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I had several encounters with Bernard Butler, researching this piece for Q Magazine, May 1998. He was thoughtful and engaging interviewee. Post-Suede, the guitarist was at this point beginning a solo career. In the years since then, of course, he has had a reunion with Suede’s singer Brett Anderson and prospered as a guest player and producer.
【Part Two】
A week later, still at Air, Bernard and his engineer George Shilling are staring at each other. “It’s the last day of term!” trills the guitarist. They’ve finished the album! A board on the wall proclaims its title, People Move On, and a rough running order. Shilling sets up a play-back. Melodies uncoil, layers lap and merge, that wispy voice begins to soar with a growing assurance. Days before, the singer had peeped into the room next door, where Sir George Martin was rehearsing his Montserrat charity band of Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler and Phil Collins. Butler has no particular dreams of joining that rock aristocracy, but he can’t help wondering what the world will make of him next Spring. Across North London, in Highgate, his wife Elisa is planning a New Year release of a different sort: in February, Bernard reveals, the couple will have their first baby. One way or another, 1998 is shaping up to be one hell of a watershed.
Last week, anticipating the record’s completion, Butler predicted this would be a glorious moment. Or, alternatively, an awful one. Which one is it?
He blinks. “I, er, dunno. I feel pretty good. I don’t know what to think. It’s just that you expect something fantastic to happen. I feel like I’ve gone through a lot to make this record, and I thought something bizarre and beautiful would happen, like the sun would shine for a week. But I’ve gradually noticed how I’m feeling good about myself, and that hasn’t happened since the very early days of Suede.”
When Bernard left Suede, he says, he was demoralised. His yearning was for a music of simple, authentic emotion, quite at odds with singer Brett Anderson’s starry visions of glamorous pop artifice. Something had to give in that volatile pairing, and what gave, in the end, was Butler’s spirit. For a time he was bewildered. Should he emulate his friend and hero, Johnny Marr, who left The Smiths to be a sort of gifted itinerant, an axeman without portfolio?
“I wondered what I’d do when I was 50. It really worried me that I’d be hunting for some 14-year-old singer or something. Twice a day I heard people telling me, ‘Why don’t you just get a singer and join another rock band, it’ll be great!’ And that was the one thing I didn’t want to do.” A couple of odd jobs followed. Then, through his manager Geoff Travis, came an arranged marriage with the flamboyant English soul singer David McAlmont. “I had this song, Yes, without a vocal, and it was just a matter of getting anyone who had a strong enough voice to live up to it.”
And where did that collaboration go wrong? Butler shrugs, unhappily. “From the start, really. David was into being a solo artist, writing his own songs, and his biggest problem was that I’d given him a life. I offered to do an album with him, and he was, ‘Oh this is very nice but I’ve got my own career and I won’t have time to fit you in.’ It really crushed me. And by the time Yes was a hit, he was, ‘Oh, you know about that album? D’you fancy doing that still?’ I was like, ‘No.’ So he really got the arse then. It depends what kind of person you are. David will pull out any trick to become famous, but it’s just not my scene.”
A week later, still at Air, Bernard and his engineer George Shilling are staring at each other. “It’s the last day of term!” trills the guitarist. They’ve finished the album! A board on the wall proclaims its title, People Move On, and a rough running order. Shilling sets up a play-back. Melodies uncoil, layers lap and merge, that wispy voice begins to soar with a growing assurance. Days before, the singer had peeped into the room next door, where Sir George Martin was rehearsing his Montserrat charity band of Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler and Phil Collins. Butler has no particular dreams of joining that rock aristocracy, but he can’t help wondering what the world will make of him next Spring. Across North London, in Highgate, his wife Elisa is planning a New Year release of a different sort: in February, Bernard reveals, the couple will have their first baby. One way or another, 1998 is shaping up to be one hell of a watershed.
Last week, anticipating the record’s completion, Butler predicted this would be a glorious moment. Or, alternatively, an awful one. Which one is it?
He blinks. “I, er, dunno. I feel pretty good. I don’t know what to think. It’s just that you expect something fantastic to happen. I feel like I’ve gone through a lot to make this record, and I thought something bizarre and beautiful would happen, like the sun would shine for a week. But I’ve gradually noticed how I’m feeling good about myself, and that hasn’t happened since the very early days of Suede.”
When Bernard left Suede, he says, he was demoralised. His yearning was for a music of simple, authentic emotion, quite at odds with singer Brett Anderson’s starry visions of glamorous pop artifice. Something had to give in that volatile pairing, and what gave, in the end, was Butler’s spirit. For a time he was bewildered. Should he emulate his friend and hero, Johnny Marr, who left The Smiths to be a sort of gifted itinerant, an axeman without portfolio?
“I wondered what I’d do when I was 50. It really worried me that I’d be hunting for some 14-year-old singer or something. Twice a day I heard people telling me, ‘Why don’t you just get a singer and join another rock band, it’ll be great!’ And that was the one thing I didn’t want to do.” A couple of odd jobs followed. Then, through his manager Geoff Travis, came an arranged marriage with the flamboyant English soul singer David McAlmont. “I had this song, Yes, without a vocal, and it was just a matter of getting anyone who had a strong enough voice to live up to it.”
And where did that collaboration go wrong? Butler shrugs, unhappily. “From the start, really. David was into being a solo artist, writing his own songs, and his biggest problem was that I’d given him a life. I offered to do an album with him, and he was, ‘Oh this is very nice but I’ve got my own career and I won’t have time to fit you in.’ It really crushed me. And by the time Yes was a hit, he was, ‘Oh, you know about that album? D’you fancy doing that still?’ I was like, ‘No.’ So he really got the arse then. It depends what kind of person you are. David will pull out any trick to become famous, but it’s just not my scene.”
