WHAT THE BUTLER LEFT

“WHY ISN’T there any tea?” the pop-star pipes up, in the petulant, expertly sulky manner of all seasoned pop-stars, who expect a wish to be gratified before it has even dropped from their lips.

“We did it deliberately to annoy you,” is the catty response from manager Charlie Charlton, delivered in a manner that suggests equal parts bemusement, exasperation and a deep-rooted affection for his charge. “He’s done nothing but moan,” he murmurs to the others, disbelievingly, “and he’s been in this nice posh hotel being fed and watered all day.”

“You’ve done nothing but accuse me of moaning all day,” flashes back Richard Oakes, without missing a beat.

And this is the naïve, inexperienced, guileless teenager who spawned a million inches of newsprint of the ‘how-will-he-ever-be-able-to-cope-with-life-in-the-media-spotlight’ variety just last month. Yeah, right.

Brett Anderson has composed a little press release for all those journalists interviewing Suede Mark 2. It explains, loosely, why guitarist Bernard Butler left before the completion of their new album Dog Man Star. “Bernard’s relationship with everyone in the Suede camp had been breaking down in recent months as evident in several interviews printed just before his departure was announced,” it reads, referring to the now infamous Vox article in which Bernard dismissed Brett’s songwriting abilities and complained about his own frustrations within the confines of the group.

The press release goes on to describe the search for Bernard’s replacement, which involved placing classifieds adverts in the music papers (‘Influences: Cocteaus, Suede, Smashing Pumpkins’) and listening to hundreds of demo tapes. But, in true fairy-tale fashion, and in keeping with Brett’s expressed hope that the new guitarist should be someone who had never had a chance before, the tape that most impressed the band came via the fan club address rather than the inkie ads, and the seventeen-year-old schoolboy from Poole, Dorset was subsequently contacted and asked to audition.

The band were immediately impressed. Mat claims that as soon as Richard started playing they just knew he was the right person; that when they played ‘Animal Nitrate’, it felt so good that they were dancing around the studio. They wanted to sign him up there and then, but Charlie recommended that they wait and audition him a second time, just to be sure. Soon, Richard’s mum and dad were being interviewed in the national press and all around the country, Suede fans were puzzling over photos of the newest rock legend and muttering things like ‘They hired him? With that haircut?’

So the question must be, how’s Richard coping with his new role as the youngest guitar legend in the world? Looking at him now, slouching comfortably next to Brett on a sofa in the hotel suite, moaning faintly about lack of beverage choice, the answer seems to be, pretty well, thank you very much. He’s vocal without being pushy, and Brett, Mat and Simon all seem to have adopted the role of helpful, if waggish, older brothers. They give him plenty of opportunity to voice his opinions, but chip in whenever he wanders off the point or into the cliché zone.

There’s more friendly bitching going on, particularly between Richard and Brett, than you could wiggle a buttock at. Everyone slags everyone. Everyone seems so happy to be here that you’d swear they’d just been let off double maths, which, for the newcomer happens to be precisely the case. Ask Richard himself how he fits in and there’s no hesitation, no nervousness.

“My background and age and musical experiences don’t converge with the rest of the band at any point. I’m not an old punk, I’m not a Smiths fan,” he declares, while Mat, laughing loudly, says, “I noticed you waited until Simon was out of the room before you called him an old punk.”

“But musically,” continues Richard, “we think in a very similar way, and we can all get on, we all know what’s going through each other’s heads during a song, and that works well when we’re doing rehearsing and live stuff and it’ll work well when we start writing as well. Sorry to the people who liked it as it was, the Anderson/Butler partnership, but it’s changed now. It’s not going to be like that anymore and hopefully we’ll earn a few new fans through the fact that we’re slightly freer and not so obsessively single-minded anymore.”

“Ooh, I think we’re going to get someone else in actually, he’s beginning to get on my nerves,” smiles Mat.

What was it about Richard that appealed to the rest of the band then, aside from his obvious musical abilities?

“It’s the fact that he’s got loads of sixteen-year-old friends, that’s it basically,” says Mat. “No, it’s a weird thing to describe, because you’d have to be a musician in a way. A band like this is quite close-knit, both in your personality and how you play when you’re together. When people ask if the split with Bernard was because of music or personal differences, those are the same thing after a while. Richard’s good to play with, he understands the way the band works, the dynamics of it. It’s really simple. It’s like when you meet a person in a pub and think, oh God, I should have known this person all my life. It clicks, it’s right. It’s not mystical.”

