Reflecting on the Nineties

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The FIFA World Cup, streaming live on Fox One, offers a subject to change seefox. com for complete terms and conditions This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move Another smart move getting help from one of State Farm's nineteen thousand local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling J another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state Hello and welcome to Talk nineties to Meet where the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out. Sad for you, but I'm afraid Deirdre Bashford doesn't care because she's too busy being this week's Talk nineties quQeen. Deirre put her money where her mouth is or maybe where my mouth is and decided to become a Talk nineties Patreon member and now she is resplendent in her royal smuggery Well done, Qeen Deredreie, and thank you. And she is joined this week by our new Talk nineties King, King Jeremy Brown, who's showcasing those stolen jewels with a plum Thank you, King Jeremy. Enjoy everyone bowing and scraping before you for seven whole days If you too would like to become Talk nineties royalty, then why not pop over to patreon. com and search for Talk nineties to Me. For just a few pounds a month you'll also get extras like episodes about nineties Mags and the chance to get your hands on some Talk nineties to mee merch And if you can't afford to do that, worry not. We would love you to email us. We're going to do a nineties festival episode. So we want your most ridiculous tales of festival, Dering D and Dering donon't. So dig them up And you can send them as an email to talkal nineties to me at podmasters. co d. uk or as a voice note, you can DM us on our Instagram page, veryy modern. Okay. now On with the show. This is n is to me, where we punce around in an indie band for a couple of years, then blag our way into a record company, become a successful A and R person through Mic flowers pops of all people, turn down coldplay, sign Mogw, enjoy the highs and more highs of music business success before hopping off the slowing gravy train and becoming a best selling author script writer. I'm Miranda Sawyer and this week on Talk nineties To me, I am delighted to be talking to John Niven, writer of books, movies and plays such as Kill Your Friends, Kill them All, Straight White Male, Oh Brother, The Fathers and the Battle, and as I mentioned, an actual A and R man in the actual nineties who lived To tell the tale. You made it all sound so simple in that entum around Yeah. It's so simple. Okay, welcome, John. Look, your first book, Kill Your Friends, which came out in two thousand eight, is generally described as an American psycho version of yourour years in A andR. So I feel like we should talk about your years in A and R prerevious two your baptism of fire in andR. You were in an indie band How would you describe your indie band? Indie band, our mission statement was to sort of cross pollinate television with Credence Clearwater Revival. That was a kind of. sort of chugling take and sort of NY alt guitar rock. with a bit of Dylan in the band in the mix too So this was not a popular concept in nineteen eighty seven eighty eight. Had we hung around for the another few years, you know? Yeah It might have been al right. It might have been all right, Miranda. What was the name of your band? The Washing Stones. So That wass a good name. It was. It was a good band name. it wass performed by was Bill Prince's band. Bill was in the loft with Pete Aster and t successful and the band of the mid eighties and then That was, I guess' eighty seven. I joined the group Yeah, it's on twenty one in the back of a tour bus' going to Leicester I think, I believe. And what did you feel like you learnnt from that experience Don't trust Waty. No I wasn' all in experienence that it was a fairly impoverished way of life. It was great fun for a couple of years And then I remember being at a London marathon in nineteen eighty nine in between four of us. we didn't have enough money for an ice cream cone And I was getting through about twenty three at that point twenty two and it was You know I've been a student for few years and then it was this and I was like, ye. kindind of like to make some money at some point. so that sort of segues into, you know, going back to finish my degree and then winding up in AR And you did basically you did an English degree. and then you went to A and R. But how did you manage to do that? Because I always think You know, I mean, it's a terrible thing to say to young people these days, but actually quite often, like I got my job, I can't really believe how I got my job, you know, I entwered an advert, but then they happen to like me. And it's like that doesn't really seem to happen these days. How did you get your job in AR? It wasn't the some both a time and it was early ninetiesm at this point ninety two, ninety three I started working a little indie label in Glasgow. my cousins thoughtks I'd been in the indie band that I knew how to put records out. So I hung out with Jeff Barret a about bit and saw him talk about distribution and pricing and stuff. I didn't really have any. Jeff Barret obviously often ha who' run out the Wishing Stones label four heavenly Anyho Kevin said, you must know about that stuff. He's a record shopping glass good at the time. This was in the early nineties where you could you know, you put a little dance twelve inch andell seven thousand copies of it in vinyl. This was before. So Pretty soon there was going to be more people making records than they were buying them. but there was a little window where that wasn't the case. So he said, I want to start putting records out. People bring demos in the shop all the time. Do you want to come and help me do it? It wass like a hundred quit a week or something and it was just for the laalls at that point. But It was great fun and we did put a few echors out it did really well and we started going to used to all these dance music conferences, you remember that DMC MixMag G guys. they would have this big conference in Amsterdam and that all the major labels would send inR people Basically can you swear on this podcast? You can swear on this podcast Basically get conted for four days and you know, and somehow you might sign a record that or license some crazed fucking Danish gabber track at the end of this. So anywh where I started meeting guys from maj just at these things, some of whom being some of the guys from London Records and I was I cant you I was twenty three twenty four, being fairly personable Young man at the time, Manda we all got on and then When they say there's a product manager job coming up at London, you should apply for it. And what is a product manager? a productuct manager is a kind of liaison role at the rec company. You sort of liaise between the in our department the marketing department pr and promotions, you in the day you got to make sure all the sort of label copyies right and the sleeve you deal with the sleeve design and all that. It's the sort of marketing it's in the marketing department, the guy who pulls it all together. Okay, yeah. so you put it all together. so the CD looks nice or the vinyl looksice and you got the right railing is correct. Yeah and you get the right mixes in and all that kind of sh you. It's a coordination rle It