The Comsat Angels

Q & A

(You've asked - they've answered... )

Steve--Kevin--Mik--Andy

Are these new re-issues remixed or remastered? I have the vinyl as well as the last version of the CDs. also any chance they will get released in mini-lp papersleeves on cd in Japan?

Re-mixed !? You must be joking, sir or madam. Who on Earth do you think would be willing to pay to re-mix them? Universal – who own the albums, have never released them on CD and if it wasn’t for the enthusiasm of Mick and Richard at Renascent or Simon Robinson, who put out the original re-issues, then they would have slipped off the radar forever. Anyway – I’d be amazed if anyone could find the master tapes – also if they were going to be re-mixed I’d want to repair a few of the faults as well – thus enraging ‘purists’ no doubt. The extra ‘extra’ tracks on the Renascent issues - the band demos and out-takes - have been mastered for the first time ever. Also some tracks have been moved around between the records to put them in the correct place.
The new covers are the kind of mini-card sleeves of the type you describe – all scans are brand new and there’s new notes and ‘new‘ pix. I’ve very pleased with them and I’d like to thank Mick and Richard and Andy Chambers, the designer, and Alan Robinson at Indiscreet PR for their top work on this.

What's the likelihood of reunion shows to promote these releases or to make a new lp?

Fuck me, this is a hard one. I don’t think there’s ever been a week go by without dreaming about the ComSats in one shape or form – and gigs often appear – usually as a disaster. In many ways I’d love to show that we really could be the great band live we never really were – almost sometimes – almost. In reality it’s very scary, I’ve seen many many gigs since – and the practical side really scares me – let alone the fact that its well over 15 years since my last (dull and dreary) gig. I wouldn’t rule it out, indeed I’ve floated the idea with Steve not that long ago.
I’m a record producer, I like control, I fear being on stage and not being able to influence the outcome of a gig – in the end I’m only the bass player !!
1 gig in Amsterdam, 1 in Sheffield, 1 in London. MAYBE.

It’s very unlikely that there will be anything to tie in with the re-issues in March, however we have been talking about various possibilities for the future beyond that. Nothing has been decided.

Slim! - but if the whole project created enough interest, well - you never know! It would have to be the original line-up though.

I'd like to know if there will ever be any type of DVD/VHS of either live performances or live TV appearances or made-for-MTV type videos available?

Again – it’s very unlikely – I have no idea if any of the UK TV stuff we did, The Tube, The Whistle Test, etc, still exists. I’ve got some of the European stuff on VHS. These type of products tend to appear if someone thinks there is some commercial value in them and if the licensing procedure isn’t too daunting. I’ve always found it odd that DVD/VHS of even well-known musical artists sell so poorly in comparison to the albums. It seems that perhaps people prefer just listening to music they like rather than have the whole audio-visual experience. I’ve got to be honest - I know I do.

There is some around. I think Mick has it all.

Do you plan to bring out a singles compilation as your singles have been great all the way through (and many should have been hits)?

Thank you. We do not own our own work – apart from My Minds Eye and The Glamour and Fire On The Moon – which Chris Blackwell gave back to us, and all our demo and rehearsal tapes. We were lucky enough to be involved with a studio in Sheffield called Input so we didn’t need label money to record. All the other stuff is owned by Universal (parent company of Island and Polydor) and Jive. I’m explaining all this to show the different interests involved and why it would be difficult to put together – all the companies have different policies when it comes to licensing (although Renascent have successfully managed to license the first 3 albums, hence the re-issues).

What happened to "From Beyond Volume 1"? Did the unreleased stuff that would have appeared on it turn up on that recent US bootleg of the first three albums (can't remember the name of it)?

