On a cold, February night, Actionier huddle together on front-man Iain’s sofa, to discuss their band and their music, give their opinions on the current music climate and ramble about Scooby Doo and Ice-Pops...
Iain: Get off my lap!
Iain: How can you tell a genuine, original Geordie?
Simon: You’re not, you’re a Mackam, you told me
yesterday
Iain: Divn’t, he canne be tellt
After discussing Iain’s cultural heritage and pease-pudding, Actionier then continue to sing hymns, traditional and modern, plus folk songs and even American Civil War songs, learned at school. Eventually they remember the evening’s purpose.
Steve: So, Actionier…
Iain: Are you recording?
Steve: Yeah, been recording for ages
The band, again, deteriorate into more hymns and banter about interviewer, Steve.
Steve: Do you want to talk about the band, then? So it’s been
six months of being Actionier?
Iain: Yes. Well it hasn’t, yes it has
Steve: Well, Actionier in its present form hasn’t been six months.
Iain: No, not at all.
Simon: More like three.
Iain: No, well, I would say it’s been three and a half months of…
Sam: Hell
Iain: Happiness. Three and a half months of happiness.
Steve: Yeah?
Iain: Absolutely, because I think once Tom joined we all just started grinning
at each other. It was guilt-free good time. Not that Dave, before him, was making
us unhappy, but Tom and Dave’s nature are completely different and Tom
was what we needed to give us a big kick.
Simon: We did lose the whole chick-magnet thing, though, losing Dave.
The ensuing discussion of Dave’s personal life has been censored to preserve his dignity. The full transcript is available, for small a bribe, from Janine.
Steve: Do you think that the idea behind Actionier has come into fruition
now?
Iain: Absolutely, I think everyone remembers what the original advert was, except
Tom, because we had the chance to be a band when Tom joined, but we tried to
create the band before that.
Steve: So what did the original advert say?
Iain: Um…
Sam: Delorian!
Simon: When the Delorian hits 88 miles per hour…
Iain: Absolutley
Simon: And sixty-five boy… wants to, I don’t know
Iain: It was all about in the spirit of innovation and fun, so all the name-checked
bands were ones that you know that your band would never sound like, really.
So it was Public Enemy, the Pixies, stuff like that. People who just raised
the game a little bit. Like the pixies were a guitar band who were just far
better then any other guitar band because of what they did, not because of what
others were doing, as Public Enemy, and Fugazi as well, kind of made their own
path and it’s more inspiring to be that kind of mindset than to sound
anything like those bands.
Steve: Yeah. Do you see yourself following in their footsteps?
Iain: No, not at all. I think we’re walking blind.
Simon: Apart from reciting ‘Bring the Noise’ at quite opportune
moments.
Iain: Well, I think we haven’t got a clue of the direction we’re
going in, but I think we’re on course for something. You know, you see
bands take ages to evolve into being something which they then look comfortable
with, you see bands gigging for years and then suddenly you see them one day
and they’re all kind of more full, where this feels really full.
Simon: It’s kind of like an Open University course, in that you never
know when someone’s actually taking it, because they’re always sat
at home and up at four in the morning, watching TV, but then suddenly, one day,
bam! You’ve got a degree.
Iain: Just like that.
Simon: I remember when you rang me when I sent you that message. I really didn’t
expect to hear anything back and I was delivering leaflets out in Wurlow. And
then I met you in Coffee Revolution.
Iain: Yeah.
Steve: Fancy that.
Iain: I met Simon, having already met a guitarist and I’d started doing
stuff with him and it wasn’t very good to be working with him, but because
it’s been so long since I had a frame of reference what a good working
relationship was I put it down to, ‘That’s cool, because we’re
still writing music and we’re still doing stuff.’ But he had problems
and I met Simon, because I wanted to meet him, from what he’s said, but
I’d already started doing something. And then when he hadn’t answered
the phone all weekend when we had a studio at our disposal all weekend on Sunday,
two days in, I called Simon, because he didn’t seem like the kind of person
who would pass up having a studio all weekend. I think that’s the kind
of nature of the band. If we can do, we do and if we can’t do we should
be ashamed of ourselves. We do use the facilities as-and-when and we do rehearse.
You couldn’t imagine this band walking past an empty studio
Simon: Yeah
Iain: Could you? We’d go in and do bad hip-hop. But it’s all about
doing something isn’t it?
Steve: Yeah. So the spirit of Actionier is a kind of creative thrust,
that just has to come out, and will come out because you want it to?
