Mansun - Oxford, UK, Summer 2002
By: Toby L
It's been a long time, but Mansun are doing the touring-rounds again. They've just completed a series of dates in the UK, utilising small venues as the locations for them to broadcast new material to sell-out audiences. Although hit-singles, such as 'Being A Girl' and their landmark 'Wide Open Space', have been aired, the primary objective of the trip was to find out just what recently-written and recorded material could fully stand up on its own two feet - and discover what exactly should be ditched or placed on the new record.
'The new record' is currently being finished as we speak, in fact. It will be Mansun's fourth LP to date, and the group are promising it to be their finest thus far, in a career which has so far spanned many musical peaks and cultivated a sturdy global fan-base. From their inaugural introduction to the music-world within the shape of '97's 'Attack Of The Green Lantern', the group have been a consistent and colourful musical-force, effortlessly fusing genres together before Radiohead were rewarded with such an accolade, and producing 'Six', one of the most tragically overlooked and bravest albums of the last 25 years; no, really - just because you missed it first time around doesn't mean that it fails to live up to such a statement.
Yet, despite possessing the kind of flourishes of creative-energy and outbursts of stealthy guitar-pop music that other acts would carve their left arms off for, Mansun have spent much of their career being misinterpreted, perceived as pretentious intellectual wannabes, whose music is too 80s to be taken seriously. Nonsense. Such a confused perception from the media only heightens their obscurity and genius - to understand something so intricate and bold as Mansun via just a parading of buzz-word puns and bold interview-quotes would only provide one part of their legacy, the rest still out there, open as ever for interpretation, and most truly accessible to those present with open minds.
'I've never really felt anything about that,' responds Dominic Chad, the band's distinctive guitarist, pondering the press' treatment of the group. 'I've only ever heard from other people about what's written about us. I don't tend to read anything by the music-press. All I've ever thought from what people have told me is that the reporting on us seems to be very lazy, just regurgitating what they've heard other people say.
What are your current opinions then, for example, on the present-day British media?
Chad pauses momentarily, clearly deliberating on what comments to utter first. 'It doesn't reflect what the fans seem to think about music anymore, and I think that's why a lot of people are reading less and less of the music-press. People are actually interested in hearing positive things about bands so they can go out and see a good band, and buy records by a good band. When I was a kid and went to buy the music-papers, I wanted to hear maybe about what I should be listening to, and get ideas on people to check out; you don't want to read about who's shit.
'I don't personally feel misunderstood... One of the press' regurgitations is that we're one of the misfits bands that are out there, an outsider band - I don't feel like that, and no one else in the band feels like that. Also, that's started to reflect in the fact that we're getting a much wider audience that's been coming down to these shows...'
Today, we will be witnessing one of these gigs that Mansun fans have been celebrating over the course of May on the act's numerous official and unofficial websites. Tracks such as the upbeat 'Secrets', the hopelessly melodic and sassy 'Slipping Away' - a potential first single from the soon-to-emerge album - as well as the brooding and haunting 'This Is My Home' have been particularly well-received. In all, the material is evidently a fusion of the band's more commercial moments, albeit with the variety and occasional darkness which formed so much of 'Six's starling edge. But, hasn't it taken a while to deliver such offerings?
Chad attempts to account for their prolonged absence. 'It's been good that I broke my hand early last year when we finished touring in February in 2001 and we didn't get started with the album until the summer, because I couldn't play guitar for all that time,' he explains. 'It's meant that we've become totally left out of everything for the last 15 or 16 months; that's why we've come out on this tour. It's done us some good, because it's kind of like starting again, it's all a bit fresh: it feels like being in a new band.
'We've got nothing to promote this time,' he continues, 'we just wanted to play some new songs in front of people and see how they go down, see if we can learn anything so we can put a lid on the new album... It's been good from that point of view; we have an idea of which bits people are into and what to make the most of, so we'll go back into the studio and we'll finish the record once and for all.'
As expressed, the set-list for each night of their grand sejour has comprised of not only unheard tracks, but selected old ones, too - yet, none from third LP, their more straightforward, purely song-based album, 'Little Kix' - was this move intentional?
'Not really,' he reveals, 'it's just that, when we were rehearsing, we kind of chose old songs that we thought would sit well with what we're doing now...
'We would have done 'I Can Only Disappoint U'... We took a keyboard-player out to tour 'Little Kix', but it wasn't right; it was OK, but it's not Mansun. When we come around to doing a bigger tour later this year, I'll take the keyboard out, but I'll sequence things up and we'll play to those -we like playing guitars on-stage instead of keyboards. This outing, however, we didn't want to get into the realms of sequencers: we just wanted to do a little rock and roll tour.'