From Beyond 2 came out because we own everything on it. FB#1 was going to contain stuff from the first half of our ‘career’ but Universal had a moratorium on all licences for a long time while they reviewed their policy, this only ended earlier this year. Now that Renascent are doing the first 3 album re-issues + Time Considered….' doing FB#1 would be a bit pointless. We are, though, currently talking to the label about releasing To Before - Vols 1 & 2 which will cover the early period more comprehensively. This will involve 30-odd out-takes / demos / alt versions.

How did you guys write songs? Did you write them together or did one of you start with an idea? Did you argue a lot...?

We argued. I sulked a lot. A lot of the best stuff we did we did was when the room was full of anger and frustation. Steve would either come up with songs that we’d all dissect OR we’d jam for hours and then Steve would go away and write to that. Steve did a lot of work, his best work, upstairs in the attic at 65 Hunter House Road, Sheffield. We spent most Mondays - Fridays down in the cellar with the egg boxes and a self portrait of Andy picking his nose. I can still easily conjure up that image.

As I understand it Joy Division would start with an instrumental part (or groove) which Ian Curtis would try and fit pre-written words over the top of. This is a method they have in common with The Smiths – maybe it’s a Manc thing! We would mostly have at least a partly written song which we would then proceed to ‘fuck up’, or de-construct or jam out. For example ‘Total War’ was a straightforward rock song until Mik started to dismantle it rhythmically. Sometimes we would jam and I’d hear something and we’d set off pursuing that ‘round the houses’ - we used to jam a lot. We did argue a lot also - but very constructively – it was never personal, or maybe I’m making that part up!

Usually, Steve would bring a tune, some chords or a groove from a jam and we would improvise on it; sometimes we would jam and things would shape up spontaneously and Steve would take a part of it to work with as a song. The jams and rehearsals were always recorded so he could take stuff home to work on. Other times he might have a complete song or a chorus and we would take it from there. The songs might come together quickly or we might take ages knocking them into shape.
I suppose we did argue a lot, and not just about the songs, but I would guess no more than other bands. We did spend a long time together, there had always been the motivation to do the best we could with everything, so arguments were naturally part of a sometimes difficult and consuming process.

Steve thinks he wrote them all and yes we did argue a lot.

The first side of Sleep No More is a phenomenal slab of intensity (I still maintain that it is the most complete side one of any album I've ever heard - you have to draw breath and compose yourself for a while before turning it over). Did you spend a lot of time on the sequencing of the album or did it just fall from heaven like that?
And those drums - were they really recorded in a lift shaft?

I recall it just fell into place - we had the material to compile a good running order.
In buildings like Polydor the access to the lift on each floor was a quarry-tiled affair with the stairs running around the lift shaft. The drums were set up on the tiles outside the lift door giving a huge ambience, not in the actual shaft as that would be cramped and of course very dangerous!

Yep – it is a bit much isn’t it? We spent very little time on sequencing etc – it seemed obvious what should go where. We pretty much had a plan for the album before we went in and carried it out as quickly as we could.
We put the drums on, I think, the 4th floor landing and put mikes on various floors above and below so they could pick up the ambience resonating throughout the lift shaft at different points. Naturally the sound at, say, floor 7 is more ambient than at floor 5. Pete mixed all this together masterfully with some help from us and that is what you hear.

Between the 3^rd and 4^th floor.

What is your favourite Comsats track/album and why?

On the whole my favourite record we made was My Minds Eye because I think the songs are all pretty strong. I’m fond of The Glamour but it never came out in a form that I was happy with. We’re discussing re-releasing it in an expanded double album form, to include pretty much all the stuff the 5-piece recorded. I think it’ll work much better as a 2 part album – with a more structured track order.

For me 'Total War', 'Real Story' and 'After The Rain'. The arrangement for 'Total War' was perfect - what was a fairly straightforward song strummed on guitar became in an afternoon biting & biting. We played it live in Chesterfield soon afterwards and we all knew we had made something new and people liked it. Jokingly we had a name for this new style - "Jarvis" !!!. It was a single, but not a hit. We were just glad it was released. We kept that spirit going right up to Fiction with 'After The Rain' - then we lost it, or had it taken off us, or threw it away.
We got the Jarvis back for a while on Chasing Shadows, but the rock thing started to appear - and I didn't really like it and I found it embarrassing.

