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Jan 23, 2025 Web Exclusive By Marina Malin Photography by Paul Kelly

Pete Wiggs and his long time best friend Bob Stanley got their start in the music world with their late ’80s zine, Caff, blending humor with their deep passion for exploring music. Soon after, the two started to experiment with making music together, recruiting Sarah Cracknell for vocals to create the long-lived Saint Etienne.

Immediately hitting it off, Saint Etienne made their debut album Foxbase Alpha (1991), which became a defining moment in their careers, propelling them into the spotlight and solidifying their position in the music scene. Tracks “Nothing Can Stop Us” and their Neil Young cover “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” established the sound they would become known for: dreamy vocals over electronic beats. Their albums So Tough (1993) and Tiger Bay (1994) further embraced their eclectic ’90s indie pop dance sound.

Followed by Good Humor (1998) and Sound of Water (2002), Saint Etienne explored introspection and nostalgia in Finisterre (2002), followed by Tales from Turnpike House (2005), which is a concept album that further strengthens their story-telling. After a near-decade of silence since Words and Music by Saint Etienne (2012), I’ve Been Trying to Tell You (2021) departed from their classic dance sound and played with more ambient sounds and experimental samples.

Their new album, The Night, released last month via Heavenly, takes introspective, ambient, and dreamy elements of their previous discography, while venturing deeper into the world of experimental music. Discovering new territory, it finds Saint Etienne more ambient, introspective, and personal than ever before.

The Night tackles memory and the passage of time in the darker and quieter hours of the night. Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessarily an album that is supposed to soothe you—despite its hazy and dream-like sound—but rather, The Night embodies all that causes you trouble and keeps you up at night. It’s an amorphous record that is best listened to in one sitting. We spoke to the band’s Pete Wiggs about the album, as well as their whole career.

Marina Malin (Under the Radar): You, Bob Stanley, and Sarah Cracknell have been together since your debut Foxbase Alpha. What is the secret to keeping a band happy and inspired together for that long?

Pete Wiggs: In all that time we’ve only done 12 albums now, so we haven’t been overdoing it. We’re all really good friends. I’ve known Bob since I was two or something, a baby. We’re almost brothers. Sarah joined us in 1990 and we all really bonded and got on well. We had a laugh. Over the years, Sarah and I both got older kids who are like cousins to one another, and Bob recently had a child and it just feels like family. If we have disagreements, we don’t hate each other like some bands. We just end up resolving them without falling out with each other. Also, I guess we always try to change each album and do different kinds of styles and not rush things. If we’re not feeling it, we won’t do it, or we just take our time. Even for this record, I looked at when we started recording and it was three years ago. I thought that time went faster. When we play live, it’s often a different type of thing. We have different people surrounding us who can play much better than us, and we change that line up as well. We’ve been lucky to find people that have just been fun.

Do you feel like your music has aged with you guys and shifted as time has gone on?

For me, having children added another dimension of emotions from a lyrical point of view. You sort of experience life again through your kids so it keeps you young musically. Certainly, on this album I wrote songs about my daughter fleeing the nest and being sad about it. I guess having kids has added a level of maturity to things. They’re both into music which keeps you going and inspired.

You and Bob had a fanzine at one point, could you talk about that experience and what your opinions are about the state of music media today?

We’re going back even further now, this was the late ’80s, 1986 and it was called Caff, which is a nickname for a cafe, even though it’s the same number of letters. It was a mixture of very silly jokes—I’d be really embarrassed to see—and writing about music and people that we were getting into at the time. It was a very DIY photocopier kind of thing. I think color photocopiers had just come out then. Everyone thought that was really exciting, our cover was one color instead of black and white. It was very silly. There was a pop magazine in Britain called Smash Hits, which me and Bob grew up reading. It was aimed at kids and teenagers. It had all the latest pop, but it had a very silly sense of humor. We kind of tapped into that daffiness as well. We’d go to gigs and sort of stand there and sort of occasionally try to sell our fanzines and people bought them. It was good fun. Bob then went on and took it to be a record label called Caf. It’s interesting that the current state of play, I don’t know how much print there is or how many people buy into print things. In a bad way, whenever we’ve got something out, I’m always searching for reviews and discovering magazines I haven’t heard about. Then you realize that there are quite a few, at least online, publications. Some of the writing’s amazing and they really get in depth into their reviews as people that really care and are passionate about music. I just don’t know how many people are reading them. I guess it used to be a lot easier. It’s a bit like TV, in the old days there were only a few channels, and it was kind of easy. Everyone was watching the same things. In the ’90s there were about three or four main music papers that everybody read, or everyone into music read. I suppose it’s more disparate these days.