took me two years to figure all that out. I was absolutely uselful. I've been absolutely useless at every job I've ever had, but I was spectacularly useless at that. So I arrived in ' ninety four. I think the first thing I handed was Goldie Gold's market, and I think you had one recently didn't you? Yeah it did. The gold one. So that was a fun baptism of fire. Goldi is he is who he is and like basically you like try and box him in or hold ono his co coattails because he's going to do what he's going do. And this was, you know I was working with Goldias he entered his imperial phase, which is always a fun time to be around pop stars the old imperial phase. Not Not many them look back l and go, I was a really reasonable well behaved person during my imperial phase. It Emperors and imperial faces tending not to be altog good things for the people around them. But it was fun and we got through it, we survived that, but I can't I I'd come from a kind of indie shoestring no budget world to suddenly I I think it started at about twenty eight grand a year at London, which in nineteen ninety four was quite a's good It's junk And but you also got a company car, you got an expense account you got a fuel card, you just got fill the car up hand on this f. you, you didn't pay for anything. everything went expenses so it was quite a, you know, Lux lifestyle from where I don't know, as I said, I' been at university then India Band then worked for India Labels. I'd been popless. It was suddenly I moved to Notting Hill in this summer in ' ninety four and it was just, you know, and it was as you remember from that time It was, you know, we're at this sort of u the we were cigarettes and alcohol part of the Bit pop part curve. were this is hardcore carve was a few years distant. So it was all good, fun, you know. And the job at London, I quickly I quite quickly realized that the marketing department wasn't very sexy, that the real sort of The place you wanted to be if you hadd any ambition and sort of talent was youR. Yeah. And you got in there? had plenty of ambassition and no talent, Miranda. so we c our way in there KNR I mean, ANO is really interesting and when you describe it in Kill your friends, O obviously Kill Y your friendriends is like a satire of the music industry, but it's also In order for anything to be a satireite, it's really accurate. You know, so everything is exaggerated. I mean there's terrible murders in it and there's like, you know, appalling sexism and racism and everything like that. But the actual kind of structure of what the main character Stehven Stellfox is doing is like exactly like A and R. He is doing A and R And that is from your experience and The main thing that comes across about it is the kind of look of it. So everybody's doing A and R. thinks that they've got brilliant ears, like we all do. I think I've got amazing ears. I've been a billionaire in or, I can recognise a pop song. Do you know what I mean? We all think we've got amazing ears There's something random about pop music. you don't know what's going to hit. you might get really enthused about a band that doesn't nobody else likes. You can't always get it right. And actually with A and R, you know, at a certain point you lay out the stats and it's like one in ten thousand's going make it, you know. I mean, you get the old guy who's genuality and that thing of having good deals as Benet at London and Tracy on a run saying, you know, what banana rama find you on cannibals He's seventeen all saints Sugar. you don't have a run like that of pulp music and lace, you get a great year for what h. record as and b O later on some of the Andy McDonald's independente they I mean, Andy did, you know Beautiful South, Billy Bragg, Paul Whayer Travis, you know, was once you get into those runs of Ka, genuinely you're good at what you do, you know? Yeah. this was not me. was not I was not that guy. And I think looking back with the benefit of her old friend, hindsight. I think to do well in anything you have to kind of take it seriously, you have to play the game quite seriously and I've never really took someome would say it still take absolutely nothing seriously. Apart from writing, I was when I realized because other thing when I was younger other than a musician that wanted to be was an novoist, a writer. and that never really went away. And when I got a shot at that, look when I was writing Kill your friends, you know Who's that post loy with these ten thousand dollars? Malcolm Gladwell, ten thousand. I mean, I think I left the music business in two thousand two I got the deal of Ker friendriends in two thousand six. So those four years I probably did put those ten thousand ten thousand dollars into trying to write the book But you know, that was that was People sometimes say, Oh so when you were Aag gua in the nineties did you have the notebook acc and you're thinking one day this would be great material for a novel. No, sadly no. I did keep a sporadic diary during that period which is for hilarious reading when I was sort of writing my diary from ninety four. When were you writing it on the comeown? Yeah, usually at my sort of desk early morning the odd period the sobriety the diary probably get more attention But it was always just like, you look back in that and you went out five nights a week. Yeah. I guess this is also being in your twenties, isn't it? So Yeah. But it's also the job, you have to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. you go and see, you know, a bunch of bandans, you know I think someeday my wife was seeing a friend of hs was down in Brighton at great escape this week and she mentioned this in my blood lter when I was like, o my God, That's that would be something like back in the day was like three nights of no sleep and, you know. But you could kind of do it then, you know, when you're twenty seven, twenty eight, you have you feel about crapping the mor and you borer up the lunchtime, you know. Now you've left you be in hospital, of course for a month. Yeah, you don't want to do it now. But I mean you were working So London reccords when you were working there, obviously they did like Bana Rom seventeen or sence finding incountibles, you know, like You know really kind of amazing Hit But the reason Why you were you kind of like got your break at ANR was actually you signed a really big pop hit, which was Mike Flowers. Yeah, yeah. that was again just total flooky luck. you said What happened? It was in the run up to Christmas ninety five, wasn't it? I'd been out of Harvey Goldsmith partarty Please it was Mayfair Black Gpe played there around then it was briefly, was it called I can'tember the name of the venue, but it was briefly sort of happenarting venue You know, I went to party there and Mike Flair's pops was the musical entertainment. They were on stage just playing, you know their, you know E a listening cover versions of Age of Aquarius and all that kind of thing. quite quite, you know, you'd the wig on and you'd turn around and look it's like a kind of like like a pissager sixties Yeah stick was more the kind of the T you know, Ronnie Hazel Hoosts TV orrchestra was that kind of thing he was piroting And perfect musing My friend Liam who worked for Harvey Goldsmith at the time had booked him. We sort of did some drugs that night, got off her head And I enter the office next day. I remember Nick