The WaterBoys

last night was excellent. It was definitely one of our three best gigs ever, enthuses the voice on the other end of the phone. The crowd gave such warmth to the band, and they returned it and just kept feeding off it all night.
The exuberant vocal chords responsible for these wonderfully excited lines belong not to a young, impressionable teen, having played his first gig in front of more than a handful of his mates. Instead, they belong to the rather more mature Chris Cradock, manager of Ocean Colour Scene (not to mention father of guitarist Steve Cradock), the band who have played in three of the biggest gigs of recent musical history: Knebworth, Loch Lomond (both with Oasis) and Hogmanay (the New Year s celebration in Edinburgh).
It s one o clock on a cold Saturday in Dublin, and Ocean Colour Scene have played a stormer of a gig in the Olympia the night before, with another sold-out concert at the same venue in about eight hours time.
Four hours later, having witnessed Ireland s rugby team annihilated by a rampant English XV, I make my way towards the stage of the Olympia, where the boys are finishing off their sound-check. Oh well, I think, these guys are from Birmingham: they probably don t even realise that there was a rugby match on today, let alone the score.
I m standing at the back of the stage, and can t really see the band properly, when a six-foot-plus security/roadie person, who looks suspiciously like a back-row forward, tips me on the shoulder.
So, did you see the rugby, then? he enquires innocently, all the time trying to cover a sweeping grin that threatens to engulf his face. My expression must have said it all. It s a pity there wasn t another 10 minutes left, he smiles, cos I reckon we could have scored 100. Much as I d like to, I find it impossible to disagree.
Did you know Wrexham beat Birmingham in the Cup today? , I counter, hoping that he, like the band, is a Brummie, and that I am going to distribute a crushing blow to his justifiably smug expression. Excellent, is his reply, I m a West Brom fan, before he dashes off to recount the score to all the City fans in attendance. Oh well.
I follow him around so that I can get a better look at the band, who are brewing up quite a storm of noisy guitars and raucous vocals, and I m immediately struck by one all-encompassing truth about Ocean Colour Scene. Each one of them, to a man, is incredibly skinny.
Whippet-like guitarist Steve Cradock is effortlessly wringing out each note from the neck of his Gibson, while bassist Damon Minchella is only visible because of his shaggy locks. Oscar Harrison is lean, mean and cool-as-fuck behind the drum-kit, wearing his trademark shades, even though he s indoors on a rainy Saturday in February. I can t quite spot frontman Simon Fowler for a second, but then I realise it s because he s turned sideways and disappeared. This band are seriously thin. Bastards!
Having swapped instruments for a while, traded vocal duties and thrown in a couple of cover versions for good measure, with a dancing 40-something bearded roadie in tow, the band look mean and moody for HP photographer Mick Quinn s shots, and then it s off up to the dressing room with Simon and Damon, tape recorder in hand, and ready to go.
I haven t been in too many venue dressing-rooms, but compared to backstage pics from the likes of the Marquee in London, the Olympia is quite neat. There s a fridge full of beer, a tray stocked up with crisps and chocolate and a bottle of spirits. There s also a telly in the corner with the day s rugby highlights on full view. I endure another five minutes of the Ha, ha, we fuckin hammered you variety, and commiserations that England are probably the fourth best team in the world, you know, before I try to divert them on to the subject in hand.
I believe the show last night went really well, I venture, tentatively. Thankfully, they take the bait.
Yeah, it was brilliant, enthuses Damon. It was a bit special. Tonight won t be as good, he deadpans, to hoots of laughter from Simon.
The gig, it is agreed, was a definite improvement on their last visit to Dublin, which was dreadful. It was about a week after the Rock Garden opened, and there were about 30 people there, according to Simon. Then we went up to Jordanstown, up your motorway, he smiles, your A-Road.
It s impossible to take offence at either Simon or Damon s comments. Simon, in particular, could have been a stand-up comic if not for his obvious vocal talent. Throughout the interview he waxes lyrical in a variety of accents and impressions on everything from the state of our roads to the inane ramblings of Evan Dando, with equal aplomb. Sure, he takes the piss incessantly, but he pokes fun at himself as much as everyone else and is, in short, a consummate entertainer.
The affable Brummies are no spring chickens, though Simon (31) and the rest of the lads have certainly been through the record business mill. A frustrating period with a major label, which saw them forced to record their eponymous debut three times, followed by little commercial success, left the band label-less, but certainly not in a quitting mood. Why, in their opinion, did success take so long?
