Last updated March 16, 1998
From NME, October 12, 1991
They were born in age of synth-pop and teenybop gunslingers, but Talk Talk were always sullen and strange....and now they're 100 percent Obtuse Damn Bugger Weird. Simon Williams meets a serene, laid-back Mark Hollis, and discovers his favourite word is 'organic'.
The story of Talk Talk is a strange and twisted affair. Once upon a time, their peers were Duran Duran, Cava Cava, Wank Wank and all those double- barrelled teenybop gunslingers with scary big suits and a terrifying taste for (barfo barfo) synth-pop.
This just happened to be something Talk Talk were extremely good at, although, with Mark Hollis' pinched, nervy face poking at the camera, the Talkies managed to avoid tumbling into the sun-bronzed Smash Hits glamdom.
While their contemporaries made naff vids in exotic locations (Duran), bought Porsches (Spandau), grew crap haircuts (Kajagoogoo), or turned into gossip column phalluses (everybloodyone, especially Visage), Talk Talk stayed sullen and strange and made mildly marvellous albums which saw them weaning themselves away from all the other clowns in the pop circus.
By 1988's 'Spirit Of Eden' LP, the weirdness was absolute. Conscientiously rejecting all the handy tips on How To Make Records, Talk Talk booted themselves onto the touchline of the left field by making the kind of album which gives product managers ulcers, and then threw a few gallons of four star onto the flames by taking a rather early retirement from touring.
"Even at the time of 'The Colour Of Spring' (1986) it was getting increasingly difficult to play the material live" says Hollis, with a surprisingly cock-er-nee tinge. "We were looking at rearranging songs, but having spent a year and a half making the record, the LAST thing you want to do is go back in and rearrange it ! There's a lot about playing live that I've never got on with, but I do think it's really important, and I'd hate to give the impression that I think all bands should be studio-bound."
Not surprisingly, the band's long-term relationship with EMI found itself aground on rocks the size of Norway. Even less surprisingly, when Talk Talk tunnelled through a loophole in their contract and out into the daylight at Polydor, EMI started ransacking the vaults and flogging old Talk Talk hits by the pound. The band were helpless to act when a Greatest Hits package sent them soaring into the Top 20. But when a crass compilation of dance remixes was released to cash in on Talk Talk's odd, unwitting relationship with Club Culture, Hollis finally sent in the lawyers.
"I've never heard the stuff and I never want to," scowls Hollis. "I never even considered that anyone would do that type of thing. To have work put out under your name which has got nothing to do with you..." the singer tails off, looking profoundly exasperated. "I mean, we were nominated for Best Band at the Brits last year and they were showing footage of us from 1983, with absolutely no regard for what we're doing now."
The important thing is that, excepting imminent court cases and several thousand deceived punters wandering around in the belief that Talk Talk are a bona fide pop act, Mark Hollis has landed on his feet. Polydor have resurrected the old Verve jazz label for the band, and the new 'Laughing Stock' album sees Talk Talk cruise even further into their own vague otherworld.
With its middle names of Abstract, Obtuse, and Damn Bugger Weird, 'Laughing Stock' is a six-track meander through calm territories littered with easily aggrieved volcanoes of sound.
Hollis denies that any particular 'theme' has prevailed over the past eight years, but when the word 'organic' - bandied around Talk Talk's press file like shouts of 'tits' at a rugby club karaoke night - stumbles into conversation, the singer's eyes light up with the luminosity of a fireworks display.
"Organic is a really nice word, basically because it means natural. What you see is what you get. The thing that anyone wants to do is to create something that exists outside of the time it was created in. And the only way you can do that is to work without sounds that are stylized, work with them in their most basic form. Part of what I like about sound is that quality isn't down to size, it's down to its idiosyncrasies."
There's certainly no shortage of them with Talk Talk. What is ironic is that, while their sound is in virtual free-form, the composition is maddeningly painstaking.
"That's a result of having stopped touring and just having an open-ended amount of time." nods Hollis. "It wasn't like we've got six months to get it all done and then tour again, it gave us the chance to try anything, and not care if you get 100 musicians in and only use one of them."
So speaks an artist from the luxurious heights of a five-star deluxe pedestal. With a bidet. And big, fluffy dressing gowns. Like The Blue Nile (only a bit more unsettling), Talk Talk have worked themselves into a position where they can do what the bugger they like without fretting about deadlines or panicking about people's perceptions.
They're making (theoretically) Q-generation music for the thirty- somethings, who'll tap their toes erratically and think 'Laughing Stock' is fab simply because it's the latest Talk Talk CD, while obscure teenage collectives like Bark Psychosis have taken Talk Talk's creative rumblings to heart.
Talk Talk genuinely deserve to be where they are now. The good thing is that Hollis, far from evolving into a blinkered farthead, is fully aware of the benefits.
"I think of us as being in a fortunate position here," he frowns, snuggling into the sofa. "But I wish more band were in this position; everyone would benefit, certainly the public and the bands, and at the end of the day record companies would do no worse."
Suggest that music is a cry for help and Hollis will holler "Cor, no !" in a thoroughly shocked manner, like an Eastenders extra. For all the extremes tested by Talk Talk's sound, this is no emotional outlet for an angst-ridden talent quivering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
"I don't know whether that's necessarily true anyway. You don't need to be a manic depressive to write your best stuff. I'm sure that's just a myth."
He beamed....
"Yeah, that's right! Hahaha! Very good!"