ours was just ‘technically’ viable. The deal we took with EMI was actually a third of the value in money terms of the deal we’d been offered with CBS and Virgin, who’d offered a six-figure deal. But then what about a song like ‘Anthrax’, is it commercially viable? I don’t think so. It’s not going to get played on Radio One. We set it up so they had to accept the material we’d give them on the basis that it was technically viable. That was one of the things we did that now means we have distribution rights of our whole back catalogue.
AG: They were a bit mystified by us. We’d deliver the record, then we’d deliver the artwork, then they’d put it out.
They gave you a lot of free rein then?
JK: They mess around a lot with commercial acts. They can hear when a single is gonna be Top Five or Top Ten. They think ‘if we tweak it, it’ll go Top Five in France and Belgium, let’s go back in the studio.’ Look at The Dandy Warhols - they presented two entire albums the record company rejected. It was the third set of ten songs that was finally accepted.
HB: EMI never really saw us as a hit-making machine so it wasn’t difficult for them to have a hands off approach. The weird thing came when we got onto Top Of The Tops and it looked like ’my God, maybe they are a hit band!’ When we walked off TOTP it really mucked up a lot of support that had been building within the record company. They were like ‘Crikey, don’t walk away from Top Of The Pops!’ then they just changed to ‘Oh well, screw it, we’ll go with this other little band we’ve signed called Duran Duran, maybe they won’t walk off’.
You’re now with V2 – do you prefer the backing of a larger label over a smaller indie outfit?
AG: People thought we ought to be on an independent label that seemed to be somehow untainted by commerce. We thought that was a bit of a cop out. The whole idea that small, cottage industries are somehow more honest or pure is nonsense.
JK: We had been signed to an indie for our first single – Damaged Goods. The record cost £70 to make, it sold a hundred thousand copies and we never got any money. We were ripped off and the guy was a crook – he never paid us a penny.
What brought the band back together this year?
HB: We just talked about it. The idea had been pushed backwards and forwards a few times, and I think the time came where not only were all four of us able to do it, but we had the desire to do it properly.
AG: There’d been a flurry of emails back and forth with our manager, taking the idea very seriously, mulling it over. I said to the manager ‘what do you think of this idea of things back together with all four of us?’ He was immediately on the phone, booking all the flights, saying ‘just get a rehearsal and try it’. I’m like ‘Hold on a second!’ but sometimes it takes a bit of a push to just try it, and that’s what we did. I very much felt then that this could work.
Were you shitting yourselves?
JK: There was a certain element of ‘supposing we cock up and it’s not as good as it was before?’ We just can’t contemplate doing it unless it’s gonna be great.
HB: It was weird because the four of us hadn’t worked together, or even been in the same room, for 23 years. It was very much ‘can we all do this again?’ I’d been the one longest away from it. Just speaking for myself there was a month or so that I thought ‘fuck, what am I doing?!’ The preparation before we came back to actually start rehearsing was… hard. And I know it was for everyone on different levels but it became easier within a matter of hours from the first time we met. When we actually started playing together physical and mental memories starting kicking in and the dynamics that drove us the first time were still very much prevalent – musically and emotionally it became exciting again.
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