At one point, we were 30 years behind and 10 years in front of our time, comments Simon cryptically, in the voice of a narrator on a paranormal documentary, before adding, without a hint of mock humility, You can put it down to bad taste in the music industry, who didn t want to give us a second chance. To be quite honest, it was very much down to other people that it fucked up in the first place anyway. But I m glad it did, in a way, because we learned all the right tricks.
It took seven days for us to break from the band who had posh mates to the band who were on Top Of The Pops. In the seven years before that, we served one hell of an apprenticeship, he continues, explaining how OCS metamorphosed from being both Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher s favourite band, to being bona fide pop stars.
Fouter recalls recording their debut album, when the band let other people dictate their destiny: We were in a #1,000-a-day studio, recording the opening track, which was never even likely to be a single. The head of A&R insisted that the entire day was spent re-EQing the echo and reverb on the snare drum, because he knew the sound better than we did, he sneers. He was older and in charge. At the end of the fucking day, he said, I prefer the other one. That cost a thousand pounds. You end up paying for other people s positions and their need to be seen to be doing their job. By way of contrast, OCS s own Moseley Shoals studio cost in the region of #60 per week.
No sooner has he drawn breath than Simon is recounting another record company anecdote from the band s past. We had one incident where someone form our record company was going (adopts whining nasal tone) Oh, please go to this party. We couldn t go to the fucking party because we had a gig that night. (Whining voice again) But if you don t then I ve been told that I can t go. They re bonkers, the lot of them.
At this stage, the band have almost disowned their debut album, which they don t really regard as an Ocean Colour Scene record. To be quite honest, we ve almost forgotten it, admits Simon. I couldn t tell you the track listing.
It seems their fans have disregarded their earlier effort too, with Moseley Shoals coming in as Best Debut Album and OCS as Most Promising Act in the recent Hot Press/2TV Readers Poll. So people think we re new? smiles Simon. Tell them we re all 21 then. We are the next Boyzone.
Ocean Colour Scene managed to overcome all the myriad hassle and bullshit though, recording Moseley Shoals on a shoestring budget, and seeing the finished product sell over a million copies in the UK, not to mention exceeding platinum status here in Ireland. It must feel good.
It does feel good, smiles Damon. We broke all the rules.
Even though it took then seven years to achieve the breakthrough to pop star status, quitting never once entered the picture for the Birmingham quartet.
If we d been having a crap time, it might have crossed our minds, muses Simon. But we always had a brilliant time. We got a small studio in Birmingham, which wasn t the one we recorded the album in, and we were in there writing and recording every day for about two years. Our success came out of what we d always been doing, and what we enjoyed doing.
This two-year creative hermitage was followed by an exodus to a bigger studio, known now as Moseley Shoals, but Simon points out that it has the dubious honour of originally having the particularly sexist and non-PC moniker of Birds Can t Drive. The band began recording demos for an album to be released as a once-off in Japan, and those demos eventually became the Moseley Shoals album.
Moseley Shoals, while a fantastic commercial success, has not really had many of the critics salivating. In fact, the album, and OCS themselves, have been at the receiving end of more than their fair share of verbal beatings at the hands and pens of the music media. We Irish pride ourselves on having the most finely-honed sense of blatant begrudgery, but in the case of Ocean Colour Scene, our counterparts across the pond have laid down their own claim to that particular honour. I wondered if the band had any idea what could have sparked it off?
Because they didn t have anything to do with our success, at all, responds the usually reticent Damon. They wanted to be at our party, but we already had our own.
Part of OCS s success is due, in no small measure, to the support they received from both Paul Weller and Oasis. The lads had been friends with the Gallaghers for years, since they saw them playing a support slot at their local in Birmingham. Their friendship with Paul Weller saw guitarist Steve playing on the Modfather s Wild Wood album and going on tour with his boyhood hero. How did all that come about?
Our friendship with Paul just developed over a period of about six years. We met him when we were recording some of our first album, explains Simon.
Damon takes over: The same with Noel we just met and became friends. If we hadn t liked each other s music, or if one of us had been making shit music, the friendship wouldn t have lasted, but the fact that we get inspired by each other s music helps.
I remember, years ago, Steve went round to Paul s for Sunday lunch, and Paul had been his biggest boyhood hero, recalls Simon. He was like (affects awe-struck, speechless face) . . . They became very friendly then because Steve was spending a lot of time down in London. Then Paul phoned Steve and asked him to play on the album and then to go on tour.
