STUCK RECORDS

Alongside the exaggerated superheroism, villany and fantasy worlds that exist in the industry, a group of musos spending an evening in a Bristol nightclub may seem a decidedly mundane subject for a comic book. But in ‘The Singles Club’ that’s exactly what Phonogram have made, and they’ve done it extremely well. Comprising of writer Kieron Gillen and artist Jamie McKelvie, their first volume together was ‘Rue Britannia’, described by Kieron as ‘a near-graphical essay’ on the Britpop phenomenon. For their second volume they’ve taken inspiration from a real club night (Lipstick on Your Collar) and over the seven issues show one night at the club from the perspective of seven different characters. Gavin Midgley spoke to Kieron about how ‘The Singles Club’ came to be and the music that inspired it.

What interested you in writing a comic about music?

This is a question that’s always bugged me, I’m sure there’s an answer to it. I guess it’s because I’ve always been interested in how art influences and changes humans. Phonogram embodies the relationship between music and those listening to it. We’re not interested in pop stars, we’re interested in the sound coming out of the speakers and how it affects us. The cast of Phonogram are sort of case studies, based on things I’ve either seen or experienced. They are people whom are interesting to be around whilst not necessarily being good people, there’s something wrong with them. Take Emily. She’s the classic example of someone who decided to be somebody else. She uses music as a crutch to divorce herself from herself.

You mean she decides to take inspiration from someone like Bowie and reinvent herself?

Yes, and it’s about using art to say “I’m going to stop being this person and become that person”. It’s the very definition of pretension, which is why teenagers tend to be pretentious. Those who deliberately reject a lot of teenage culture by saying “They all want to be individuals but they all dress the same” are missing the point, they’re using their cultural tastes to carry themselves during what is a transitional period. In the current Phonogram Laura is 19, and is just about to enter the metamorphic process than Emily is coming out so their stories dovetail. Bowie was to many people what Kate from the Long Blondes is to Laura. She thinks she’d like in the stories that Kate sings about (Laura constantly talks to her friends in lyrical quotes to their obliviousness), but being trapped inside a Long Blondes lyric would be awful! It reminds me of when I decided to stop being a Belle & Sebastian lyric in 1997, the dreariness of coming home from working in a bar and having no milk in the fridge….I just thought “I don’t wanna be this person anymore!” so I’ve never really been as obsessed with an artist in the way Laura is, except maybe for the Manics.

There’s a story I’ve yet to write that aims to show the power that music can have over the listener. It was inspired by a real event, it’s probably a two-page B-side – two friends are driving in a car on a cold, rainy night. They’re both pissed off and wanting to go home. One of them flicks on the radio and immediately they’re transported to driving along the beach with the top down, as in an ‘Outrun’-esque video game. In real life the song we put on was ‘Go Your Own Way’ by Fleetwood Mac turned up full, the feeling that we were in other place was awesome.

How much of The Singles Club is based on your own experiences of going out?

It’s all inspired by things I’ve experienced over the years. I had this theory that parties (particularly for young people) were like time machines, in the sense that if you got a group of them together socially and add alcohol it will speed up time. Incidents will happen at a faster speed, bonding and events would occur at a much greater intensity than normal. So one person’s experience of that party could be completely different to somebody else’s. That’s the idea behind the structure, everything happens in just a few hours but over the seven episodes you get seven characters’ experience of the same evening.

What appealed to me about The Singles Club was that it was set in 2006 (two or three years before its publication), yet the philosophy that Seth (the club DJ) takes to playing music from all styles and all genres is one that appears to have become a lot more prevalent since then. There’s been far less labelling and pigeonholing of artists in the last couple of years.

I think it’s a philosophy that’s always been bubbling along, if you look at the Melody Maker in the 90s, they always had a spirit of open-mindedness that the NME lacked at the time. Then you had Freaky Trigger using the phrase ‘poptimism’ seriously, in many ways Pitchfork now embodies what Freaky Trigger were saying in ‘98/’99. And now in 2009 that’s really how everyone’s thinking. Seth is the eternal poptimist, he’s very cynical of people using music for one-upmanship. Of course he proves himself to be a massive hypocrite, there is a huge conflict between what Seth says and what Seth does.

I remember in 1990 when ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ was very nearly Number One, and getting very angry about that song – “I fucking hate this record, I’ll commit suicide if its goes to Number One!”. It proves that I was a big idiot, the fact that something so joyous could really offend me.

I had a similar experience with ‘Ebeneezer Goode’, a record I couldn’t stand at the time yet am now very pleased that it existed.