Rapfael who's went on to run capital recs in a very success exec He said, what did you do seeing a gests last night? and said, Yes, I was buy the M makefl those popes. I didn't want to say I'd just beat a party. so I sort of threw the band and I was like, yeah I was working. I was working. He said any hatchs that went now was old covers. I remember I'm going I fuck, fuck them much So that's the end of that. Two days later I woke up in flat not hell and Chris Evans break for sure as we used to wake up to then he's playingl this version. a wonderful And it's like' easy listening sort of version. and it gets to the end of it and says that's to make for those pops. H Stick Chris said that was the original track. He found out what No had rippedolef. But he said,, I'll be playing that Iiter sat bolt upright and b went, Ohh my god, these the fucking guysy I saw the other night. I mean Chris Eans at the time, it's difficult for younger listeners to comprehend the sort of media reach of one show being like eighteen million, twenty million homes. But basically if he's going to play your record every day of the week, you're guaranteed a hat So I thought I've got to sign this fucking record and a rang Ler and went You gott to hook me up about first now this morning I think I was just fast enough that I was the first guy on the phone and because I'd seen the other night in the newleum I went over there and I think we lived in Bartera, went for a lunch at a French restaurant in Bartersea. I think we paid fifty grand the rights for the single, which was quite a lot at the time. that was, you know, but by the end of the day, desks were trying to sign it a whole bunch of labels. But you had signed it, like and they were decent enough to say, yeep, we're going with you Because sometimes like in your in the book, you know like you could say to Mike Flowers Pops or whoever, would you like to sign with me and they go, Yeah, cheheers, you shake hands. and then somebody else comes in with more money and they go, actuallyually, I'm really sorry, you seem like a nice guy but I'm going somewhere else. I think the thing that swung it for usds was London D have a reputation has been a fantastic singles company. and sure en off, we done a fantastic job with the single N albums for of an isue. N me as I say, as he used to say, nameame me three bands that have ever made their third album in London Record. It's not a long N a long list, my friend Um So anyway, so we did the deal for the single and this was I mean it was one hesitates to put it in the same pany as the live a record, but this had to come together in I think we five weeks for everything, you know, So we had to move pretty quickly, but we got it in the shops in to. Yeah for Christmas and Membody says m I think we shipped half a million singles, which was a gold record for that t and I to bring a goldreaker for that? is't actually it's good. It's amazing. haveave you not got a gold? I do somewhere, yeah. But Again, it wasn't cool to put these sts. it smashhing nicy to put a gold disk in your wall or either your office or your house. Yeah. The cool thing to do you sort of leave a little stack them if you had a few at the sort of corner of the sofa so that they sort glide visitor M might support it, but, you know, so They exist for you know, gauche enough to fit them up in the wall. Okay, so that means that you so you signed M Flowers pops and you genuinely, you know, you signed it, you were quick off the markart, you signed them, you spotted it was going to be a hit. You are now a successful A and Ran Yes. you are So you've brought in loads of money to the company and you know, you've already got your ree wheels. I'll go out of marketing and into AR off the back a. Yeah off the back. So you're now an AR man, which is like the coolest job in the company. that always ANR people are definitely the coolest. So that means you're going out but did you feel like pressured like I have to sign something else and it has to be amazing? Oh yeah, There is no environment that runs more on what have you done for me lately than AR. So the flush of I thought, well, we've just we' very nearly the Christmas number one. I think Michael Jackson out solders a song by a couple of thousand records. I still cannot hear the opening bars of that song without smashing the fucking house up It's reasonable, It's not a very good I know. And then we're all at the Brts come February that year, which Jarvis got up and we're all cheering. I remember standing the table cheering Jarvis on as he was moanning the fucker. Because I mean the faces in the room before Jarvis got up, the Brts in ' ninety six. you looked around, it was like when Christy the Clown tries to do the Chinese thing and he just pans around the a horrified faces. He was up there doing his Christ thing and kids come up and touch him and everything's just like horrified sort of jooying the flow know. And it went on and on and on and on on and on ye yeah. ye. And so yeah, but yeah, I mean soly threw everything at that record to get to number one. it was, you know. So anyh, but we didn't but I thought that the answer your question. I thought that the glow of that these exist that would seem be good for look But you know, Cumb' Stood it was like, okay, what's happening? What el was she going? I'm like So we' then we were trying to make the Make Flows album. And again donning these roist tinted spectacles, I'm very fond of what we should have done which just rush a live album out and the first week of January and a soft chart and off the back of the sgle Mike had other than Mike wanted to make a proper record in Living in Northlea Stings and, you know, and f well, fair fine, but it took a long time. we didn't get the album out until I think were the summer But which time it was like, you know, it was gone. Things seemed to move quite fast at that time, didn't they? turned out Miranda that The drunken novelty wck of purchase of a few million office workers at Christmas There's no way to build a proper fan base Who knew? Who knew? Wh those people all of those people went in it for the long haul, I don't know. So yeah, that Mike was really he wass a really funny guy and very clever guy, very clever man. He really knew music and pop culture very well, you know? Well, you know, good on him mean he did well. Yeah. So him but yeah then it was kind of what's next stududies Play Come together on a Windows eleven PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows eleven PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft three hundred sixty five Pmium, and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller Lear more at windows d. com slash student offer. Law S supppplies last ends june thirtieth turns at aka d. mS slash college PC This summer, serve up the cookout cllassics, Oscar Meyer Hot doogs and Heinz mustard. 