Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 2 posts ] 

Board index : Music Talk : Reviews

Author Message
 Post subject: Martin Carr aka Bravecaptain interview Christmas Eve
PostPosted: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:15 am 
Offline
Worldwide Phenomenon
User avatar

Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2004 2:49 pm
Posts: 3003
Location: ilXor.com
I know only three people are interested so I posted this here instead, as it should read Reviews/Interviews. Plus it nice to use a different forum and might be found sometime.

Free brand new MP3 “Another Day In December” at the web site: www.bravecaptain.co.uk


Back to top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Dec 26, 2004 5:52 am 
Offline
Worldwide Phenomenon
User avatar

Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2004 2:49 pm
Posts: 3003
Location: ilXor.com
www.bravecaptain.co.uk christmas interview 2004 24:12:04

okay then, let’s just quickly tot this up: two albums, two tours, two festivals, an ep, live shows in italy, lighting fryday and now the christmas number one you must be ready for a good sit down after the year you've had?

i don't have that luxury i'm afraid, i've got so much on at the minute. it certainly doesn't feel as if i've done a lot this year. I think next year will be my busiest yet as bravecaptain.

you're the architect of your current situation, and you have taken some bold decisions to arrive at the place you're in today, ie as a solo artist making electronic music. You must surely wonder how different things could be if you hadn't chosen to go solo but maybe give the Boos a break instead for example, or, if having chosen to go solo you had decided from the outset to form a "traditional" four-piece band with new members. Were those options that ever looked likely? Or is the type of music you have released this year simply the only style that is exciting for you to create these days?

i've never given it a thought, ever. falling out of love with a band is the same as with a girl. a year off isn't going to achieve anything. it has never felt brave or foolish. it's simply moving on.

i was never going to form another band because being on my own was where i wanted to be, where i want to be. i've always used musicians in the past when it was needed but this is how i am happiest.

the music i make is what comes from within. i don't sit down and choose which style of music i'll play that day, it just happens and there has never been a satisfactory answer to that question because there isn't one. it just seems to happen. like a nosebleed or a sneeze.

you have been described in at least one review as a modern-day Brian Wilson. Such praise has not been uncommon in national press reviews of your work for many years, and I wondered how much these comparisons with your idols make you feel, especially given that the public have never really been as keen to purchase your records as the music journalists have been to praise them?

well for a start, whether you like him or his music or not, brian wilson was a man with a singularly special talent. his musicality by far outreaches the limits of mine. of course, at the time, i readily agreed with statements like that but you get older and the whole thing seems rather silly. i'm not trying to depreciate what talent i have but nowadays i have a wee bit more perspective.

I remember once reading that you felt you were too inconsistent to be regarded as a truly great songwriter. Is consistency something you strive to achieve in your output, or is it simply that what comes into your head comes out of our speakers?

I think i meant that i get too distracted. i had a meeting with my manager the other week and he told me i have to stop working on so many things because i was never finishing anything.

i'm just hoping something will stick (writing, producing, remixing etc) so i can make enough money to keep with songwriting but of course songwriting is what i'm best at so i should stick to that. and then, within that, i am not consistently writing great tunes that everybody likes, i like to make a noise and fuck things up and thats just the way it is.

i still believe that i can sell records, i still believe i haven't made 'that' record yet.

if we use, say, Brian Wilson or Jimmy Webb as an example of somebody who you might consider a hero from another era, who are the modern day equivalents? Who are the people you hold in such high esteem as musicians or songwriters today that, for example, you might not want to meet them for fear of them not living up to the high regard in which you hold them?

there is no one that i would fear meeting but at the same time i've never wanted to meet anyone in particular although, and this seems rather obvious, i would love to give paul or ringo a hug. just to let 'em know.

now though it's mainly hip hop that i listen to. the sounds and production are great and there is so much of it. there are so many genres and sub genres within hip hop. plus i find the lyrics more interesting because they are so different from most band's lyrics; the patterns and rhythms that they are able to find allow them to create more complex rhyming schemes giving them a lot more words and a lot more space to throw them into.

there is still tons of shit around, stuff about bitches and ho's and guns and bling (and some of that is good too) but there are hundreds of really good, intelligent hip hoppers, people who like a bit of social comment with their swearing (swearing of course being mandatory.

if there are any hip hop songs without even the mildest profanity, and there aren't, then they are shit (please don't write in with examples to the contrary, i'm making it up as i go along). i can't see anyone creating something new and original and at the same time reaching millions of people. but nobody is breaking my heart at the minute.

