Kelman

The sky is blue like holiday chlorine, and London seems just about ready to combust. Fortunately, Wayne Gooderham has selected a pub with a fire escape and breezes, so the threat of another 1666 is being repelled by pints of chilled 1664. Sitting straight-backed in his neutral Levis and sipping at frosty French lager, Gooderham could be just other office bod chilling out after dress-down Friday. You’d never think that he’s come up with music so slick and open-hearted; Kelman’s urbanised indie goes beyond the ergonomics of the Swan-filtered skinnyfit Camdenites, and instead braves an altogether more treacherous current in pursuit of something new. Taking one of the most uncomfortable sensations we ally with music—those frazzled expectations and guilty loadstones which surface at the death of the evening—the London trio calmly engrave their inner monologues with a steady, calloused hand, creating a cresting and sensual assault that comes for its audience like the tide towards Canute.

The problem? Well, it would seem that, for the most part, few people are prepared to dip their toes in the foam. Any critics lucky enough to stumble into Kelman Country have been instantly magnetised, hiking their way even further in once they google the name and get past the flinty Scots novelist. Gooderham and co. won high acclaim for their early EPs from no fewer than than ten critics, but when it came to the release of their debut LP (2006’s Loneliness Has Kept Us Alive) it was the singer left to settle up at the pressing plant. PR-wise, no-one would touch them—neither label nor promoter, nor cred-seeking record stall—but Gooderham took it on the chin, convinced it was only a matter of time before a heavyweight would step up and bite off his ear. Two years, one single, a cover and a freshly-mastered album later, and with the cooled saloon of the Plumbers Arms [sic] starting to swarm with off-duty project managers, a famished Gooderham peels his eyes from the fastening food hatch and opens up about his band’s sophomore record, I Felt My Sad Heart Soar, and the challenge faced in meeting the expectations of the nine people he predicts will buy it.

*****

CMG’s George Bass (CMG): How’s this for a good start: I’ve been googling till my fingers sting and have yet to turn up a dot of bad press about Kelman.

Wayne Gooderham (WG): Oh, really?

CMG: The only thing is, the positive press—and we’re talking anode-positive, you’ve got some ardent fans out there—can be counted on the fingers of a long-sighted lathe turner. How exactly is it you manage to stay so undiscovered? I mean, there’s bloggers out there who’ll put money on you being the Next Medium Thing.

WG: Wow. Well, er, fuck knows. I honestly couldn’t tell you if my life depended on it, and sometimes I have days where I feel like it does, I tell you. I hope it’s not karma for something I can’t remember.

CMG: I mean, from what I’ve read, you’re getting plenty of admirable comparisons in your reviews: Tindersticks, Hefner, the Wedding Present…

WG: Hmmm…actually, I don’t really get a lot of the comparisons, if I’m honest. Not out of snobbery or confusion or anything, I just haven’t heard the music they’re comparing us to. I’ve done a gig with Darren Hayman but I’ve never heard any Hefner, and I only first listened to the Wedding Present six months ago: the famous one with the dark cover.

CMG: Seamonsters?

WG: Yeah, Seamonsters. It’s a great album, but Dave Gedge’s voice grates me—his delivery’s a bit too pantomime for my liking.

CMG: Wow…though I suppose, saying that, you couldn’t exactly call Kelman’s music an arty or aloof counterpart, could you? Given your subject matter, people might say you’re a pretty coarse act yourself. I mean, if you look at “Untethered,” there you are sliding misguidedly into a primal trance while organs start clashing like thunderclouds. In a lot of ways it’s very Streets.

WG: Er, is that big S or small s?

CMG: Little from Column A, a little from Column B.

WG: Cool. Well, the earthy direction is something we were after from the word go on this one. It probably started with writing and recording our last single, “Is This How It Ends.” We were trying to stoke interest in the band, just remind people that we existed after the minuscule response to our first record, so we tried to come up with something that felt like one of our gigs with the lights off. Loneliness Has Kept Us Alive was our New Order album—this time we wanted something less refined.

CMG: On “Postcards,” you pump out this sound which is kind of like a Hammond-driven sea shanty, and the earlier song you mentioned, “Is This How It Ends,” is an amplified strumfest where glockenspiels wink like black runways. Why go so serrated?

WG: Well, it’s not a case of forcing an overhaul or anything: in fact, we prefer polishing the limitations we set ourselves rather than trying to exceed them. We really like how we sound live, and wanted to make a record that reflected that. Bar a couple of overdubs, nearly all the songs are live takes. Also, this is the first album where we all had equal input into the recording and mixing process. Paul [Ragsdale, keyboards] was originally our producer —he came in as a member halfway through the first album—so this is our only full-length venture to date where we’ve all had our hand in. And I’m really pleased with what we’ve finished up with.

