Interview with Wire

Now, I want to talk about ‘Change Becomes Us’ - you have put so much effort into this new album. You have dragged the material from decades now and made it sound, I mean in the Guardian’s words, “brilliantly listenable, ultra-modern rock music.” The bridge between rediscovering the material and making the album… was it a difficult journey? It wasn’t really, it wasn’t really that difficult but I mean, you have to start with the mindset of, well some of it was fairly well really wasn’t it? That material existed from a period in which the band was disintegrating very fast. But there was still a bunch of material that wasn’t even really demoed. It’s always been there with and it’s always been like, yeah, that would be interesting to do it sometime, but not now. The circumstance that drove it was really again, relating to the last album. I mean we toured that from the moment it was released and we’ve been through that period. In the previous year, Matt Sims joined us on guitar. As a live guitarist – Margaret had been the live guitarist before and as far as we were concerned, he was the one for the new album and then we’d get another one on the next album or whatever but as it develops, Matt suddenly became more and more essential. It’s hard to describe it, it’s something to do with - I mean, this is absolutely from the heart. He thinks the same way as we do and there is a peculiarity about guitarists. I mean Margaret is an amazing guitarist, she’s a great person but she used to be with Laika, and Laika were a big band and they were certainly in a certain tradition which although, she’s always been a fan of Wire, it’s a very different musical tradition. I think the thing that impressed us most was when he came to the audition and had more pedals than we’ve ever seen anyone for a long time! He had a lot of pedals and the things that he been asked to play, he not only knew how to play them, he also knew how to get the right sound, which no one else was able to do. There are two ways of thinking about guitars; you can have the classic way, where you get a great guitar and a great amplifier, then you make the sound of the amplifier. But that’s not the Wire way; the Wire way is you get a guitar, the one you like the look of the most and get a shitload of pedals and then you get an amplifier, which makes it louder! Also just do it by switching on the distortion box. When you’re playing live, actually you want it clean, then you want to distort it after, and it’s much quicker to just switch on the pedal than start fiddling around with the amp in the middle of the song. It’s really, for us there’s always a practical way of doing it. We were always obsessed with guitar pedals and he has a very similar way of looking at the world, which is great.

Yeah, it’s good to have him; initially he must have really kowtowed to your experience and influence. It must have been a while for him to be able to assert himself more… I think the thing with Matt is that, he’s, what is he, 26 now? But going on 50 – there’s a part of him, which is quite middle aged! He’s very confident musically, but he’s not at all cocky as a person. It’s a great combination, you see that he is young, he does have have certain things about him which I like; he’s a younger person but he has a maturity which is really admirable. But anyways, the fact is that we had got to a point of the end of the tour where suddenly we were really good and we were nowhere near a new album. There’s always that idea, if like, if you get really good on the road then you should be recording a new album, but how were we going to do that? It would require new material and I think probably the main stumbling block to that would have been lyrics, and also the time because we didn’t just stop. It was a fairly continuous process and I thought, well we’ve been talking on and off about this stuff, the legendary, unreleased (fourth) album. We just have to look at the material because we have to do the second tour anyway in November. We are the kind of band that will not come around the second time in the same country with the same set; we have to make it substantially different and without new material it would seem like the best thing to do was see if we can get a few of those to work. We went into the rehearsal room and of course the pieces came together really fast. But they were immediately about now because we don’t really know anything about them… the past is – you can’t live in the past. You just can’t, you literally can’t. I don’t really get nostalgic for a perspective of somehow imagining that you’re in a different year to the one that you’re in. There are influences, there are things that you can bring to bare, which have some elements or something from a certain period. But ultimately you’re in the time period that you’re in and so, it becomes all about making that material sound as good as you can. Then when we realised we'd need to book some sessions, we booked into Rockfield, which is a classic studio. There were some things that we still needed to figure out, but we worked them out in the studio. It’s not an intellectual process; you can certainly intellectualise it afterwards, but during the process, it's more like, 'I’m gonna count 1, 2, 3, 4 and then everyone changes to that chord. That’s just how it is. It worked - Rockfield's a great studio to work in and it felt really interesting for us to do it, 'cause we have our own label. There’s no-one putting money behind us -

- And ergo, no pressure when you're recording, or does that come from within? What it means is that if you go to a studio like Rockfield, you've got to be able to afford it! I mean, we did get a deal, but it wasn't free! So it could've been a very expensive mistake, because it wasn't guaranteed that we'd come up with an album from it. We had some things that sounded quite good, and then some other things that weren't in any state when we entered the studio, so there had to be some serious thinking before we went in about how we were going to do it. The process is called 'trust the band' - between us we'll come up with the answers, but you have to pose the question. Wire doesn't do answers to questions if Wire doesn't know what the question is. Once a question has been formulated, Wire can work out an answer.