Your work is recorded and distributed in a totally different way than it was just a couple of years ago. Do you think the ways in which you have employed new technology to release music, and also the new live format you have toured this year will become the norm for many other artists in years to come?

i think so and i welcome it but, at the same time, i never want there to be a time when i can't go to the shop and buy a slab of vinyl. i buy 'em off the internet and i download stuff but i still find myself heading towards spillers with twenty quid clutched in my hand, knowing i can't really afford it but fuck it, i want that record NOW!

the distribution side of it is interesting. i never noticed until recently but i'm getting a lot closer to coming round to yr house with a guitar, playing a song and then asking for some money.

in between the product and the buyer there is this huge amount of shit; radio, poster, telly, gig, charts, press, etc but thats been taken away from bravecaptain (i'm not referring to myself in the third person there, honest, i'm not mad yet). so it's just me writing songs and recording them and then the day after playing you bits of them and trying to flog the whole lot to you.

anyway it's a strange situation. it seems a lot more honest.

when record companies were more directly involved in a musicians output they would work like a filter on an artist's ideas. Maybe Creation wasn't so bad, but executives at larger labels would obviously have a say in what did and didn't get released, and they would also influence choice of studio, producer etc. Could the ease with which people can release music actually result in a deterioration in quality as weak tracks are not rejected by somebody detached enough from them to make an objective judgement on what is and what isn't worthy of release?

i think that some people need more direction than others. you hear about people having artistic control or who appear to be a lot more involved in their projects than maybe other artists are but they're just people who know what they want. if you are confident enough than most companies would let you run with it.

it works both ways, no company would want to endlessly fight with somebody. they wouldn't sign anyone that they couldn't push around unless they had coerced them into signing at a young and naive age (anyone seen that george michael documentary?). i think that there has to be an editorial process along the way. i use my friends.

MTV and NME dominate mainstream music promotion, and are clearly driven by advertising budgets rather than any real artistic ideals. Today's most exciting music probably exists outside of their radar. How do you go about finding new music yourself, and how do you hope that new audiences will discover your work given that you are not likely to receive much coverage in either of the above?

i watch mtv occasionally, if you watch at the right time, usually the middle of the fucking night when most consumers are in bed, then you get to see some good stuff. and i always like to check out the new videos in case those kids who hang about the church around the corner from my house ever pin me down and make me do a pop quiz.

i haven't read the nme in years, can't believe its still going. there is stuff that is more relevant, more 'new' everywhere you look on the 'net. every day, every hour. why would i want to buy the same bleedin' sweets from the same bleedin' shop every week when i can go to choccyslovakia every day?

if i wanted to sell more records. i would need to make better records, there's no easy way out of this. i would have to make a record that people couldn't ignore.

You have released two albums this year that sound totally different from each other, and totally different from anything you have released before, yet somehow they still sound like bravecaptain records. Can you tell us first of all how you feel about 'All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace' now that it has grown up a bit? Is it as you planned and is there anything you would change about it?

haven't heard it recently but i know that the Capsule bar in town still plays it a lot (funny food at funny prices kids!). it's ok, the stuff i'm doing at the minute i like more. it took too long to make and cost too much money. i am still gutted there was no vinyl. it would sound a lot different if i did it now.

The final track on that album, 'Weaponized', has been very well received in reviews, by fans on the site and at the live shows. Can you talk us through how you came to create that track given that it bears very little resemblance to any other track you had made previously. Is it inspired by anything? Did you sit down and plan to make a track that sounded like that or was it just a lucky accident?

i started that track a long time ago. it was called 'beeline' and was just a drum loop and a couple of swooshy chords, i kept on going back to it and it still doesn't sound finished to me. at some point it was called 'celine didn't play frisbee' but i thought most people would think it was named after celine dion so i changed it.

i was in cornwall with my girlfriend, her home, and she was bangin' on about the beach and the sun and i honestly just don't get it. i wish i did but i don't. i was trying to be pale and interesting and was reading 'death on the installment plan' so was feeling particularly nihilist that day.

the first two lines are about getting older and realising the small things that make up the whole. the things that you now recognise within yourself, helping you see to how you have reached a particular point in time.

second verse is about rampant nationalism and the ridiculous idea that one piece of earth is any more special than another.

the third is the 'celine' verse. i've always wanted to use the word 'gossamer' in a song.

you drafted Sice in to sing on the album's big pop moment, 'Good Life', but there was much demand for the release of the slower version you play at the live shows and sing yourself, which we now have with the recent release of the live album. The two versions are very different which one do you prefer any why?

i hadn't noticed they were that different to be honest. i really haven't listened to the album much since i finished it. i don't consider the version that ends up on a record to be the definitive version.

it's the same with 'i am a lion' - i love playing that but i don't think it has any of the ingredients that made up the ep version and it will change again.

the song isn't in the chords or the words, there is a core that cannot be seen or heard but retains the element that makes the song what it is.

