Blake and words’ worth

Sligo born, Paris/Leitrim based Perry Blake is not a man to mince his words. Refreshingly blunt, sometimes embarrassingly so, Blake will not make too many friends among fellow Irish musicians, but then why should he care? It is continental Europe, and France in particular, that has embraced Blake’s moving melancholia to its bosom and helped him sell bucketloads of records in the process. Is there something innately European in his musical make-up?

“Probably,” he admits, “because of my influences: too many late films, dodgy French B-movies. But my influences were never really that close to home. There were very few Irish bands I admired. I suppose The Boomtown Rats would have been one, for their attitude and one or two songs, but I never got off on the whole Philo thing – he seemed like a nice character but I never really rated a lot of that stuff.

“My influences were always from further afield, which I think is perfectly normal. Why should people just try to be the next U2? U2 are fine and I happen to love ‘Electrical Storm’: I think it’s one of the best things they’ve ever done but I was never a fan in the past. There are still a lot of guitar bands, the residue of all those years of searching for the next U2. But there are a few people coming out… JJ72 are very interesting: they have their own thing. But I wouldn’t have much time for the others, apart from Neil Hannon. I think he is inspired.”

Blake is scathing of Irish rock music in general: “You have that collection of the 30 best Irish bands and when you look at the rubbish on most of it, it is appalling. I don’t think I would allow a single of mine to be put alongside such dreary company.”

Despite reports to the contrary, Blake is totally unconcerned at the fact that he is not a household name in his native land.

“The News Of The World ran a feature last week along the lines of: million-selling Irish star is very annoyed that he’s not famous here. That’s not true at all,” he laughs at the very sugggestion.

California, Blake’s latest studio opus has more musical sweetness and light than the songs that came before, partly due to the presence of co-producer Marco Sabiu, whose previous credits include Take That and Kylie Minogue. Blake initially wasn’t too keen on Mr Sabiu as a producer, until they met and he realised that the Italian was also a clasically trained pianist and composer.

“Marco is very pop-driven, and I wouldn’t be, so we met in the middle and I think it works,” he says. “I didn’t want to repeat myself by making the same record again as Still Life, which was 64 minutes long, without any singles.”

The singer admits that he allowed his band a lot more freedom to express themselves on California, but relinquishing control wasn’t something that came easily to him: “I don’t really believe in total musical democracy – for me it doesn’t work. For some people it’s fine, but I had been in a democracy before with a band, some years ago, and I really couldn’t deal with it.”

So is he a musical dictator?

“I’m a complete fascist,” he answers immediately, with barely a hint of irony in his voice.

The resulting album, Blake feels is “less obviously melancholic. Some people think it’s sadder, but in a more camouflaged way. It is a sunnier record. It has some optimism.

“I knew I didn’t want to keep repeating myself,” he adds. “It might work for some people like Tindersticks, but it is not a good thing to continue to make the same records. It is almost like crowd-pleasing, playing to a gallery, a cult little niche. Somehow, when people are analysing everything you do and scratching their little beards, it can become a bit dreary. Sometimes, Joe Bloggs saying, ‘I like that song and I have no idea why’ is much more refreshing. I have had that reaction with this record. People who would normally run several miles from my work actually like this and they’re surprised: they think I slipped something into their drink.”

Ironically, Perry was recently interviewed by somebody who hadn’t heard any of his previous compositions and they felt that California was extremely melancholic and autumnal. In France, on the other hand, where Blake is adored, he was practically accused of overdosing on prozac.

“The French take it so seriously that when I brought out California, Liberation magazine, who had given me as many stars as they could for each previous record, had a full page article on how I had lost my mind and had made this utterly fucking appalling pop album. About two weeks later, they had letters in saying ‘give it time’.

“But they wanted another Still Life, something utterly melancholic. Ultimately, it’s conservatism. David Bowie had the same thing, people asking him why he keeps changing. But it has to be interesting for the artist. It’s bad enough boring everybody else but boring yourself is the ultimate crime.”