And what have been the all-important audience-reactions to your forthcoming efforts?
'For a couple of the ones which we've already recorded, we're going to now definitely go back into the studio and rerecord them, because we've seen which bits people get into, and there are sections that we probably need to make more of, and sections we probably need to make less of, and so on.'
Surely, though, you can never tell which way audiences are going to go - for the material or against it..?
'I think we tend to have a fairly good gut feeling about our own band,' states Chad, quite confidently. 'In general, the tracks we've recorded and feel are the best ones we've done, people tend to feel a similar reaction. To be honest, the same occurs with criticisms of our music; the fair criticisms that have been levelled against the last couple of albums include things that we were thinking ourselves anyway, things like the album-cover for 'Six' - it did look like a Marillion thing or an early Genesis cover! However, I suppose if you listen to the music that's behind it, it fits in a bit more; it certainly isn't prog-rock like people said about it.'
On the matter of past efforts, how does what's arriving next compare to the group's achievements to date?
'Certainly, this album sounds more exciting,' he clarifies. 'It's probably got most in common with the first album because of the way we've worked, though it doesn't sound like it; it's just because the way we've gone about writing it and so on, but then it's the most live album we've made... It's literally just us in a room recording and then with a few overdubs; we wanted to do it with 'Six': to make an album that's just what we sound like, but - to a certain extent - we've never yet achieved that, we've never made a record that you could say, 'That's what we sound like if you come and see us live'.
'We've never tried to make a live-show sound like a record - but we're currently trying to make the record sound like the live-show... '
And the progression of such aims - how's it gone?
Dominic smiles, answering self-assuredly, 'I think we're getting there, and that's because of a combination of things: we're a better band now than we've ever been before, and we're also working with some good people; we've got a great engineer, and a great producer - Richard Rainey, and this is his first sort of real production thing. The last thing he did, though, was that he engineered on the last U2 album and, obviously, they have people like Brian Eno, who's one of the greatest producers in the world, so Richard's seen what they do, and picked that up, but he's got a lot of his own great ideas... He's into programming and remixing, too, and that's something we've always been interested in - particularly with the first album.
'So, yeah, the way it is so far, it's gonna be the best one we've made - and certainly my favourite.'
You'd be tempted to think, 'Well, they're bound to say it's their 'best' work yet; it's their latest project!' However, the way the member speaks and through the gestures he creates, it doesn't take an Einstein or a Jarvis Cocker to realise the sort of heavy impact that the foursome are hoping to conjure up by the closure of 2002.
Although, impact has never been something lacking in the group - take Chad's new image, for example; his past 'heart-throb' status has been exchanged on this set of live-dates for the 'local mechanic down your road' look - really, Dom, what's up with that beard?
He provides a sadistic grin. 'I didn't shave while we were rehearsing, so I decided that I'd see how good the beard could get while on tour. Loads of people have mentioned it to me, but I don't know if they like it... I don't care about it, to be honest. It's just something different, like the way we used to wear boiler-suits in the past, you know? We've done something like that to illicit a reaction out of people - and it's always achieved just that.
'I suppose I did kind of think to myself, 'If I grow a beard, I wonder what people will say - I bet they won't like it... So, I think I'll give it a go!' Someone did say to me that I look a bit like Peter Sutcliffe (Britain's famous Yorkshire-based mass-murderer), so that's not necessarily a good thing...'
Erm, quite.
Time's of the essence, sadly, and the essence is currently running out. Due to such a rich set of experiences and musical-produce over the last seven years, let's leave it on an opinion-question - just when Chad looks back at Mansun's work to date, what does he think?
He sits quietly for a moment. 'I'm sure that if, all of a sudden, I found myself back in 1995, knowing what I know now, I'd probably do everything from my personal contribution differently, or the others would... We've made mistakes, but we've also made what I feel is great music and three great albums really, but there's things you'd change.
'But, I don't tend to believe in regrets; out of all the bands that started their career in 1995, there were a hell of a lot that lasted a year or two years, but I don't know many that have lasted seven, so - from that point of view - it'd be stupid to go back; there's no such things as mistakes: it's all just stepping-stones to get you where you're going...'
And where Mansun are going is still going to remain a fascinating place. Try and hitch a lift with them.
Since this article, and in May 2003, the band announced their split.
Artists in this article: Mansun