Brett, listening to this summation, nods approvingly.

“Well done Mystic Meg,” he says.

Alright then, let’s get to it. What we want to know is: have the members of Suede been in touch with Bernard at all since the split?

There’s a brief silence, and then Mat murmurs “No” very quietly.

Do you expect to get in touch with him at all in the near future?

“I doubt it very much,” says Mat. “Our phone numbers aren’t hard to get hold of if he wants to.”

“It’s gone now, hasn’t it – Bernard being in Suede,” pipes up Richard. “I’m saying that because I’ve got a career to think about.”

“Luckily we don’t look back a lot,” continues Mat. “That’s a pretty standard thing of everyone in the band, we’ve got ridiculously short memories, which is probably some sort of vitamin deficiency. We don’t look back a lot and it feels as if it’s always been this way. I know that’s what we’re bound to say but it does. It happened quite quickly. There’s something about being in the band and working very closely together that is intense enough to change very quickly.”

“We’ve had other line-ups and stuff anyway,” interrupts Brett.

“It’s not like that band has only every been like that, it has been through a lot of changes, and we’re quite used to the flux of it all. That line-up (with Bernard) happens to be the one that’s known by the general public, but we’ve been going for five years now, and people have only known us for half of that time.”

The new line-up has already been put to the test in front of an audience. A few days before the interview, in a club on Tottenham Court Road, the new Suede played their first British gig. Details of the concert had been given to fan club members three days in advance, and there’d been an announcement on the radio a couple of hours before the show was due to take place. It was a party as well as a gig – Brett and Mat had both celebrated their birthdays the week before and the new album was just out. But apart from that, of course, it was intended to inspire journo frenzy, as everyone waited to see if New Boy could really, in the words of Brett, play like the devil.

The fans loved it. That’s hardly surprising. But the press loved it too, and the gig seems to have inspired a surge of confidence in the band that hadn’t been evident since the release of the debut single many lifetimes ago. And Richard? He really loved it.

“We’d done a couple of things in France where we played in front of fans, and they were good but I suppose the British audiences are the most cynical,” he muses. “It’s like, impress us then, this is the new Suede, do something good otherwise we’re not going to clap, whereas the French scream at anything that moves. It was great. The people I talked to afterwards all came up to me and said, ‘let me shake your hand, it was a really good gig’, and ‘you’re better than the last guy’. They were being really nice. I don’t know whether they meant it, but they were being really nice and it was just a really good atmosphere. Everyone had a lot of fun, including all the people on stage.”

“It was really untense and stuff,” adds Brett. “We’ve always suffered from this preciousness before as a band, always worried about everything, and I just can’t be bothered to worry about it anymore. If people don’t like us then so what? Honestly, if they don’t like us now then they’re not going to like us and I’m not going to worry about it. You accept it or not. I’m just into having a good time quite honestly, on stage, and instead of worrying about oh, are the audience into it, just fucking going for it, and just thinking, I’m going to spend the next hour on this stage, I might as well make it a good laugh, for us and the audience. You can be a tortured artist too long. It gets boring. I’m not tortured,” he stresses.

“Yeah, sort yourself out, baby,” says Richard soothingly.

It’s only to be expected that Suede are keen to convince everyone that they’re both more confident and more relaxed than ever before. It’s been a hell of a year and the rumour mill is still grinding away. But, the change in guitarist aside, they do genuinely seem like a completely different band to the foursome who played Dublin in March 1993. Brett is ten times as affable, twenty times less edgy. Mat is, unbelievably, more laid-back than ever, while Simon, who previously seemed overshadowed by the Anderson/Butler partnership and seemed to have no role in band interviews other than to make the occasional comment on sexuality, is enthusiastic and forthcoming.

There’s a discernible awkwardness and impatience whenever Bernard is mentioned, but otherwise Brett seems so comfortable, so – if you can imagine it – happy. The tension has dissipated completely, and there’s no doubting the fact that it’s due to Bernard’s departure.

Firstly, it’s no secret that Bernard hated touring, as manager Charlie confirms when reflecting on how uncomplicated the recent birthday gig had been in comparison. Usually, Bernard had to be coaxed out of his house and onto the stage. But Richard is loving every opportunity to prove what he’s made of, and so, while Suede Mark 1 had to have their concerts carefully planned and agreed to in advance, the new Suede are a far more spontaneous live proposition.

Secondly, Bernard was very much a loner, the quintessential bedroom guitarist. Richard, meanwhile, has temporarily moved in with Charlie and so there’s more contact between band members, and, one guesses, more partying as well. So even if the balance of power is weighed in favour of the older members, it’s new Suede as a group rather than three regular band members aiming to please one musical genius.

