BOBO Phoenix, Jeff Parsons, Andy
Linklater and Tony Carter are the vocalist, guitarist, bassist and
drummer in Dead Fingers Talk. They have been playing in that state for
18 months, and for a year or so before that with a different bassist.
Originating from Hull, they now live in London, and have just released
their debut album `Storm The Reality Studios'.
Sitting in at The Interview are Jeff and Andy. Both are friendly and
talkative, particularly Jeff, and stress their views in dulcet northern
tones. For two hours talk, lager and tape flow freely, and talk
inevitably kicks off with their elpee, quite a gem by any standards,
with Jeff taking the opening lines.
"Overall we're happy with how the album turned out," he muses, "We
recorded it in four different studios though, and the one where we put
down the bulk of the material, the first one, was the worst of the lot.
It was like a cellar, and anybody coming into the place had to walk
through where you were actually playing. The atmosphere was lazy and we
took time off all the time to nip down the pub for a rest. When we
finally made it to a better studio we really worked hard; it was more
enjoyable too, cos you didn't have people traipsing through-all the
time, and you could actually stand up when you played.
"Mick Ronson produced it, and it was just a coincidence that we managed
to get him. I had met him at a Phil Rainbow gig a few weeks before we
decided to ask him, and we rapped for ages about Hull, cos we were from
the same part, and music. When our manager phoned him up he must have
remembered the name, because he said he would without even really
hearing us.
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"The only problem
we had was that we had to go to Hull when the single was mixed
by Mick and our manager at that time. It was released before we
had even heard it, and we didn't like it - we thought that there
was too much echo and that. So we remixed it for the album, and
let the single drop completely. "In the future, there'll
probably be more songs written by the band as a whole, rather
than individual members," continues Andy, "On the album we each
had a song of our, own, although Bobo did the bulk of the
writing because he's happiest singing his own lyrics, but two of
the songs, the title track and `Fight Our Way Out Of Here' came
about from jam sessions, before a gig. We find that those are
the numbers which we do best, the group efforts. We should be
doing more like that from now on, but when we could only
rehearse for a couple of days a week we tended to stick to songs
that somebody had already worked out, rather than jamming for an
hour in the hope that something good would come from it. It was
all down to economics really." |
"We had to be really careful with money
- to even live. We travelled in a bus to save having to fork out for
places to stay on the road, and had to stack all the equipment in as
level as possible so that we could lay the mattresses on top. We had a
little. stove too so that we could cook ourselves sausages and mash and
things with a really high stodge content, because that was the cheapest
way to eat.` Eh,' says Jeff, accent deepening with the faraway look in
his eyes. You could always tell when we had just come off the road, we'd
all be walking around really spotty ..." "We had some good times then,
"adds Jeff. "Once we got to this club in Newcastle and started to bring
the equipment in. They've got their own PA folks!) The owners just
looked amazed, but didn't say anything until we brought in the mixing
desk. We began to set it up at the back of the hall, and that did it!
This guy came storming over and told us that no way could we fix our
organ up at the back of the hall - it had to be on stage with the rest
of the gear! He thought it was some kind of synthesizer or something!"
Whilst they were doing the rounds of the clubs up north, punk was just
establishing itself in London. Short trips down south were too
impractical so they moved to Stoke Newington and joined the New Wave
extravaganza.
"We never change the music -just the way we look. Bobo didn't change,
he's had short hair and those clothes ever since we've known him, but
the rest of us finally gave in to his nagging and cut our hair. We still
kepf in the heavier numbers, and we had been doing a lot of the material
for a long time," stresses Jeff emphatically.
| "We try to get
across as much melody as we can in the numbers, as well as
the lyrical content," interjects Andy. "We've always done a
few heavier songs, a few light ones like `The Boyfriends'
and of course, we've been doing `Harry' for ages now. For
the uninitiated, `Harry' is a song protesting against the
persecution of gay people by society. In the form of a
dramatic monologue over a basic backing track, Bobo takes
the role of the persecutor, picking upon members of the
audience as the persecuted. Chillingly effective, it is
still the highlight."
We're lucky because we haven't
been labelled as jumping on the bandwagon or anything - even
with the songs which bring comparisons with Tom Robinson,
`Harry' and `Nobody Loves You When You're Old And
Gay'.""Tom's a good bloke," declares Jeff. "He came to see
us when he was still in Cafe Society and has helped us out
by introducing us to people and getting us some support
spots when we were starting down here. Bobo knew him a bit
better than us, and knew he wasn't happy with his old band,
so he asked him to join us. Tom had just started getting his
own band together though, and I'm glad to say he's never
looked back since!" |
 |
Like TRB, Dead Fingers Talk take a
political stand on a few of their numbers ~ do they think that politics
have a place in music? "I think everything's got a place in music,"
ponders Jeff. "Love, politics ... anything; it's an ideal vehicle for
somebody to get a message across. "I don't think everyone wants to hear
it though," interrupts Andy. "There are the disco types, and the
housewife market who just want to hear a good tune, with words as a kind
of optional extra. "But" he concedes, "people do get off if you're
singing about something that they agree with, it's like giving them a
pat on the back."
"I agree though, you can go too far into the political thing, and kill
it. It's like Leonard Cohen, he's a good lyric writer but he's always so
depressive. But then groups like Kansas and Styx get attacked for having
no content in their words, for having fairytale lyrics-that sound like
they come from Marvel comics. "The thing is," he concludes, as the tape
runs out, "there's a lot of people who like Marvel comics." |
