• Interviews

• All
• Music
• Cinema
• TV
• Comic Books

Aug 05, 2011 Jonny By Frank Valish

Despite the recent nature of their recorded collaboration, Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub) and Euros Childs (Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci) have actually been friends for years. In a joint interview, the pair go back and forth with each other on how they first met. “Sometime in the mid-‘90s. Possibly at a show, maybe a [Super] Furry Animals show,” says Blake. Says Childs: “It was definitely a Creation act. That much I’m sure…. It was definitely London.”

Regardless of the particulars, Blake and Childs forged a friendship over the years that led to them writing songs together and finally releasing their self-titled debut album as Jonny. The album consists of 13 tracks that fulfill every pop expectation you might have of a collaboration from the leaders of Teenage Fanclub and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. It’s a carefree, spontaneous work of pop songwriting expertise from two of the best at their crafts. Interviewing together for Under the Radar, Blake and Childs evidence the camaraderie and jovial friendship that makes Jonny such a fun listen.

Frank Valish: When did each of you find the other’s work?

Norman: I heard Gorky’s I think through the Peel Sessions quite early on, and the first album that I bought was the Bwyd Time album. I bought that in Japan with Teenage Fanclub…. Since then Euros has told me that the sleeve on that record is wrong. Right Euros?

Euros: That’s right. It was done without us knowing.

Norman: So that was the first record that I picked up and I really liked it a lot. Shortly after that, we played together, did a tour in the U.K. And we’ve known each other, been friends since then.

And Euros?

Euros: I think it would be definitely John Peel and I think in 1989.

I understand that this project sort of informally started way back in 2006.

Norman: It did. The first few songs were written recreationally. We were sitting around the kitchen table. I think Euros was possibly playing a show.

Euros: No, I don’t think so.

Norman: We might have had a gig at the end of it?

Euros: We recorded an EP and that EP we never released because we never got around to it, but we did “Bread” and “The Goodnight” in 2006.

Norman: That was the initial idea. It was fun and then we had an idea that we’d record a 7”, write a couple of songs, then press up a few hundred and split them in half, and take them away and sell them at shows and such. But it slowly developed to an album, because we had those initial recordings that weren’t released and then we got together and wrote some more songs. So by this point, we were thinking maybe we’re not far away from an album. Another session like this and we could get enough songs to make an album. And it quickly gathered pace from there. Right up until we made the album, it was going to be just the two of us with a drum machine. And as it got closer, and in fact I think we were in Glasgow, and Rich from Chemikal Underground told me that he could give us a really good rate in the studio because they had some downtime…. For all intents and purposes it was going to be a home recording, but when we had the opportunity to go into the studio, at that point, we thought, ‘Well maybe we should get someone to play bass and drums.’ It really was quite near the end wasn’t it?

Euros: I think it was about four or five days before. You were going to play drums, if I remember correctly.

And you recorded it in 10 days, right? It was quick.

Norman: Yeah, actually maybe even less than that.

Euros: Yeah, I think it was.

Norman: Myself and Euros kind of arranged the songs. We’d gotten most of the lyrics done, but when the guys came in to play drums and bass [ex-BMX Bandit Stuart Kidd and Teenage Fanclub’s Dave McGowan], they were basically hearing songs about 10 minutes before recording them. They’re very good players. We were talking about this recently, but a lot of Dave’s bass parts change from verse to verse, and it’s basically because he was still working out what he was going to play.

Why the name Jonny?

Norman: I have a friend who’s a Glasgow-based artist; his name is Joseph Mann. And he basically synched up some music that I recorded to an animated film that he had made, and when that was done and he’d completed the editing, he emailed me to say that he had the finished was on his website. So I went to the website and watched the movie. He has a pretty interesting website so I thought, ‘I’ll have a look around and see what else is here.’ And as I came on the miscellaneous section, I came across that image. Joe, the artist, is the guy who’s on the left. He is the guy who’s got the J written on his chest. That’s Joseph Mann. But basically he and a bunch of artists friends did that. It was a friend Jonny’s birthday and they had a party for him and for some reason decided that they would write his name across their chests. We liked the image and we thought it was funny. And we were looking for a name for the band, and we thought, ‘Joe you could kill two birds with one here. That would be a great album sleeve and that’s a great name for a band.’ And that’s how we got the name.

I didn’t know the image came first.

Euros: So in a way we’re named after our own album cover, in a sense.

With both of you coming from the pop world, however loosely that genre might be defined, I wondered whether there was anything that either of you noticed about the other’s particular writing style or sensibility that was a surprise once you started writing together?