CMG: God help anyone hearing it who’s been dumped in the last hour…

WG: Ha. Well, you say that, but I’d like to think it’s a lot brighter overall than the first record. The songs on I Felt My Sad Heart Soar are intended to focus slightly more on elevation than anything else. Hence the title, I suppose. We’d never set out to write a suicide note or music for a wanker’s doom—I’d like to think there’s enough hope here to help lever most people off the floor. It doesn’t last for long, though, and that’s probably why tracks like “Kicking Cans All The Way Home” are also the shortest. They’re relentlessly optimistic.

CMG: Talking of times, both this album and the last clocked in at slightly shy of forty minutes. Was that intentional, or do you always accidentally record the second half of your albums on the other side of the CD?

WG: No one wants to hear you go overboard and harp on, so that’s probably why our full-lengths are so short. When it came to making Loneliness Has Kept Us Alive, I wanted to make it run for exactly thirty-three and a third minutes. I was thirty-three at the time, and kept waking up at 3:33 in the morning. I’d look at the radio, check the time and go back to sleep, feeling there was an omen in the digits. Nowadays I’m not quite so certain, but hey—I still love short albums. Station To Station is a good example: six tracks in less than the space of a driving test. I think in this day and age that’s as much of someone’s attention as you can reasonably ask for, and aesthetically, I just like the idea of a “forty-five minutes max” record, like a film that lasts precisely an hour and a half. Also, the world definitely doesn’t need an eighty-minute Kelman album, I’m pretty sure of that. Really I think any release going over three quarters of an hour is just falling victim to its authors’ over-indulgence.

CMG: It’s funny you should say that, having just made a record where one track eats up a quarter of the total duration.

WG: Oh, you mean “NYE”?

CMG: Yeah. You seemed to really go for the epic finale with that one. You’ve got your horns, your cellos, your stellar twinkles and your lapping guitars, and they’re all lighting up this story of one particular December 31st where the narrator finally, happily cops off. That’s what I got anyway, but then again the “And I’m meaning every pick-up line / For the first time in my life” lyric is a bit too booze-fuelled and deceptive after all the doubt and Wurlitzers.

WG: Well, it must be one of those question mark endings, then. The reversible illusion.

CMG: I suppose it’s no coincidence then that, on a New Year’s Eve some two hundred and forty years ago, Horace Walpole came up with the idea that life is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel?

WG: I think you’ve just working-titled the next album.

CMG: Well before we start talking fees and percentages: it does certainly seem to sum up the way you snap your wishbone before recording the tunes, doesn’t it? When you get the smaller end then the album seems to serve as a conduit for man’s deepest phobias: Monday will never stop coming, every woman’s more experienced, your socks are visibly tacky…Irvine Welsh once claimed that authors are musicians forced to admit they can only play the Word Processor. Given your own background in kitchen-sink prose, how does it feel to be swimming backstroke?

WG: Ha! Well, if I wasn’t doing one then I’d almost certainly be doing the other. Maybe I’ll end up as a novelist one day if I feel I can settle on one particular adventure, but for the most part I’m happy writing songs I like to think people can relate to. I’m not writing anything else at the moment.

CMG: No short stories on the horizon? When I first sat down and listened to “The Pursued, The Pursuing, The Busy & The Tired” with blank paper and headphones, I got this page-turning little flashback stitched in the charge of the track: a bloke with his head buried in the thighs of his girl, his teenage oblivion vanquished as he finally gushes at the taste of victory. Who doesn’t want to hear more of that?

WG: Nuns, probably. Nuns and small children.

CMG: Maybe so, but you should still consider auditioning for Book at Bedtime if you ever put down your guitar. All you need is a huge leatherback chair and a brandy the size of a diving bell, and you’re laughing.

WG: Well, joking aside, I always mean what I say when I get on stage, so that’s probably what keeps me from a straight move to fiction. I’d never ask the audience’s sympathy while I’m up there under the lights, and I’m not setting out to write a showreel—song for Fridays, song for drinking alone, etc. Basically I just try to document experiences I think are worth sharing and transform them into something you can play on your iPod or expect people to enjoy. It’d just be nice if the material we put out could reach some more of those people.

CMG: That’s what gives me the feeling that, at the moment, it must be difficult to apportion frustration in the Kelman world. Revisiting the trauma that forms the arc of the songs is one thing, but producing and releasing them to a wall of indifference is the stuff of true terrors. Do you ever wonder which itch to attack first?

WG: I know what pains me most and I can tell you now, it’s definitely the egg, i.e. releasing to a shrug. I’d much rather people would come to a gig and shout things at us rather than come and shout over us, I really would. Perhaps the more passionate would-be listeners are put off by our refusal to play the indie game, the one where you carry a martyr card in the secret hope it’ll bring you back to life. We don’t schmooze—there’s an ex-manager who found that out the frustrating way—but that’s a group decision, not just mine. We’re not looking for a record deal either, really – just a positive promoter, someone to help get us out there.

CMG: Kind of a Max Clifford in corduroy.

