We like Collapsed Lung, which is why Tim interviewed them.
In the summer of 1993, I went to the inaugural Phoenix festival. I wandered into the Lime Lizard tent just in time to see a skinny asian guy and a really fat bloke take the stage. The band's set of messed up hip-hop beats, mad, mad raps and dirty guitars was crowned by their single, a track lamenting the demise of those little blue three-wheeled invalid cars. The single was called 'Thundersley Invacar' and the band were called Collapsed Lung.
"When 'Thundersley Invacar' came out, things went crazy," recalls Anthony, the aforementioned generously-proportioned one, one half of Collapsed Lung's double-pronged vocal assaults and the man responsible for much of the band's programming, samples and turntabley stuff. "We didn't have a manager at the time and I was still working. At the end of the day I'd clear my desk and I'd have this pile of Post-It notes of people who'd rung me, from record companies, press people. We'd only done one single and we had a two-page spread in the NME and a massive bit in Melody Maker. They were acting as if we were the saviours of pop music or something". Unfortunately, this was not to be. For after the second single, Nihal the skinny bloke left, citing the age-old 'musical differences', and was replaced on lead vocals by Jim Burke. But this move could not rekindle the interests of the fickle British music press. "Because when Jim joined we had to start the band again from scratch, things went off the boil and they weren't interested any more," says Anthony.
It's a shame, because the Lung's recently released second album, 'Cooler', is an absolute gem. Last year's 'Jackpot Goalie' was about crap cars, crapper trainers and even crapper football teams, an album that rocked but was ultimately unfocused. "I wasn't very happy with it really," says Anthony, "I think we just realised, listening to it, that most of the tracks are full on all the way. They start, they go 'duuuuuuhhhhhh' and then they finish. There are bands who do that kind of thing really well, but we always thought of ourselves more as a beats band - yeah, we play live, but on the record it's all about the beats. So that's what we aimed for with the new album".
And the beats are indeed what 'Cooler' seems to be all about, from the full-on opener 'London Tonight' to the sublime 'Casino Kisschase' and the drum 'n' bass-influenced 'Sense'. "We got better at what we do," admits Anthony. "Because we've got our own studio now- The Cooler, which is where the album got its name-we've had the chance to hone everything down and get it right. I'm over the moon".
Lyrically too, the band seem to have matured. The songs on 'Cooler' are about what happens when Generation X grow up, how the disaffected teens go on to become disaffected adults with nothing to do apart from go out drinking or watch bad TV. These are subjects Jim has dealt with before, but this time around in a much less comic fashion. "We consciously did that," says Jonny, "but we still get pulled up on it. There's a thing about the English press- if they can't get a handle on what you're doing then they just go for the obvious, which is your lyrics. And they'll look to slag it off, so we tried to avert it. But we still got it and they still think of us as the same band, even though we think we've moved on...". Anthony corrects, "We HAVE moved on".
One of the highlights of the year for Anthony was undoubtedly their support slot with the mighty New Kingdom. "They're one of my favourite bands ever. It's one of the first things I remember Jim talking about when he joined the band, bands we liked and we'd both just bought the New Kingdom album. We're the same kind of band, doing the same kind of thing from opposite ends- they're coming from a spacey, hard edge of it, and we're coming more from a pop direction. And when I say 'pop', I mean more 'pop culture' than 'Peter André'".
Ah yes, that celebrated culture of pop that Collapsed Lung thrive on so. In some of their past tracks we've had references to such pop icons as Peter 'The Cat' Bonetti, Jigsaw's Wilf Lunn, Alan Partridge, Nigel from 'Eastenders', Brian Clough, the Wombles and MacGyver. And now we have Richard Harrison, about whom 'Codename: Omega' was written. I'm sorry, but WHO?
Anthony laughs, "Everyone always asks that."
"He's kind of a Chuck Norris kind of figure, you know, that kind of karate, B-movie superstar," explains Jonny, "and the song is kind of comparing him to the big stars, the way he hams it up".
"He's in a film called 'Fireback', which Jim's got on video. It's like a spaghetti-action film," adds Anthony. Jonny leans close and whispers into the dictaphone "But if you read between the lines, Richard Harrison IS Jim".
He's not so superhuman to be able to avoid illness, though. That night, Collapsed Lung play the first date of their latest UK tour without Jim, who has just come out of hospital after a particularly nasty bout of tonsilitis. Ant struggles to do both sets of vocals and synchronise his turntables as well, but in the end, manages admirably. This is not the band I first saw in the summer of '93 singing about three-wheeled invalid cars and potentially sterilising playground pranks. They're much better, much tighter, and, even though Ant himself sings "This town ain't big enough for the one of me", much more streamlined. They deserve your attention.
Collapsed Lung were talking to Tim, in November 1996.