Norman: I don’t really think so. I suppose everyone writes in slightly different ways, but I think we’re both pretty much interested in trying to come up with a strong melody, and in a classic sense, just trying to write a tune. I don’t think we’re that different in the way we approach writing a tune. Do you think Euros?

Euros: No, I don’t think we are. For most of the songs on the album, maybe one of us came up with an opening chord and then kind of jammed together in a sense and the song would develop from there.

Norman: One thing I suppose is that we’re probably used to working individually, so it’s interesting to bounce ideas, sort of. And I can be much more adventurous I think. Sometimes you might come up with an idea that you may not be sure about, and the person that you’re writing with might say, that’s really good, keep developing that, or whatever, just in terms of encouraging me to be a bit more adventurous. But we wrote them fairly quickly, didn’t we?

Euros: Yeah, a lot of them were written when we had a gig at the end of the week. So “Cave Dance” and a few of the others, “You Was Me” and a lot of those were written knowing we had a gig.

Norman: There was no, like gnashing of teeth. It was painless.

So you felt that you complemented each other and the writing was easy together.

Norman: Yeah, yeah. There was no anguish. Pretty straightforward. The songs came pretty quickly. Most of the lyrics were written. We had to finish a couple of lyrics in the studio, but not many. There was one song that we had to write as we were recording it, and it was the last song we recorded. It was the last day and we were mixing the song and we thought, this would be a great place to have some words on it, because we hadn’t done that yet. So we basically wrote the words as we were singing them.

What was the song?

Norman: “Circling the Sun.”

Euros: I think we had about two, three, four lines in the morning and then as the day went on, deadline loomed and it was the case of putting the vocals on and writing the lyrics at the same time.

Norman: We did complete everything, which was good. I don’t think anything was left unfinished, and that was the last thing to do. But working with David and Stuart, they were really quick. That really helped a lot I think. They got the song ideas very quickly. We could record them pretty quickly and get good takes.

So what are you guys up to right now? You’re touring but something happened with the U.S. tour. You didn’t make it over here.

Norman: Yeah, we’ve been in Japan for a coupe of weeks, but we came over to the U.S. and the ticket sales weren’t strong enough at first to justify it. We basically had to say this was just the wrong time to try this. We just came too early. We spoke to Merge [Records, the band’s label] about it, and they were cool. They just said, ‘Look we’ll come back again.’ I think they seemed to feel that people hadn’t quite got the connnected about who we were and what we’ve been, with Euros being in Gorky’s and me in Teenage Fanclub. I would like to come because of course we got our American visas, and they last until next year. So we’ll get back. We’ll get back.

Good. Because I was looking forward to coming out. And I was disappointed as I’m sure others were as well.

Norman: No, listen, we were too. But here’s the thing, it was for a number of reasons. Basically it would have been depressing for us to go and play for like 10 people, and it would have been depressing for the promoters, who would have been paying us. So it just makes sense. Someone’s just got to say, ‘This just isn’t the right time.’

Euros: I did a tour in 2007 that was a solo under my own name, and I don’t want to do that again. You go around to ten to twelve people, seven or eight nights on the trot, and you’re not in a good frame of mind. So I think for all concerned, it’s best to postpone.

Norman: But we’ll get back. We just were in Norway. Had a pretty fun show. We did a show with Robyn Hitchcock in this tiny little fest in the west of Norway and we were shown some great hospitality, which we’re still recovering from. And we played at Glastonbury and did some shows in the U.K.,which all went really well. So like I say, we’ll get to the U.S. at some point. Of course, we did play in Toronto, because I now live about an hour west of Toronto and we were visiting my house.

Have you guys done any more writing?

Norman: We haven’t really had a chance to do it, to be honest with you. But we’re planning to, I think in the next few weeks.

Euros: We’ll lock ourselves in a room for four days solid, with coffee, and come out with a quadruple album.

And is there any update with what you guys are doing in your separate projects? Anything new to report?

Norman: Yeah, you want to go first, Euros? You have loads of stuff.

Euros: Yeah, I’ve got my own label and I have a few releases coming out with different acts. There’s one coming out in September. And then a solo record coming out hopefully next year. So I have plenty going on. Busy enough.

Norman: And Teenage Fanclub is doing some festival shows, and I’m hoping to start making a record, I would like to think, next year. But Euros is very prolific, and that’s quite inspiring to me. So I’d like to try and do something back home in Canada, just make a little record at home and put that out somehow. It’s funny because as a musician, people ask what your hobbies are. Well, I like recording stuff. I like buying records. But it’s great that’s your job, because it is a job in a way, it’s what pays your bills, but is also your hobby. It’s perfect.

(www.mergerecords.com/artists/jonny)

(www.teenagefanclub.com)

(www.euroschilds.com)