Freshly depressed, Bernard took his wife Elisa for a holiday in New York. There, in the canyons of Manhattan, the unemployed guitarist had a life-changing epiphany. “We turned up in a heatwave, it was ridiculous, no-one on the streets. And I didn’t have a guitar, so we were stuck in our hotel with the air-conditioning on, pale English people who were terrified to go out. All I can remember is that we bought some American records, like the Sheryl Crow album, and I just started singing along. There’s something about going away from London, suddenly all the barriers are dropped. Who says I can’t sing? Maybe American people would like my singing, even if people in Camden thought it was iffy. And basically Elisa just told me to stop whinging, and to do it. So I did, and she thought it was great. And she’s my soul partner.”
Back in London he began to write some songs. But then he was interrupted. Destiny intervened in the dishevelled shape of Richard Ashcroft, whose band The Verve was in tatters. “I was in The Verve for about a week,” smiles Bernard, fondly. “Richard had lots of unfinished songs, that were nearly great but missed the mark. Basically everyone thought he needed a guitarist and someone to finish his songs, and to cut a long story short we had a great time for a week. I played on The Drugs Don’t Work and a couple of the other songs, then Richard just turned round and said, ‘This is great, but I have to do it on my own.’ It was quite sad, really. When it stopped I was quite depressed…
“Also, my management was basically so unenthusiastic about my whole life. It was like being a trophy on the shelf: ‘It’s great to have you, but we don’t have to do anything with you.’” Next step was another vacation with the wife, this time in France, where he revived the idea of singing. “We just took the car and drove around France for three weeks at 120 mph. We went to [producer] Mike Hedges’ place, where we’d recorded Yes. So I said, ‘Look, can I go into the studio, cos I’ve never really used a proper microphone.’ I just started singing. I’d always thought it was something I wouldn’t be allowed to do. It was out of bounds. But now it started flooding out. I used to think it was a different job being a guitarist and singer, and now I’ve realised that it’s not.”
Reinvigorated, he changed his management, wrote more songs, and explored the acoustic guitar: “Every day I was at home on my own, just singing. I didn’t play electric guitar for most of the year. When you’re not in a band you don’t tend to have a Marshall stack set up. I got used to sitting around picking.” He took long rambles through the vinyl backwoods: “Lots of Neil Young. Nick Drake, Dylan, Tim Buckley. I got obsessed by Springsteen’s The Wild The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle. Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. A lot of these records were undeniably American. And that came from the aftermath of being in Suede. I mean, I was the only person from London in that band, and I don’t have a Cockney accent, and I don’t know anyone who has. I find it incredibly corny when people try and sing in a London accent, especially when they’re not from there. It’s just like something they would do on The Two Ronnies.
“So I drew a line under the Suede period. ‘Right, let’s go out and find what’s good about music.’ I became obsessed with You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’, because it was my Dad’s favourite song and he died three years ago. Don McLean, Glen Campbell – my Irish parents were into the country side of things. Every time I heard an Elvis song I’d want to cry, because I’d heard them when I was a kid. They brought the warm feelings back…” All this research affected his own writing: “I thought, ‘If I just tell the truth about myself, people may think, ‘He’s not very interesting’, but they can’t say I’m dishonest. That was my main thing. I could be a dull person: I wasn’t worried about that because so many people had already convinced me I was the dullest person who ever walked the planet… And I realised a pattern was coming into place. A lot of the warmth and the affection I wanted to portray, was actually happening – because it was me doing it, rather than me underneath someone else who had a totally different vision.”
Where Brett had sung of glued-up glitter urchins, nuclear pigs and Hollywood she-rockers, Bernard’s muse was brooding on deeper themes, founded in domestic stability. It was Creation boss Alan McGee who offered to make those musings public. “I’d heard a rumour that Alan was into me,” Butler continues. “I’d met Noel Gallagher a couple of times and he’d been very flattering about what I’d done. I found it strange that someone like that would be interested in a Suede record, but he seemed to know everything I’d done. So I got in touch with Creation, and Alan was the first person to say ‘Go ahead’ rather than, ‘Ooh, I’m not sure if it would be right.’ Creation treated me as a future prospect rather than as a past triumph. They were people who I sensed didn’t give a shit about Suede.”
【Part Three】
Suddenly, it’s the second week of January, 1998. In a small club in North London, Bernard Butler plays his first solo show, to an invited gathering of indie scene-makers. His single, Stay, is about to be released. Behind his veil of fringe, the singing guitarist plucks at a 12-string and gives voice. His songs are watercolours, rather than oil-paintings. But their calm authority quells even the babbling nitwits back at the bar, and Butler is elated. When he gets home that night, he says to Elisa: “If I can do that in 10 years’ time, play to 100 people who are into what I’m into, that’s all I can ask.”
Suddenly, it’s the second week of January, 1998. In a small club in North London, Bernard Butler plays his first solo show, to an invited gathering of indie scene-makers. His single, Stay, is about to be released. Behind his veil of fringe, the singing guitarist plucks at a 12-string and gives voice. His songs are watercolours, rather than oil-paintings. But their calm authority quells even the babbling nitwits back at the bar, and Butler is elated. When he gets home that night, he says to Elisa: “If I can do that in 10 years’ time, play to 100 people who are into what I’m into, that’s all I can ask.”
