By rights, The Beautiful South should be crap. Formed from the ashes of The Housemartins, they should have split up years ago, having failed ignominiously. After all, everyone knows that an artist s second band is always shit; it s one of the few absolutes in rock n roll. Even Paul McCartney couldn t do it with Wings.
However, The Beautiful South have made a mockery of music industry conventional wisdom, by becoming more successful than The Housemartins, with a string of hit singles and albums, not to mention one of the most successful LPs ever in Britain in their Greatest Hits collection, Carry On Up The Charts. They have also achieved these successes by remaining out of the tabloids and simply getting on with the job in hand, writing and releasing wonderful pop tunes with frightening regularity.
However, even the band themselves were taken aback at the phenomenal success of Carry On Up The Charts.
Considering that Miaow didn t do so well, sales-wise, when the record company wanted to put out a compilation, we immediately weren t too keen, explains Dave Hemingway, one of the band s three vocalists. Compilation albums sometimes mean the end of the band s career, and we didn t feel that way at all. But when we looked at it we thought, We ve got 14 singles which have all done reasonably well, it s not as if it would be a rip-off; it would be a fairly decent compilation , so that made us go ahead and do it.
The success of Carry On Up The Charts catapulted The Beautiful South into the premier league of British bands, with one in every seven households in Britain owning a copy of the album. However, the band have always been known for a fairly laid-back approach to the music business, never getting carried away with hit singles and not really having an image to live up or down to. Hemingway s response to the success of Carry On . . . is typically reserved: The biggest change now is that we are playing in bigger venues and selling them out quite easily. Apart from that, there are no real changes in ourselves or anything.
Therefore, they felt absolutely no extra pressure when it came time to record their latest album, Blue Is The Colour.
We didn t feel as if we had to emulate the compilation album in terms of sales or anything, says Hemingway. Paul [Heaton] and Dave [Rotheray] have always been quite prolific in the songwriting department. They ve always written good songs. So when it came to the writing, Paul s lyrics were strong, as usual, and we just went about business as normal.
If we had thought about it too much and tried to change the way we work, perhaps it would have been a mistake. It may have pressurised us into doing other things. But we just carried on and tried to produce the best album we could. We just keep trundling on really: not reading water, but we don t tend to think about mega sales or anything. If you tend to worry about what happens if the next album doesn t sell two million, you re cruising for a bruising. If it only sells 200,000, you ll be disappointed.
Hemingway feels Blue Is The Colour compares favourably to their previous four outings. Of the five albums, the standard of the songwriting has been pretty consistent, but in terms of how we ve recorded, we ve tended to improve as we went on, he observes.
The first two albums, I don t think we recorded them very well. We were probably a bit naive and didn t know our way around the studio too well. The third album, 0898, I still consider to be our best album. This one, I think is a little bit different. It s a bit more low-key and a bit ballady. We ve done ballads in the past but I think this album is more melancholy. However, it s sold a million in Britain as of today, so I think I might just go out for a drink tonight.
Blue Is The Colour is certainly not your average Beautiful South album. Sure, it has the cleverly barbed lyrics and the sweet, hummalong melodies, but lyrically it is a lot darker than any of their previous offerings. Hemingway agrees.
It purely reflects Paul s mood at the time of writing the lyrics. He was away in places like Rotterdam and Amsterdam, writing the lyrics on his own, and he was feeling a bit down because of whatever personal things were going on in his life at the time, and that is reflected in the songs. Who knows, if he writes the next album while he s ecstatically happy, it could be all up-tempo, jangly tunes.
One of the most vivid aspects of Blue Is The Colour is the prominence of Jacqui Abbot on vocals. Joining one of the most successful pop bands of the 90s mid-way through their career can t have been easy, especially when you re taking the place of one of the band s popular vocalists, Briana Corrigan. But three and a half years ago, Jacqui Abbot did just that.
I think she s done fantastically well, opines Dave Hemingway, particularly when you consider that she had never been in a band or sang in front of anybody or been in a studio. She d never even heard her voice through a microphone. On this album in particular, I think she sings really well. We re all really proud of her.
I wondered how much Jacqui s life had changed since becoming a member of The Beautiful South?
Not much really, she confesses. I ve got a bit more money. I know a lot more people, that s it really.
But surely you re recognised on the streets now, particularly with the recent success of Rotterdam and Don t Marry Her ?