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And that is like Kill your friends is kind of based around the whole year of ' ninety seven, which I think is a great point to put it at. Yeah. But for you, you're now into ' ninety six, you're like, I'm a successful A and R man and you're going to gigs And you're presumably being sent loads of tapes Was there moments where you thought, okay, I've definitely got something or I mean, how did it work for you? I was off the job in publishing and art to go and do publishing in art Independentity She was a McDonald's new company after Gk. She sold Gesk to Polygrram And he set up this newlyvel independion into the first settinges were Travis so went and did publishing, you know there When was nice. Well, I kind of thought it'd be less stress but a way because you know, you're not making the records. you just gota look at what the cool record company are saying and then get a shpebook out kind of. So said, wouldould you like to sign five albums with us? We respect you as writers. And did you feel stressed though? and you like Oh yeah it was hugely stressful all the time because you know, you know there's There would be a massive ER scramble every couple of months I didnn't Some of them would come to nothing. Some of them would kind of briefly look like they were going to sell some recakers and didn actually know what. And some, you know, for for every cld play there's a bunch of embraces and for every bunch of embraces, there's a bunch even below that who may be able to And weirdly. I mean, embraced it quite well. You know, what's really funny is that when you like like when you think about that time because obviously there'sertain bands that We can all remember because they're incredibly successful or maybe they have something that you know that hit our heart at the time. But when I was rereading your book, like this's amazing amount of bams that you mentioned. I was like, oh my God, I remember them L you do a really brilliant thing where you list bands and they're like, some of them are real, some of them are not, some of them are successful, some of them are not And like literally there's like the beekeepers Lunar, Feline proper, lower, Arnold, the Dub pistols, yes, we remember, the high the Hbirds Z Aloof, spooky Ruben, Sally Bur just like You list all these ones, but then there's Finley Cuay in there. There's Tiger in there who I remember obviously, Robbie Williams, you know, Kinicki, but there's also people like Foyle, Peach, Eether, Charlotte Kelly And all these people at the time considered kind of be on the same level, wouldn't they? Yeah yeah. very much so. I mean, when I was doing the I was writing the novel was about two thousand four. Yeah. So it wasn't that long after the events, seven years. but I spent a lot of time at the newspaper library in Hendon going through all issues of Music Week And because every few bands I remember would be like five or six have completely forgotten about also' a great st was each chapter a your friends has a sort of A and R exec talking about some act who are going to be absolutely massive and he's talking about like three colors red or Gina G or's going to be bigger than Madonna you know something. It was quite fun getting to hang a few of my peers for those quotes. But the point of those quotes cumulatively is that William Goldman thing, no oneind knows anything I these guys are quoting Aln McGe and Robber Strutter, some of the most successful record executives the country's produced. And you know, A everybody calls it wrong all the time, you know? That's I think he says in the novel is If you can get it right once or twice out of ten, you're doing really well. You're ahead of the curve. there's a lot of people who like myself who never get it, right But you do, I mean, you say Moguay? Well, okay, but Moguay, I think well, but again Okay you mentioned in your interim. Whenever I tell this story peopleople of they hear that snip at that tundown co play and they think I' like Chris Martin Morffice and you know, I was giv it, you can't sing, you can't play. you look awful It wasn't like that. just we got the dem was actually Independenti at that point and we got the dem was as with Muse with all the other labels. Yeah. And I remember thinking it's a bit of the early stuff and yellow was in my defense. yellow wasn't in that demo. but I remember just think it was a bit sub radio head does the world need another one of them? It turned out it really did. and could have used a few more. I didn't really get that. It's funny because also at the time, obviously There was radiohead doing man. It actually quite mad stuff for Radiohead really. And you know, like OK computer like for quite a lot of people was a like a big shock. Yeah. it just happened that everybody liked it. But because of that, you're always going to get bands that are a bit like that that come through. and some of them are going to be successful. know we could say Travis, Colplay, those kind of bands, but For every one of those, there have been fifty other bands that sound quite similar. who got signed who got signed that you had to hear and you had to be able to tell the difference. Yeah. youve as the cliche goes, you leve your life forward. And you don't know in the moment like, you know part of the part of the talent in our is You're not signing what it is now you can try to see what it could be in two or three years time with development money. If you look at the very LEU too, s seventy eight, seventy nine they look up. Ohold, no ort of run through a jumbble sail covered in glue and they're really sort of odd and clunky and rudimentary musically. You have no idea that they're going to be making war on the Jorsa tree within four or five years, you know Yeah It's hard to tell. It's hard to sit to for or you're looking know, The Beatles in nineteen sixty one, sixty two, you don't seeing Sergeant Paper coming in five years are y? It's kind of sometimes you just I think We roll the dice in the person, you know I remember when Dave Balve saying Allah I think they're still called Seymour. Yeah. We're on a drink somewhere he said off se this band Seymour. that he goes are not very not very good It' something a bit of singer. Yeah. And sometimes a kind of that's But you know what that thing is about the singer, which you do also mention in the book is that like absolute drive Like so like with Damon, I like remember meeting him like I suppose when they were blur because Food records are just around the corner from Slashit. so we used to drink in the same pub And the main thing that was really obvious with Damon was that he needed to succeed. And in fact, he became a nicer person once he became successful. Yeah. And I think that you write a really brilliant kind of I mean there's a lot of ranting in the book. That is a really brilliant rant you say There's a lot of writing. Yeah, but you say here, like you say, Madonna, Bono, the Spice Girls, Noel Gallgher, Kylie, do you really think any of that lot are talented? Don't make me fucking laugh. What they are is ambitious This is where the big money is fuck talent, forget rock and roll. It just turned out the other way out of the school yard Bono could have been a very successful CEO of a huge armaments manufacturer. Which is really funny, but what you're saying is like these people 've got a rocket up their bum and they're going to succeed. Whatever they do I mean, is Madonna the best sing are the best dance' the best? No, but she works really hard and she's really good focused and ambitious and that's kind of the deep money scene as Ambition is ambition off the out Strips toent are certainly you can, you know I think stille focuses hereah, the guitar shops of Britain are stuffed with really talented guitar players Yeah flog in guitars to other, you know, There's no galculus tart your taper not by mel your milouse, you know But there' something that