scans.
OH NO, IT'S THE LUSTY BINS
DUBLIN ON a Saturday night is no place for faint hearts.
Ned's Atomic Dustbin are out on the town. It's their night off and they're
determined to enjoy it in style - by finding a warm hostelry and settling
down to an evening of lively conversation and, who knows, maybe a few
pints of Guinness too.
Despite being hungry, thirsty, freezing cold and desperate for
a chance to empty their bladders, Stourbridge's top pop noise ambassadors
are only slightly miffed when they reach one highly inviting pub, only
to find it's clientele spilling on to the street because of a bomb scare.
The next pub is full. And the next. And the one after that. The final
straw comes when the band are ejected from what seems like the only
pub in town that isn't packed to bursting.
The reason? As the barman tactfully puts it, "I'm sorry, lads, but you're
too casually dressed."
Later, at McGonagles nightclub (where the Ned's will be playing tomorrow),
guitarist Rat is surprisingly philosophical.
"I think the barman was very polite about it. It's the way he walked
up and said, Excuse me, I think you know what I'm going to say.
"I wouldn't mind being called 'casual', but some guy sitting down in
there had a ski jumper and jeans on!"
"You get used to it," shrugs bassist Alex, "but there's nice ways of
doin' it."
Rat: "And that was nice, that was polite."
NED'S ATOMIC Dustbin are very taken with Ireland which, along with
Holland, is the only place they've played outside Britain.
Together with three dedicated English fans (eleven more are on the way),
the Ned's have been here for five days, sticking to a strange schedule
that's forced them to zig zag between Ulster and the Republic in order
to play dates at Limerick, Belfast, Coleraine and Drogheda (the PA burst
into flames at the last one of these).
"It was hilarious," Rat chuckles. "The smell of burning…"
The band are making a loss on this tour, but the reactions they've been
getting in towns like Drogheda (where they appeared at the local boxing
club) are ample compensation.
Mat (whose cat is giving birth back in Stourbridge) remembers the Belfast
gig with particular fondness, and not just because the band sold 73
of their stylish and highly successful T-shirts…
"People were saying, Thank you for coming! They were pleased to see
us, know what I mean? For the first time in my life, I felt like I was
doing something special."
"One girl went up to Jonn," Rat grins, "and she said, You, me, my friend,
my bed, now! What a fuckin' state."
Jonn (sheepishly): "I've never had anything, um, sexual offered
to me before, and the first time it's a fuckin' threesome! It's quite
bizzare."
The Ned's are due to play Dublin the following night. But, much to their
dismay, they'll have to get the ferry back to England at seven o'clock
the following morning.
After a week of rehearsals, the band will embark on a full scale British
tour to push their new single, 'Happy' - a scintillating, breathless
guitar rampage with a tune so sweet it makes your knees go all wobbly.
A top 40 cert.
As well as being the Ned's best single yet, it's also their first for
CBS, after three earlier releases on Chapter 22. The stunning LP, 'God
Fodder', will follow in April.
NO ONE can accuse the band of 'selling out' to a major label. But despite
paying a solicitor to help draw up a water-tight contract, the Ned's
wily manager Tank is already fighting attempts to by CBS to push the
band as Just Another Pop Act. They know full well it's going to be tricky.
"It's the same with all large corporations," says singer Jonn. "It's
all money, and we're just one band in amongst thousands. You have to
try to keep hold of reigns, and that's what we drew our deal around,
but the troubles will always be there. They'll treat everyone the same
way if they can. They have a blanket way of doing things."
Alex: "I think they were impressed with the fact that we knew what we
were doing, cos we'd got so far on an indie label and when we went into
the office I think they were surprised that we had an idea of how we
wanted to be marketed. They were giving us all this stuff about, Oh
we want…"
Rat: "Hanging mobiles in record shops! Imagine how it'd look if you
walked into HMV and you hit yer head on a Ned's mobile, it's gonna look
horrible that is. You don't want that. We just said, No!"
Alex: "The main thing we want people to know is that is that we signed
to a major to get our records to as many people as possible, and to
finance the stuff that we've always done, because we couldn't do it
without the money. That's all we want."
Rat: It got to the stage where all the backline was basically non-existent.
It was all fuckin' up in the middle of shows 'n' stuff and you can't
have that, cos you're there to play. If yer amps had gone down, or if
yer guitar was knackered, that's it, it's over, because we only had
one of each."
From 1987, until two months after the Ned's signed to CBS last year,
Mat was borrowing a bass amp from Jonn's best friend. "I was only supposed
to borrow it for one gig," he blushes.
Mind you, even that was better than Rat's pre-Ned's days, when he used
to build guitars out of old cornflakes packets, with rubber bands for
strings.
"It was ace that was," he recalls. "I got the idea off Play School."
DESPITE THE logic of signing to CBS, there exists a snobbish and highly
possessive hardcore of Ned's fans who resent having their former 'indie'
faves snatched away from them. Or at least, that's how they see it.
Enter the new breed, the indie fascists…
" I walked up a set of stairs in a club," Rat recalls. "I was slightly
inebriated, and this kid just walked up to me and says, Oi, Rat, come
'ere! So I walk over to him, and he says, So you've signed to CBS then?
I said Yeah. He just called me a wanker and thumped me."
Mat: "It's the same people who a week before had been saying, I couldn't
get your fuckin' single anywhere! Know what I mean? They can fuck off."