Yeah, a lot more, she admits. But it s nice having people coming up to ya and saying they like your songs and asking for your autograph.
Did you ever crave this kind of success in your younger days?
No, it just happened really. I never intended being a singer. I never wanted to play in a band. I never sang in clubs or even did karaoke. When I was younger I never aspired to be a singer. I did art and drama in school, so I suppose that s why I can handle being on stage.
I m not really a performer on stage as far as speaking to the crowd goes. I leave that to Paul. I always knew I had a voice but Paul must have heard more than that when he heard me sing, y know.
Jacqui has featured on the two singles lifted thus far from Blue Is The Colour, Rotterdam and current single, Don t Marry Her . The latter is very different to the version that opens the album. Don t marry her . . . fuck me is the main thrust of the album opener, as opposed to the sanitised have me of the seven-inch. Also, the reference to sweaty bollocks becomes Sandra Bullock on the single. So why bother recording it twice?
I think Paul was basically trying to see what he could get away with on the album, explains Dave Hemingway. Obviously he couldn t get away with the original lyrics on a single version. Well, you could, but it wouldn t get played and consequently wouldn t sell, but the message is still the same.
We felt that the message within the song wasn t dimmed by changing the swear words in it. If we d felt that it did change it dramatically we wouldn t have done it.
On Don t Marry Her (album version) it is Jacqui who sings the lines about grabbing your sweaty bollocks and slowly raising her knee. And she makes no apology for them.
I have nothing against singing them, she states. It s only a song, isn t it? I know some people find it offensive, but so be it, really: that s just the way these things go. People have their own values and their own ideas on what should be put down on record and played on radio. I don t mind singing it. Paul s lyrics mean something to him and he s the boss really. I ve never found them uncomfortable to sing. A lot of my family think it s a bit rude , but I just think it s a bit cheeky.
Jacqui is more involved vocally on Blue Is The Colour than on previous releases. With three vocalists, I wondered how she had managed to corner so much of the vocal duties for herself.
Who sings on each song just gets decided in the studio when we re recording the album, she answers evenly. Obviously Don t Marry Her was written for me, but Rotterdam and One God could have been sung by anyone.
When we did Miaow, I think Paul was still getting used to my voice and the way I was singing. It s a lot different to Briana s: she s got a very high-pitched voice whereas mine is very low. I think only after Miaow, Paul really got used to my voice and he had songs in mind that would be more suitable for me to sing.
Former vocalist Briana Corrigan left the band amid allegations that she refused to sing Heaton lyrics she considered sexist and which she felt demeaned women. I wondered if Jacqui had ever felt that way.
I never looked at his lyrics as being sexist at all, but that s just my own personal view, Jacqui answers immediately. She left, and she thought 36D was a bit sexist. It was just the way she saw it.
I think you re taking it a bit too personal when you decide that you don t want to be with the band anymore, she continues. You ve got to be open-minded about things, because the way Paul writes the lyrics is very personal, and it can be very close to the bone. Alright, it can offend some people, but I think he s only telling a story about how some people think and how they view things. When Paul meets people, he takes a lot of his ideas from the way they think.
When Briana left, I m not saying it was the wrong decision: she wanted to do it. But I wouldn t do it, not because of the money I m getting or the house where we re living now or anything like that, it s just because I enjoy doing it. I love going on stage with the band because we ve got such a large following and it s nice to play to them. I m very lucky in that way.
Sexist accusations notwithstanding, the songs of The Beautiful South have little in common with New Laddishness.
Obviously that sort of scene isn t politically correct, but, then again, you can be too politically correct, muses Dave. We re not saying that we haven t felt laddish in the past or done laddish things, because we all have. But as a general rule of how to live your life, it s not great, and it s better to show people, and women in particular, more respect than that. We re not saints or anything but we tend not to follow that particular lifestyle.
Compared to some of the other British bands of the day, The Beautiful South have managed to remain successful while steering away from having their pictures plastered all over the tabloids every other day. But it wasn t a deliberate plan.
I don t see how you can deliberately plan that, offers Dave. If the tabloids want to get into you, they ll get into you. Thankfully, they haven t done that, because we are low-key. We don t go out of our way to be low-key, it s just that probably because we don t live in London and we don t go to all these London parties or the trendy bars where these people are seen. We ve been very fortunate in that respect, and long may it continue, the tabloids ignoring us. We don t want that sort of attention.
So he obviously feels it s important to keep the band and his private life separate?
