Notes from Interview with Jim Glennie--JAMES-- May 11, 1994
The folowing is not written by the webmaster, it was written by Amy S.
live gigs-
Playing live- "more direct form of communication, there in front of people.
live has always been our key in with people-always played live. . . huge P.A.
kicking in behind you, light show, you get people's concentration and as
musicians you feed off that."
two way thing, powerful
studio-
"up until Laid, I hated the studio, very frustrated, tape without losing so
much"
In the past they tried too hard, were "too precious in the studio in the
past", "needed to relax, chill out"
"Usually people think that the harder you work the better something will be
and with music it doesn't work that way"
With Eno- flowing quickly, great diplomat and fun
recorded lots of songs in short period of time
3 core songwriters-Tim, Larry, and Jim- always there when songs are written
write through improvisation
People just messing about and everybody listens, jam 15-20 minutes on each
one. Good ones go back to and after doing that it ends up being a song
what do you want people to get out/ messages-
emotional-wise cover a lot of ground, more noticeable live than on the album
Laid-generally moody
Live--more extremes, can be quite chilled out, relaxed and can be quite nasty
sometimes depending on how we're feeling
"I want people to feel better when they leave, thinking about lyrics or
whatever"
"I want to connect with people in some way, shape or form I'd rather have
people bothered, disturbed than no reaction but I'd like it to be positive"
Laid-- more personal, leave things up to the individual
intentionally didn't print the lyrics, leave things open-ended for listener
My question- British friend says that you can only understand their music if
you are from GB
During one period (Gold Mother) some important subjects covered in their
songs
"Political and quite specific to Britain, changes in trends in Britain and
what was being encouraged in people was greed, I'm okay and not prepared to
sacrifice anything for people who have less than me. Not a pleasant time
specific to Britain."
All through my voting life, we've had a conservative gov't
"Laid" made people buy the album-- "accept it and get into it and we'll
convert them"
With promo copy, "Raid" hadn't picked the artwork, photograph turned up
incidentally and Laid seemed to fit better than Raid
Success-
don't quite feel there yet
Can make a living out of it, it's fun-- "on our way somwhere, not sure where"
"Carrot on a string" analogy-- "Goals constantly changing as you look to
certain things always another one slightly further away, waiting for us.
Always something you haven't achieved yet that you wanted to"
"increases in success does bring certain freedom, it makes life a lot easier,
more leisurely, less chaotic" but then you get hassled
"double-edged sword, a nice problem"
"nice to be weird and be differenct and take risks and keep changing but sell
a lot of albums"
no embarassing albums
"we've always just did what we did"
diff albums through the years have different levels of acclaim
"Albums very different from each other, I don't think we've travelled toward
or found greatness. It's not something to look for."
"We are just looking for new areas to work in that stimulate songs basically"
misc-
exercise, look out for ourselves so we don't get run down on the road
get on very well, argue quite a lot, not many fights
feminism-- "sexism is defined as looking at someone as being inferior"
"title brings a lot of baggage that can be restrictive"
"freedom, be and do whatever you want and do it without society posing
restrictions based on race or sex"
"break barriers, not move the barriers"
Political views-
Cynical about people
"There are no leaders in the world, the leaders in this world are followers,
they change policy to whatever the public wants to get in power or stay in
power"
"Qualities to get in power: greed, ambition, media personality"
"don't bring in changes to save things, need to be seen to make an effort"
"Politicians won't take the risk to rock the boat and disturb people's life
and question how much they want to change and how much they want to sacrifice
to change things"
"I am not prepared to dedicate my life to change things, when it's easy, I'll
do it. We need to move society forward en masse, most people too apathetic"
"What are we doing wrong as a society that creates people that are doing
things?"
"We need to take responsibility, not us and them--education key"