was focused and driven.. And again, part of the in our g was to try and sort of spot that early doors, you know? I mean, I thought Moruay would be bigger than Pink Floyd. I thought at that point I could see them being there although the grateful dead might be more than allgy. But that said Morgi you know, could still sell Brxton Academy like that are still t and hugely successful degree years down the line. So you know,'s They ended up having a career I think not dissimilar to new orders Well, they never really peaked. You know, S of these bands peak. you look at Matt Johnson there around the time of infected, you remember how big that was? It was enormous. There was no way forward from after that really. As someenly talking heads around stoped making sense. It was so huge It was kind of yeah, what after that a group up like New O or indeed Moguay or all the dead, they just kind of go along and they build the fan base it gets bigger and bigger and they don't really go anywhere. They don't leave them those people, you know. Yeah, exactly. and Yeah and more people come to them. So like, yeah, exactly. you were right, Mogui were correct. Yeah bigig tick. They gave you the A and R crown our generation you see the chemical bs and the manics of two groups that still routinely make greatreat new records, you know, with that haven't just g to the greatest hits Y, definly in the circuit you know. And you became friends with Jame Dean Bradfield, didn't you? Y? Yeah because you lived close to him. There's a really sweet quote that I found in an interview where you said it became a bit like Seinfeldt and you would just be like You became friends and you would like just burst into each other's house. Oh we did we just me and Nick you other the flat just around the corner from James and Merorville for most of the late nineties, earllinoies. And yet it was the Seinfield years call Oh what was other one? Me and James were the only two heterosexual men in you who we would openly admit to liking friends And so there was the whatever on the rare occasions you go through a little period of not drinking trying to, you know get your lat together. you know, James was in an own drinking P actually did the fun Bobby Nke and the door The flap m came around, you can't even let knark as boring. You know, when fun bobby stops drinking and friends So throwing ramming the nineties references in here R. You are indeed. So you like One of the other factors about knocking around with someone like James Dean Bradfield, Jonies Bfield, when he lived in London, was out a lot. I think more than people perhaps realize because he's, I think still naturally quite shy, but he was out a lot and he was very convivial He drank a lot and he was in all the rightaces wasn't he J just like going out. As we all did? Yeah, exactly as you all did So like I suppose what I want to talk to you about is a bit about that. If you're in ANR or the music industry at that time, you're just out all the time, aren't you? You're out like We all make are kind You know the guys like Robert Tundler and Nicty and James and we got a sort of group of us. We all kind of met through the Sunday social at the Albany. Yeah. That was the summer of ' ninety four that happened should I just moved to London and He The guysy started doing that every Sunday and a Sunday was a was Sunday is a kind of pros night to go because you know when like Friday and Saturday nights in Central London, especially Saturs is kind of amateur or it's kind of it's horrible. It's horrible. It's the office and the bridge and tunnel down the sort of allbar one, you know. But Sundays and Mondays are kind of the more thats that was a pro night you'd always go, you know And the Sunday social, Robin from Heavenly, Robin Turner from Heavenly basically set up because he saw the Chemical brothers and he wanted somewhere for them to play in London. St still the Dus Brothers at that point? Yeah, still the Dus Brothers. So he wanted somewhere for them to play in London and he found this little venue. And obviously' still Sunday drinking hours, which are very different in the nineties There was basically a bit in the middle of the Sunday when you could drink between like eleven and two, then no pubs opened. and then they opened again at seven till eleven and that was it. Yeah. And that was the time when the social was on. Yeah. I think the idea Sunday afternoon was meant to be quite chilled but pretty quickly became absolute carnage, you know, and Monday's not existing for any day pretty soon Yeah, um Yeah, a lot yeah, a lot of good nights after that winding up back at p people's flats and houses and West London toill all those yeah It turned out not to be the greatest start to the working week. This is going to the Sunday social But it got so happy. I mean a few weeks into it you turn around there's like whaing at the bar wow and Tricky and Bork and it was like, you know Do you not know that real classic story about Tricky DJing at the social where he turns up with he turns up to DJ and the bountters won't let him in because they're scared of him and then they're like, No no, no, he's DJing. And then they get him in and he puts on a record at the wrong speed Looks at it place it all the way through takes it off, dead air puts another one on. And just that was his DJ because he is tricky That's how he did it. So were you were going out to all these mad places. toowards the end of the nineties it was like the Met bar and all these quite swanky kind of joints, weren't they I remember joining Sw House when it opened the first one Greek Street at that would have been ninety five because they had valley parking whichich was such a big perk in London at the time, you know, you know, Whennce you go to L.A, you experience the joys of Vally Parkula. how do you live any other way? Just tors your keys to some madman and go about your business and they bring your car back there running around London trying to find a parkking meter. I said, yeah, you used to you give them the carcage and they'd go from park it and like the NCP in Chinatown or something. and then you'd give them ten minutes noticing you' leaving and your car would majestically appear at the cub. wasw It was fantastic And youd tip the guy of five on and that was up So ye that only last a year or two before they realize, yeah this is a nightmare not in head. But anyw, that kind of sol house curve that ended up with By the late nineties the mate bar, that's what started in the second half of the decade. And I think that's what can You know, no Galic has quite a good take in this is for that first year or two of success, you're still wearing the same sort of clothes as your audience. you're still kind of living a comparable lifestyle, you know? Maybe was a bit more exciting and murried, but not closely. By the time you get look sort of ninety seven, ninety eight, I think you're into the w where the can. Your lifestyles are rocks are so removed from your audience. You can see Jarvis beginning to sort of deal with this l, don't you? I think one of the other running gags and kill your friends is that Stefolks cannot comprehend OK compputer, but he thinks Be here now is an untouchable masterpiece. Yeah Pfect to every detail. Yeah. because I'm a big fan of cocaine albums. cocain albums whether it's the clashes give them en off Rpe, Steel Town be Big Country Um be here now