Let’s talk about your new album The Night. I feel like this record departs from previous discography, specifically because it was intended to sort of be like a headphone album, listening in one sitting. So I was just wondering if you could talk about sort of what inspired this decision, and if the intention of it being listened to sort of in one sitting, was that an afterthought or something you guys were planning beforehand?

I mean, it’s something you’d hope for with any album, really. I’ve become guilty of not doing it myself, I flick through albums. Ideally you don’t want people to do that. We did think of it as being a piece as it were, which is why some of the songs are really short, or some of them are really songs. It’s sort of amorphous. We didn’t necessarily know what order it was going to go in when we were writing the different bits, but we knew that the kind of vague idea was twilight into dawn. We didn’t discuss too much about what words we were going to write, it just sort of came. It’s sort of about the things that trouble you at night rather than things that soothe you. But you know by letting them go, it soothes you. It’s quite wistful and sad, actually, which again, we didn’t discuss that. It just kind of came out that way. In some ways, it’s also about getting older as we are, but not moaning about being old, just trying to deal with it in a nice way. The last album was quite a departure as well. It was very sample based, but there weren’t really any songs on that. We liked the way that that album came together. There wasn’t any pressure. We liked the idea that songs don’t have to be standard structures. We wanted to go a bit further down that avenue. And also “soothing,” if you want to call it, music or ambient music is something that we listen to when you’re out on a walk, so I think we wanted to make that kind of album that we’d put on at the end of the day, rather than get you in the mood for a party.

I’m really curious specifically about the lyrics in. You said that the lyrics were something that just came about it. I think the lyrics are so interesting to me, some of them read as almost instructions, some are painting an image, or some are just potent one liners like “Celestial.” I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more and make sense of the lyrics.

Most of the spoken parts, Bob wrote. And then song lyrics. We’ve all done some of the song lyrics. A lot of them are sort of painting pictures that are poetic in a way, certainly Bob’s bits. I learned that in my song “Gold,” that’s more about the kids and what future lies ahead and how people look into the internet for easy answers for things that aren’t really easy, like fortune tellers and things like that. “Preflyte” is about when my daughter was going on holiday and I was really worried about her. She ended up walking into a broken glass bottle, and got loads of stitches in her legs. My fears came true. I dramatize it into a song. But it’s one of the most sort of emotional songs I’ve ever written lyrically, because it means a lot to me that the kids are moving out and stuff. Well, not that she’s moving out yet, but just letting her go away on holiday because I’m a catastrophizer. “Half Light” is more of an impressionistic one. The music was sort of painting a picture, so the lyrics, which there aren’t many of, just came in a flash. It’s more about a twilight when you see trees moving and Mother Nature seeing spirits in the woods when you’ve had a few.

The Night has been pretty well received. How did you expect your audience to respond as a band that started in this indie dance pop scene and now in a more ambient field?

The reception has been amazing actually. We thought it would be an under the radar sort of album. I didn’t think it would get that kind of traction. It is nice, in a way, because we weren’t expecting anything, so it’s been really exciting. I feel for some of our fans it’s really not some of their cup of tea at all, but because we’ve always had a different size to all of our albums. They always have some melancholy tracks and ballads and B-sides. Some people get it all, others get bits. It’s fair enough, you know, over the course of 34 years. So I am basically very pleased. Some people don’t like it, but we got some more pop coming at some point soon.

