Last updated May 25, 1998
From SOUNDS, October 30, 1982
Tony Mitchell talks on the wild side in LA with Talk Talk.
Jetting from the electric buzz and non-stop ecstatic clubbing of Manhattan to the scorching soleil and numbing pooldom of El Lay in one day is akin to having all your senses doused in stagnant water. You feel like a cold blancmange with sunburn.
This is how one was suffering as the icy-cold first confrontation with chart enigmas
Talk Talk commenced. They were trying to enjoy their first day off after six weeks' solid
Stateside touring (bar one crazy virtual day trip to London for TOTP) lying sunbedded
around the pool of the Sunset Marquis, and the signals they transmitted were those of
discomfort, vulnerability and
defensiveness to the point of hostility.
I felt snubbed, wound-up, progressively more cynical. You may by now have guessed that this was not going to be one of the most gratifying ongoing interview situations ever.
Mark Hollis, Talk Talk vocalist, lyricist and therefore foremost spokesperson, was in an exceedingly acerbic mood. Lee, Simon and Paul (Harris, Brenner and Webb), were at least temporarily tongue-tied and laid-back.
Fortunately time, the great healer, came to the rescue. Barriers gradually receded as the fearful foursome grew to accept the notion that every interview was not per se a stitch-up job. Backstage tomfoolery before and after their last West Coast gig at LA's supposedly prestigious Country Club venue did much to melt the ice, and coffe'n'coconut cookies in the Sounds hospitality suite back at the hotel broke their remaining reserve. After twelve hours or so of intermittently circling each other like mongoose and cobra we were finally pals.
Why, we even dropped everything to catch the same plane as them back to New York the next day and Mark returned the compliment by sparing 45 minutes in flight for a much more affable interview. Just what had got their hacks up on this sunny Sunday afternoon in Tinsel Town, to give us such a frosty welcome? First and foremost - the fact that what precious little press they've had in the UK has mainly written them off as nothing more than plastic replicas of Duran Duran - a wicked joke, really, since the two outfits have nothing more in common than their double-barreled names. Secondly, that journalists who treated them respectfully in interviews have gone away and stuck the knife in, twisting it deep. Thirdly, that the circumstances of our initial encounter were ill-conceived for a number of reasons too trivial to detail individually.
Above and beyond all else, it seems, Talk Talk desire to be taken seriously, and feel
that they haven't been, at least by the press so far. However, with a top 20 hit under
their belts at the tender age of six months (vinyl-ly speaking) the importance of that
particular parameter of credibility must be decreasing.
'Today' charted in the UK purely on its strength as a song. The band had no image,
visually, or personality-wise, to precede them, and any preconceptions about their music
which might have been engendered by the dubious Duran Duran comparisons cannot have worked
seriously against them.
Interestingly, for a band which does have such a clear musical identity, Talk Talk were very much an accident of fate. For when Mark Hollis first got together with the other three, it was with the sole intention of recording some demos with which he hoped to secure a publishing deal - as a songwriter rather than a group member.
Mark's brother is Ed Hollis, better known as Eddie of Hot Rods fame, and it was he who put bassist Paul and drummer Lee - a couple of club-lovin' Southend lads - in touch with Mark when Island Music showed an interest in some proper demos of Hollis Junior's songs last Autumn. Keyboard player Simon was roped in via another route, and what started off as a bunch of sessions ended after a fortnight as a committed band.
"Within a couple of days of working a bit on the stuff I'd done, we actually started writing things together as a band, and although all of us were from very different musical backgrounds in terms of taste, there was a definite unity of directions. After the first week we stopped thinking in terms of me getting a publishing deal and said, let's call this a band." Mark recalled.
The first person Mark met in his dealings with Island was Keith Aspden, who soon left
the company to become Talk Talk's manager and helped to negotiate their recording deal
with EMI. "My idea is that a band should be able to develop constructively, like
Bowie," explained Mark. "Regardless of whether your next thing is considered
better or worse, it must be a positive development. "That's what is crucial to it,
and it was very apparent to me that EMI would have the sort of foresight and size to
actually understand that when it arose. "It was a very methodical reason for doing
it. If this is to be a proper
career, I've got to do it with a company that also believes it's going to be a
career."