Theing album is a tremendous genre that I feelie doesn't get enough attention. Yeah, you could definitely make some kind of like there's a playlist to be made. Oh ye I have one my friend.. Each track is really fucking long. Yeah a sixty eight minute track defined with a pleure of guitar overdubs The guitar player wanks himself into an unconscious frenzy of guitar owningism til three or four o'clock in the morning in the studio And also they tend to c they tend to end the imperial phace of a group's careers Tusk obviously been another tremendous cocaine album. They end the imperial phase. E the second com in Oh yeah, sorry, not even absolute syncome, which I love I should exed that I fucking love most of these records. So that's perhaps seen more of me than we want do in this junure. I have to say that even though Stell Fox obviously worships be here now and doesn't really understand OK compomputers, there is a really beautiful piece of writing that you did in Kill Your Friends about him hearing Radio head Pay Glastonbury ninety seven which was a notoriously very, very rainy Glastonbury like apocalyptic. Rayio Head go on. They play absolutely brilliantly, but they hate every minute of it. Tom Newk halfway through says to Ed, that's it. I'm off. half through the gig, but for the audience it was completely transformative and you're writing about it for Steell fooxes is wonderful. Like I have to say, it's really beautiful. He basically says White light washes over the crowd. You can see the rain drops, billions of them suspended in the light above us and I realise we're watching Radio Head and he's singing rain down. And I don't like Radio Head because I don't know what they want. but it's really beautiful. And Darren turns to me and I think he's crying and maybe you are not alone in the universe and for a moment there, I lose myself That is what it was like And I'm so very flattered and pleased that you that you mentioned that part because that was a very it's the only moment in the entire novel his soul approaches anything in the realms of poetry or understanding of art or appreciation or enjoyment, you know It's the only and it's a very deliberate artistic choice, that to give him that one tiny pek where it could almost I get this is this can be really beautiful, you know, rather than just a commodity say Yeah. I was there for that Rself absolutely spangled out my mind in narcotics. but it was an incredibly powerful moment, you know Even and and even being with a lot of quite cynical hard button. A and our people, you know, And the fact that the band hated it, you know, we only knew that later, you know, we don't know that in the moment. No, of course not But yeah, that was a that was the mudy year, wasn't it? It was very mud. Y. And was some polling tour manager who took three hours to get to London We been there rem we've been the tour bus for hours and honey fuck we Brextiton? There's like I don't know why we know this I don't know how this happened We'd I think we'd done all the cocaine by the time we got out of London and we started on the base speed And that yeah went the way you can imagine the table. rememember we got to the site and like But the other thing around the kids don't realize is back in those days no way you didn't know what was happening down there when you're in a van in the way there. There was no social know, Well go here's what's happening. So in our heads think we're expecting to get off into bright sunshine and the van toull up get off into biblical morning soon. O course nobody's get well these thingsil that this was before because Glasterbury I started going in ninety three And I went every year and it had been hot, hot, hot every year.een n, four night, five nays,. And suddenly it was friend a terrible rain old friend She went, Hey, I got this other. I can do this other stuff. Check this out. I like what the fuck is happening? And so I get out the tour bus and fail into this mud with a schlock, my shoes get sucked off. So so I was suddenly L with me I think I'd carryer bags tied around my feet for a bit and then I remember double dropping some ease. Jumping in an oil drum in front of John Peer, terrified John Peer and his family And Joining Kart ran up and bo his oil drum all us I just was just, o my go. Andess was within ten minutes of arriving on site, this was a sort of opening salvo. Yeah. Did you get rolled in the oil drum? I don't know though I don't think I got rolled, No. But yeah, it That was it. Qite again quite the weak quite the opening. Quite quite the No wonder Boston to tearson made yourhe head come on quite Yeah. I mean, that is the point in the book when I think generally we know You know, we all know that music can is one of the most powerful things that can exist. And when it's right, it's absolutely like it will change your life. And the thing that's kind of so elillusive about that about being an ANR person is that actually fundamentally that's what we're all looking for. and you want to be able to provroide that to find the band that will make that and give it to people and change everybody's lives. That what That's what you're looking for. It's just so hard to get it. I think that holds true for all creative industries, whether you're a movie executive, because nobody wants to read FT horrible scripts. some, you know, attempt to remake a remake of a remake. everybody wants to be astonished. everyverybody wants to read the fucking Godfather or whatever, you know, wants to read some incredibly original movving piece of work, you know, whether it's a book or a script and a band, you know, that's kind of You know, but kiss so many frogs on the way to that that it becomes kind of embittering sometimes and you know do get very, you know cynical a bit there and you know, and then the process of ones the successful You know, that little window that Noah was talking about where youre kind of it's all great fun and you're a nice person that quite quickly give way to the imperial phrase Diva who sort of makes every his life a nightmare, you know, it' you get quite cynical with people Yeah and yeah It's good that you moved out of it. othertherwise you you know like I don't know what would have happened to your cynicism, John It's a fair point. Well, yes, of course, I am given my nature of background. I'm quite a cynical person, but I also know it. You can't be cynical and be a novelist. The act of sitting down to write a novel, that act of creation is by definition one of childish optimism and buffoonery, even you know. Well're especially writing a first novel Because you know with the cynical voice you is going, nobody cares. Nobody is going to care about it. You' out your mind, go and become a teacher. what are you doing? That's the cynical voice. But there's part of you is thinking,, I can you know that childli wonder bit is like I can maybe bring something to the whel that nobody else is quite done and you have to try and listen to that voice, you know Yeah And you did and it worked. work And it worked. as my mum would say, we're not down the mines The summer, Prime Vide takes you back before legally blonde, before law school and into the world of Elle Woods in high school. Set in nineteen ninety five, this Gemini vegetarian knows exactly who she is until her family moves from Belair to Seattle. Packed with iconic fashion, nineties nostalgia, and a throwback