Simon: It’s kind of like we’ve never had any shortage of stuff,
it’s so bizarre. There’s always been something, ‘I’ll
just try this a second’.
Iain: I’d rather write bad songs than no songs and just keep on doing
them, but we haven’t written any bad songs.
Sam: It’s been easy to play them.
Simon: Well, I don’t know, there’s the counting side.
Steve: How does the song-writing process work out?
Iain: It’s different, not every time, but…
Tom: Generally Iain just sits humming a riff all day at work and then plays
it to us, or what he’s got of a song in his head. Then Simon does his
little poncey guitar shit.
Simon: No, I add my Worcester Sauce and add the richness.
Sam: Stir in the texture
Tom: Sam looks confused for about half an hour or so and then suddenly plays
some wicked fucking drum shit.
Simon: You lose your nervousness and then suddenly you can play again.
Iain: I think three months ago I wrote a lot of the material, brought it to
the rehearsal room and we played it and what happens now is that less songs
get written before the rehearsal room and more catchy bits get done. And then
you bring them and then Simon goes “I’ve got a… we can”
and then we just kind of sew together lots of different stuff. I think that
it’s off my shoulders a bit, now I don’t think that it’s all
‘Iain sits around and thinks of riffs’. I think I do and I bring
them, but equally there’ve been a couple of songs that have been led by,
what might have been mistakes of the bass line, I don’t know.
Tom: Yeah.
Iain: But Tom’s done something and we’ve all kind of gone “Freeze!
Do it again.”
Simon: Yeah the same with Sam though as well.
Iain: Exactly, I think we’re a band now, in that respect.
Steve: Yeah
Simon: Yeah but we have had those times where we’ve even done something
like some ridiculously big fill or something and we all just look at each other
and can’t help but laugh, not because it’s stupid, or anything.
It’s because it was really unexpected and suddenly good when you really
least expect it.
Iain: There was a good thing that me and Simon said together, after the third
pint, which was…
Sam: Of vodka
Iain: Which was that we could probably, respectively, write a load of songs,
we could go away and play all the instruments or whatever, but it would be thinner
then what we’re all doing together. So, I could probably knock out songs
until you have to hurt me to stop, but I think it would be a lot thinner than
what you’d get with us.
Steve: Yeah, it’s richer as a collaborative process.
Iain: Absolutely, so when you’re being creative it’s fucking awesome
because you take an idea that you can hear in your head and then once you let
it loose in the rehearsal room you’ve got to stop thinking about the original
song because the one that you’ve got is far better than the one in your
head, you can’t be precious about it.
Simon: Yeah, I’ve always had that, all the time, forever. As in I always
think ‘This is going to be really good’ and then I’ll hear
everybody do it and it’s not very good, and as soon as other people start
contributing to it you suddenly think ‘That’s so much better than
I originally thought, how on earth did I think that my original thing was any
good, when somebody else adds to it it’s so much better?’
Iain: You have to be humble, haven’t you? But it’s not humble when
you see your closest friends at that moment do something that makes your life
better…
Tom: Yeah
Iain: In two hours in a rehearsal room. It’s great. You know, the song
last night, was it last night in the rehearsal room?
Simon: Yeah
Iain: No, it was Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoon, yesterday, but a great
song idea came to the rehearsal room, but a really great fucking song happened
in the rehearsal room, ten times better than the idea.
Simon: And we all started singing.
Steve: Do you think that you bring anything from the other bands that
you’ve been in before Actionier?
Iain: Absolutely. Scepticism. Genuinely, scepticism.
Simon: Dislike of metalcore
Iain: I think tolerance and a good work ethic, is what I bring from my last
band.
Steve: Do you want to say a bit more about that?
Iain: Yeah, they were a great band, but it wasn’t for me and I’m
very proud of what I did and I’m really glad I left, as I hope they are
as well, because it made them a far better band, me leaving.
Tom: I was going to say, it’s not like they’ve suffered for it.
Iain: No, not at all. Well, exactly, it’s like I think that everyone was
bruised along the way a bit, but you’ve got to take a few knocks to make
you a bit harder and better. And so I approached this band with the healthiest
outlook ever in the band, but the most sceptical view about what we would do.
So I’ve been overwhelmed by what we’ve done because I was expecting
something that would be like adding a bit of colour to my Wednesday nights,
but it’s a lot more informed then I thought it would be and everyone’s
a lot more talented than I thought people would be. Does that sound bad?