Jonn has also been a victim - recently suffering a half hour haranguing
from five blokes on a train. Alex: "They went up to him and started
goin' on about, You've sold out, you bastards! You think you're better
than us now!"
Jonn: "As soon as you get anywhere you become public property, whether
you like it or not, and they think they can do anythin' they like and
say anything they like to you, because your skin is that thick,
and you perform because you think that you're great or something. A
lot of people seem to think that the two things correspond: success
and ego go together.
"And the more famous you are, the more you believe in yerself, and it's
not true. And people do say things like that, you do get hassled
on trains and stuff. It really hurts, because it's your only way of
expressing yourself."
"The thing is we don't wanna sound bitter about the fact that we've
become successful like," adds Alex. "Because we're not. Being hassled
in the street is all part of the job."
NED'S ATOMIC Dustbin formed in 1987, from the ashes of two legendary
Black Country outfits, The White Rabbits and Iron Lung.
The band played their first gig at The Mitre on Stourbridge High Street.
A much celebrated review in a local rag ("I went home saying to myself,
They were magic!" swooned the writer) impressed Miles from The Wonder
Stuff so much that he asked the Ned's to support the Stuffies on a national
tour. Word quickly spread and soon the Ned's were headlining themselves,
playing tours financed in part by sales of those fabulous T-shirts,
but mostly by a hefty loan from Mat's aunt.
'The Ingredients EP', the band's debut release, came out on Chapter
22 last april, followed by 'Kill Your Television' in July, and 'Until
You Find Out' in August.
"We released 'Until You Find Out' on Chapter 22, and we'd already signed
to CBS," says Jonn "We wanted to give the indie scene another chance,
see if we could chart with it."
The single reached number 52, but dropped like a stone when Rough Trade's
distribution fell apart. Fingers crossed, the same fate will not befall
'Happy'.
The Neddies have a hell of a lot going for them: their unmistakable
floppy crimped haircuts, for a start, and a droll black country wit.
Being able to compose brilliant pop songs is pretty useful too. One
of the band's biggest assets, however, is the pure youthful vitality
that shines through in everything they do.
On the afternoon of the Dublin gig, the Ned's are enjoying a drink in
the lobby of their hotel. As usual, drummer Dan is largely silent, content
to mumble the odd cryptic witticism and doodle on his authentically
thick Irish Guinness.
Jonn, the oldest Ned, has been consuming alcohol legally since 1988.
The others, if we assume they've been obeying the licensing laws (and
why shouldn't we?), are all novices when it comes to boozing.
Despite the handicap, they're coping admirably.
"There's a thin line between confidence and arrogance, which you've
gotta be careful of," cautions Alex. "We're all more confident now than
we were three years ago, because we've been onstage in front of people.
"You get offstage and you think, Well, I might actually be attractive
to women for the first time in my life! And the thing most people waste
their time on when they're teenagers is being attractive to the opposite
sex. And if you're in a band you're immediately attractive."
Mat: "I don't know how much that's the glamour of being in a band, or
the fact that people in bands are more attractive cos they know what
they're about. They understand themselves a lot better than most people."
AS EXPECTED, the gig at McGonagles is a stormer. Despite suddenly being
hit by the after affects of a dodgy Egyptian meal, the Ned's are in
top form.
The bouncers lose their struggle to keep back a growing army of stage
invaders, and the night ends with a loud applause as the band put down
their instruments and race each other for the backstage toilet.
"The thing that makes a gig work," says Mat, "is when it's an exchange
between the band and the audience.
"You've got 2,000 people, and there's five people trying to start a
mental conversation with everyone else. It's like we start off with
'Aim', and that means, How the fuck are you? And they go, WAAH! Which
means, We're alright, thanks very much.
"And then we do the second song, which means, How have you enjoyed it
so far? And they go, WUUUH! Which means, Yeah, alright.
"Then we get to the last song, and it's like, Cheers, thanks very much,
we're off now. How do you feel now then? And they go, UHHH… Which means,
Oh dear, I've gotta go outside and it's freezing cold, I'm soaking wet…"
Rat: "And I've gotta get the fuckin' bus home!"
Mat: "It's all about communicating, and that's why women like
singers. It's true, because the singer's the most articulate member
of the band."
Rat: "Especially when we do 'Terminally Groovie', and you watch all
the girls look at Jonn's face when he sings, 'I made love to you
till our face turned blue.' It's brilliant, all the girls just love
it!"
"I just try me best not to focus on anybody," squirms the embarrassed
frontman. "I just look at the back wall, like."
In case you're wondering about that prospective steamy threesome back
in Belfast, though, Jonn's reply was, Thanks, but no thanks.
As the old saying goes, this could be the start of something big.
ESSENTIAL LISTENING
1. 'Happy' 45
2. 'Kill Your Television' 45
3. 'Terminally Groovie' from 'The Ingredients EP'
4. 'Selfish' from the forthcoming 'God Fodder' LP
5. 'Grey Cell Green' from 'The Ingredients EP'
6. 'Until You Find Out' 45
7. 'What Gives My Son?' from the forthcoming 'God Fodder' LP
8. 'Aim' from 'The Ingredients EP'
9. 'Less Than Useful' from the forthcoming 'God Fodder' LP
10. 'Your Complex' from the forthcoming 'God Fodder' LP