The Beginning of the Interview: How Bernard First Came to Music
Mark (M): Where are you?

Bernard (B): I’m at home, working. And you got really lucky because I’ve had headphones on for the last three hours, (laughs) I just took them off when the phone rang. I’m supposed to do a phoner, I forgot! So that was lucky.

M: What drew you to music in the first place when you were a kid?

B: I played the recorder when I was four. So I kinda started young. I don't know why I ended up doing that. I have no idea why I did that because no one else in my family played music, my parents didn’t play an instrument or anything, so I don't really know why I got drawn to it, when you're four I don’t think you can remember at that age. I've got kids and I see it in my kids and one of them isn’t really interested in instruments and the other one clearly just makes a run for guitars whenever he sees them and that's quite funny, I don’t think you remember why you do it. I played the recorder at that age, which most kids pick up anyway, but I think from there I just picked up instruments at school and I started playing the violin when I was seven and again because you got free lessons in school. I was quite lucky with that, you don't get that now but you did at that time. And I suppose I remember from that age, my parents used to play music, my parents are Irish and play Irish sort of music and country music, country music is really popular with Irish people, imigrants over here. So, you know Johnny Cash, and stuff like that, is what I listened to, that's what I remember listening to when I was growing up, and Glen Campbell, and Neil Diamond and stuff like that. Which is pretty great because I love all those records now, I kinda ignored them for 15 years after that, and then suddenly now I'm the biggest Johnny Cash fan.

M: So when did you first learn to play guitar?

B: Well I played Violin until I was 13 and then I decided to give it up because I wanted to play the guitar instead because it was cooler. I loved the violin, I loved the sound of strings but I hated learning the violin, because it didn't really do anything for me, I didn't really enjoy playing it and the kind of music it lead me into. I hated being told what to do with, when you're taught violin, classical music is very much a discipline, you've got to learn every expression exactly as it is written and I loved the fact that the more I learned about pop music, because I've been listening to pop music from about seven as well and the more I learned about pop music the more I could see that it was free expression and it was kind of emotionally motivated and dynamic and you could do whatever you want with it, and it's very much about the individual working with in the group as well. So I gave up the violin I started the guitar when I was 14.

M: So I think I read that when you were young some of your hero’s were Johnny Marr and I think you were into New Order and Joy Division a lot.

B: Yeah, yeah. I’ve got two older brothers, but I shared a room with an older brother who was into, at that time he was into Joy Division and Velvet Underground, lots of great alternative music that I picked up really easily so I remember hearing The Velvet Underground when I was about 12 and finding that quite scary. I could actually remember where I was hearing Venus In Furs, which I remember being scared of. But I also remember hearing songs like ‘Sunday Morning,’ which are quite melodic, the side of the Velvet Underground I loved at that point. And then New Order and Joy Division, I loved all that, I loved it because it was very emotional, I think I had that sensibility inside me from the start.

The First McAlmont & Butler Split Up
M: Why’d you two break up in the first place?

B: Because we were both idiots and it just all got out of hand really. It was really difficult, cause I just left Suede and I was a bit in a mess really emotionally and all I wanted to do was to quickly make records and just do as much as I could because I had so much stuff I wanted to get out of me. David was already doing his own thing and it became quite difficult. Then like I said the record company suddenly said ‘oh now,’ when the record became a hit the record company suddenly were all over us to make an album and I just didn't want to do it at that point. And it all got a bit messy because then that's what the record company wanted from David. I don’t really know really. It got quite out of hand and the press stoked it up a little bit because that's the only point they got interested in us, when they thought there was a fight going on which is really really nasty. But really there wasn't any fight, we just decided we weren't going to do anything and then the rest just became this big mess. We never hated each others guts or anything like that we just, neither of us wanted to do it any further, I don't know why really.

M: What motivated the reunion between you two to do the new album?

