Snakes, rattle & roll

Few debut albums have made such an impact as Lloyd Cole & The Commotions’ 1984 opus Rattlesnakes.

A wry, jangling, guitar-pop masterpiece, songs such as ‘Perfect Skin’, ‘Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken’ and ‘Forest Fire’ were marked out by literary and movie references and saw Cole tagged as the new Lou Reed.
A philosophy student, he formed the group while attending college in Glasgow in 1982. Following the success of Rattlesnakes the band enjoyed huge popularity until they broke up at the end of the decade and Cole embarked on a solo career. To mark the 20th anniversary of Rattlesnakes’ release, the original line-up has now reformed for a short series of gigs including an appearance at Dublin’s Vicar Street.
“There’s a strange mixture of nervousness and mild satisfaction about it,” Cole says of the reunion. “Everyone is worried that it might be crap. But we’re only two days into rehearsals and I think a few of the songs sound pretty much like they should do. “To be honest it’s not really about it being perfect. We’re having a brief celebration for our anniversary - that’s all it is. As long as we have a blast and the audience enjoy it that’s all that matters.”
According to Cole, Irish fans were among the most loyal in the early days.
“Dublin was the first place I ever got mobbed by fans,” he enthuses. “We were staying in the Gresham Hotel on O’Connell Street and I went out to get the paper and suddenly there were all these screaming kids, looking for my autograph.”
Looking back with the hindsight of twenty years how does he feel now about Rattlesnakes.
“I don’t think there’s a duffer on it,” he reflects. “There isn’t one song that you go ‘Oh God how did that get in there?’ We recorded 11 songs and left one off and I think it’s a better album for it. We were just very lucky I think. It wasn’t that we were doing anything radical it’s just that we sounded a certain way and we didn’t have enough studio savvy to mess it up.
“I think we rushed into our second record when we were in such a strong position after Rattlesnakes,” he adds. “We could have waited five years like The Blue Nile did. We would have been considered a lot more mysterious and the cult of Lloyd Cole & The Commotions would have grown. But the record company wanted to milk it for all it was worth and we made a follow-up record (Easy Pieces) which wasn’t in the same class as Rattlesnakes.”

Lloyd Cole & The Commotions play Vicar St. on October 10th and 11th