Steve wasn t the only band member to join Weller on the road. The rest of the band became involved on the Wild Wood tour in some capacity. We were on tour illegitimately, laughs Damon. It was wicked.
For a time, indeed, it seemed that neither Weller nor Gallagher could do an interview without name-checking Ocean Colour Scene, a fact which obviously contributed to the band s instantaneous rise to the top. However, Damon is quick to point out that the support of their peers was not the only deciding factor in the OCS success story.
It only helped in the respect that it put the name around, because people were aware of the band, he says. Obviously, if we had been shit, no-one would have bought the records. People knew the name and then they saw us on TV or heard the record, and then bought it.
Paul and Noel are like Barry Hearn and Don King, interjects Simon. They put you in the ring, but if you get up against someone and you re completely ridiculous and shouldn t be there, everybody s going to know.
Did it ever become a hindrance that they were tagged Noel and Paul s favourite band ?
Surely that s not a hindrance, says Simon. In 1964, the Stones were adopted by The Beatles. Their first number one was a Ringo song wasn t it, (sings) I wanna be your lover, baby . I can t see how that is a hindrance. It obviously wasn t a hindrance, because we ve sold a million albums.
One interesting statistic that pops up in every OCS interview is their relationship with Scotland. Throughout their career, the band have always been extremely well received on the high roads and low roads of Scotland, culminating in their playing at Edinburgh s Hogmanay Festival on New Year s Eve to an estimated audience of 350,000.
One of the reasons why we re popular there is because we re not a media band, explains Damon. Bands who have a big media profile in London, the further North you get that wanes. In Newcastle, they re well into it, but the first time we played there, when we were kind of a media band, they used to hate us. When you re not a media band, it s the music that people appreciate.
Maybe it s a romantic way of looking at it, opines Simon, but I always think because Scotland is, in a lot of people s opinion, the arse-end of England in the way that they have been dealt their hand and the way they ve been dealt with. I think they saw us as classic outsiders.
America has also been good to Ocean Colour Scene, albeit not on the same scale as the likes of Radiohead or the execrable Bush. They supported The Who in the States on the Quadrophenia tour and by all accounts had a whale of a time.
We used to take the piss out of Billy Idol, says Simon. He was playing The Face, because he d turn up to the venue in leather trousers, a leather vest and chains. We used to go We are the Mods, we are the Mods/We are, we are, we are the Mods . Then he d get up on stage and do The Face like Elvis.
Both band members enjoyed the previous night s gig in the Olympia so much that they both express a view that Ireland, like scotland in particular, can become a home away from home for Ocean Colour Scene, pointing to definite similarities in the way that both cultures express their love for music.
Simon and Damon are not merely pandering to their potential Irish audience when they express this view. the fact that they are so overwhelmed by the response they received at the Olympia is testament to their belief, particularly when you consider that OCS have played at some of the biggest gigs in musical history: Knebworth, Maine Road, Loch Lomond and the aforementioned Hogmanay festival.
They are suitably chuffed with having played those festivals, though, It s a bit nerve-wracking, remembers Simon. Knebworth was a cracking gig. I walked out on stage with a cinecamera, sort of to break the ice for myself. We played The Day We Caught The Train and suddenly there were a quarter of a million hands in the air. Plus we had the best weather it was amazing.
Suddenly, the dressing room door opens and in bursts a chirpy Scouser who, oblivious to my presence, begins in an excited whisper, Ooh, I had the best night ever last night, the best night ever. Politeness, plus the fact that unless he knows he s being recorded it s illegal, dictates that I offer to turn off the tape recorder.
Oh fuck, you re doin an interview, he says in an accent that could have come straight out of Brookside Close. Then he heads for the door, turns around, lifts his shirt under his neck and proceeds to drop his pants around his ankles, wiggling his crown jewels around, presumably for my attention, to the hilarity of both Damon and Simon. However, your intrepid Hot Press hack will not resort to remarks about size or density. Let s just say that he was no Sam Snort. (But then, who is? Ed.) The Scouse flasher then quickly exits.
It turns out that our Liverpudlian visitor is none other than the lead singer with support act, The Real People, whose praises are sung by both OCS members, when they ve stopped laughing. They are the band who really did inspire Oasis, says Simon. A lot of people think they sound a little bit like Oasis but it s totally the other way round, and Oasis will tell you that.
The two Brummies disagree vehemently when I enquire as to the similarities between themselves and Kula Shaker, who also defied the music press to sell shitloads of albums.