And is it up to you to formulate those questions for yourself? Mainly, yeah. Mainly it's up to me to say this is the basic thing; it's gonna do this. There’s a classic example of that where I said I’m gonna start playing, and I don't know how long I’m gonna play, but you don't do the change 'til I say 1,2,3,4 and so there was no set time that we were gonna do that very, very long intro - it just felt that that's how long it should be. I mean, I’m pretty sure it's in multiples of 4; I don't count in three and a half bars, or anything like that - it comes from a logical place, but it is very long! Very long before anything really happens. It goes on for ages before it really grows. That song is all about feeling; it's got a very simple structure - you play this riff and then you keep playing until it changes and we do something else, then we go back again. It’s all feel, and it's good because everyone can relax cause they know I’ll tell them when to change. No one needs to worry about what they're playing, or when they have to do the next bit, and that makes everyone relax. That’s the approach of how most of this stuff came together, and that's a role that I’ve taken forever, even in the early days when I didn't used to play guitar on stage. I still used to move in a way that told the band what they should be doing. You can get nervous if you haven't written something yourself, about where all the changes come, so if you know that you've got someone cueing you, it helps. I think that helped us, in the early days, to be tighter than some of our contemporaries. The first thing that was ever released by Wire was Live at The Roxy, which was just a two-track release and there was a rumour going round that it had actually been recorded in a studio. Well of course, that was complete nonsense and the reason that it was so quiet was because there was hardly any audience! You couldn't hear anything cause the place was empty - we were bottom of the bill!

Oh, the cruel reality. What we did have though was this understanding that everyone could play whatever they liked within that structure. The piece is already written and it's cued, so there was no messing up when it came to playing, so it made us sound really competent. And actually, there were no real musicians in the band. I was the only one really who could play an instrument, or play guitar. And I’m a rubbish guitarist - I don't say that out of false modesty, I just mean I’m not technically very good. Matt is a way better guitarist than I am technically, but I can do good rhythms and that's my role. But you know, that's as honest an account about how we ended up doing it. But then of course, I’d work on it for six months after it was recorded, and it'd be a pretty extensive recording - overdubs and everything - a lot of stuff was actually done in those initial sessions, then it was up to me to actually make it sound good! My particular working process is rather slow and painful, but I get there in the end. It was quite challenging because at one point, I just didn't think it was going to work, but I seem to get that at some point with every project I work on.  I always get to a point where I’m like, oh god, that sounds shit, what have I done here, and then how am I going to explain that to the band? Then it's a bit like… have you ever seen the coach of the British cycling team? When asked what their secret was, he joked to a French journalist that the wheels were 'more round', which is absolute genius - classic British humour - and he said that the truth was it was small incremental changes, and differences and that for me summed up how we ever get anywhere. That for me is how tracks go from being, ‘oh, I’m not sure if that really works’, to ‘wow, that's actually quite good’. That’s what it takes, just tinkering with something. You don't necessarily get the feeling it's changed that much, but it's just changing the focus. I just don't seem to be able to do it very fast; I can write quickly, but that production process - I can't seem to explain what it is that I do. I don't change much; I try to preserve as much as is humanly possible. That’s important, because lots of people nowadays make albums where there's layering; they make them in their home studios but I’m bored of that way of working. I think the interaction of people playing together, around a piece of material is a much more interesting way to do it than just finding different bits to put together. And it gives me more satisfaction doing it that way; you get four people putting their best shot into something. That gives me a lot to work with.