Steve: Um…
Iain: I’m used to, my old band had a very long song-writing process, because
there was an electronic element to it, so you’d have a good idea and then
there’d be a massive space and there’d be someone in the corner
going “Just imagine, it’s going to go…” And then literally
they’d go a week later, do some programming and you’d hear it and
during that time your head shifts a little bit, where we very, very quickly,
because we’re a guitar band and we’ve got all our tools in our hands
[laughter]
Sam: We’re just a bunch of tools.
Iain: No, but you know what I mean, it’s like there’s no waiting
‘til next week, which a lot of bands would probably think ‘Well,
nobody waits ‘til next week’, but I got used to it because that’s
the way you did things, you know?
Simon: And the thing is too, that I think compared to any other things we’re
still pretty rapid once the ball’s rolling on something, it generally
gets sorted pretty quickly. I think Actionier is quite a suitable name in that
respect.
Iain: Absolutely, well it’s Attention Deficit Disorder isn’t it?
Tom: Exactly, I was going to say, we get bored of that song and write another
one.
Sam: But in the other bands that I was in..
Steve: Oasis tribute bands?
Sam: That was fantastic, um, no the last band was really good because it was
with my best friends, but in what we do now things get done far more efficiently
and what we’re playing is probably more accessible to more people and
quite exciting, whereas in my last band the songs were like seven minutes long,
so it’s quite good.
Steve: What about your swing band?
Sam: Well..
Simon: It’s the future.
Sam: That is the future. It’s alright. I think it might bring my drumming
on a bit.
Steve: Is that more of a technical thing than a visceral enjoyment?
Sam: Indeed it is, yes. I didn’t go tonight, I lied, said I had university
work.
Steve: This is going direct to the swing band people, by the way.
Sam: I’m waiting for them to fire me.
Iain: I think it’s really good that you’re in a swing band, though.
Sam: It’s good, to an extent, but..
Iain: I don’t think you should ever avoid rock ‘n’ roll cliché,
but I think when you realise that you’re not one it’s brilliant.
You’re not one, you’re in a swing band!
Sam: But I do wear black and white make-up and have a mouthful of blood.
Steve: Do you think that Actionier defines you?
Iain: No, but just because out of a choice of yes or no I’m going to choose
no, like ‘Do you want to go out on Friday night?’ I don’t
know so I’ll say no. So, I don’t know.
Tom: I think I’d say yes. Purely in that there’s no real structure
to it, we just turn up and make whatever music we want to hear.
Simon: Yeah, there are definitely no rules are there? We don’t say “Oh,
we can’t write that song because it’s not really our kind of thing”
Iain: It’s just when you’re playing they all sound like you, your
band. I can’t imagine us doing jazz or funk.
Simon: We can though.
Iain: Exactly, but then again I couldn’t imagine, six months ago, that
I’d be sat here talking about our band.
Steve: Is that a comfortable thing, being in a band?
Iain: It’s life-affirming. The other night sat in the pub with ‘my’
band, hopefully Tom was sat there with ‘his’ band, in that respect,
and our friends and neighbours and you realise that even though you’re
not necessarily talking about it at that very moment, it’s the thing which
has brought people together and you’re at the hub of a creative something.
It’s a fucking glorious feeling.
Simon: Well just the fact that it’s not just people you know, but people
like Chris that I know and various contacts that we’ve developed over
time.
Iain: It’s great to feel believed in. You know you should never, your
mood shouldn’t be based on other people’s opinions of you, because
that’s a bit thin, but it’s really nice, isn’t it?
Sam: It’s brilliant.
Tom: It’s motivating to see everyone around us being so motivated. So
much stuff has happened because other people want to do it for free.
Simon: It’s like so many people don’t have to do it, they don’t
have to say things, they don’t have to come along and watch, but they
choose to of their own accord and for no money.
Iain: Yeah, we talk about it in the respect that so much has happened, but we
haven’t played a gig and we’ve done one proper recording and we’ve
done a video, but I think we talk about so much has happened in the respect
of people.
Simon: Yeah, that’s what it is.
Iain: You know what I mean? So much has happened in the interest and feeling
beloved by people.
Simon: Feeling the buzz.
Iain: Yeah, it’s fucking great, absolutely fantastic.
Tom: I’m sure we do just generally have a really motivated bunch of friends,
but it’s really nice, I think, to feel that they’re motivated by
our music and that they like it that much
Sam: Because they spend lots of time doing stuff for us.
