Honeycrack - one of then was in the Wildhearts. But they're not boring. As Dave found out when he talked to CJ and Pete.
Have you suffered from the 'Person from a famous band' syndrome?
P: Yeah... it's draining off a little bit now, but basically, people turn up to see CJ's new band.
C: You've got to try and get a balance, because all the press and mailshots are always of me, and it can look like it's 'the CJ experience', but it isn't like that... there's 5 people in this band, and we will correct that. Once we've had a few albums out, the Wildhearts will be forgotten.
You've just released your first major single, which has been really heavily promoted - is it better to have mass, in-your-face promotion, or to build up slowly?
C: The 'Sitting at Home' single?
Yeah.
C: You think that's been heavily promoted?
It has been round here.
C: Shit... you wait until the next single comes out.
P: We were complaining that there wasn't enough.
C: It's been advertised pretty well for our first single, but, erm, we had a limited edition single out before that which we sold only at gigs, and we've been touring constantly all this year... I think it's sold a lot, it's done about 18,000, and a lot of that's to do with the airplay that we've had, and we were on the Chart Show as well.
P: This is our fifth tour, and this is the sixth week of this tour - we've been hacking away relentlessly for bloody months.
C: We did have a head start on most new bands with me being in the Wildhearts, there was a lot of press based around that fact...
Is that a bad thing?
C: No, I don't think it's a bad thing, 'cos it gets the band noticed. If we were a really crap band we wouldn't be here today, and we wouldn't have a record deal, we wouldn't have singles out. I'm not ashamed of it, I've put a lot of hard work into the Wildhearts.
Okay, forget the Wildhearts, what should people know about Honeycrack?
C: Erm... we're completely different, we don't sound like the Wildhearts. The bits that might sound like the Wildhearts are my guitars and some of my vocals - I was in them for five and a half years, and you can't really change your style. The band is more of a positive band - we all get on, we're all very mellow, there's no egos in the band, it's not about how much you can drink or how many drugs you can take. It's about 5 guys enjoying themselves, and hopefully the audience will enjoy themselves as well.
Would you be insulted or complimented if I said I think you sound a bit like the Posies?
C: I know the Posies, I've heard their stuff - yeah. It's a new one anyway, 'cos we're compared to a lot of bands - Squeeze, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Ramones, Pistols, Clash, Pixies...
You covered the Beatles on the B-side of your first single...
C: Yeah. We're all influenced by the Beatles, everyone in the band is a fan... there's five vocalists in the band, and three guitars, so we can adapt to it. It's our way of saying 'Thankyou'.
You say you've got 5 vocalists, and on the single there's vocal harmonies all over the place...
C: Yeah. Some of our harmonies are downright cheesy, but we love it.
P: It's a trademark of the band, innit?
C: We all wanna sing, so... the whole thing about the band is you've got these big guitars, and lush harmonies on top.
You mentioned the Pixies a minute ago... what was it like working with Gil Norton?
P: Pure hell.
C: I like him, I like him a lot. He was a different fish altogether, Gil was... I don't think I learnt anything from him, but it was nice working with the guy who made quite a few good Pixies albums.
P: His was a really different approach to making records than we're used to. Willie and ourselves produced the other tracks for the album, and then he's come along and done three.
C: He is a real producer. Running through things over and over and over again. The thing is, none of us are kids, we've all been playing in bands for the last decade if not longer, and we've all made tons of albums - you tend to learn a lot and work quickly. If I was a 17-year-old kid and someone was telling be how to play, it'd be different, but I'm not, I've been playing the guitar for 16 years. And a lot of the time with Gil he told us to do things we knew we could do better ourselves.
P: But he's a beautiful human being.
C: He compliments our songs...
P: ...which we have definitely incorporated and we feel we're better for it.
C: That got us out of that. It was a lot of give and take, and we seemed to give a lot more than take.
Going back to 'Sitting at home'... who were the people on the cover (see below), and why haven't they got any clothes on?
P: It's my Mum & Dad.
C: Nah... what it was, it was a picture from the Sixties, some photographer from the sixties, and we came across this picture in a book, and it was a couple sitting at home. And we were looking for a cover, and it was brilliant. We couldn't get permission to use the original, so we made a mock-up, with the photographer's next-door neighbour, who said he'd do it for a laugh, and believe it or not the girl was a life model for artists. We paid them 150 quid each, and they said 'fine'. So we rented out this flat, someone actually does live in this place... we didn't tell them we were taking nude pictures, and it came out really good. It ain't pornography, it's a really nice picture.
Why are they sitting at home?
C: I've been accused of it a lot, you're in a band and you spend a lot of time where you live, and weaker individuals tend to think you must be very boring, spending all this time at home with your girlfriend...
J: Not pursuing that rock 'n roll lifestyle.
C: And these people must think that when I get home and I've been touring for two months that I just sit and play draughts with my girlfriend, when there's so much you can do at home. You can toke on things for which you'd get arrested walking down the street. And I like to hang out, I've got my dogs.... there's so much I can do.
Naked?
C: Could be. I can't walk in here naked and do an interview naked, people might blush. But at home, I can get stoned, I can play with my dogs, and cook, and watch television.
Honeycrack were talking to Dave, in December 1995.