Yeah, that's an exciting prospect. So six months working on that process, then you let all the band members tear it apart again when you take it out on the road - do you feel precious about that at all Colin? No, the thing is that the idea of trying to reproduce a record is doomed to failure - don't even go there. I mean, I’ve seen people attempt to dot all the 'i’s and cross the 't's in terms of what you're hearing and it's utterly boring. You might as well listen to the record. A performance has to be about excitement, has to be about that moment, has to be visceral. And that's what people are looking for; in the brutal reality of the modern world, they get their music for free ‘cause they don't buy the records and they have no respect for the recorded work, but they'll pay money to be at an event. That’s where we are right now. I mean, real music fans of course will buy the record - especially on vinyl, because it's a nice thing to own, but it's still about making the live performance something else, something that's exciting and interesting with that material. There are definitely some things you can't play live - we did it once, in Heaven and said, they are technically possible, BUT…! There are some things we've played since March - we have a backbone of material from the album, and then there's actually a couple of tracks that have been written since and we're actually thinking that we'd like to get a couple more into the set by the time we get to September. 

So we'll definitely hear two new songs in Norwich then? Yes, at least.

That’s exciting! Yeah, it is and it's sort of… it's what we did in the seventies, in a way and it makes sense to us to work that way. I can be an arch conceptualist and I don't mind doing things that are very hard, so I had this concept of doing the album by the method of - this is the next album, by the way - by something I’ve called 'No Parachute', and that's basically no-one gets to hear the songs before we reach the studio, and we have to work them out and play them to form the basis of the album. But there's been a certain amount of carping, and I can understand! We had this thing of like, ‘oh we're doing some dates in America - let's put some new things into the set’, and I said, ‘well I’ll write them in the rehearsal room’, so Graham gave me some lyrics, then I just wrote them, then we learnt them in the rehearsal room! I think when I’m given a set of lyrics and some means to making a noise, it usually doesn't take me long to write a song. Because I don't do it all the time, you see; I use my natural hunger and interest in it to actually be able to do it every day. I couldn't do it quickly if I was doing it everyday - it would be tediously long. When I’m not touring, or playing live or playing in the studio, I don't touch the guitar.

Well, long may that hunger continue, Colin. Well it's always that thing that if you're excited by something… it's kinda exciting, you know! I don't even know how to put it… I had to fill in a questionnaire today, for Festival No. 6, and they're trying to put something together to go in The Independent. It’s one of those questionnaire things that are always deathly awful; all the questions are terrible and hackneyed, you know – ‘what inspires you?’ That’s the most general kind of question. Or the worst one is 'what influenced you the most?' and it seems to me that that betrays a mindset - the fact that it says influenced, not influences, suggests 'what bands did you copy when you started?!' And that's a very 80s / 90s mindset, up to the present day, that I don't have. It’s that kind of MySpace thing of pick your three influences, and the ones who are most interesting pick three obscure combinations that aren't their influences at all! The idea of pre-designing the music you're gonna make by the set of influences that you feel you have to be signed up to is deathly awful as an idea. I think the best music that's made now is made in spite of that idea. I think it's a terrible idea; just throw away the fucking book. Be in the moment, just do something - it's true that a lot of things have been done before, but you can still be yourself.

I would have thought that's a universally recognised principle of Wire from an outside view though, that you subverted your influences and your peers - you ignited something rather than being handed a baton. Yeah, well I think anyone who's anybody should be like that - there are things that aren't necessarily the most original music you've ever heard, but the person is in it. You can hear that person and hear the character, or characters within that music. It’s not like, 'unless we are ticking all the right influences for this week, it's not worth writing', I mean, that's rubbish.