soundtrack, Elle proves one thing Law school was hard. High school was harder. From the world of legally blonde, watch Al, a new original series only on Prime video july first whatever your think. It could be anything Canva helps you make that thing Campa is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic AI tool things social media your thing, generate images or videos of your thing, make texts or presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing, Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing Chronic migraine is fifteen or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more Plbox, on Aach linum toxin A prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It's not for those with fourteen or fewer headache days a month. It prevents on average eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection, site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don'tceive Botox if there's a skin infection Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lugaric's disease, myasthenia Gravis, or Lambd Eaten syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit Botoxchronicmigraine. com or call one eight hundred four four Botox to learn more Do you want to talk really quickly about the battle? Because what's interesting is that obviously you've written about loads of different things, you know I would say fundamentally about masculinity, but you know, like you've written about a lot, a lot of different things. And you return to kind of the nineties for the battle, which is a play that was on in Birmingham, Manchester. and it's about the Burvers Oasis battle, isn't it? You involved me early on in this because you because becausecause basically I interviewed Nel Galligan and he came out with a kind of the hardcore quote about Damon. Yeah, an eight. And and then you turned it into a script, which is like on one level faithful to the material and then goes completely nuts at the end. And you were such a good sporter but that, I should say, Thankk you. Yeah You were a really good sporter but being in the thing. you were brilliantly played with by a wonderful artist called Iona Chapman. Yes. Well somebody sent me her a picture because we had mutual friends and I said, I can't believe somebody's playing me in a play. No. She was great. She's really terrific at. You're very fortunate then But yeah I didn't I was approached by the producer Simon F. I was like three years ago. He said, you think there might be a fun play in the battle for number one between Blood and Isis? And he knew because I Kill your friends it was my patch, if you will. And he knew I wrote movies, but I hadn't written to the theater And and actuallyally at to them as I kind of no No, I can't see that working And I also kind of thought he wanted Julie Rom Bret Pp, the musical Information mark I that you don't really want to do. But then as I thought about it, I thought there could be a really funny David Mammet sort of men screaming each other in hot rooms about something that when we pull the camera back, It's ridiculous. Who cares which of these pot breakups is number one? ultimately. But I thought if we could invest it with Cuban missile crisis sort of stakes for the protagonists, that's inherently quite comic So I pitched that sort of take and he said, Yeahes, sure, someone often wrote a draft. are hilred when often wrote the draft I think there were a lot of jobs you had on they don't actually come to fruition. and then we got a fabulous director Matthew Dunster who directed the show. to him J have been an experienced first time theatater writer, I did all these things you know in a cast like thirteen and like ten sets and stuff and it was a lot of moving parts which next time around You just do four people. just do one band. There' be four people in one set, you know But anyway, it came out. I thought Mas did such a great job to exirectit the play and it went gangbusters in Birbanham and Manchester, the audies, you know, with standovations, most nights and people lo that. But what was interesting to me the reason I got in touch with you about the null quote is Like yourself, I was sort of so busy living life back in that point that my memory of kind of how that whole feud came into be and went down was so spotty I had to go back and look at it. And of course you find the clip of Damon at the Brits in February of ' ninety five saying this should have been shared by the Oasis and Graham got much love and respect And then come August, it's hop it gets fucking aids and dies. Yeah. And it slly chang. How did we get from our all mates in February to get fucking aids and die? in August. How do you that that's an know ready made dramatic curve right there? How we get from one to the other? So the play kind of became about sort of tracking that and how we get there, you know? Yeah. I think the kind of truth of it was is that In the February, Oasis was still very much in the uptick, you know, It wasn't near stratospheric yet, but it was moving really fast. I think Bl at that point because aartly the biger fish and Damon think Daamon thought he could like give the little guys a bone. You know't say, you know Fally good vyind though yeah, And then within the space of a few months, Oasists are going bunker stratospheric and it became oh, you know, in in the play I have Graham Coxson say Graham something like, you know, you were fine with them in the sand pit when it was your sand pit But now fucking nos kicking sand in your face and Lilliam's taking a fucking shit and the sand put and he's kicking it you know And you know, it's a nightmare And they sort of, you know, it's Allan McGe said at the time When they had that Ian said this in the summer in ' eighty five, he said, yourour bloth think it's all quite good Mia your fun. you've actually get five lunatics off a counsel estate inondland you would to kill them Yeah they're not playing for a laugh, you know. No, they're not the thing is that I thought about the play for one of the main things, which I still think now Is it somehow Liam has become absolutely and national treasure. Like as soon as you see him, anywhere, whether it's a representation of him, whether it's like a video of him whatever, people kind of cheer and laugh You know, like he's a He's like a cartoon. Yeah Even though he's obviously a living person, he's a living human being, but he has become something. He epitomizes something about the British spirit peopleeople absolutely love more than anyone from any of that area. He's somewhere between Mick Jagger, George Bed. He's just this absolute British icon. Yeah that is transferred generationally, which is unusual. I mean to my kids, my teenagers like know just a grumpy old man. Yeah. can I guy to go and tell him and moan about it shittting up being as good as it used to be? Whas Liam as a as the goat as a solid, you know, and I'm sure like myself, you've been in the room with Liam Gallica and he does Liam has one of those pregnancies like Jaga, he sucks the oxygen out of the room and he walks in it and he has I guess he has this unpredictability to his very being, you just genuinely don't know what he's gonna. That's exactly what I think he in and you think, al right, or better off. Yeah. Nody knows Yeah. L there's no social moors because Liam's in the room will do what he likes. On a dime, you could either be kissing and cuddling or throw you through the