Totally. I saw that on a music channel a few months back, was enormously pleased that they were able to get away with it. On the other hand I always liked the KLF from a young age. I couldn’t put my finger on it but they gave off the definite impression that there was something sinister about them. We’re probably never to see their like again, I’m surprised that I’ve yet to write them into Phonogram.

Emily is another character that’s keen on showing up music fans for their flaws.

Emily’s based on a person I knew that ran this fanzine. They had a petition to get Daphne & Celeste to play Reading in 2000, claiming that they had twenty thousand signatures. Of course this was complete bullshit, they had about twelve signatures. But it’s apparently what promoted them to eventually play and they got a bigger crowd than Pulp who were headlining that night, a lovely bit of real-life phonomancery there. That show was fascinating, it started off as a real 1984 two minute hate. Then it became a really fun hate mob, everyone was enjoying it! This is what Emily would notice – that by showing the audience the antithesis of what they believe music should be, they turn into idiotic bigots even when they’re supposed to be the smart ones.

Do you think that the breaking down of musical subcultures means that we’ll never have groups like the Manics attracting a devoted, almost militant fan base?

I think you’d have to look at bands like My Chemical Romance and the fervour they attract, but the Manics were pretty special. This is a very Phonogram emotion to have, but the Manics (with Richie) were the most important rock band on the planet yet utterly laughable at the same time. The lyrics to ‘Little Baby Nothing’: ”You are pure, you are snow, we are the useless sluts that they mould, ooooh, ooooh, ooooh” are absolutely ludicrous but completely brilliant.

Do you think the Manics were a joke that the group themselves were in on?

I don’t think so because you would have had to believe in what you were doing otherwise you’d never have the guts to do it. You couldn’t be the Manics as a joke, there could never be a Darkness of the Manics. With a lot of my favourite bands there exists an intense level of seriousness and comedy running simultaneously. The worst rock critics are the ones that say that all great music is serious, piss off!

Absoultely, every great group has had a huge level of humour in there work, even if it’s a group regarded as serious as say Kraftwerk.

Yes, even Public Enemy who had a very serious point to make could also be extremely funny. Although if you look at the S1W dancers (PE’s ‘security organisation‘) they’re now funny in a camp way! But that’s why I always preferred the Manics over Radiohead, there was an element of knowing humour. Having said that I’m a huge hypocrite because my favourite album is ‘The Holy Bible’, which doesn’t have many light moments! I like the extreme statements in music, the incredible OTT happiness and hysterical emotion pushed too far (as an example, one of the artists featured prominently in Phonogram is The Knife).

What’s more satisfying, getting comic book fans into music or getting music fans into comics?

I’m tempted to say neither – it’s a cross-media project so it’s great to get anyone enjoying it. But when I hear people say that you have to like music to enjoy Phonogram it makes me happy knowing they’re talking bullshit as there have been a lot of music not into music who’ve said they got into this comic. The main stumbling block for people would be the musical references. Either you can go “I’ve not heard of this group so it means nothing to me” or “I know this group, but they’ve only mentioned them to namedrop”. If you can’t get past the references then Phonogram is not going to do anything for you. As Emily would say, there’s a lot more going on in the subtext. When they’re slagging off each other’s music they’re not really talking about the records.

Are there plans for further Phonogram volumes?

We do have a plan of what we’d like to do, but there’s questions over whether we can do them from a financial point of view – we’re not sure that Jamie will have the time. The third volume will focus on Emily and for the fourth we were going to look at David Kohl’s Phonomancery origins in around 1991 when there was a lot of terrible music around, all that grebo stuff (the possibly unfair term given to artists like Pop Will Eat Itself, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin et al. You had to be there).

The plan we originally had for Phonogram was to be like The Smiths – do four albums (or volumes) followed by a B-sides & rarities collection, our ‘Hatful of Hollow’. We’re a bit like The Smiths in a way – Jamie the charismatic, charming elegant guitar player stuck with a weird, over-mouthy singer who really annoys some people. Actually we’re probably more like the Pet Shop Boys, we’re a little less mopey!

Like the Pet Shop Boys, do you think you’ll be going for 25 years?

No! I’m 34 now and the last thing I’d want to do is be the old guy writing about pop music and teenage life in a really patronising, misunderstood way. Nobody’s said I’ve fucked it up so far, but even in a couple of years time I’d be very reticent about writing those characters now. I wouldn’t want to get it wrong. In order to work Phonogram has to be naturalistic, I think writing about Kohl in the early 90s would be ok because that’s a period I know really well. It reminds me of some of the funny reviews we’ve had for Phonogram saying that we’re trying to be cool. The first volume was about Britpop! Do you think if we wanted to be cool we would have written about that?

Many thanks to Kieron and Jamie for their time.