Do you mind talking about the progression of your sound and all the different sonic hats you guys have been jumping around from?

We’re always listening to different music. In the ’80s, when we were teenagers, people used to be in different tribes. Everyone had different clothes and different groups. A lot of them wouldn’t mix. As people, they mix, but their tastes wouldn’t—“Oh, I’m into that. I’m into that.” And that’s it, never the two would meet. Then in the ’90s, there’s the ecstasy thing, and loads of boundaries broke down. People started sharing more music and getting into different things and cross pollination. I guess we grew up in a period where we were lucky. We had the ’80s music. Brilliant kids in the ’70s were exposed to lots of stuff then, and then all the dance music that started happening—electro and hip-hop were new, so we were really lucky to experience all those things. Then that informs our taste and we just want to try and do as many different things as we can and keep it fresh, really. If you’re just treading the same ground all the time, then I guess that’s when people split up, or it gets a bit tedious.

In terms of “keeping it fresh” and trying different sounds, is that a natural shift for you guys? I just think it’s really impressive that you’re able to fill all these different pockets of sounds in a way that seems very instinctive.

Yeah, we always collaborate with other people as well. So I think that kind of adds a different sonic texture. It’s kind of crucial, really, the different people that we’ve worked with over years, and you definitely learn things from them and there’s things you can’t do that you get them to do.

Is there one track on the record that you feel like you guys took the biggest risk in?

I think initially I thought there were some really good bits in “When You Were Young,” but we took them out in the end becauseI thought everyone might think it was a mistake, but I still think the production of that is quite out there. I think that we were trying to deconstruct songs and make them into a different world. The demo of “Nightingale” was a very straightforward song and then we went really nuts on the reverb. It’s really fun to do things like that and see what happens. It created much more space and I think it’s much better, actually, luckily.

Do you think that you’ll return to the tracks or the certain embellishments that you guys took out of this album in the future?

There’s a few, yeah. There’s a song that got bumped, one of my ones, that I’m sure will come out at some point. It was going to be the last song, and it was, it was a bit doom-laden so we thought we’d do a different song that’s a bit more up. We’re good at recycling. We would never let anything go, even if you can chop something out of an old song or fuse bits together. If we’ve started something, we’ll normally go back to it at some point. We’ve actually got almost a whole album that hasn’t seen the light of day yet. So yeah, there’s lots of stuff in the kitty.

When you do go back to these songs and are in the process of recycling, do you find that you’re switching up the production of the song or do you pretty much keep it the same as how you originally wrote it?

It’s different. Sometimes we’ll literally just go, “Oh, let’s put that out,” and other times we’ll take the melody or change the lyrics and just use the bit that sounded good. Sometimes we started things, but didn’t develop it so it didn’t have melody and lyrics on it. Then we’d just go over it and try something and then you can go backwards and forwards and adjust it to fit the tune that you come up with. Sometimes it’s a good starting block if you’re stuck for an idea. It’s like, “Oh I remember this, I started and gave up on it.” But then I think, “Why did I give up on it?” You forget things as well. Well, I forget loads of things. But, you know, you forget and then go through the old demos and think that was a gem of an idea that we had that we just forgot about.

Yeah, it’s kind of like digging through a treasure chest.

Then you find another one. The title sounds good. Oh, this is good. I load it up, and I go, “Oh it’s nothing. It’s very rubbish.”

Is there one song on the record that feels most meaningful to you?

“Preflyte” because it’s about my daughter. I was just really worried and at the same time, my dad was in hospital having heart surgery, so I was in a kind of hyper mode and I thought I’d throw myself into songwriting to stop myself, but it led to a good emotional outpouring. The song that didn’t end up on the record was almost about accepting death. It was good for creativity, my catastrophizing. But yeah, we get on really well with our kids and sort of let them go out and think about all the things you did when you were young—Oh my God, if they do those kinds of things. I’m amazed I survived.

