The Chills were instrumental in the
post-punk musical renaissance of New Zealand and for the establishing the
world-wide reputation of the Flying Nun label. The first Chills album to be
released by Flying Nun was a compilation of early singles titled
'Kaleidoscope World'. It wasn't until 1987 that the debut studio album
'Brave Words' was released, an album which can only be described as a
masterpiece. Two more studio albums followed, 'Submarine Bells' (1990) and
'Soft Bomb'(1992). Phillipps summed up what he's tried to obtain through his
music with a memorable quote from 1985: ‑ “What I want to do is catch those
feelings that you have which aren't named. They’re sort of not anger and
they’re not sorrow. They’re those strange feelings. I want to make it
universal so a person, in any country, could hear the bit of music and know
what it meant”.
And so to an autumnal evening at Bath Moles Club where we
caught up with Martin Phillipps to find out what the current activities of
The Chills are.
PT: Are these dates in the UK part of a
European / World tour?
MP: Yeah. We did New Zealand first. We’ve
done Belgium and The Netherlands, there’s a few shows here, and then it’s
onto the States for about two and a half to three weeks, so it’s pretty
quick. The whole point of this is to keep the costs down, test the water to
see if it’s worth maintaining a band on an international level. I needed for
my own peace of mind to come back out and see whether there was much left of
the old interest.
PT: What’s been the reaction like so
far? Good?
MP: The band’s been performing well, the
shows have been good, the numbers have been OK. Pretty good actually.
PT: What musicians played on ‘Sunburnt’
and are they in the current touring line-up?
MP: Dave Mattacks from Fairport Convention
played drums and Dave Gregory from XTC played bass. Mattacks has also played
in XTC so they’ve played as a rhythm section before, and even though they
came in two days each separately, i.e. they didn’t play at the same time, it
still felt like a rhythm section, which was good. It was a kind of
nightmare for me as I didn’t want to end up as in the same situation as
‘Soft Bomb’ with these unknown factors, especially as having rehearsed a
band ready to record and then losing them was pretty terrifying. But it
worked out really well with Mattacks and Gregory as they took to the music
really easily, and in hindsight it was a good thing as it made me stick to
what I already had on home demo tapes. So it worked out really well. I’m
really pleased. But no, there was never any talk of them touring.
PT: The opening track ‘As Far As I Can
See’ seems to have a message in it - ‘The way ahead is free, as far as I can
see’. What’s that about?
MP: It’s about bad rhyming at school!
(laughs). People tend to think the future is written in stone and there’s
nothing we can do to change things. I think every decision, every second of
the day, alters the future. I think it’s also a really easy cop out to say
that there’s nothing you can do to make things better.
PT: ‘Come Home’, the UK single off the
album, is apparently a message to all New Zealanders around the world, like
“Come Home! Your country needs you”. Is this true?
MP: Kind of. There’s a lot going on in New
Zealand at the moment, for example the dealings of the Maori people over
land rights are setting precedents in terms of dealing with indigenous
people around the world, and on the other hand we’ve got a national
government which is of the equivalent of a Tory government still using these
Thatcherite monetary policies. ‘Come Home’ is more saying to the New
Zealanders overseas that there’s things happening in New Zealand that are as
relevant as anywhere else and that you should be taking part in some of
these crossroads and so on, as some of things that are going to happen now
won’t never be changed back again. They tend to forget what’s special about
New Zealand as well, so not much of come home and stay there, I think it’s
really good for people to get out and see what there is to the world, but
not to lose sight and not get swallowed by the hype that other countries
give.
PT: Over here in the UK so far we’ve
only seen ‘Come Home’ released as a single. I understand in New Zealand
there’s been another single release and also a single track radio promo as a
third?
MP: ‘Surrounded’ was released as a single.
Because we got the two Daves to record we couldn’t afford to do the b-sides
with them, so when we got back to New Zealand we did the six b-sides with my
proper band. Three came out on ‘Come Home’. If they do a second single here
it’ll probably be ‘Dreams Are Free’ not ‘Surrounded’, and it’ll hopefully
have the other three b-sides. It was ‘Dreams Are Free’ that was released as
a single track radio promo in New Zealand.
PT: It’s been four years since ‘Soft
Bomb’. Has it been a frustrating time since then in not getting any recorded
output released until this year (apart from the ‘Pop Art Toasters’ 60’s
covers EP)?
MP: It was really frustrating for a long
time as I’ve written a lot of material, but first we needed to be sure that
we were free from the Slash contract. Then there was shopping round for a
new label and eventually signing with Flying Nun, that took a long time, and
getting a new band together; so by the time it came to do ‘Sunburnt’ there
was at least enough material finished for two albums and we kind of chose
the lighter more sort of optimistic stuff to go on ‘Sunburnt’ and the darker
more interesting material has been put aside as “shadow ballads”, which I
would still like to do as a separate project some stage. So it was pretty
frustrating trying to get music out.