I don’t have a particular favourite, I think some of our strongest stuff is on first three and My Minds Eye but there are loads of good songs throughout.

How differently do you think Land would have been if the band had re-signed to Polydor & are there any alternative versions from the time (other than BBC of course)?

This is quite a difficult hypothetical question to answer. Polydor wanted to reduce the 4th album advance because Fiction didn’t sell well. We were feeling a bit restless at the time and fancied a change so we decided to go with Jive and be a pop band. I don’t think there was any A+R motivation at Polydor to go in any particular direction.
Initially we were sold on the idea of doing stuff with drum machines etc - it’s just that in practice the technology was slow and inaccurate though Mike Howlett struggled with it manfully. I imagine that if we’d done another for Polydor it would have had different songs on it and been called something else and would have been more ‘live’ sounding but we never got the feeling that they wanted to carry on.
There are band demos of some of the songs from Land, such as ‘Island Heart', 'Alicia and ‘Stay Tonight’ .

The demos we did for Land were really good. It was a weird time for us – we felt deflated after being dropped after 3 albums by Polydor. 80s pop values were rife, we didn’t naturally fit in but were all into being popular (pop) and felt we could achieve it in a more damning way. We didn’t think Land was crap at the time, we just didn’t think it was us.

Every band has their Spinal Tap moments when they're on the road - could you share some of yours?

1) Once came back from pub to Rockfield studios in '86 on the roofrack of the car
2) My luggage froze going to Munich

So many… like arriving in Iceland to find only non-alcoholic beer available…like holding up a collapsing keyboard stand with one knee while we play the first song… like making a video for ‘Celestine’ and not being able to spot myself in it…like the record company going out of stock of the second album just as it enters the charts…like the vegetarian rider option at an Italian gig; one whole red lettuce… like arriving in Dublin and a fan asks Mik, do you get that drum sound live? at the same moment the crew announce that they have left the drums in Belfast…like not being able to find the way out of a motel in Holland – all corridors and no signs on doors…
There are loads of people I could offend describing the things we put up with at their behest, but I won’t.

I suppose that our greatest Tap achievement was the entire Jive period – we seriously thought that we could be a successful pop band.

Are there any producers that you would have liked to have worked with?

I think the ideal one would be Nigel Godrich who produced Radiohead but I don’t think he was in the biz at the time. Even if time travel were possible I don’t think we’d be able to afford to work with him anyway. I’d been immune to the charms of R/Head until I saw them doing ‘There There’ on Later and it just blew me away. Also I’ve always loved the production on Daniel Lanois’ solo stuff and his work for the Neville Brothers and Emmylou Harris ( Wrecking Ball ). Jim O’Rourke is another chap who’s work I find stunning. Pete Wilson was a really good producer, the only problem was that the recording budget wasn’t big enough to allow us the time to do our best.

NOT Martin Hannett. He was a lovely chap though.
Steve would probably say Todd Rundgren – he did do XTC later.
Chris Hughes (at his peak ) was interested.
For me, we didn’t need a creator, we needed an editor. Our long time manager Frank Silver was actually really good at being on the ball (not the Led Zep angle so much) but he knew what was good for us – actually in the studio he was a banana, but that’s a skill issue. Pete Wilson was good for us at the time. Andy (Peake) could have produced records for us – he never really showed much interest – but knowing what I know now I think he could have been great. You have to really want to do it – it's a shit job, especially if you are in the band.

Steve Albini, Norman Smith, Eno

I'm wondering if Kevin Bacon of the band is the producer of the likes of the Engineers, and other great bands?

Indeed I am the producer of the Engineers. When I first heard them I really loved them, unfortunately (for me) they had already recorded most of their album - so I only got to do 2 tracks. I think they remind me a lot of my favourite band , The Boards Of Canada on Warp Records. (Music Has the Right To Children).