Thirdly, the new line-up has opened up new songwriting possibilities for Suede. The Anderson-Butler partnership had developed in such a way that Bernard was presenting the other band members with songs that were essentially finished, a method that was bound to become frustrating for all involved. In addition, it seemed to be steering the band towards self-parody – songs like ‘The Asphalt World’ on Dog Man Star do sound like Suede out-Sueding themselves. With Richard on board, the band are going to revert back to a looser, less structured style of songwriting. They seem to be genuinely relishing the idea of jamming again, like a real, proper band.

And aside from all the above, there’s the fact that Dog Man Star has been unanimously well-received. All those articles speculating about whether it would ever see the light of day, whether legal proceedings would result in the album wandering for years through the wilderness arm in arm with The Stone Roses’ second offering – all proved groundless. It’s out, it’s great, and no-one, especially not the band, is arguing about the fact that it’s far superior to their debut. Brett, meanwhile, is claiming not to care about the reviews, but he must feel pleased and – yes – vindicated by them.

“I think I would have been sad if everyone had slagged it off, because it’s a good record, but we did that gig and now I don’t really give a shit what the music press write about it. If some bespectacled little fart came along and didn’t like it and he was the one person out of a thousand who didn’t, and he writes that we were a load of shit then I’ll just laugh. It’s kind of like that really. I don’t know how much the press means. I don’t know how far you can get on press really. I don’t think that far. I think it’s more important that the real people go out and make it part of their lives.”

“I think the people we’ll win over with this one,” says Richard, “are the people who haven’t yet noticed Suede, because people that have are either won over or they can’t be won over. The people to win over are the housewives who sit at home and stick on the radio.”

“It’s very important for us to get through to people who don’t just read the music press, it really is,” continues Brett. “We have mainstream pretensions.”

“If you can get through to people the way Phil Collins,” says Brett quickly. “It is really important, because then you’re making real music, you’re not just making theoretical music. There’s lots of songs on this album that are just great songs and I think anyone could listen to them, I really do. ‘The Wild Ones’, and stuff like that, it could be done by Cliff Richard almost.

“But,” he adds forcefully, “that’s not trying to be kitsch about it or camp or anything. It could be done by Cliff Richard, but it probably wouldn’t be. It’s just a good song, it’s a standard. It cold be done by Cliff Richard or Sebadoh.”

“Becoming mainstream without selling out is quite a tricky thing to do,” says Richard (alright, give him a chance. He’s got to get those band clichés out of his system at some point), “but that’s what we’ll be trying to do I think. Well, speaking for myself, I intend not to sell out. How about you?” he laughs, glancing towards the others.

“Mm. Alright then,” says Brett.

“I don’t know if we can sell out;because we’re so honest about everything,” suggests Simon.

“You just can’t fake it, though,” says Brett. “That’s the one thing you can’t do. It’s impossible. Unless you actually say you’re a fake, in which case you’re admitting to it which is an honesty in itself.”

“That’s why insincerity and mediocrity have never been a part of Suede really,” Richard, clearly getting into his stride. “That’s quite a good thing to say, isn’t it?” he says, looking pleased. “Suede silence mediocrity in every part of society, don’t you?”

“Don’t we?” says Simon helpfully. “It’s we now, remember.” The very fickleness of pop hits helped Suede too. Oasis having usurped Suede’s position as the most-hyped band in Britain, left a stronger possibility that Dog Man Star would be reviewed on its own merits.

“That’s the good thing about it being a second album,” nods Brett. “Lots of the reason why the press has been so good is because people are now taking us seriously and they’re not being told to like us which they were before. So they’re making up their own opinions. That’s part of the privilege of longevity; it’s a really important thing for me to keep going and keep being good. You can only get through to a certain amount of people with your first record.

“But yeah, this one isn’t being prejudged. It’s putting a lot less people off, and I think it’s probably surprising quite a few people as well, who’ll be quite taken aback that a) we’ve made a second album, and b) it’s about twenty times better than the first one.”

“I listened to the first one every day for about a month,” says Simon. “This one I’ve listened to every day since I heard the first tape of it, and I absolutely adore it. It’s one of these albums I can separate myself from and listen to, I couldn’t do that with the first one.”

“The first one was pretty personal,” agrees Brett. “This one is just good. I always like those records that you listen to and can’t wait for the next song and you think, shall I put that one on again, or go to the next one? It does get better every time you hear it. We love it, don’t we?”