PT: The releases are now credited as
being by Martin Phillipps & The Chills. Why the inclusion of the Martin
Phillipps name?
MP: I think it was time to acknowledge
that it had already become a solo project, but at the same time the band is
very important as separate entity, particularly live. After the band broke
up in ’92 I did a number of solo shows, but it’s just not my forté. My forté
is being in control of a band, so it was time to make that transition and
realise that the Chills would never be that four way equal creative process
and as much as some people say, “everybody knows it was Martin
Phillipps”, a lot of people didn’t. The example I use is if Michael Stipe
did a solo album, even if all of REM played on it, would sell a quarter of
what an REM record would do. I realised so much work had been put into
establishing the name The Chills that I didn’t just want to throw that away.
PT: Have there been any major
influences on the album ‘Sunburnt’ or is Martin Phillipps being influenced
by Martin Phillipps?
MP: I can’t really think of any major
influences, I try not to let things creep in to make it so obvious. I know
over the last few years I’ve paid a lot more attention to song writers, as
opposed to overall band sounds, so that’s probably the main difference.
PT: What kind of thing are you
listening to at the moment?
MP: The Silver Apples. I’ve just got that
on CD finally. I’m also listening to a lot of Krautrock again at the moment.
I’ve just picked up a compilation album of unknown Krautrock artists which
is really good.
PT: What’s this ICE thing we’ve heard
about?
MP: The International Chills Enthusiasts.
I’ve just received a grant of ten thousand dollars to set up a proper
computer composing programme, so I’m still doing a bit of homework on what
to get, the idea being that I can set up the ICE club. When I’ve worked out
with Flying Nun exactly how it’s going to work in theory I’ll be releasing a
lot more of my own music, plus things like the rarities album, hopefully
things like the Peel Sessions. As long as I make the main albums available
to Flying Nun I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out. There will be an
Internet home page, a mail order thing and maybe a magazine that comes out
three or four times a year and has an hour long CD. I’m not sure, I’m still
looking at ways of working it. In a sense the traditional industry approach
is just not working for me because the bulk of the material I’ve written is
just not out there, so I want to remedy that situation and this will be the
best way of doing it. Hopefully it’ll be up and running early next year.
PT: I read in ‘Hayfever’ magazine that
an old Coca Cola jingle you wrote over a decade ago has now led to that
company wanting you to re-record it for a series of radio and possibly TV
adverts! Did that evolve into anything?
MP: I got asked on student radio in
Auckland if I’d done any jingles, and I said I’d done some for Auckland
Student Radio BFM at one stage and that I had this Coca Cola one I’d had
knocking around for years. A woman from Coca-Cola’s promotion company was
driving to work at the time listening so she contacted us and we went and
recorded them. It was an interesting experience working on that commercial
side, I don’t know if I’d do it again actually. But luckily that money saved
me from going bankrupt on the last New Zealand tour.
PT: So the jingles were used?
MP: Yeah, they were and all the stuff
might crop up on the rarities album at some stage, probably Volume Two I
think.
PT: You’re a big fan of 60’s/70’s film
and TV. Have you got hold of anything interesting lately?
MP: I picked up the original ‘Nosferatu’
which I’d never seen and [I’m looking for] a movie called ‘Vampyr’ which,
when I saw it at the film society years ago, had the film title ‘Vampyr: The
Strange Case Of David Bray’. David Bray was the guy who went crazy with a
gun in Dunedin and shot nineteen people in a small town which is why that
song is called ‘Strange Case’ on ‘Soft Bomb’. So if I find the video it’ll
be good. And also I’ve got the Banana Splits video as well and The Pogles in
Pogles Wood.
PT: Finally, what are the plans for
Martin Phillipps and The Chills when you return back home to New Zealand
after this world tour?
MP: I think there’s been enough interest
here already that we’ll come back and do the festivals in Europe next year.
I’m just not prepared to get back on the touring treadmill any more. Flying
Nun are doing their best, they’re starting up in the States at the moment so
‘Sunburnt’ will be the first release to coincide with the dates over there.
There’s a limit to how much they can actually really do for the band with me
in my thirties - no matter how good we are people want the music to be made
by kids, so I’ll definitely give it my best shot with this album and then
really see if it’s worth keeping on doing that. Otherwise I’ll keep focusing
on the ICE club as a way of getting the music out.
Interview by Dave
Battersby, Dickie Straker and Phil McMullen
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