I started recording right back in the cellar of the house where Steve, Mick & I lived. We did our demos there as well as rehearsing. We had a cheap mixer upstairs in the living room and recorded onto a Revox 2 track recorder. I had a chance to produce some bands on a Sheffield complilation "Bouquet of Steel" in 1980 - and that started it. I think I really annoyed the crap out of engineers and producers with the ComSats, but it was useful as well.

I've had the opportunity to work with some great (and not so) artists.

Its funny now that so many new bands (Bloc Party, The Editors) want to sound like we wanted to in 1979 or so.

So many bass players end up as producers.

Please can you tell me about the Robert Palmer connection and Island Records? I had heard that he was a fan and eventually led you to the deal with Island.

We first found out that Robert liked our stuff when he was on The Tube in 1985 being interviewed about his new album (can’t remember which one it was now). He was asked which albums he was enjoying at the moment and he mentioned ‘The Hounds of Love ‘ by Kate Bush and our album 7 Day Weekend. Our manager suggested we follow this up so Kev called Robert to thank him. Robert then spoke to Chris Blackwell (who we found out had been interested in the band previously). Chris then spoke to Clive Calder, the boss of Jive and all of a sudden we found ourselves on Island Records. That’s how it happened – with a few phone calls.
We gave Robert the title of ‘executive producer‘ on Chasing Shadows because without him it wouldn’t have happened and he sang a line on ‘You’ll Never Know’. I worked with Robert on a couple of occasions subsequently – one time he called me up and said ‘I’ve got 14 songs and 9 sets of lyrics – help’. So I went over to Milan and we spent a couple of days (and a couple of bottles of whiskey) on the tunes. I can’t remember now which bits I contributed but Robert was kind enough to give me a generous co-writing credit on the songs we finished together.
I fell out of contact with Robert in the mid/late 90s – I was embarrassed about our lack of success and, typically, didn’t think he’d want to talk to me anymore, though he kept sending me, every Christmas, as he did to several people, a compilation tape of stuff he’d enjoyed from the year's music. After Robert died I found out from Mary Ambrose, his partner, that he’d continued to rate our stuff and that he had wanted to get in touch again. One of the greatest regrets of my life is that I’d intended to call him and tell him how much I’d enjoyed the song ‘Dr Zhivagos Train’ which had been on his most recent album ‘Drive’. Somehow I didn’t get round to it and the next thing I heard was that he’d died in Paris.
Robert was an amazing man and I’ve got only good memories of him. The real person was nothing like the ‘lounge lizard’ persona he adopted for public consumption – he was incredibly musical and would enthusiastically bombard visitors with his latest discoveries until they could take no more.

Robert was appearing on an episode of “The Tube” and was asked by Jools Holland who he was listening to, he replied The Comsat Angels. He was enormously successful at the time with “Addicted To Love". At the time we were going through a rocky patch with Jive Records and I thought this was at least a much missing direction or even maybe an escape route. After a brief and rather embarrassing phone conversation (then girlfriend complaining she couldn’t hear the TV properly!) I suggested that it would be great to work together (collaborating on something) but that our situation was a bit squiffy. Ten minutes later Chris Blackwell called, five minutes after that we had a deal with Island Records. The next day we went to Norway and Italy and kept quiet, almost.

Are there any current bands/artists that you like?...