B: Basically I was writing a load of songs that didn't feel were appropriate for my voice, and the feel of them, and the ambition of them, I didn't really want to sing myself and I just made a decision. I was trying to be really purist about music and thinking ‘well if I'm going to be really true to myself about this, do I want the best out of it or do I just want to do it myself?’ I thought to myself if I'm making a record and if I wanted the best drummer on that would I just get the only drummer I know or would I try to get the best person because I thought was needed? I thought I would have to go to those lengths, and I thought if I wanted, you know the greatest voice in the world or a certain type of voice would I just sing it myself and just give it a shot or would I actually go out and seek the best and try and reach the ultimate with it? I just decided I would have to do that and so more and more it became apparent that I was thinking of David's voice really. I just thought it was appropriate. But I didn't do anything about it for about six months, I was writing these songs and working things out and trying to work out what I wanted to do. And it was about six months before I actually said to myself, ‘alright this is exactly what I want to do.’ I just phoned him up out of the blue and it happened again in exactly the same way.

No Bitterness
M: So you didn’t really think about the break-up until you started getting interviewed and stuff like that?

B: We don't sit around talking like this. It's just a bit like, when you fall out in public with people it's very different, it seems really different to when anything else happening that has happened in life, but actually everyone falls out with friends or your boyfriends or girlfriends and stuff, you don't see people for ages and you move on. It doesn't mean it's a big deal, it just means that you're a human being really, these things happen. But what's really pathetic that in public generally people just crave these massive casums between themselves, where you just can't talk, you can't go back on your pride and you can't be seen making a first move toward somebody and stuff, and it's all really pathetic and we've both been through so much emotionally in our careers that we are at the point where we really don't care or give a damn what other people think about these kind of things. It seems to be the most perfectly natural thing in the world, and we just think it's funny. We are aware of the fact that everybody has fuck ups in their lives, at least we've had fuck ups publically and just laughed about it. Where-as n the music business it's a pretty rare thing to have any humility whatsoever. Nobody's got any humility. I mean it's just the most inmodest profession in the world. And pointlessly so as well. We just decided we want to do this because if we do it we can give great music to the world, so that's the only reason to do it. There’s so many other instances of groups that split up for no reason. Where people wont do it, won't get back together or won’t do something for a creative reason. They’ll basically put all the personal issues first and that's just really pathetic.Bernard was watching a big fireworks display a couple of years ago and they played “Yes” during the finale, which helped to validate the reformation of McAlmont & Butler.

B: And it did motivate me at that point. It made me feel, it’s quite a proud moment when that happens. When you’re standing admist 10,000 people and nobody knew that I made the record and it’s quite an anonymous record and I think its one of those songs that people seem to know. Over here people know it anyway or quite a lot of people are aware of it. But I don't think many people would remember the video or know what we looked like or anything. They just remember this one off song. And I’m really into that, I love the pop moment, I’m a big fan of the pop moment. There is kind of a meaninglessness kind of emotional thing that happens. If you’re a plumber in Scarboro then when you are doing a completely meaningless job you can have your life transformed in 3 1/2 minutes and actually you can be transported and fantasize for seconds and that's what I love about pop music. And my boys love that. And then I think that song registers in every way. Particularly at that time which was Brit-Pop and then everything got completely milked at that time and a lot of the groups that were great they just lost it completely and then the songs that were great they just got over played and you know becomes something you don't really want to hear anymore because you can't stand them anymore. And all be bands became horrible arena rock bands and stuff and nothing seemed to attain it’s kind of dignity because that music came from the alternative and ended up being the most mainstream thing in the world. I think it was rare thing at that time to have a one off pop single that worked.

M: What’s the creative process like between you and David? B: I write the music anyway. It's whatever way it works Sometimes I will write the whole song with lyrics and melody, sometimes I write just a piece of music, sometimes I come to him with a vocal melody with no lyrics, sometimes I'll come to him with a piece of music and lyrics and he thinks the lyrics are shit and writes something else. (laughs) Or he doesn't want to sing it. Sometimes we just sit in a room together we just mess about and jam, that happened to a couple of songs.On the Self Reflexive Lyrics of “Theme From McAlmont & Butler” and “Bring It Back”