Can I ask you finally then Colin, only because I’m from an Elastica generation - I don't know if it's a sore point now, and please tell me if it is: there was a case of plagiarism from Elastica. Elastica were a band who were similar to you guys in that they came out of a scene, but actually defied the trappings it denoted - they were Britpop era, but didn't sound Britpop in the same ways that you were borne out of punk, but not punk. With Wire being one of the biggest influences on a lot of bands, does that kind of situation of plagiarism almost become collateral damage? It’s really hard, because I don't wanna go down the old Blues Man route, you know, 'we was robbed' - but I actually think in 'Connection' that it's a sample, which I still think they were just very… very dishonest about it. You see, if I’d have been them, I’d have said to my publishing company, ‘you have to look after these people, because we've basically nicked their song!’ And they didn't do that at all, I mean, there was some statement saying that they talked to me and I was OK about it, but I’ve never spoken… well, I’ve spoken to one of them since, but certainly at the time I hadn't, and I’ve never spoken to Justine Frischmann. And that's my song, as well - 'Three Girl Rhumba' is my song: my riff, my song. I found it quite galling that it was used in some Budweiser adverts for the Olympics that were on that year, and that would've been a massive, massive score of money, and we saw a very, very small amount of that because the publishing company obviously didn't want to give it away, and negotiated for the minimum and we weren't in a position to do anything about it. The publishing company that published the Wire song wasn’t really prepared to put in the effort because we weren't important enough. It is kind of a sad story, and leaves you a bit depressed, but on the other side is what is interesting is that whole idea of influence. I remember talking to - shit, what was the name of that band that did the cover of ‘Hounds of Love’ -

- Futureheads - - Yeah, the singer from the Futureheads who was a generation after Elastica and he said, ‘well yeah, Elastica were shit! That's what we all think!’ There's sort of an airy wave of that for all his generation and I think Wire tends to be this eternal influence for bands. Some of the bands that we've supposedly influenced, I think are absolutely horrendous, but in a way, that's got nothing to do with anything, because people have the right to listen to music and be inspired by it. Absolutely. And I think some bands that claim to be influenced by us - I can't hear a note of it! I can't hear anything… and I like them!

I think it's probably more essential that they listened to Wire and realised playing music was something they wanted to do, which is, in a way, more exciting, that you just lit the touch paper for them. Absolutely, I think it's exciting, but I think the one thing that's come from Wire's point of view is that we do want to be more than just that band that's influenced loads of others - we would actually like people to like us for ourselves, you know! I think we are kind of getting to that point… it's a weird thing; this year more than any other year, I feel like certainly in Britain and even America, we're finally cutting through in a way that perhaps we haven't done before, and I think that's to do with the sort of drip, drip, drip of stuff. I mean, one of the interesting things to happen this year was that there was a Mojo article that said, 'How to Buy Wire'; they do this with their forum, you know, they ask the forum what their favourite record is by that band and then they get the votes in. With this one, the actual Wire fans, the fans on the Wire forum only found out about it when it was too late, so there was actually very little influence from Wire fans - these are Mojo readers - and it was just one month after 'Change Becomes Us' was released. The chart was really interesting; it was obvious what the first three were going to be, although it was surprising which one came first - it was 'Chairs Missing', rather than 'Pink Flag' that came first, and I was told that 'Red Bark Tree' came very close to coming third - and then sixth was 'Change Becomes Us', which is extraordinary. You can imagine that in a year, two years time, 'Change Becomes Us' is gonna be in the top three, no doubt at all - there's that much traction in it. So we're in that situation now where we've released two albums that are considered to be very strong and as good as our seventies material. One more album and I think we'll be in a situation that no one of our generation has been before.

The way that modern press works, no matter how long a band have been working at it, as soon as the press deems you worthy, they suddenly brand you an overnight success, don't they? You're in danger of being a thirty-seven year overnight success, which would be hilarious… That would be hilarious, but I wouldn't say no! Well, in 2017 the band will be 40 years old, which seems ridiculous, but if we can't get anything out of that, I’ll be very depressed! We do plan something for that - we didn't really celebrate 20, or 30, or 10… I don't know if we were even talking to each other when we were 10 years in [laughs], but it's one of those things that's a complete absurdity… how can we possibly be that old? I don't feel that old! But the idea of a 37-year overnight success is very, very funny - that'll stick with me. I do hope so; you do try hard to make things work, and I do see that this year, people are noticing who haven't really noticed before. You just hope it's all for the right reasons, really. And I hope the overnight success isn't followed by a descent into complete obscurity!

Colin, I’ve taken an hour of your time, and I feel very cheeky, so I must thank you for your time. It’s actually been a lot of fun talking to you, thank you.

Emma R. Garwood

Wire play the Norwich Arts Centre on Friday 20th September. For tickets, go to www.norwichartscentre.co.uk.