Yeah, he enthuses, but I m sure Oasis and Blur will tell you the same thing. Unfortunately they can t do that, or they choose to frequent the places where they re gonna get trouble from people taking their photos etc. You can t have it both ways. If you go to these places, you re gonna get trouble, so we tend not to go, well, not so often anyway. But we have our moments.
Paul suffered at the hands of the tabloids recently when we played London. He had his photo in The Sun with some fictitious tale told about him. It caused a lot of trouble for him in his personal life at the time, so that little example just goes to show what it would be like for the rest of us if we had that attention all the time. It would be pretty disastrous.
We don t want to fall into the press trap, agrees Jacqui, because it s nice to come home and not have anybody minding you: not to have people outside your front door wanting to know the nitty-gritty of your life.
It s two different worlds, when you re touring and when you re home. It s nice to be able to get away from it all. As long as you have that separate life thing, it s a nice feeling. I like to keep the publicity side separate from my private life.
The Beautiful South are no also-rans in the laddishness stakes, however, having built up their own modest reputation for football-living, beer-swilling mayhem, albeit of a non-destructive sort.
We still play football I play on Saturday and Sunday, and Paul just plays on a Sunday and we do tend to drink more than is good for us, so yeah, we re guilty on all counts there, I m afraid, admits Hemingway.
This is nothing new or foreign to Jacqui, however.
I grew up with two older brothers: drinking and playing football, she says. I saw quite a bit of it while I was younger so I m used to laddish things. I enjoy it, because they re a good bunch of lads. They never make you feel uncomfortable. Since the day I started they never made me feel like I d a big task in front of me.
They always stuck up for me. When we started touring I occasionally got people saying to me We miss the other singer, but you re alright . The lads always come in and say Tell em to fuck off . If people come to see a concert knowing that there s a new member of the band and knowing that things are going to change, they should know that the old singer isn t going to come back. The lads were really protective of me and made sure that no-one made me feel unwelcome. That s the way they are, and that s the way they always have been, whether we re on tour or on V or whatever.
Jacqui has even developed a love for football, thanks to both the band and her boyfriend. Away from the band, she stays at home with her boyfriend and son Jamie, who at one year old, has already achieved the notable coup of appearing live on stage in Blackburn.
The Beautiful South are not an image band according to Jacqui, a fact which makes for a very relaxed set-up. We re not a band that conforms to images. We don t really look like we re out to impress in terms of image or clothes. When we go to do Top Of The Pops, for example, none of us goes to the make-up department. If you re going to find us anywhere it will be in the bar, and as soon as we re needed we go down; they have to drag us out of the bar to do Top Of The Pops (laughs).
The Beautiful South have a busy 1997 planned. Their European Tour which kicks off in February/March, includes a date in Dublin s Point Theatre on March 30th. Then they embark on an arena tour of the UK, which should take them up to the summer, when they hope to take to the festival trail across Europe.
Busy as they are, Hemingway does not rule out the possibility of the band starting work on a new album before the end of 1997, if Paul hits his lyric-writing mode. He has to be in the right frame of mind to write, but once he is in that frame of mind, the songs get written very quickly. So hopefully it will be a busy year for us and a successful one.
I wondered has it been difficult to depend on Paul Heaton, who, by his own admission, drinks an awful lot.
Paul drinks a lot but I wouldn t classify him as an alcoholic, stresses Dave. Either way, that doesn t affect his songwriting because it just gives him something else to write about, as it has done in the past. It doesn t blunt his view on life or anything, or his lyrics, which are about the parts of life that he sees, so it s not really a problem, as has been proven over the consistency of the songs on the albums.
For the time of year that s in it, a question on New Year s Resolutions seems an appropriate way to end the interview. Dave Hemingway isn t exactly breaking his back trying to change his life, though. Well, I always make them, but I always break them, he admits, so I think I ll just give up. What s the point in lying to myself? I always say that I ll try and get fitter and all that, but I never do, so this year, what the hell, I ll just drink more. That s my New Year s Resolution.
Jacqui is more positive: I d like to stop smoking, she explains. I don t smoke a lot but I d like to give it up because it s not a very nice habit. We re also planning on moving house and I d like to get that sorted. Otherwise, everything s fine.
When you consider that The Beautiful South have an album and single currently nestling in the upper reaches of the charts and a couple of sell-out tours on the horizon, you realise that she s right. For The Beautiful South, everything is indeed fine. n