WG: If you like. The songs are written to be heard, after all. Personally, I wouldn’t pretend to rate a band I didn’t think weren’t genuinely trying to engage you. All we want to do is play decent gigs to decent crowds, and deep down, I know that’s why I’d probably prefer to see Smog play the Carling Academy than watch four pairs of Converse All Stars struggle to rock out the Hope & Anchor. People say every band has to slog at the start of their career, but when you’ve been in it for years and you start asking your audience if all five of them can hear you halfway through a song, it’s hard not to feel like you’re being whacked with the shitty end of the stick. I’d just like to keep people interested—all else is propaganda. I’m not saying you should cut off your nose to spite your face, but I probably would.

CMG: Is that not all part and parcel of the Kelman switcheroo act, though?

WG: ¿Qué?

CMG: On stage, the band seem to function behind a sort of smokescreen. Up trundle these three man-scouts, seemingly softer than molten butter, then a slow plectrum slashes and the air comes alive with bleak and blasé barbs. Behind the polite strumming and keyboard hoots, Kelman disseminate venom, it has to be said. Do your bandmates ever flinch the way a five-strong audience does?

WG: It’s funny, but I’ve never looked at us in that light before. The single most important things to our music are good tunes and honesty, so I suppose a few listeners are surprised they can connect to the more peculiar nuances in the vocals. Kelman are more about maintaining that core connection than anything else. Mind you, a lot of the darker songs come about as a result of me writing about the state of Kelman rather than the shards of my own lovelife. It’s like, what’s more tragic—the death or the gravestone? A shit job or shit wages?

CMG: How do you meter out your own shit job against the writing of such non-shit songs? Is it a case of cramming lyrics into the coffee crossword, or answering emails whilst doing a mix?

WG: I’m lucky in that I’ve got nine-to-five employment so I’ve got my evenings free, but I always carry a notebook wherever I am, just in case an idea starts to get away from me. Not that the songs happen overnight: “Is This How It Ends” rattled round my head for two years before I knew I had it right. The best things don’t necessarily come to those who wait, but things come regardless, that’s for sure. If “Is This How It Ends” could have sold enough when it was released as a single to cover two years’ cost of living, then I suppose all these mantras would become obsolete.

CMG: Well, the ripples of fame are traditionally the building blocks for the conventional third LP. Should the unthinkable happen, have you got any stuff on standby about tangling with scoop-hungry cameramen or the injustice of scoring duff crack?

WG: Nah, never. How could you put your heart into writing a song about concept cars or something to help sell your Visa account? Widespread fame and all its associated excesses have dismantled a lot of great musicians as I’ve got older, and I’d much rather have a following who appreciate us for the quality of our output. To be honest I’d be happy with the way things are now if I could earn enough money from the music to downgrade from a full-time admin job to a part-time stint in a bookshop.

CMG: Not counting bookshops, what else have you got in mind for the future?

WG: Believe it or not, shiftydisco.co.uk are putting up three of our tracks for download over the next few months, so that’s a step in a brighter direction. In terms of material…well, apart from some new songs I’m working on I’ve been toying with a few covers at the moment, but I keep finding myself re-writing the verses. I can never seem to sing things I can’t imagine doing, so tracks about twenty-dollar hookers are a bit over my head. But the art of a good cover is to try and make the song your own… or is that good plagiarism? Either way, I’m happy to stay in the “Velvet Underground covering Tom Waits” bracket for a little longer yet. That’s why we went with the Kelman name in the first place, by the way. In a previous interview, I was asked what literary character I could most relate to. And I straight away put down Patrick Doyle from James Kelman’s A Disaffection.

CMG: What, so your spare time’s spent trying to pull married teachers?

WG: All the time.

*****

The pub is now jammed and doormen are straining to keep order on the pavement. Around us, the shiny-arses are taking their ties off, quaffing back the Jekyll Juice while they yap about stab wounds and flexitime. As Gooderham tells me of an impromptu “Blue Valentines” cover he’ll email me in the morning, I can’t help wishing that one of the beermat-flipping admin wasn’t secretly interning at Polydor. It will take nothing short of a lunar anomaly to add the Shifty Disco link to any of their e-mail circulars, yet across the table from them is a whiff of the elixir they’ve been scrambling for: a sound fished from some deep and lonely bolthole, something with the power to enslave and liberate.

On I Felt My Sad Heart Soar, Kelman again document a nation’s repeated battle with stamina thanks to its taste for a legal depressant, as well as providing some much-needed succor for the dawn evangelists wriggling under unfamiliar duvets. This time, though, there’s no time for half measures, and the band are tantalisingly close to reaching 100% proof. Once you twist the lid and break the seal it’s a pleasure to feel their music slowly oxidize—you just wish that a few more people would start reacting.

I nod at Gooderham’s glass. It’s half empty.

*****

CMG: Same again?

WG: I bloody hope not.

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