'good life' live is in a different key but i am struggling to remember the album version. i like to sing and play it live. its a good song.

the live album, 'allonewordsmallbee' has been incredibly well received, with some fans saying that it s amongst your best work. Do you agree with this and do you think you might release more records like this one in the future?

i really didn't expect such a positive reaction to the album. i like it but can see how it could be much better. can't say if there will be any more like it, bits of the new album already flow the same way so we'll have to wait and see.

how do you approach reworking the tracks for the live format? They seem to move more towards grooves and textures, and with some tracks you have stripped out most of the lyrics, and in other cases the main hook is gone (eg 'I Am a Lion'). Given that you are playing the reworked versions to people stood in a room with not a great deal to look at, do you consider it a risk to remove the lyrical content of the songs and many of the hooks?

i don't take out too much of the vocal, i like to sing as much as i can. if i was sitting there sequencing tracks then i could do a lot more but because it's very hands on i get kinda involved in that and forget about the mic. i take the bits i like and then mash 'em up. sometimes there is just one element from the original sometimes none but i think they are always recognisable which isn't my worry.

i am there to play music that will hopefully stimulate you and make you feel good, not to play my album back to you note for note.

How are the live shows likely to develop in the coming years? Do you have plans for any more visuals or additional musicians on stage as with the recent UK tour?

well, i've actually been told that there will be no touring next year simply because i can't afford it. the attendances on the last tour were miserable and most gigs were a waste of time. i will be doing gigs that i'm asked to do by individual promoters but that side of it is on the back burner for now which is a shame 'cos i had started love playing again. one day, hopefully, i will be able to do a retrospective show, it's something i've thought a lot about recently. it won't be any time soon.

we have some announcements looming on your releases for 2005. Without giving too much away, can you tell us how much new material you have written/recorded and how it compares with the stuff you put out in 2004?

i have a new album written and is not too far from being finished. i think it will be the best thing i've done by a mile. i don't know how or when it will come out but hopefully in the next few months. then i'm going to make another one. i have got other ideas for releases next year which as you say will be announced soon.

i've been doing some remixing as well recently and would like to do a lot more of that. i think that the balance between the music and the songs is a lot more finely tuned on the new stuff, it all sounds very organic. i'm getting on with my gear more than i was last year.

There is a rumour abound that there will be a Boo Radleys Anthology released in 2005. Do you have any idea when that will be, and can you tell us what your involvement has been, whether or not the release has your blessing and what we should expect in terms of tracklisting?

There will be an anthology next year. i have chosen about forty songs. i didn't want it to be a singles collection although my arm is currently been twisted to include 'its lulu' which i cannot stand.

i finally found steve wood (working for the lancet!) and he will be creating something beautiful for the sleeve. unfortunately there are no rarities or outtakes, they simply don't exist.

for the fan who has everything there won't be any surprises. hopefully it will regenerate interest in the band which rub off onto bravecaptain (fingers crossed).


how is life outside of the music? What do you get up to in Cardiff and how do you get your kicks when you re not writing, recording or touring?

i don't do anything except make music. i get up early, fire up the laptop and work till the simpsons starts. i am not interested in anything else at the moment. its a full time job. i still like to read a lot and listen to records. i am starting an open university course in january. it's basically a foundation course studying the arts so that that should keep me busy for a few months.

has 2004 been a good year for you, and what would you say has inspired you or made you happy during the year?

its been a good year musically, i really enjoyed the gigs and the music i am writing i feel is the best i have ever written. i have listened to some great records and read some amazing books.

i still miss london and i miss touring and meeting people but i have to stop putting so much pressure on myself. it can be difficult when you have arrived at the place where you felt happy and secure and were doing a job you loved only to end up somewhere completely different, it's hard to let go.

Are there any books, records, films etc that you have come across over the twelve months that you would recommend we check out?

i think i've mentioned them all in the 'safe as book!' thread on the website messageboard. i thought 'spiderman 2' was ace as was 'fog of war'.

what is the one thing that realistically could happen in politics, music, sport etc over the next 12 months that you would most love to happen and you cannot mention Liverpool FC in the answer?

proper elections and a winner that is acceptable to the majority of palestine which leads to serious talks and a complete isreali withdrawal from the west bank with further withdrawals.


Back to top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 2 posts ] 

Board index : Music Talk : Reviews


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Style by Midnight Phoenix & N.Design Studio
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.