So what’s the consensus on Oasis, then?

“I think it’s an indication that the music scene’s getting healthier,” says Brett diplomatically.

“Unfortunately,” Simon says, “they’re getting into the trap of every other slightly good band, and that’s slagging off other bands; us for a start.”

“They hate us, don’t they?” says Richard, not sounding very concerned.

“But that’s good,” soothes Mat. “The day people stop saying stuff, we’re in trouble. And it’s taken some of the nonsense away. All the stupid articles and the stupid news reports that we got a year ago we don’t get now.”

“It’s just the next thing that happens, and if they’re any good they’ll carry on and make good records,” says Brett. “If they make as good a second album as we’ve made, good luck to them. They haven’t yet.”

“They’ve got the perfect band attitude,” suggests Richard, “which is that they genuinely do think they’re the best band in the universe.”

“But they’re not,” points out Mat, astutely. “I went to see them live and they don’t really entertain. They just stand there and don’t get off their arses and earn their eight quid a head, or however much people have paid to see them, which is a shame.”

Enough of the star wars; back to the business in hand. Has there been any material written for the next album?

“Yeah, we’re writing quite a lot. I’ve written about four songs so far,” says Brett.

What are they like?

“They’re not very good actually,” he answers, deadpan. “You’ll have to wait and see. I don’t think the next album will be more extreme than this one, though people will expect it to be. I think you’ve got to explore different things. It’ll probably be a lot poppier.”

“I think it’s only on this album we’ve learned to take stuff out, which we’ve never done before,” says Mat. “We’ve actually learned, with something like ‘The Power’, the value of shutting up for a bit, which I don’t think we’ve every done before. We’ve always been lippy types, flash types, you know what I mean, and it’s quite good to learn the value of actually leaving gaps. The value of not crushing the song, which I think we’ve been guilty of in a lot of songs, of taking a beautiful song and stamping on it through over-willingness to please, really.”

“Letting the instruments do the work is a very important thing which we’ve learnt,” says Brett. “Letting each instrument have its place in the structure of the song, and letting the instruments have a certain economy. I like music that does that rather than just piles things quite distinctly and everything’s dong its job and working with each other. I like bands that really work well together, when you hear a band and get a very strong sense of each instrument having its place, its position.”

A few months ago, this would have seemed an impossible scenario. All four members of Suede in a room, all excited and confident and cheery, Brett most of all. Just listen to him, talking about his interview schedule for the day.

“I’ve done the whole EC now, one from each nation. I haven’t done Greece though, are they in it now? I’ve done Albania. Our new record costs three tractors there. The first one was only one egg.”

“Inflation’s terrible,” nods Charlie. “We’re number nineteen in Denmark, by the way.”

“Oh my Gawd,” exclaims Brett, feigning wonderment. “Now that is the big time.”

Then he’s fussing over the new Suede top that’s going to be sent out to record company folk.

“I think hooded is what we want,” he reasons. “I like them. A nice hooded top with a zip down the front like a boxer might wear.”

“Says the man with the consummate dress sense,” offers Charlie. Brett shoots him a withering look. “I’m surprised you didn’t come up with some sort of flammable codpiece or something,” he retorts.

“That’s for the stage show, you idiot,” says Charlie.

And Richard? So far, there’s no reason to expect that he won’t be a perfect replacement for Bernard and an invaluable addition in his own right. He already seems to have brought a whiff of teen spirit and optimism back to the band. And despite his youth, Charlie predicts that he’s not the type to succumb to peer pressure. He seems unlikely to be influenced by Brett’s much publicised drug use, for instance – in a recent NME interview he claims to have little experience of drugs and no interest in dabbling any further. “They wouldn’t help my creativity,” he says.

The hair, though, will probably have to go.

The most encouraging sign is simply the way the others respond and refer to him with a mixture of protectiveness and sham school marm-ish severity.

“You must be getting bored with music,” says Richard at one point, when Brett mentions that the band have been around for five years. “Are you going to go into writing next?”

“You must be joking,” replies Brett. “I’m going to go into dancing. I’d much rather go into that than writing. Can’t write to save me life.”

“My Life As A Ponce,” suggests Richard, then, spotting the look on Brett’s face, immediately retracts it. “I’m sorry.”

“Right, he’s out,” declares Brett brusquely.

“Send the next one in when you go out,” calls Mat.

“I was only joking,” says Richard, a little sheepishly.

“I’ll let you off . . .” pronounces Brett. He’s smiling.