Iain: Exactly.
Simon: I reckon if I wasn’t in a band I’d be in a cult, because
I’d need to have something to believe in. That’s a clichéd
documentary thing to say. No, but every time I’m not in a band though,
I don’t have any direction, I have nothing to do.
Sam: So join a cult!
Iain: Join right now and if you can bring a friend you get a thirty percent
discount on your robe.
Simon: And a more luxury seat on the spaceship.
Iain: You get to sit on the top deck.
Sam: It is worth the extra money though.
Iain: There’s no false economy in our spaceship cult.
Steven deftly steers the band back to talking about the band and their place in the musical infrastructure…
Steve: What do you think about the Sheffield music scene at the moment?
Iain: It’s very interesting.
Simon: Interesting I think is the ideal world for it because you’ve got
a mixed blessing, haven’t you? You’ve got extended interests a lot
more than there used to be, but at the same time, you can’t help feeling
that people are going to be looking for the same sort of thing that’s
been popular, not mentioning any names.
Tom: Everyone knows.
Iain: No, it’s really good isn’t it, because there are gigs, places
to play gigs and people to see gigs, so it’s brilliant.
Simon: I think it’s definitely noticeable from two years ago, though,
it seems to be like there are more people playing, more bands around.
Steve: There used to be a lot of clubs, that used to be the thing a
couple of years ago and there weren’t so many gigs, but it seems to have
spun round a bit. A lot of the new guitar bands have got a bit of success by
having a club night of their own, playing at it and playing the music they like
to people. Fancy it?
Iain: Nope.
Simon: I think I force enough music on people as it is, they don’t deserve
any more.
Iain: I think people in bands who keep it lo-fi and interesting and want to
build a lifestyle
around it in their clothes and the company they keep, good on ‘em. But
that’s like more of a bubble to pop. If you create this thing then when
you’re not doing it any more it’s something to miss and I think
that a way of getting through the band scene without having breakdowns is to
find yourself firmly rooted in your life and then integrate a great band into
your life rather than…
Steve: Formulate your life around it.
Iain: Exactly. I mean the thing is I fucking love Actionier but I doubt you’ll
ever see the tattoo running up here with Actionier on it, because it’s
something I’ll look at one day and go “Simon was never looking out
for that car, and that was the day the dream and the guitarist died.”
You can’t bet on black.
Simon: You might have cursed me by saying that.
There’s more waffle, of interest to no one, before getting back on track.
Iain: The thing is there’s an inevitability with bands, bands break up
and I think they do by putting on themselves an unreasonable amount of pressure
to maintain a certain kind of lifestyle, which is contrary to living. People
feel that they’re betraying themselves by wanting a bit of normality and
I think you’ve just got to cut yourself a break and enjoy your life. It’s
like a good relationship. If you find yourself going back to it it’s one
worth having. If you’re doing it because you feel like it’s a good
time to have a relationship, you’re doing it for all the wrong reasons,
so if you feel like you’re in a band because you want to be in the scene,
it’s got a throw-by date on it. But if you got into it for whatever reason
and you find yourself loving it, getting all excited and getting a bit gurgly
about it, and about hearing the recording, then I think it just seems a bit
more honest, doesn’t it?
Simon: I’m really intrigued to a certain extent to the fact that if we
end up with a few people liking us, what the hell kind of people are they going
to be? [laughter] Because I mean, do you not think they’re a bunch of
fucking freaks?
Sam: Let’s hope so.
Simon: No, but I mean I can’t actually picture a specific sort of person,
like you often can, really. If anybody’s got any suggestions…
Steve: Well you as a band aren’t a specific kind of person anyway.
Iain: Not at all.
Simon: We’re four people for a start.
Sam: We’re like one big person on an armchair.
Simon: We’ve merged together.
Iain: Can we get a massive coat? Two as the legs…
Simon: Two people have to be carried in the middle.
It would appear that Actionier have given this some thought, as after five minutes they had invented a structure of brackets and pistons to enabling four people to appear as one and run very fast. After vague references to Mormons and Rabbis, Steven interrupts them again…
Steve: When’s your first gig?
Iain: I don’t know.
Sam: Definitely the 8th April isn’t it?
Simon: Hopefully one before if we can rattle something up.
Iain: Yeah, we’re ready. We’re really ready.
Simon: I’m going to rattle this Leeds lass. I mean… [laughter] in
the sense of making her phone rattle, via texting.