Depends what you mean by ‘current’ – I’ll take the loosest possible definition, i.e. that it’s music which is available now. I tend to like individual tracks by artists rather than whole albums. I loved ‘La Ritournelle‘ by Sebastien Tellier. I like ‘ How To Be Invisible’ on the Kate Bush album. I thought ‘Hate it Or Love It’ by The Game feat 50 Cent is one of the best tunes of this year – fantastic record!
I’m impressed by a lot of the new bands in that they seem to have their act together – it’s all so professional now. Musically, I’m less impressed because a lot seem to be recycling things from the past. I prefer to hear things I haven’t heard before, new structures, new chord sequences , new melodies etc.
And then there’s tracks which have existed for decades but not been released until now. Step forward ‘ World Of You’ by the Aerovons – around 30 yrs old but could be a massive hit right now – brilliant song and the best strings I’ve ever heard – check it out !
I’ve got to say that I was prepared to be sceptical re: Arctic Monkeys – but I was very impressed by them – excellent band. And , of course, they’re from Sheffield, which is great. Also I’ve been working with a band called Little Glitches recently as a sort of dodgy guru figure. They are perhaps the oddest band I’ve encountered so far. I love their stuff. Although they’d hate this description – it’s kind of folky with hypnotic picked guitar, dubby bass, spacy Rhodes, they’ve got some fantastic songs – watch out for ‘Sweeping Away’, ‘All This Time’ and many others.

Arctic Monkeys – Sheffield’s finest self-motivated band (since the ComSats!)
The Editors – I know they sound like we did.
Sophie Solomon
Ben Taylor – offspring of James Taylor and Carly Simon
Richard Hawley

Arctic Monkeys, Johnny Dowd

...and which current bands, if any, can you hear the influence of the Comsat Angels within?

This is a bit odd – I keep hearing of, or seeing people mentioning the name – James Dean Bradfield said he’d been listening to our stuff before the Manics made their last album but I’ve not heard it so I don’t know. People keep saying Bloc Party, the Editors, Interpol etc etc – but I’ve not heard the records apart from Interpol's last one – I liked Rosemary but that sounded more like Joy Division. Even Depeche Mode – which is funny cos they supported us once! (the Bridge House in Canning Town). Martin Gore did once do a cover of ‘Gone’ so who knows.
I don’t actually go looking for artists that we may or may not have influenced, believe it or not! I’d rather listen to stuff that is a million miles away from what we or I do.

Bands that have recently name checked us:
U2 (Bono named us just recently as 1 one their top 5 influences)
The Editors

Interpol

Of all the CA's work, I've always thought the first three albums were the most brilliant. The fact that they have been criminally underrated over the years (as was the band itself) has always irked me somewhat. How do you feel about never quite earning the commercial success that you deserved?

It irked me too ( wonderful word ‘irked’ ) – how do I feel about it ? Poor !
We never made any money out of our music beyond subsistence level earnings. I only ever earned any money when I became a manager for a while – though this has long gone. I don’t know if we ‘deserved’ commercial success – does anyone? I think I lacked the ‘drive’ and ambition to really push things forward – though I have a ginormous ‘artistic’ ego (a basic prerequisite for writing a song in the first place). I don’t have the intense (apparent) self- belief of someone like Bono and am frequently plagued by massive self-doubt.
‘Brilliant’ – who knows?

You have to appreciate what you have. We (still) have so much respect from people who then and now love the records. I know so many people that had the commercial success, but not the ongoing love. I’m very happy with what we achieved – very proud.

Success would, of course, have been nice but after all, we were usually doing it for the music. I don’t think many bands went on so long for so little!

I got over it years ago

Why do you think bands like The Sound and Comsat Angels were pretty popular in Holland, and didn't do so well in the UK?

I think the main reason is that we went there a lot – the coffee shops may have had something to do with this! We used to get decent fees as well. Also, at least from my perspective, it helped that I never learned any of the language – the Netherlanders are so keen to show you their mastery of English that you never get a chance to learn any Dutch. As a result we couldn’t read what was written about us, good or bad, so we carried on regardless in blissful ignorance. In England (where we didn’t actually do too badly) one was aware of every comment and this made me, at least, a bit self-conscious.

Holland at that time had a wonderful government funded music scene. It was amazing and gave a leg up to so many new bands. Please bring it back, it’s worth it.

