‘Into The Blue’ - it’s their new single, and a perfect description of their music. In the second of his Brat Bus interviews Nathan spoke to the lead singer of Geneva.
Geneva n. 1. capital city of Switzerland, world renowned for banking, watches, the UN and a huge water fountain. 2. Five piece band from Aberdeen, much touted as the Next Big Thing, world renowned for having a lead singer that sings like a girl.
The man who sings like a girl, or Andrew Montgomery to his mum, is sat on Geneva’s tour bus, previewing the video for new single ‘Into The Blue’ when he’s rudely interrupted by your Baggage correspondents. Before showing a remarkable ability to discuss at length everything from politics to fast food, Jimmy Tarbuck and how to master Tekken, he starts at the beginning.
“We were signed in December 1995 as a band called Sunfish. It started off in Aberdeen - just ‘cos we were all studying or working up there. None of us are from there. After 3 years, and everybody moving away from Aberdeen but me, Nude Records came in just in time for us. At that time we didn’t really have a name, and there was this kind of buzz about us right away, which was really nice, and since then we’ve just been gigging a lot, supporting The Bluetones and Suede. Basically its just been a really busy year. We’ve recorded our album with Mike Hedges [Manics, The Cure] in Normandy. We’ve still got that to mix, so now its just a time of capitalising on our good fortune from last year.”
So with all the press attention, and following the support slots, when will Geneva step out of the shadow of their contemporaries and commit to a large scale headlining tour? “These kind of things happen when you’ve got a couple of singles out. In a sense there’s a dichotomy. The strange thing about this band is that we had all this press, but didn’t have a single out. Finally ‘No One Speaks’ came out in October, so that obviously boosts your profile, because people hear it on the radio and get to know who the fuck you are. Once ‘Into The Blue’ is out, I think things will go on again, and there are headline dates planned.”
But that’s all in the future. The current Geneva situation is based around the Brat Bus Tour. Surely the tour must have brought about inter-band shagging, fighting and bitching. Andrew refuses to be drawn into any discussion of gossip from the tour, but goes on to discuss his hatred of other people. “The comedian Jimmy Tarbuck. I’m offended by his politics and his stage manner. Honestly, I’m not really interested in egos and stuff. I know there’s always that aspect to it, its a big aspect. We’re very confident about what we do, and the boys give 110%, but at the end of the day we’re in it for the music and I know that sounds cheesy but I don’t give a fuck. That is what its about - the bottom line. Nobody’s interested in solo bollocks or anything like that. It’s Geneva.”
So, Geneva refuse to slag off the other bands on the bus, but what about the New Seriousness movement Geneva find themselves dumped into, alongside Placebo and Subcircus. Is it all bollocks? “Yeah, of course it is. If they’re gonna tell me that Portishead weren’t doing those kind of heartfelt lyrics a couple of years ago. They’re gonna tell me that soul music doesn’t address these things every time you hear a soul record. Just look at the Massive Attack stuff. It’s bollocks. It’s journalists trying to sell papers. I should know because I used to be one. I’m a failed journalist who’s become a musician.”
The journalists who Andrew feels ambivalence towards have also lumped Geneva into a Scottish revival. Is this a resurgence north of the border? “There does seem to be a surge of Scots bands, but to be honest with you it’s just A&R men doing their job properly, actually looking outside London, looking beyond the end of their nose. Making music’s not a London thing, it just happens in London because London’s so big, and because it’s where the music industry’s based. Because they’re lazy arseholes, it’s where bands get signed from. Thankfully, as Catatonia and Super Furries have shown, and the Manics of course, hopefully bands like ourselves can get recognition.”
Is Scotland the New Wales? “No. Definitely not. We’ve got a bad football team, but they’re not that bad.” Speaking of which, will the ever diplomatic Andrew be drawn on the current Scottish football debate, concerning bias towards Glasgow Rangers from officials, on the grounds of religious beliefs? Evidently not: “Its probably best for me not to get too involved in a question like, that to be honest. All I would say is that there’s no smoke without fire when it comes to these things, but at the same time Celtic desperately want to stop Rangers from winning 9 [championships] in a row. Perhaps they want it so badly that understandably judgement becomes a little bit blurred. I’m sure there’s truth in both aspects.”
The lad did well there, Brian. Refusing to be drawn on the tricky footballing question. But how will he fare on politics and the Scottish devolution issue? “To be honest with you, I think that most politicians like to serve their own ends. I don’t really think there’s any sense of genuine leadership coming from any of the parties in the country. I know how I’ll use my vote, I’ll definitely use it to get this government out, but as far as being a supporter of another party goes, I don’t like the idea of pop stars endorsing parties and telling people who to vote for. All I know is that certain things at the NHS are going down the tubes and it needs to be stopped, and we need to address these things and we need to listen to people that have genuine ideas to reverse these trends. Its hard not to be apathetic about the political process when you’ve got very poor politicians. Without sounding self important and everything, and the song’s not about that at all, but its just strange that with a chorus of ‘no-one speaks the truth anymore’ in our first single, its just strange how resonant it seems with regards to politics.”
Bloody hell. That’s ‘resonant’ and ‘dichotomy’ in the space of a few minutes. Rick Witter, he is not. In the current climate of duffle coats and coke, are Geneva bringing intelligence into British pop music? “Its because I’m a miserable bastard. Music’s an instinctual thing. Once you start becoming too intelligent about music, in the sense of the making of the music, it loses a bit of the passion. I just think that there’s room for our type of music because hopefully people will pick up on a band that are being true to themselves. That’s who our biggest influences are, the five of us, though we’re inspired by other books, films and musicians.”
“We’re not trying to emulate our heroes, we’re not trying to be a record collection band. Okay, you might say there’s shades of this band or that band. We’ve been described as Aled Jones fronting Joy Division. Wait till my voice breaks live on stage.”
Are you worried that the voice might go? “Most singers are hypochondriacs. I got hoarse today, and I’m worried about that. I’ve got my own standards, and I also know that people maybe want to come along and be blown away as a whole. They’ll listen to the guitars, listen to the bass, listen to the voice, and they’ll look out for these certain things. Each of those things has to be as good as possible. I’ve just got to do my job.”
But when Geneva aren’t doing their job, they’re spending time on the road and killing time playing Tekken on the Playstation. But who’s the best? “Steve [Guitar] and Douglas [drums] are quite good, because they’ve worked on particular characters. We spend time drinking, chewing the fat, writing lyrics, reading or whatever.”
“The CD collection’s great, actually. You’ll get everything from James Taylor to Orbital or something like that. Just loads and loads of shit. DJ Shadow, Tim Buckley. The Aloof is a big favourite at the moment.”
Final question: Macdonalds or Burger King? “I don’t like going to either of them but I’ll go to Burger King... no, sorry... MacDonalds. I like certain aspects of Burger King cuisine, but MacDonalds seem to have a better extraction fan in their kitchen, so it’s quite clean. I always feel really miserable when I go in there. I went there last night in Leeds, and was just thinking, what am I doing here? It’s a psychological thing.” A long answer to a fairly simple question, Andrew. “Sorry, you won’t get one word out of me, I’m a verbose bastard.” He certainly is, and the music world is a better place for it.
Andrew from Geneva was talking to Nathan, in January 1997.