Once again, to spare blushes, the identity and discussion of ‘Leeds lass’ has been preserved, for future blackmail against Simon.
Steve: What do you imagine the Actionier live experience is going to
be like?
Iain: Really, really fucking exciting because I’m going to be really excited
by it.
Simon: There’s going to be a lot of wee on stage.
Tom: Put it this way, I’m going to get some sort of piping system.
Iain: I’m not a particularly big fan of bands or live music. My problem
with live music is I get terribly bored and I feel like you’re a captive
audience to somebody for twenty-five minutes or half an hour. I prefer to see
a band play two songs and then some music that I might like and then the band
play another song again and maybe meter it out a little bit and I think that
my boredom at bands and stuff carries into what I bring to the band, which is
to try and play three or four songs in one song. And it works really well, because
I can bring two and Simon can bring two and we can put the four of them in one
song together.
Simon: And then we time it, think it’s about ten minutes long, and it’s
always about three minutes twenty, every song that we do. Why does it sound
like it’s gone on for ten minutes?
Iain: I think it’s going to be good because I don’t think there’s
one person in this band that people are going to take a dislike to. I don’t
think that we’re so genre-specific that people are going to go “I’m
not going to like this band” or “I don’t like them because…”
of how we look on a poster or whatever. I think because we’re keeping
the iconography and the imagery for the band really simple and it doesn’t
tell any tales except for what we’re trying to get across to people is
our energy or whatever, that’s going to hopefully bring them in if they
hear good things about us or they hear the music. And I think that the live
show’s going to be…
Sam: I think we’re really excting.
Iain: Twenty-eight of the fastest minutes you’ve ever heard, yet similarly
playing seven minute songs in two and a half minutes. Do the maths. We need
a scoreboard! Carol where are you?
Simon: I think Carol Vorderman’s going to be our biggest fan.
Sam: Probably. She’s got the mind.
Simon: Everybody loves her mind.
Steve: Do you see Actionier as pretty intelligent music?
Iain: Yes.
Simon: But not arty-farty.
Iain: Yeah, because it’s really clever music.
Sam: I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like clever music, it’s
really accessible.
Iain: The greatest trick that math rock ever pulled. People not believing it’s
math rock.
Lots of ‘pulling’ innuendos are inspired and somehow the conversation reverts to ‘Leeds lass’ for a small time.
Iain: You are going to edit this down, right?
Simon: It’s two minutes long.
Iain: Actionier went the park, saw a dog do a poo and had chips for tea.
Steve: Well now I’ve got the soundbite we might as well stop.
Iain: Ask us questions in haikus.
[several seconds pause as Steven counts on his fingers]
Steve: The CD cover
Has you playing Frisbee on
A hill. Wh-y-y?
Iain: Because… Well, we’re not going to answer in haikus, but we
are going to answer one word at a time going across.
…Because
Sam: We
Simon: Thought
Tom: Frisbee
Iain: Is
Sam: The
Simon: Image
Tom: That
Iain: We
Sam: Would
Simon: Like
Tom: To
Iain: Show
Sam: The
Simon: World
[laughter – this was not rehearsed!]
Tom: The next one’s just a big picture of a Frisbee, that’s all.
Fuck the music.
In the interest of not offending Steven Hawking this excerpt will remain untranscribed. More Frisbee talk…..
Tom: Frisbee, what a fucking laugh though. It’s a wicked game.
Iain: It is thought, it’s zen.
Tom: If you get zen Frisbee again, it’s so complex and perfect.
Iain: It is, but you’re at you’re best at it when you’re at
ease and it just releases from your hand and whizzes up and then it comes back
down to the person who hasn’t moved who catches it. It’s about being
at one with the elements. I’m not a spiritual person, but it is.
Simon: It’s also because we used to play it in the Devonshire Courtyard,
which is near where we practice.
Iain: And it looks like a spaceship. My old one did, it glowed in the dark.
Steve: So Frisbee is the image of Actionier that you want to present
to the world, because it’s zen, it looks like a spaceship and you can
play it in the Devonshire Courtyard near where you rehearse?
Sam: Pretty much.
Iain: Frisbee’s brilliant. I’ve broken bones.
Steve: I was just going to mention that.
Iain: Yeah.
Tom: Dedication, man. Did you catch it or nearly catch it?
Iain: No I just ran into a wall. I was in immeasurable pain.
