Saint Etienne Interview October 2010 [PART 1]
By: Tom Hocknell
Saint Etienne are London’s band. Without its allure, it is doubtful they’d have any lyrics. It is of some surprise then that Pete Wiggs has agreed to meet me in Brighton, where he now lives. Of course, you expect to meet Saint Etienne in a perfectly preserved 1950s café, or a record shop, but he suggests elsewhere. It is what people increasingly refer to as an old man’s pub, when the correct term is actually simply a pub. It’s cosy and cool, without trying too hard. Like the band.
When I arrive, Pete is already there. I had intended to gather myself and my questions for an hour before the allocated time, so consider sitting elsewhere in the pub, but quickly realise how terrifying it would be for someone he would assume was a customer who’d been staring for the past hour decided to approach. Not that St Etienne are the sort to attract stalkers (at least not Pete Wiggs or Bob Stanley... Sarah Cracknell, perhaps), but anyway, I don’t want to be their first. So with a pint of bitter in hand I introduce myself and we spend several hours chatting and sinking easy pints of ale.
He’s with a friend, who turns out to be Nick Coler, a musician he worked with at Xenomania on their last album Tales from Turnpike House in 2005. It’s one of their most accomplished albums, which is re-released this month (alongside Good Humor) with typically gorgeous repackaging, and including a second CD of unreleased songs. We begin.
Rockfeedback: Are you more fans of music than most fans of music?
Pete Wiggs: I’d probably agree with that! We used to run little record labels, like Ice Rink, to release records, some of which were simply our girlfriends.
RFB: Can you remember any?
PW: Golden was good, it was Bob’s girlfriend at the time, it was a double a-side, Anglo American and Don’t Destroy Me, that one was particularly good. We’re not proficient musicians ourselves, so we use other musicians, like Ian Catt (long-serving cohort) and Nick, who can play really well. We use people! We’re fans of pop, the miscellanea, the sleeves, the paraphernalia, although these days I’m as digital as the next person. It’s about odd songs, not albums. It’s all about cherry picking songs.
RFB: How’s that going to affect the next Saint Etienne album?
PW: It’s probably going to be more of a hotchpotch than a unified concept; we’re writing with different people, it might even be a double album.
RFB: When did you and Bob Stanley first start writing together?
PW: In 1990, when we first started, with samplers and cheap synths. We just saved up to get studio time. We did try once before that, with lots of tape loops but no melodies, it was rubbish,
RFB: What was the first song that made you think, ‘hold on a minute, there’s something here’?
PW: We chanced on it immediately, we were listening to Neil Young at the time and we tried to write a song in his style, but it was rubbish. We decided to do a cover version, to learn how to do it. So we did ‘Only Love Can Break your Heart’. One of our first attempts at writing was a really crap World Cup song, for b-side of the 12”. I think it was just me repeating ‘John Barnes’! Then we did another cover of that Field Mice song…I forget, it was our 2nd single..?
RFB: Kiss and make up?
PW: That’s it
RFB: I know more than you!
PW:I forget a lot of stuff…
RFB: That’s what Chris Lowe says, in that fans come up and know far more about Pet Shop Boys than he does…
PW: I can believe that, and actually Neil Tennant is amazing. He came down to the Brighton festival, doing a Q and A with the writer Michael Bracewell, at the Dome, and I was blown away by him being able to sit there, and well, remember things. He just talked so well, I’d be lost.
RFB: Going back to Xenomania, there’s some history there?
PW: Yes, the first thing he (Brian Higgins) did was ‘He’s on the Phone’, as part of Motiv8, and they did a great mix of it, well, they made the song really, so there’s been some history, also on Finisterre there’s Xenomania input so yes, it’s been good for us.
We met Nick at Xenomania, when working on Tales of Turnpike House. Some of it was recorded there, 3 or 4 songs, the rest was with Ian Catt in Coulsdon, which is where loads of our stuff is recorded. Both Bob and I grew up in Croydon, and I’ve known Bob since I was approximately one.
RFB: Did you find yourself in one of their song-writing rooms?
PW: Yes, Pete, Bob ad Sarah had a year of song writing there, and some of those songs ended up with us, and others with Xenomania,
RFB: Such as?
PW: A Gabrielle Cilmi track, not the big one (laughs) the follow up to that, (2008’s ‘Save the Lies’).
RFB: What’s the best song you’ve written as Saint Etienne?
PW: Well, it’s not a big hit or anything,
RFB: Are any of them? Sorry!
PW: (Laughs) No, well, I suppose that goes without saying!
RFB: Well you’ve had more hits than I have,
PW: ‘Sycamore’ is one of my favourites, from Sound of Water.
RFB: What’s the story with that?
PW: I like the music. It was a good combination of me doing the backing track, Bob doing the melody and then To Tococo Rot, in Berlin, doing this electronic thing with it. I still hum that one to myself. But I do worry about writing a song we already have!
Saint Etienne’s deluxe editions of Tales from Turnpike House and Good Humour are out now.
Artists in this article: Saint Etienne