B: I would hate to think we are self-obsessed or something, you know, we could only write about only each ourselves all the time, our little relationship and making records and stuff. I think with this record we had a lot of that kind of shit to get out of the way I suppose. And maybe, like I said, we didn't sit and talk about these things but maybe we wrote about them instead without thinking about it.’ I don't know, again, the whole idea was to make a pop record, we wanted to make a feel good pop record and a pop record that was emotionally griping because we felt that, well for the last few years in Britain it’s been like this and I suppose it is now in America but all this Pop Idol kind of rubbish going on and which we’ve exported to you. And it really pisses me off but like I said since I started making records, there were some great moments in the early 90's and mid 90's, and people just stopped writing great pop songs and the whole Pop Idol thing took over which is just all about the most crass form of commercial music you can imagine. There's nothing beautiful about it, there's nothing emotional, there's nothing spiritual about it, there's nothing tender about it at all, it's just like a horrible marketing ploy. It just doesn't really interest me and I just thought well, am I going to sit here moaning about it or am I gonna go off and make an avant garde record? And I think that's what a lot of groups have done, a lot of groups of my yoke have just bowled off and done something completely anal and given up, not tried to fight that and tried to make a great record. Because at the end of the day it's quite hard to make a great pop record. You know, I'm thinking of the Beatles made great pop records, T-Rex, The Smiths, like I said who I grew up with. All these groups are great pop groups and so that was kind of the intention of making the record from the start. That's what we wanted to do. And a lot of that idea is about rejoycing in music and doing something that can be as uplifting and dynamic as possible, just basically whatever it takes to try and move some part of your body with that you don't have to necessarily think about it. Just be taken over by the moment.

Brett Anderson vs. David McAlmont
M: How does your songwriting partnership differ from the one you had with Brett?

B: Well, I mean at first it’s different because we generally do it together and we are generally in the same room and we work things out and we spend a lot of time together and after this sort of first half a dozen songs we wrote for the first Suede record we didn't do that again because life just got more and more messy and Bret just wasn't around enough and wanted to hole up and take smack and whatever he was doing and he wasn't really interested in being around me very much. So, that's pretty much the black and white of it really. Whereas with David, the whole idea, he comes around everyday, I've got a studio at home and we just sit here and we write. It's not like we sit here everyday all day long or something you know, when we want to do something, when we feel we've got something to do he just comes around and we just get on with it and do it. Where as by the time we got to the second Suede record certainly I used to just bring Brett around tapes and leave them with him, and there's nothing wrong with that, it worked really well, he preferred to just hole up and do it himself that way. But it just became more difficult to actually have a relationship at all with somebody, I didn’t want it to be like that.

The Hole In Suede?
M: How much of a hole do you think you left when you left the band?

B: I don't know really because I think they sold more records when I was out of the band than when I was in it. I ‘m sure they're not complaining, and they still go and everything. I think I could of made more great records with them without doubt. I think we had a lot to do which we didn't do. I think they were really stupid to let me go under those circumstances. All I wanted was something creative, it was completely creative what I wanted. I wanted somebody else to mix the record and start noticing what I was doing in the group and nobody wanted to do that. And after I left, well I mean they fired the producer anyway. I think they have trouble with production, with the sound of their records, and they have done ever since really. Musically, I mean the whole point of Suede was that it was a strong song writing force between two people and we all knew what we were good at. I never tried to write lyrics for Brett because he was the best at doing it and he never tried to play the guitar because he knew I was the best at doing it in the group and the other two didn’t try to interfere with what we were doing because they knew that we had it wrapped up and that was great for everyone. I think the irony is that Brett's gone through several people to write music in the group because they've got a couple of new guitar players and a keyboard player as well and they’ve all tried to write songs and I don’t think they’ve come out with anything direct because of it, as direct. But then they’ve been really popular and they write really good catchy songs and everything, I just don't think there's that power there. Or emotional content, personally.