Why the choice of one of the song titles as the band's name? "The track was up there round about the same time as the band was actually formed. We went through the dictionary, had all the novels out like William Burroughs and things, and finally ended up with Talk Talk because, partly, I like the idea of a track with the same name as the band, and I think it's really instant in terms of memorizing it, plus it didn't in any way categorize us. "The third reason was from a graphic point of view it would look good, the fourth one, purely from a personal hang-up I've got is got, is that I don't really like it when people abbreviate it, like The Stones." And the fifth one was that he really liked Duran Duran. Ouch! - only joking Mark. Is it true they're supporting you on your UK tour though?
Early this year, the band went into the studio to record their first album, 'The Party's Over' with producer Colin Thurston, who also happens to be Duran Duran's producer (shock, horror!). From the band's point of view it was not a totally successful pairing.
"I thought he'd be good because he'd worked with Bowie on 'Heroes' and that track is one of my all-time favourites, but the immediate problem was that he was trying to lay back our sound. "Colin wanted to soften it out too much so what we actually did was that we got Mike Robinson in to do the mix...he was actually the engineer on the first David Jensen session we'd done. Bearing in mind the sort of band he likes - very forceful - we thought he'd harden the sound up, give it more attack." And it is attack - edge - which that album lacks, even after Robinson's fire engine job.How much it lacks is not really evident until you see Talk Talk live. Live, the almost choirboy character of Mark's voice is counterbalanced by his passionate delivery, by Lee and Paul's forceful rhythms and by far more dynamic use of Simon's synthesizers.
The result is an excitement barely hinted at by the album, even though the songs
themselves are unmistakably quality artefacts.
But if the power of a Talk Talk live performance is not readily evident from the first
album, then neither are Mark's musical influences, which turn out surprisingly to be a
combination of jazzers like Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, plus the most soulful singer of
'em all - Otis Redding. Mark : "Redding had two qualities. One was that he could
naturally sing - he was naturally talented - and the other was that he understood power.
And he just gave it everything. "For any music to be good, it's really important that
it's got power, emotion, that it's felt, basically. The minute it runs outside then it's
cabaret - that's the only word for it."
Needless to say, Ed Hollis was a powerful influence on his brother's musical education.
"Firstly," explained Mark, "because of the fact that he's a few years
older, the type of music Ed was listening to was obviously stuff I'd never heard of, so
when I was maybe 13, he was playing me music that otherwise I'd never have had any chance
of listening to. At the same time, because of his work around the Hot Rods and his
involvement within music, I could actually observe the whole situation from very close
quarters."
"And he was actually instrumental in the way the band formed, in that it was him who spotted Lee and Paul, and suggested they should come and work with me. I don't think of myself as following in his footsteps - I think of him as showing me a good example. His record collection is extremely extensive so I was getting to hear things like Coltrane. He was the one who'd say 'listen to this and see what you think', and what he'd actually do would be to make a conscious effort to actually work me into it."
"Maybe he'd start me off on someone like Coltrane, fairly melodic, and then he'd get me up to things like this Ornette Coleman album when you have a quintet playing in the left-hand speaker, a quartet playing in the right-hand, and you can listen to either of them individually, or the whole thing as one weird-out. So he's been really instrumental in a lot of things."
The idea Mark formulated for his group was thus based on the classic jazz line-up of
keyboards, bass and drums, an involved a rhythm section that would combine dynamics with
melody, keyboards very much as a backdrop and the vocals as a saxophone. He still thinks
of his voice as an instrument; lyrics always come last and with as much emphasis on sounds
as meaning.
Mark hopes the second album will be produced by either Chris Thomas or Rhett Davies :
"It's that thing off getting as close as we can in clarity and quality of vocal, but
keeping the rhythm section hard and driving. That's what we all want." He also feels
that the synthesizer content should be less stated than on 'The Party's Over' to avoid
getting caught in the trap of being labeled as just another synthesizer band. Paul echoed
this sentiment : "Me and Lee have always been club goers. We picked up a lot of
rhythmical ideas from New York clubs like The Roxy Roller where you've got dance rhythms
working much heavier than, say, The Palace in London where it's quite lightweight, and we
hope to incorporate them in the new songs. "That's the first thing that's impressed
us for years - to actually see it done with a bit of feeling. Culture Club and bands like
that are trying to do it,
but they just don't make it at all."
The majority of the band's Stateside sojourn was spent opening for the second half of
the Elvis Costello tour - the Canada/Florida leg. They found Costello's fans, old and new,
made an agreeably accessible audience. They headlined on a couple of East Coast dates,
shot back to London to answer the call of the Beeb and zoomed over to LA in a haze of
jetlag to play six West Coast dates which were reduced to three to fit in an appearance on
the Merv Griffin show, which is a bit like the Johnny Carson show, but without the wit.
