The Divine Comedy


The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon has proven to be a gracious and witty interview subject the two times we’ve interviewed him for Under the Radar. Even though Hannon, now band-less, but still The Divine Comedy, hasn’t finished work on his new album, it’s our magazine and so it’s our progative to interview our favorite artists when we please. So we caught up with Hannon when he stopped in LA for his last American tour in support of 2001’s Regeneration album. You can read the full article on page 54 of Under the Radar’s 4th Issue. There he goes into what he was up to in 2002, what to expect from the new album, his miniature house collection and how he almost drowned when he was fifteen. Below are a few quotes that didn’t make it in the article, along with more photos of Hannon taken by UTR co-publisher Wendy Lynch in a very red hotel room across the street from LA’s Troubadour Club, where Hannon played that night. The interview was conducted in this same room. Touring with Ben Folds Mark Redfern (M): So what was it like touring with Ben Folds and in front of an American audience. Were his audiences receptive? Neil Hannon (N): They were great! I mean I knew they would be before I came, I just had that feeling that you can’t like his music and not be terribly clever. (laughs) I just think that his fans are kind of like-minded to my own and therefore they cross over. And, they’d need to sort of listen very hard to the songs, because I really wasn’t making much of an effort in the looks department when I was touring with Ben. Look at those pictures of me in your magazine (Neil is flipping through UTR Issue 2, which features him on the cover) – bloody hell! What do I look like? Someone with very bad hair! (laughs) M: I think at the time you said you were going to keep it like that until it started looking like Jon Bon Jovi. N: Yeah, well, it only ever looked like the sad bass player in the 70s rock band, who couldn’t get his hair to do anything much, it was just long and lank. So eventually I saw the light. M: Do you think you picked up a bunch of new fans on that tour? N: Well yeah, I’m pretty sure I did because a lot of people who came to our subsequent shows that we did on our own had seen us on those shows and not before. So it worked, horray! M: So, what’s the rationale for touring the States now? Because Regeneration has been out for a while now. N: Yeah, it’s because that album was out a year and a half ago now and we’ve done a year’s promotion of it, really. And because there wasn’t really anything on the horizon as far as new albums go. And, because the band had kind of dissolved. Has been dissolved by someone, I don’t know who. I thought, we thought that it was a good time, you know with Ben giving us the opportunity to do a lot of shows that it was a good time to keep going, keep the ball rolling because we’ve been guilty in the past of sort of dipping our toe in and going ‘ow, strange place, let’s go home!’ (laughs) So we just thought it was a good time to try and build a bit of a following over here. M: Is that what you’re trying to do with this tour as well? N: Yep. We’re just trying not to leave you alone. But, everybody forgets who we are. M: This time you have a fuller band than you’ve had playing the States in the past, which is good. N: Yeah, this is the biggest to date, a massive four people. (laughs) Just kind of, over the last little while, just sort of gradually rebuild and just try to keep it small, really. Keep it manageable. And have it so that people are multi-tasking rather than having just having a person with each guitar. So that keeps the arrangements fluid. And, yeah, it’s sounding good. I am very happy. I am sure the album probably will be a multi-personnel extravaganza once again, but we’ll cross the live bridge when we come to it. M: I noticed you were playing an instrumental version of “Here Comes The Flood.” Is that how you are doing that song now? N: Yeah, it was always a bad idea to put words on it. Um, listening back to that on Fin de Siecle it’s just a bit, that album was a little kitchen sink in its mentality. And some of it is really good because of it, and it’s really sort of exciting, and it pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable on a pop record, I’d like to think. But that one is where we pushed it over the side of a cliff and it plummeted to its demise. Because it’s just very silly nonsense but I always liked the musical underpinnings of it, so we kind of do it as a jazzy instrumental opener. M: I was thinking you’d probably open with it. I think it sounds better definitely. That was the one song on that album that kind of bugged me just because of the spoken word part. N: Yeah, quite right, boo – hiss. On the War M: Any thoughts on the ridiculous potential war? N: Well, I’d just like to add my voice to the NOs. I do think there has been a sea change in the undercurrent of opinion. It seems to have tilted a little back towards the realm of common sense and, you know, the whole reasoning behind the war is just trumped up by war mongers and greedy people. The worst thing about this whole thing has been the weakness of the press in it all. Um, maybe not so much in the UK, but certainly in the States. I’ve read bits and it’s been quite shocking. I think they’ll, it seems that they sort of see which way the wind blows, then they’ll start. They need to actually start saying what they mean. So that’s my views. His Wife and Looking Back on Regeneration M: I was curious if your wife is a fan of your music before you met her? I don’t know when you met her? N: (laughs) Well, I met her in ‘97. I don’t think she was a huge fan. She had Casanova, but I think she might have got it for free because she was in the industry. I’ve never really gleamed at just what she thinks of it. Maybe she’s keeping that under her hat. It’s never really been that much of an issue. I don’t generally ask her opinion. (laughs) M: Back to the music stuff. In hindsight, it’s been a couple of years, I wondering how you felt about Regeneration as an album? N: Yes, it is gradually slipping into the zone of the other albums now, where it’s not fresh in my