M: Especially not on the new album. Have you heard the new album?
I just hear the singles, you know I haven't bought, people always ask me this, ‘cause there's only one reason people ask me is because they want me to slag it off. Put that in print and it will go all over the internet or something. I slagged off Suede, how dare I. At the end of the day, I don't listen to the ones that I've made, let alone the ones I didn't make. I don't listen to my own records. I've got too many other records to listen to and I find that a really odd experience listening to my records. So, no I don't. I hear what I hear on the radio and I've heard the ones they've done recently and they’re really, I don't know, if you want my opinion, I think they are really bland. Incredibly bland records and I think I could write songs in 30 seconds flat, or pieces of music in 30 seconds flat that would set him on fire and make those songs look like little cousins. That's a choice that people make.

M: Any Suede fans I’ve talked to are disappointed by the new record.
Suede fans aren’t into Suede records, they're into Suede and the whole idea of what it means to be a Suede fan and stuff. That’s a different thing completely entirely.

Charting a Career
M: I will say that I love your new record more than the new Suede.

B: Again, you know what I don’t give a shit whether it’s better than the new Suede record any more than the last Soundgarden record or something. It makes no difference to me, even though I'm really really happy you said that, it's really, I'm really glad that you like the record. For me, the thing I'm most proud of is that it's been very, my career, if you call it a career, has been the hardest just because it's been the most unorthodox way of going about what I do because I've made records with so many different people in different ways and each one gets judged on a certain standard and at the end of the day, I think when I look back, if you had an alien come down to earth and looked at what I did, there is kind of a thread that runs through every record but I think every record is very eclectic. The Suede records themselves, I think from the first Suede record to the second one there was a huge jump creatively. I think ‘Yes’ was a huge jump from Dog Man Star and I think that the two Creation records I made were a huge leap from ‘Yes’ and I think Bring it Back is a huge leap from what I did then as well. That's what I like about what I do, there is nothing that I wanted less. And me and Brett wanted nothing less when we started making records than to be a band to just fulfill our contract and satisfy the fan base. It was always the crime for us to just make records that sounded a bit like what you're supposed to sound like as a group. It was always about making great creative statements, and when you didn’t, getting out and not doing it. That's still my idea, I'm really happy I can still keep up the ideal. And it still means I can say to people, and people kind of go shock horror, if say Brett said to me tomorrow he wanted me to write music for him, I’d say, ‘alright.’ It wouldn’t be a big deal for me. The same way is when I thought I wanted to make another record with David, I didn't think to myself, ‘oh I haven’t spoken to him in eight years, oh he better do the talking first cause I'm not making up with him, all that kind of stuff. When you can be direct with somebody like that and be that honest about yourself I think you get great creative results from that so you know and I think Bring It Back’s a great record.

On David’s Sexuality
B: No I think it's funny cause a lot of the lyrics I write anyway, maybe I'm getting into homo-erotic lyrics. I mean I like it I mean I think it's, that side to me I find incredibly funny. I think it gives him a lot of personality to use as a songwriter as a creative person. He is also a lot freer than I am.B: We toured up around the north of England and places where people that don't really know David's gay and don't really know about him. And the whole front row is packed with women. The rest of the band just look down and think, what a waste, because there’s all these women standing there drueling over him and he’s just saying, ‘well, what am to do with all these women.’

The Music Biz
B: You get to a point in the music business where you realize actually everything they say in the books is true. It is shitty business and absolutely everything you hear about when you’re a kid and fifteen read in the books and stuff and you think, (he gasps) ‘my God that can't happen, that won't happen to me, I'll never let that happen. Actually it all happens to you and you just start taking it with a pinch of salt and you realize that actually the only thing that I’m really interesting anymore is getting to make the record. As long as someone lets me make records and if I do is my best to get people to hear them, then that’s all I can do really. I haven't got a million pounds to put behind my own record and come touring around America with it on my own, I wish I did. What do Bernard’s Kid’s Think of His Music?

B: They probably think it's rubbish. No, I've got one five year old who loves David. He thinks David’s a kind of a hero, he thinks he’s like this exotic queen who comes into the house and sings with this amazing voice and waltzes out. And I’m just this slob that tells him what to do, tells him to clear up his mess after him. David is just the kind of exotic for him.

