Saint Etienne - Clash Q&A

With a new double-A single out this week, ‘Method Of Modern Love’ / ‘This Is Tomorrow’, Brit pop legends (note: not ‘Britpop’) Saint Etienne are announcing their return in fine form.

The trio – Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell – have been producing LPs since 1991’s ‘Foxbase Alpha’, forming three years earlier in Croydon. Long associates of the Heavenly stable – the label released their first three albums – the band are to re-issue selection from their catalogue later this year.

The band’s ‘London Conversations: The Best Of Saint Etienne’ is released next week. Clash caught up with Bob and Pete to see what 2009 holds in store for such bona-fide British pop legends.

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After so long in this game, is it still exciting when you come to release new material?
P: Yeah, it is. But it’s been a while now, really.
B: Yeah. Over three years since our last new single.

But the fanbase hasn’t gone away at all, has it?
B: The fanbase has sort of old grown old with us, most of them anyway. And that’s great. We’ve always done fanclub CDs, so we recently issued some songs that were going for decent money on eBay. We made up 3,000 box sets this time last year, and sold them out. So that’s indicative of a quite loyal fanbase. And the single’s sold in excess of that too, which is great.

And this maintaining of an audience has been achieved without actively ‘pursuing’ new fans. That’s the way it seems, anyway.
B: We haven’t actively pursued people but I think we’ve tried to make each album distinctive from the one before, and in doing that we may have lost some people along the way, but we’ve picked up new fans too. But we’ve never ‘courted’ a fanbase.
P: I think certain aspects, like Sarah’s voice, have remained constants. People can tell our songs from the sound, I think. That’s been maintained.

I’d say you’ve never really looked to follow trends, too.
P: We’ve sidestepped most movements to be honest.
B: Yeah, but we’ve always wanted to sound modern, and have aimed for that.
P: We’re often ahead of things. (laughs)
B: But we haven’t consciously thought that we need a gabba mix, but at the same time…
P: We did it anyway…
B: Yeah, and never released it.

The new single features a number of remixes. Is this something you’re particularly keen on?
P: I think remixes are always from people we like, who we want to hear reinterpret our material. And often they make it better…
B: And we then steal ideas from them. But those are collaborations really.
P: That’s what they feel like, and they do help you go forward as a band.

And what comes after the release of this single, beyond the compilation? Are you talking touring?
B: Well, touring activity yeah, although we’re not really sure what we’re going to do yet. We’ll be doing festivals, and having some gigs in Britain. We’ll go abroad towards the end of the year… But we’ve a lot of catalogue coming out after this new compilation, in deluxe editions, between now and Christmas. We might stick out a now EP before the end of the year, but it’s likely that we won’t release any more new material until 2010.

What’s it been like revisiting this old material?
P: It’s been exciting. We actually found a song that neither of us remember writing or recording, and it’s got a full vocal on it and everything. We’ve been quite good at releasing lots of work-in-progress stuff, and b-sides and stuff, so it was surprising to find that… and a few other things that we’d forgotten about, too.
B: Yeah, that’s right.
P: We’ll be releasing five or six tracks that people won’t have ever heard before, so that’s something to look forward to.

Can you read your evolution from these older songs, i.e. have some of the forgotten numbers seemed to slot into place, in the grand scheme of your catalogue?
P: Sometimes, yeah. The sequencing of an album can affect that – you can have two similar sounding songs but only space for the one of them, so that the album flows properly – you pick one dubby one over another. But generally I’m happy with the way the albums have turned out, in terms of the sequencing and the actual tracks on them.
B: What the original albums?
P: Yeah.
B: Yeah, there’s always going to be things you might change in retrospect, but speaking for myself, being a music fan, it always annoyed me when people would change artwork slightly, or like when Kate Bush re-did her vocal on ‘Wuthering Heights’… Who else has done that? The Police, obviously, although I’m not saying I’m a fan! They did a new version of ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’, when the original version of it is what people remember, it’s what they want. Whatever the band or artist thinks, that’s how the fans heard it and it’s how it has to stay. Adding bonus tracks is okay, but don’t mess with the originals.

So you’re not messing with your older records too much?
P: No, no. They’re full of archive material.
B: They’re going to be of historical importance!
P: Genuine luxury products. (laughs) No, they’re great.

Looking back now, are you surprised at all that you’ve made a career in the creative arts?
B: We’ve been really lucky.
P: It’s great.
B: I think we’ve always been aware… once we got to seven or eight years in, we were past the five-year plan. We figured at that point that we’d made it – it was quite amazing that people were buying our records. If we had sort of gone for one direction, or I we’d had one substantial hit at any point, I don’t think we’d be in this position now, I don’t think we’d be together. We’d have probably broken up, and now we’d be looking at getting back together for some nostalgia thing, playing Brixton Academy supporting Carter.
P: We’ll probably get the offer tomorrow.

I guess it’s important to never take anything for granted in an industry that’s always changing, and shrinking…
P: The way people listen to music now is very different. I’m not sure that whole albums are listened to – people pick their songs. Perhaps we will concentrate on EPs in the future.

That’s sort of what Ash said last year – that they would only focus on singles, rather than albums. But I’m not sure that’s the right idea – surely there’s worth in the album format?
B: I think there is worthiness in crafting an album. You realise that before rock and roll… it was all about crafting albums. If you only do singles, and I like singles… Well, basically, there’s a lot to be said for making a ‘proper’ album. I think some focus was lost in the ‘90s, where American acts particularly would squeeze 80 minutes of music onto a CD because you could, because it represented ‘value’. But I think that actually devalued the album as an art form.
P: You can have overkill.

Totally. I think that’s something people are realising – to make an impact you’ve got to work sparely sometimes.
B: Sometimes there can be just too much music. You can’t put something out that you can’t get through in one sitting.
P: It’s like a gig. When they’re too long, it’s too much. I’d rather go away wanting more, thinking what I saw was amazing.

I feel the ideal album length is one that fits onto a single side of a C90.
B: That’s been our guiding thing. I think we’ve stretched to 48 minutes before. I know people who still use cassettes, you know.
P: We did this thing… We were working at the Festival Hall, and we put something of a revue on. We had all these artists play, covering all sorts of songs, and everyone played for 15 minutes each. It was great to see a band play three or four songs, and then get another band doing the same.

Do you keep yourselves abreast of new bands making waves?
B: We’re fans of music, primarily. That’s the way to get new ideas, is to listen to new music. I like the Lykke Li album, and Ladyhawke – a lot of electro-pop stuff that came out last year.

You’ll have Little Boots calling you up, asking to tour with you…
B: I’d happily support Little Boots. She’s good. She’s playing next week, in London. I had to go to Pinner yesterday. I’d never been there before. It took me two hours! I might of well have gone to Manchester. Or Paris.
P: From Paris to Pinner…

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Find Saint Etienne’s official website HERE, and get ‘Method Of Modern Love’ into your ears from our Track of the Day section HERE.