For anyone interested in hearing the story of how Iain broke his knee while playing Frisbee, approach him at a gig or his place of work and he will be sure to recount it at length. It’s not for here.
Iain: Who said we can play it at the Devonshire Courtyard?
Simon: I did.
Iain: Well don’t say that to me, because seemingly I can’t.
Simon has obviously been counting a haiku question for Steve about his beard for some time. This leads into a long and confusing Shaggy from Scooby-Doo vs. Shaggy the pop singer debate where it appears that although Actionier’s music is intelligent, some of the band members may not be so. Simon’s Shaggy impression (the Bombastic one) will be available for Mpeg download, because it’s not the same in print.
Steve: Is there anything Actionier-related anyone wants to say?
Sam: We are doing a duet, with Shaggy, at next year’s MTV Music Awards.
Simon: We were talking seriously about getting some lass in to sing at some
point, we thought that would be cool.
Iain: Yes we did, because I don’t believe we have any rules, I think we’ve
got just good codes of conduct, rather than codes of practice. We’re very
nice, and I’d be very disappointed if we’re not very nice to people.
I think we’re a very nice bunch of people and I think we should extend
that to everybody we meet.
Steve: Would you have a female voice to complement yours or to replace
it?
Iain: Well there’s a pecking order in the band, of good music. In the
rehearsal room good music dominates, which means it doesn’t matter where
it comes from, as long as when we end up playing it, it’s fucking great,
so I don’t know. I kind of plan stuff, but I don’t plan stuff as
well. You’ve just got to open your head to the possibility. I think that
if there was a song which said there was a space for another person… but
everything so far hasn’t been a case of having to find it, it’s
kind of come to us.
Simon: But I think it’s good at this stage because there are no expectations
and at the same time I don’t want there to be, ever, but there will be.
I just think it’s good at the moment because nobody really knows what’s
going to happen. I’d like it to always be like that, I’d like to
always have no idea what we’re going to do next. It’s not going
to be another standard thing.
Iain: Exactly, I think also you get protective about things you think are fragile
and I think that we’re quite robust now, as a band, so you wouldn’t
worry about something coming in that might hurt your band because I think that
we haven’t begun to be tested yet. I think that everybody knows the band
they want to be in is this one.
Simon: I never really thought about this before recently, but I’ve noticed
that a lot of people I’ve spoken to, collectively, they don’t have
one single song of ours that is their favourite. Nearly every single person
I meet has something they like differently, and I think that’s really
good.
Steve: What are your favourite songs of yours?
Iain: I really, really, really, enjoy playing ‘Pause’ when we play
it right.
Simon: Yeah.
Tom: Yeah.
Iain: Because you feel like fucking…
Simon: Jesus on ice-skates!
Sam: Ice-Sheffield!
Iain: I feel about two-foot taller when we play that song right.
Simon: You said it before, it’s life-affirming.
Iain: I love playing ‘Philosophy Part Two’ as well, because, apart
from the fact it’s a great song, the staccato bits, when we’re all
doing them, you just feel really locked in with everybody and that feels really
good.
Simon: It also feels a bit like a secret society, how only we, collectively,
know how to go… [mimes]. A lot of people could learn it.
Iain: Yeah, I like the Kenny G version.
Sam: In a lift.
Steve: Which songs are you recording next?
Iain: We need to record ‘Police Horse’, ‘Dog-Walker’,
‘Philosophy Part One’ again,
Simon: ‘Bad Stories’
Tom: ‘Almeida’!
Iain: It’s going to be another seven-track EP
This pretty much signifies the end of the interview. There is some discussion of how the band don’t play the Rizla game when they’re unable to practice, in fact they go on drugs-and-whores binges. This is the opposite of true.
The conversation turns to wanking and its relation to melted ice-pops, Iain gets excited about MacDougal’s Thickening Granules on ships, the band reminisce about Gazz Top on How2, Sam discovers candied peel, and explains Liz Hurley’s hangover cure…
Iain: have you got anything you can use?
Steve: Yeah. Once again I’ve got a good two minutes.
Iain: Good. I think the thing with humour is it can be very funny at the time,
but if you read it later it sounds very self-congratulatory, doesn’t it?
Simon: I think it’s having a camera on you as well, you tend to get a
bit silly.
Steve: And you never stick to the subject anyway.
...and finally, on charity singles and Fred Dinage’s rabbit-woman.
We’re fairly certain all of this will be available as DVD features some time, so keep your eye on News.