Research from the archives

 

FOLK ROOTS 1990)

OYSTERBAND ALBUMS - a fan's view

 

 

Simon says: "Sarah Coxson had a chat with the band and I have put together some of the highlights from that article."

Turning the clock back a little, one of the most important factors of change over the last few years has been the enrolment of Russell Lax on drums. Bringing him on board, according to John Jones, was the key element in reducing the complexity of the band's intrinsic sound but also adding that extra rhythm and energy.

"We used to play some good music - it had layers of harmony and was really nice but what it didn't have was that drive that I think is inherent in the music. Irish music changes for me when you add the bodhran. When percussion of any kind joins in and underpins something, it whacks it home."

It was at this stage, though, that everyone in the band had to simplify their role to a certain extent. In particular, it must have been difficult for lan Kearey, whose improvisatory bass style that had evolved through being in a band without a drummer for so long and who seemed restricted in this new context.

"I can remember feeling at the time when we made Step Outside that Clive Gregson's knowledge of what a rock band should sound like was invaluable but at the same time very challenging, very difficult to take on board because we had a very free-and-easy, anarchical style. But once you start to build up this sound picture that's like rock music, people have to restrict their roles to a certain extent anyway.

Given that we rushed into Step Outside, rushed into being this form of The Oyster Band, rushed Russell into playing with us with the idea that we'd just make a record with him and suddenly he was part of the band, we all did amazingly well - but it was very fraught. For Russell, coming in and trying to play songs that had been arranged without him, and also for Ian Kearey, I think it was very, very difficult. Clive is a consumate musician and had strong opinions as to how things should go. I think it's to everybody's credit that we actually made it work. It could have easily fallen apart."

But with an increase in touring, the stakes constantly going up meant that the personal pressure on members of the band eventually took its toll. After their Autumn '88 tour, Kearey decided he could no longer continue playing with the band and left.

The gaping hole was eventually filled by the talents of Chopper. And however much I may be a fan of Kearey's style, a great cohesion exists between Chopper and Russell. They're a really tight unit and Russell seems to have expanded his rhythmic vocabulary further.

Maybe the worldwide musical knowledge that Chopper can lay claim to has broadened his inventive horizons.

Telfer points this quality out.  "What Chopper's brought to us amongst other things is his very wide experience of different kinds of dance music. People who know a lot more about South African dance music than I do can pick up on the slight overtone of mbaqanga or whatever it is that the boy throws in. Obviously it's not an attempt to imitate that kind of thing, it's just a familiarity with a very sophisticated range of dance feel.

That's been all to the good."

Jones is certainly pleased with the apparent simplification, with everyone playing less and achieving a more accurate live sound in the studio.

"It's less hurried and less frantic. The whole attack that we had before, which was quite exciting, went over the top. It was really confusing for people sometimes, you know. It's taken us a long time to get used to creating energy on stage without those layers and layers of busyness piling up."

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Previous worries about how roots music would be accepted are now well and truly dismissed, as Ian Telfer recalls.

"There was a moment, wasn't there, where we nearly seriously misled ourselves and thought we had to turn ourselves into a guitar band and get in another guitarist. Oh, and am I glad that we didn't - what a horrible mistake. Who wants to be a third rate R.E.M. when you can be a first rate Oyster Band?"

Chopper: "What attracted me when I first joined the band was actually the sound of the fiddle and the squeezebox."

Russell: "Yeah, same with me. It was something they wanted to bury and something that we thought was the main feature of the band."

Ian: "Now, of course, I see that you were absolutely right."

Russell: "Of course!"

John: "We bloody didn't at the time!"

Ian: "I have no embarrassment about it at all now. I mean, I would take this band into almost any venue in the known universe."

Problems with presenting themselves as a serious, fully-fledged alternative group to the entire universe have also been over-come. Although their background of playing for dances for years was a very good training for playing and improvising, it hasn't necessarily been an awfully good schooling for going out and being completely extrovert on a stage.

Telfer dates the loss of self-consciousness to a particular week in July '88 when playing at a festival in West Berlin.

"On about the third day of that festival - we did five days in the same place - something suddenly clicked into place like a bone and we lost a certain kind of embarrassment, an innate embarrassment, an under-the-counter embarrassment, about what we were doing and began to say well, hell, it's the only chance we have to do it, let's do it.”

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So the 1980s have marked a very long and definite transition for The Oyster Band. The BBC2 TV Rhythms Of The World series which will be featuring The Oyster Band on February 18th juxtaposes shots of the band playing in a village hall with them playing at Kentish Town's Town & Country. They've moved from the small, informal village hall ceilidh atmosphere to the big stage. Their music has even been heard in a recent edition of East Enders!

As John puts it:-  "We've seen the music that has totally absorbed Ian and I for a good many years, twelve years and the rest, become fashionable." Telfer: "And it's become open-ended again, become capable of new development and growths."

Jones: "It could go back to everybody playing in village halls and little hops in clubs again, it could become the biggest thing since sliced bread. And in summing up a decade, which is bloody difficult, I'm told one of best things at Glastonbury '89 was when the Waterboys had Seamus Begley and Steve Cooney open for them. To get a terrific reaction for a melodeon and guitar duo at what is a major rock festival, to have the Mean Fiddler putting on a far more folky, rootsy bill at Reading than ever before, things have moved a hell of a way."

Telfer: "I like the way this coincides with some of the stirrings of political hope in this country. At the very end of the decade then perhaps the log jam might just shift, y'know. It's probably a coincidence but I find it a very pleasing one, a hopeful one."

Jones: "We'll all be glad when the Labour Party are re-elected and we can go back to writing real songs.””