Bonus David McAlmont Quotes

Acting vs. Singing Mark Redfern (M): What drew you to music in the first place? David McAlmont (D): I studied to become an actor at first , but whilst I was studying acting people were saying to me, ‘oh, you've got a great voice, you should really sing.’ So I thought, ‘well okay I'll do that then and it went very well for me so I haven't looked back.’ M: Have you ever thought about doing acting again? D: Yeah, I've been thinking about it quite a lot at the moment. But then you know these things have to be offered to people like me.Early Inspiration M: Which vocalists did you aspire to be when you were younger and began singing? D: That's a good question. I wasn't really paying attention to it that way then. I just always sang along to records that I liked. I have a real deep affection for Tony Bennett now. I think he's a wonderful human being, I mean the more I found about him as well, that put him up in my estimation. All his philanthropy and his painting and stuff like that. So he's a real hero of mine. People like, I just always wanted to capture emotion really effectively in music. So, the slower the music I suppose, and the more range that the vocalist has to express has always made an impression on me more. People like Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughn, Stevie Wonder, Karen Carpenter, the sort of people that I really loved when I was younger. And then I went to live in Guiana which is in South America. My mother was from there, I lived there for nine years. There was a lot more eighties American soul music. Stuff like Earth Wind and Fire, Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson which kinda like, that combined with women singers and crooners, all interested in expressing expression and stuff like that, so there you are.

D: Eleven.

M: Wow, that must have made a big impression on you.

D: Yeah well I was living in England, so I went from a pretty civilized country to a not so civilized country I mean it's colonialized so yea, a very different experience.

First Impressions

M: What was your first impression of Bernard, when you first met him what did you thin of him?

D: I thought he was very shy and very afraid and he was because by then you know an awful lot of recriminations that go with rapid success had already set upon him. He’d had this falling with Suede and everything and he was very suspicious and very nervous with good reason. But it didn't put me. I noticed really early was that he has got a flawless understanding of classic song structure, which is always nice to work with. Bernard’s the kind of person who knows exactly what kind of song he's going to write before he has written it. He looks across a collection things that he's written and says, ‘okay, we need something like this,’ and bang, five minutes later it's written.

Together Again
M: Did you ever think you’d be recording again with Bernard?

D: No, no, Bernard says no but he always knew that one day we would work together again and I remember people saying that was possibility and I’d go, ‘no, never, never!’ But in the end he called me up and it was like ‘oh thank God you called me up because I feel really bad about a lot of the stuff that got said and done and I’d really like to resolve of it, so let's get together.’ And we did and he put a CD in my hand, and I was like ‘oh what is this?’ And he said, ‘well just a few songs I want you to listen to.’ And I said, ‘well what about the past?’ He said ‘well here are a few songs I always listen to,’ ie, ‘over the past, don’t need to talk about, let’s just work together again, you know it’s the right thing to do.

On the Future Third Album
D: The last album was very much the album we needed to get out of the way so we could get on with what was more unique about us, and the stuff that we’re writing right now is already shaping out to sound more like me and Bernard than these two fun British guys who are influenced by Phil Spector and David Bowie.British, Black, Gay, and Out

M: How important is your sexuality to your personality?

D: Well, it's me isn't it. A lot of the most twisted, difficult people you’ll ever meet are people who aren't true about what they are, because they are wrestling with something they are keeping a secret, by its very nature it makes your behavior very covert and untrustworthy, and people might not actually know where they are with you. So you know
it's been really important that I be open about that from the beginning . It hasn't actually had that negative of an effect on me. I thought things would of been a lost worse. I remember imagining me because I actually became me professionally if you know what I mean, imagining, because you know there was Andy Bell and there was Holly Johnson and there was Boy George and there was Jimmy Summerville and Mark Almond and I imagined that it would be really cool to have a British black singer that was gay and out. And I’ve filled the gap, funny that.

M: When did you come out, was it at a young age?

D: I came out when I was about 20 years old. Coming to terms with my sexuality and coming out and finding a deal with a Virgin, which was my first home, went hand and hand. Everybody knew, I mean, you couldn't miss it really. I mean that's the thing, even if I denied it people would have known.