They are more of a Sun tabloid band. They re like the guitar Spice Boys, laughs Simon. You can obviously hear our influences in our music, but they wear their s on their sleeves.
But he [Crispian] is an ideal star isn t he? His grandad killed more Germans than any other bloke in film history. His grandad s an institution, his mum s a cracker, he can sing and play and people love him, he says, without a hint of begrudgery. The thing is (adopts an old fogey voice) they re young. They re so young.
Simon expresses his relief that Kula Shaker seem prepared to deal with the tabloid media circus, as it means that OCS come in for less attention. They have been exposed to it, though, most noticeably when touring with Oasis.
You have two or three coaches full of press, all desperately looking for the hotel, spits Simon. When you get there, you cannot put a foot out of your own room.
I used to desperately disappoint journalists, notes Damon. I d be walking down the hotel corridor and from a distance they thought I was Liam. They d follow me down the corridor, and when I turned to put my key in the door, they d go oh fuck, it s not him .
Simon too recalls a time when none other than Evan Dando tapped him on the shoulder, thinking he was the younger Gallagher sibling. He immediately performs a mean Californian drawl, Oh man, I thought you were Liam. You look like him from behind. So I talked to him for a bit and what a fucking fruitcake he was, he laughs. He was talking to guys from London, and when they told him they were from Blackheath he said (back to California) Oh man, that s where all the plague bodies were buried. Maybe you can still get high on their fumes. I thought oh shut up, Yank. He used to turn up on everyone s stage with a tambourine Evan McCartney.
The band have already written the second album, and have started to record it. However, the next project for OCS is the imminent release of a limited edition 16-track collection of B-sides on mid-price, entitled B-Sides, Seasides & Freerides. Having only heard a three-track sampler, I can already tell you that the album includes at least one true gem in the form of the wonderful Huckleberry Grove . But why the need for a B-sides collection?
Because we wanted to make the classic Britpop album, laughs Simon.
It was an obvious idea to do, says Damon. The Day We Caught The Train sold 200,000 copies, but we also put out a limited edition CD with only 12,000 available. So out of the million people who bought the album, only 12,000 have three of our B-sides. It was the same with You ve Got It Bad . We are doing it for the fans, really, plus we re putting it out at mid-price.
I think it s very complementary to the Moseley Shoals album, opines Simon. It s more of an acoustic-based record. Everyone s saying (shrill London accent) What do you think about Britpop? Go and listen to that fucking thing and then you can ask us about Britfolk if you like.
So there you have it, not content to sit on their laurels, or bank balances, Ocean Colour Scene are keeping themselves very busy, as they have done throughout their career. At this point it s clear that Simon and Damon are all interviewed out, so I take my leave and try to negotiate my way back to the outside world.
Five minutes later, having made a couple of wrong turns, I at last step out into the freezing cold February air and turn onto Dame Street. It s only 6.15, but already there are groups of kids hanging around outside in all their (unre)finery. The touts too have already claimed their ground, and cries of anyone buying or selling? begin to ring out a full three hours before the band are due on stage. And they thought tonight s show mightn t be as good . . . n

RETROBATES?
One of the reasons why Ocean Colour Scene have been derided on paper is because many journalists feel that their music is too retro. How do they answer those criticisms?
Just show them your bank balance, deadpans Damon. Is that a retro bank balance?
I think our music is retro, opines Simon. I think it s in the nature of rock music to be retro. I think it was retro when The Stones started doing Willie Dixon, but it was current because of the time.
Punk was retro because it was doing the garage bands, but they had a fashion designer leading them, interrupts Damon. Even Paul Weller s stuff. Every tune that Paul writes now, he tries to write his own version of a 12-bar blues tune and put his own stamp on it.
Back to Simon: If you re influenced by the 60s, you re retro. But if you re under the punk influence, which all the journalists are into, you re not, and that s the pettiness for you.
One English magazine has gone to the point of printing a cartoon strip in each issue dedicated to Ocean Colour Scene, where Steve is blessed with a plectrum with special powers, enabling them to play Real Rock . The cartoon is a matter of complete hilarity to them.
They actually look like us, but neither myself or Oscar ever say anything in it; we just agree with the other two, smiles Damon. There was an episode where there was an alien invasion to bring technology to the world of Real Rock, but we came out with guitars made of stone and killed them all. I think it s hilarious the fact that they pay someone to script it, write it and print it just to slag us off.