Several months ago, we interviewed Stephen Jones of Baby Bird, before he was famous. Now, after a Number Three Smash Hit, we have to make do with the rest of the band. Dave hears no evil on the album, sees no evil at the live gig, and speaks to the band about that song.

Baby Bird. You're Gorgeous. For a band who've produced over 400 songs in the past 8 years, they owe quite a lot to that one. It's everywhere - on the local radio stations, the pub jukeboxes, the Now 42 compilations. Which is strange, when you consider it's about fashion and photography and cheapening the whole issue and perverting pretend beauty through a cracked camera lens, all for the bargain price of £20 a shoot. So, John on guitar, how do you feel about a very beautifully ugly song being sung by couples as a sickly sweet love thing?
"It's bizarre."
Luke on bass: "I don't think they were listening quite closely enough to the lyrics." But if people were listening to the words, would you have reached Number Three in the charts?
Luke: "No... no, I don't think so."
Huw on plinky-plonk keyboards: "They're not really lewd, the lyrics..."
Luke: "Yeah, but it's hardly I love you, you love me..."
Huw: "No, it's not a love song."
John: "It's no more bizarre than 14 year old girls and grandmas singing it."

As far as that song goes, this reviewer's favourite moment was seeing a Clothes Show trailer with images of 6ft 7 women parading down a catwalk, to the tune of a stubbly man from Telford crooning about how gorgeous they were. Either someone at the BBC is seriously taking the piss, or there's laughter in Sheffield tonight.

So, number three in the charts, Baby Bird must be famous, right? In a beer storage room in the back of the Birmingham Foundry, I ask Baby Bird how fame is treating them. Do they get recognised in the street?
John: "We're not, Stephen is."
Luke: "Everyone thinks we're rich and famous, and if we are, re-direct them cheques, 'cos I'm not getting any of them."
Are they surprised they've been this successful?
John: "Yes."
Luke: "Yes."
Huw: "Yes."
Why?
Luke: "You hope and presume that you're going to do really well, every band thinks they're going to be the most amazing thing on the planet, but not on your second single, nobody would predict number 3. No-one in the record business predicted it."
So why did the song do so well?
Huw: "I think it's a classic pop song, and it still appeals to people because they don't know what it's about."
John: "We've been playing it for over a year now, live and things, and it was always a live favourite... the first time we played it, all these drunken rugby players started singing it to each other in a corner."

Which brings us to the three sides of Baby Bird. One - four albums of four-track songs written by Stephen in his bedroom, between 1988 and 1994. Two - a live band formed a few years back, and re-interpreting those songs in a less lo-fi, more lounge lizard fashion. And three, the recent 'Ugly Beautiful' album - recorded in the same way as the first four albums, only on slightly more expensive equipment, with more people.

Chances are you won't have heard the early Baby Bird albums - each was limited to a thousand copies, and the first album now sells for £60 a copy. Why?
John: "Every time we released something it was released as a limited edition... obviously the CDs were released as a limited edition, because we didn't think they'd sell. Now, we're a bit reluctant to release anything limited edition, cos I don't want people paying £60 for our albums, I'd rather people paid £10."
Luke: "There'll be a greatest hits out soon, I reckon."
Huw: "The worst thing about people paying £60 is that I've only got one copy."
Luke: "Well, I sold mine, to this guy, for £60."

So how do you go from solo 4-track work to a full-band live experience?
Luke: "Well, Stephen gave me a C90 full of songs, and 6 - 8 songs in I realised he was completely different from anything I'd heard before."
John: "I was blown away, and instantly wanted to play guitar for him."
Huw: "That was the case with the whole band, we were all fans... I'd heard the songs over a year before I even met Stephen, as I worked down the Leadmill in Sheffield, and they were having trouble getting record companies to see the potential."
John: "He was writing soundtracks for theatre stuff before."
Luke: "The whole thing about lo-fi was a bit of a misnomer - it was just low budget. I remember getting some tapes about 5-6 years ago, and they were on these tapes he'd got free from Wella hair products."
Now Baby Bird are a band rather than just Stephen, do they have any input into the songs?
John: "Well, I've never wanted... what usually happens is we put in our bits afterwards. I'm sure you've heard some of the four-tracks, but the way that we've re-interpreted that, that's our... artistic input, if you like. I've written loads of songs, but unfortunately I'm only the second best songwriter in the world."

So Baby Bird is a live thing, and Baby Bird are a live thing. A typical Baby Bird gig centres around Stephen, jumping around and dancing with himself, playing to the crowd, swearing at the drummer. The songs, however, change into something more delicate, more powerful when played live - even though Stephen is clearly pissed off his face, his voice is on top form, and high notes are tackled full on. A pessimist would perhaps suggest by the end of the set that a certain samey sound sticks in the head, but this is in part because a lot of the stranger songs are left out, and also because hey, I guess it's kind of difficult to write 400 completely different songs.

And so on to the album; a chance to hear Baby Bird without interruption, in decent quality hi-fi stereo for the first time. 'Ugly Beautiful' will hopefully have been bought by all the grans and couples who loved 'You're Gorgeous', who will now be complaining about songs called 'Jesus is my girlfriend'. It is a brilliant album. You see, Baby Bird could easily become a novelty band; Stephen's lyrics verge on the surreal, asking in 'Candy Girl', "Are you Paris without snails? Are you Red Lion without ales? Are you the Lakes without the Dales?". But the humour is offset by some really quite beautiful moments, and for every (good) song about opening a chain of cornershops there's a genuine love song such as "Dead bird sings". Buy 'Ugly Beautiful', and you get everything from a ten-minute fuckout hybrid remix of the Doors' 'When the music's over' in 'King Bing', to strings and slow breakbeats with the lyrics "We kill for pleasure / We die for fun / We give you children / But we won't make you come" in 'Too handsome to be homeless'.

So how do you sum up the whole ugly, beautiful mess that is Baby Bird? Which cliche could we use to describe them?
Huw: "Disturbed lovesongs. We've used that so many times, we might as well say it now."
Luke: "I don't like cliches."
But they're usually true.
Luke: "Okay... 'We're the band who don't like cliches'."

Baby Bird were talking to Dave, in November 1996.