window 's you know Yeahah, it's like you do not know. And the electricity that that creates and all he still looks fantastic Yeah, you know, And you know, no's great for his age too. If they come back, I think and they've g the sort of t mion any names, but if they've got the sort of through it of becoming a more You know Bullvine, Middleast manind, so say. I don't know much your little thing, but quite some Stefolk commits who wants to be looking at that Liam is as you point out, the reason it's transferred that teenagers are still You know, you went to the shows last summer. the watest on' been from Welsh and the nineties friends have' been here from Welsh went to the show in Edinburgh And it was You know what know there's a bunch of Middle E guys like us, but there's a lot of teenagers you knowot of everyveryone crying. Yeah.. And this that that thing of I mean bllocking back and blooded two nights at Weembley and it was all great stuff. Oasis could have played Wembley every night for a month for two months and not touching the sides, you know? And you know eighty thousand people singing every single world of every single song folks it' like the stamped those songs have sort of stamped themselves in the DNA of the British the British soul. And way nothing of than the Beatles have, really, you know. If you think about that time when you were an ANR, I always want to say A andR person because I'm such a Femo, but it was A and Ren. I mean, they were just A and R men. At that time, when you worked in ANR in the nineties One of the things that we did not know at that time, and I'm speaking from the point of view is music journalism of music in general that this was a high point And we did not know this. Things chang mostly because of the internet. When you think about time W you know, what was it that was fueling it all I mean, it was money. coe? Ccaine talk Well, cocaine only comes with the money. But there was money Isn't there? It was a young industry of washing cash, which can make for bad decision making and also quite a lot of for a few years, quite a fun environment. know a UCD was like thirteen fourteen quQid And a bank, you know he's selling portis here' like two million something or something, you know team quite a pot. there's a lot of, you know, and that wasn't even like a gigantic sailer, you know? Yeah. There was a lot of dough. Also I think certainly for the first half of the night is what I would see as Cnllate and me who'd come up and there ies the late eighties endnded them you felt very locked out to love and we weren't benefiting from thatcherism in any way shape I no Galica this was also true for. We very much had a chocolate smeled faces up at the glass. Well, you know, you look at them m entage like guys in red braces with rudimentary, mobile phones, driving posters and potting champagne in the city that kind of ichade eighties imagery. We wereve in backrooms of pubs watcheding the pastels or however, plenty forty five people Great. that was kind of my Theyen come in the nineties as the nineties began to unfold. There was some of the The kind of bands, the kind of music that you like suddenly started to become popular. In the casees of blood noase,'s incredibly popular, you know, But to the point where it was like Wal to Wall and Radio onene And then TFI Friday and then the TV and the radio, these things that you couldn't know bands that you liked wouldn't get near back in the eighties, you know suddenly you were so and it's quite that brief moment from maybe from ' ninety two to ninety five where you felt that the manic suddenly have number one records, you know, from you know That moment of the lunatics taking over the asylum is always quite intoxicating and heady, you know? Yeah But then of course, what happens is perk corrupts and absolute f. And then by the end of the decade we get to this is Hcore. And it's like this is as you get older you realize that These are generational experiences that you could trace back through back to Hemingway back. There' the rush of success period and the hedginess of that and the vista of possibility and then thoses bloated D't can I I can corked up hubberistic, you know And then your time has passed and that and that happens, you know, that's played out again, again again, you know? Yeah Yeah. It's true. But as you say, I don't think like My kids, my teenagers sort of look in the eighties like it was the sixties. because I was a kid, we werere all the fil underground and the buds and the stones and the beatles and all oh man, you know As Tomy Yilfam was saying, I wish it was the sixties That seemed like a really hay period Ch was rather the born old nineties which were lumbered to come of agion. And now of course, it looks great. It's like a It's a beautiful era. Well, and also, you know, you know this is a whole separate conversation, but politically the shit housy that's goinged the last decade, you look back at that and you're like, Jesus Christ O F that could be that simplepl game. Yes, well very true Okay, Then here's our old friend the internet, and now you're all fucked. The internet and the strokes your fucked Okay, so here at Tort N nineties to me, it's to have been my friend tonight, We vacate Earth. But before we go We've got a talk nounted to me Spotify playlist to listen to, which track Would you like to add to our nineties playlist, John Could, has anyone added yes by McClman and Butler here I don't think so have we had, yes Yeah. then I would very much like to add that. look back. Why' you love that try? It just kind of came out of nowhere. I mean, you remember when Bernard's left swed, I was like, well, that's him finished. and then this guy was like holy shit and not only is a great song and he's such a great singer and For somebody who's like a guitar god of his generation, the guitar player it's really understated. It' also brilliantly produced by Mike Hedges who they went on to do D for life and the Max's album of the Mus go. And some with J, I mean, this was just before I knew James Apparently when hear that record similar to myself, he went holy shit and that's why they got Mike to do there to do design for lifeife, whiches overcome it butattles yes. And if you listen if you want to get really granular in on this, if you listen to the sort of drum and guitar sounds on desesign for life and on yes, they're You can tell it's the same studio, the same producer Beautiful I love it, I love the INR bit at the end. There you go. Still got it. He's still got man, He knows what he's doing. Give him a car as. Any young labels out there? look good to Yeah. Okay. That W was Ta nineties to me, featuring the brilliant John Niven whose excellent books are widely available, including his latest The Fathers, about two very different dads and their surprising relationships Where can people find you, John other than the fence, the UK's only magazine? Where can they find you and what are you doing now that we should look forward to? Well, I get the three movies that I've written and co written are going happening in this year. so that's quite full plate and hopefully the TV version of the Fathers, which I'm developing with channel four moment for a four part series I've written the pilot. so we're kinding that holding part and of hoping we'll get our green light soonish And they're the father but the Fatherers comes out in paperback on Father's Day