Would you say that most of your creativity comes from personal reflections and experiences that are from your life?

Sometimes it’s fictionalized exaggerations of things. So you think you’re in a situation and imagine if this was more either romantic or more dramatic. Then sometimes we change it to the female perspective. I might write a song, but because Sarah is singing it, we’re writing from a female perspective. So you kind of come up with a character and sometimes they’re just little vignette stories, like little films in a way. It’s weird how sometimes creativity just strikes you and other times you can be really struggling and nothing comes.

I think it’s so powerful to be able to have this relationship between your real life and then translate it to song.

I think getting older, it becomes almost easier, I suppose since you’ve got more experience and more stuff to go back to and reminisce about.

Since so much of this record is about your families and where you are now, do you feel like the intended audience would be parents?

I suppose it’s kind of largely middle aged people. But I don’t think it’s exclusive. I hope it’s not exclusive anyway, because you don’t have to necessarily know what you know it’s about. I suppose, because we are parents and we’re also reflecting on age, I guess people that are going to get it most are people of a similar age group.

I will say that I do think that anyone at any age can really grasp onto this record, because it’s so rich and complex, and is an art in itself. I think it’s beyond appealing to a certain age group. So I just wanted to state that. Looking back on your 12 studio albums, is there one defining moment of success, in your definition, that stands out to you?

It’s hard not to sort of hark back to Foxbase Alpha, just because up to that point it was an experiment. We didn’t know that we were going to be able to release and have them. And then we got nominated for the Mercury Prize. It then sort of catapulted us into a “career.” It was a life changing thing and people still mention it 34 years later. We’d never guess that we’d still be doing it in 34 years time. I think it’s hard not to think of that album. I don’t think it’s a pinnacle, but it’s still an amazing and transformative moment.

To you, what makes a good album?

Well, it’s normally got to have a bit of an arc or some sort of curve to it. I tend to like music that has an emotional pull of some form as well. It depends on what sort of music obviously, but even dance music I want to have emotion. You want different sorts of textures and things like that. I guess it’s funny things like lyrics. Often I don’t fully grasp what the lyrics are to things. It doesn’t really bother me. Sometimes I think a song is about something, and then I find out later it’s completely different to what I thought it was about. But it doesn’t matter, because to me, I’m getting some form of emotion that means something to me from listening. It’s strange defining what a good album is because there are so many brilliant albums. There’s also some albums by brilliant artists where they’re a bit patchy and technically it’s not a great album, but it’s got some amazing classics.

Do you have any goals for the future as an artist or any type of projects that you’re wanting to jump on?

I’ve done a bit of film music with mainly people I know and I’m finishing that. I did the score, the music for a short film, and it’s been given some money to be turned into a feature length film. So I’m only going to be doing that at the beginning of [this] year. So that’s quite exciting. I don’t necessarily want to go into film music too much, but I like doing it and I sort of learned how to do it. Then, we’re gonna have another album out [this] year. We’ve been working on that already, so that’s been exciting. It’s a bit more upbeat. I’m not allowed to say much about it, but that’s exciting. And then I’m doing a sort of poetry and music thing with a friend of mine, which is going to be his years in the making. It’s going to be an event down here in Brighton so I’ve started writing the music for that. I like doing things like that, so there’s going to be plenty of stuff to keep me going. Another thing I want to do is just write some piano music for my daughter. She’s a brilliant pianist and I’m going to write some sheet music for her, which for some reason I haven’t got around to doing, so I really want to do that. Even if it’s just for our own benefit. I think that is a very nice thing to do.

I’m curious if there’s anything that you learned in the process of making this record that you’re going to take on to your new projects?

Boringly, it’s probably more like different plugins and things you use. Working in the studio with Gus, it’s a different studio and people always do things differently. So I like watching and talking about what plugins they use and gear they have, things like that. It is hard to say exactly what, but there’s always something you pick up and start doing differently. Then hopefully you’ve told somebody and given them new information that they can use as well.

www.saintetienne.com

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