mind. But then again, I haven’t listened to it for a long time. Um, I don’t know. I seem to remember it was really good. You just have to do these things. Well, I mean I know the songs are good. I think I’ll be able to answer that a bit clearer after I’ve made another album. (laughs) Writing the Classic Pop Song M: A quote you gave me when we last spoke was you said: “Basically I would like to write maybe two or three songs that remain in the public consciousness, whether they remember who did them or not I don’t care, just a couple of tunes they will sing at parties.” Are you still trying to do that, do you think you have some of the songs, the ones that you’ve written for the next record? N: Yeah, I’d probably be closer to it on the next one, I think, than before, happily. Um, I don’t know whether that is just a kind of a needing to leave my mark on history. Or, what it is exactly. I just want to be remembered. Well I just want to make some impact. I’ve already made a bit I suppose in various strata’s of society. But, I’d perhaps like to write something that does kind of. You know it’s when you put your finger on something, that’s when songs just stick around, because they say all that is needed to be said about one particular feeling or time, or emotion. And, yeah it’s bloody difficult. (laughs) But that’s kind of a good reason to keep at it. Devoted Fans M: So, you have a pretty devoted fan base and I was wondering if you got along with your fans? When you meet them and such. N: Like a house on fire. And that is in a good way. (laughs) Yeah, they’re all delightful people. M: Have you ever had any strangely obsessive fans? N: Not many. No, even the obsessive ones are quite polite about it. And, generally just (In the hallway in the background UTR co-publisher and photographer Wendy Lynch can be heard singing a Muppets song, not aware that we can hear her.) M: Wendy is obsessed with the Muppets. N: Yeah? M: We have this Muppets CD that she’s been singing along to, something about a dancing bear, anyway, go ahead. N: What were we talking about? Obsessive fans. No, I can’t really say there’re a lot of them. Very little things annoy me like when they’re talking to each other on the internet about the songs and just saying things that are obviously, they’ve totally made it up what they think the song’s about without any basis in fact or anything I’ve said. (laughs) And, they can think whatever they want. It’s like when I was doing English at school and a lot of the things that you’re meant to be reading into books that you’re studying, you think, “I’m sure the writer didn’t have any idea that this is what he meant.” M: I went to film school and it was the same thing. One director came and read through some of the things that people wrote about his films, analysis, and he was saying ‘this is bullshit, this is bullshit, I never intended that at all.’ N: I mean a lot of what you’re doing is just a happy accident. I’m just pleased that I don’t really sort of insight stalking. M: There is this one really nice girl from Japan who wrote the magazine after reading the last article on you. She is coming to the show tonight and she maybe came all the way from Japan just to see you. I’m not sure if she was coming to LA anyway, or if she came just to see you. N: Yeah, occasionally people have gone to ridiculous lengths to see us. Yeah, it’s understandable. (laughs) M: Going back to the egotist. (Earlier in the interview Neil said his greatest weakness was having too big an ego.) N: (laughs) I can understand going a long way to see us once. I find it harder to understand when people just go to every show. You know? It’s like god, you’ve seen it, you must be bored of it by now. Favorite Records of 2002 and The Cheeky Girls M: Okay, I just wanted to ask you what some of our favorite records are of last year? N: Ah, I didn’t listen to any records last year, I was far too busy. Maybe there might be one or two if I can possibly recollect. Um, Natalie what do I like? What music did I like last year? Natalie (Neil’s manager, who’s been sitting on the other side of the room checking her e-mail): You liked The Flaming Lips album. N: I did, very much so. Natalie: You liked the Richard Hawley album. N: Yes I did, although I don’t think it’s the finished article. M: How about lately? Have you been listening to anything lately, like while on tour? N: No, I haven’t really listened to anything actually. I normally listen to oldies stations and then go, ‘let’s turn that shit off.’ I’ve been listening to sort of, it always sounds ridiculously pretentious when I talk about this, because it’s like Peggy Lee and Cole Porter and stuff. M: When we last spoke, you had a guilty pleasure band. N: We’ve got too many. M: Whigfield was one of them. Any current guilty pleasure bands? N: Um, have you heard the Cheeky Girls? M: No, we haven’t got that over here yet. N: You’re lucky. It’s another novelty classic. It was thrown up quite literally by Popstars: the Rivals. Which is a recent aberration, where they developed this great idea that they were getting together a boy band and a girl band who would battle it out for the Christmas #1, just assuming, you know, that they’d be #1 and #2, which of course they were. And they were quite right to have seen the gullibility of the British record buying public. While they were doing it, there were these two Transylvanian twins, girls, who came in and sang this bizarre song which their mother had written for them (singing): ‘We are the cheeky girls, We are the cheeky girls/You are the cheeky boys, you are the cheeky boys.’ And something about ‘touch my bum, this is life.’ Just insane lyrics, pathetically I tune - pure genius! (laughs) I just like it when things that are that contrived bring out something that actually for all its naffness is quite original. M: You mentioned Popstars and we have American Idol, unfortunately or fortunately. N: Simon Cowl being the comedy Brit. Labels, Just Checking M: You still on Parlophone in England? N: Uh huh. M: And still on Nettwerk over here? N: Uh huh. M: So, you’re all set for deals and all that? N: Oh, yes, no worries. M: Cool. Excellent. Well, that’s it. www.thedivinecomedy.com