Smaller country, easier to tour & promote, better radio & access to TV & press. And of course - superior taste in music.

Do you have favourite cover versions of your stuff?

Martin Gore's GONE was the best for me.

I’ve only heard Martin Gore's version of ‘Gone’ once, and I remember thinking that I barely recognised it. I heard that Voice of the Beehive covered ‘ I Day ‘ but I never heard it. Apart from a chap called Joel Phelps who covered ‘Lost Continent’ I don’t know of any other released versions. So, no, I suppose.

I would like to know how the band view themselves in the context of late 1970s and 1980s post-punk and goth, in light of following in Joy Division's footsteps and with the frequent critical comparisons to the Chameleons, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, The Sound etc. By this I mean to get at the band's opinion on their influences, the music scene at the time of their apparent height in the early 1980's, and dominant motifs running through their music as well as other prominent bands at the time.

Yikes! The thing is that when you’re involved in doing something you’re not aware of what it ‘looks’ like from the outside. I have never been able to ‘view’ the band in a context – other than the context of my life. We weren’t aware of any of the acts you mention until late ’79 at the earliest (JD obviously was the first) and none of them were any kind of influence (at least as far as I’m aware) as we’d been going in our 4 piece line up, under different names since late 77. I’m not aware that I’ve ever heard RLYL at all. I heard The Sound for the first time when we played with them, I didn’t hear the Chameleons until their ‘Strange Times‘ album. Mik, our drummer, had a copy of ‘A Factory Sample ‘ which I listened to – I liked ‘Digital’ and ‘Glass’ but found them a bit mechanistic, though, admittedly, thrilling. We had written most of our first album by this point.
There are always artists whose stuff you are in awe of – in my case Hendrix, The Beatles, The Beach Boys etc but you never know the extent to which they influence what you do yourself. I think the most important influence on us, from my point of view, at that time, was probably Pere Ubu. Not so much musically, though that’s there a bit, but in the sense that they seemed to know exactly what they were doing and were very focused and powerful and I was able to see this at first hand. I think PIL were more inspirational to us soundwise. Chrome were, and still are, one of my favourite bands. I sort of identified with Richard Thompson as well. We regarded XTC, The Stranglers and Elvis Costello as fellow travellers, maybe because they had keyboards like us. I enjoyed Devo’s stuff for a while but eventually got irritated by the conceptual thoroughness of it all. I was also listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell – who I think is still massively under-rated. Make of it what you will.
I’m not aware of any dominant motifs in our stuff apart from gloom and the key of E minor.

What's your favourite album of all time?

The impossible question! The only way to approach this is to say – ‘You can take one album to a desert island and that will be the only music you can listen to forever – what is it?’.
Electric Ladyland’ by Jimi Hendrix is the only possible answer for me. As well as re-writing the book forever re; guitar playing, Hendrix’s super-sophisticated harmonic sense and sheer musical adventurousness still leave me amazed. Plus it contains the only extended ‘rock’ piece, ‘1983….A Merman I Should Turn To Be‘ (in my opinion) that justifies and fully exploits it’s length.
Listen to ‘Voodoo Chile (slight return )‘ while being aware that this is a totally ‘live in the studio’ recording, apart from some tambourine which was added later. Way beyond scary. Then listen to ‘All Along The Watchtower' and marvel at what he did with this ‘scrap’ of song. I’m sure everyone knows by know that Dylan was so knocked out by this recording that he’s performed the Hendrix arrangement ever since. Also – I love the cover – so un-p.c. it’s breathtaking - a roomful of naked women is probably the perfect cover shot for a 13 year old lad! Can’t fault this album in any way.

Tago Mago by Can, Surfer Rosa by Pixies, A Love Supreme by John Coltrane, anything by The Small Faces

Did she/he stay that night?

I think he did stay the night, but you need to confirm that with Steve. One of the most under-rated coming out gay songs of the 80s.

That would be telling.

Actually, I stayed at hers!