But it meant valuable nationwide exposure as an example of Merv's policy of
giving the thumbs up to the noo wave (the noo wave should be so lucky) and reinforced the
band's video appearances already clocked up on MTV. "Gives 'em something better to
talk about in the evening than General Hospital" observed Mark, drily.
LA gigs prior to the country club had been The Palladium, supporting Sparks, and two sets at Magic Mountain, one of California's best-known amusement parks. I missed these concerts, but the band didn't seem to mind - Magic Mountain is not exactly a showcase gig - bands who play there are just part of the scenery: "By the time you've played two numbers, if you're not more exciting than the rollercoaster, half the audience just shoots off," quipped Mark. However, the concert at The Country Club was every bit as energetic and slick as the one I'd seen a month or so back at The Venue in London a month or so back, before Talk Talk had taken on this gruelling American expedition, and the place itself was similar to The Venue in its original incarnation as a rock'n'roll supper club.
The fact that the audience were a bunch of dorks, and the assorted LA music biz types who filled the post-gig 'reception' were hardly any improvement, meant that we Brits ended up taking refuge together as if against a common enemy. New bonds were formed and a determined effort made to sink the $50 backstage bar allowance.
Would this and other American experiences be likely to influence their songwriting?
"I don't think were that deep," guffawed Mark. "I don't think we'll
become that serious. Of course, because you're away for six weeks you hopefully have a lot
more impetus when you get back to rehearsals."
Just what were their feelings about contemporary music at home?
Paul: "It's really sad that so many bands in England aren't really playing live - they're just a total media thing. I'm sure it's going to change 'cos that excitement you can get from a good live gig you can't beat, I don't think." Mark: "With all this reliance on the drum box thing and the tape thing, a lot of bands are becoming studio bands instead of real bands. That's one of the things we've made a real effort to steer clear of by using a legitimate rhythm section." Paul: "In England things are getting produced so well, so many good sounds are coming out, that the arrangements are suffering. They're relying too much on an under-par song happening in the studio." Mark: "You can have a band like Dollar who everyone takes for granted are absolutely rank and suddenly they've got the perfectly produced pop single...and it's still totally rank. I'm sure The Wombles could get credibility now."
So which British bands did he think were worth their salt currently?
"I like Echo and the Bunnymen a lot, I think they have that force which is good...and
I think U2 have got that too, although I prefer their first album. They understand
excitement There's a natural tendency now to want music which is more competent, but that
energy and force should still be part of it." Simon: "There are very few people
like Bowie trying new things out. There's
a lack of people you can respect. You like songs and singles, but you could never sit down
and listen to a whole album." Paul: "Very few bands in England are consistent. I
think The Human League are - they are very talented - and Simple Minds. But it seems most
bands only last as long as their single. They're turning over really quickly. There's no
room to develop your sound when you're only hip for about five minutes."
That, of course, is a problem Talk Talk trust they won't be encountering. Getting a hit with your third single might not exactly be overnight success but on the other hand it's far less likely to be just a flash in the pan. The nad are happy that it's happened now, as Paul explained: "There's not so much money around now and you can't hold a product for as long, I don't know how much further we could have gone if 'Today' hadn't been successful. You can't go on for another year like that. "But at least we're not going through what ABC are going through, where they haven't done a live gig ever and now they're going on stage for the first time at the Hammersmith Odeon."
I came in search of character - and eventually found it. They were initially convinced I was going to screw them up, portray them as being solely into sitting by LA swimming pools, with burgeoning tans, but hopefully this first serious glimpse of what makes Talk Talk tick has hammered the lid down on silly speculation as hard as that single charting has. They do have a need to be taken seriously, but that doesn't stop them from being amiable or fun-loving. The quartet were finally persuaded to pose for pics outside the infamous (Members Only !) underwear and fetish house 'Trashy Lingerie' and also to make a right old hash of their revolting American mega-breakfasts in the legendary coffee shop on Santa Monica Boulevard, 'Dukes' (pronounced 'Dooks', or course).
Well, you've got to laugh anyway when the bands got the one and only Burt Ward (Robin, Boy Wonder, to you) selling their T-Shirt consignments at gigs, and a drummer with a ponytail that sends little girls wild....
That at least should provide a Talk-ing point for the months to come...
Last updated May 25, 1998
