|
MP: Go on
then.
MsD: Can you
remember doing the Peel sessions with the Models? Was it just the one session?
Yeh.
Was it a big deal for you?
Yeah, it
was quite a big deal. Going into a studio in those days, it was something
you hardly ever did, you did it two days a year, if you were lucky.
Everybody's got a studio at home now so it's not big deal anymore.
Have you heard those tracks since? Do you want them?
No. Do I
want them? Um, not really. I think they came out sounding better than our
record. I can't remember.
Why did you put Freeze on the back of Man of the Year, or
vice-versa?
I don't
know. I think it was Miles' idea. It was Miles' label – it was supposed
to be Mark P's label, but it wasn't, it was Miles' label. He said
“they're your two best songs, put them out together. |
Marco at home in 2003, photograph by
Sylvi Temple.
"I keep jelly
at home on display to impress my celebrity friends" (In case you
thought it was anything as ostentatious as a jukebox) |
Why not
separately? With a double A-side you halve the play.
Yeah, that whole
double-A-side thing I could never understand, I don't think the Ants ever did,
no, we never done one. We could never understand it, they only ever play one
A-side. Robbie Williams did this double A-side which was No Regrets with
Antmusic, and of course Antmusic got no airplay ..
I
didn't know it was a double-A-side.
No, I didn't
know either till afterwards. It's great he did it, but .. I don't think double A
sides work. Certainly not now.
How
did the Beastly Cads evolve into the Models?
The Beastly Cads
were The Models, they just changed their name. It was a name I thought of, they
thought it was really stupid. I wanted us to be called Lord Snooty and His Pals,
because I thought that was the anti-punk name, but they said “No, that's really
fucking stupid”, so we were The Beastly Cads for two gigs, then I was outvoted
and we had to change our name to The Models, which I was always hated, not being
at all modelly-looking, I was always really embarrassed about it.
Well, it can mean other things …
I never knew
what it was supposed to mean, but at that point I was bored with arguments.
Why
were they so short-lived; and was it right that Cliff Fox (the singer) was
uncomfortable with the punk thing?
Cliff Fox was
just this massive Bowie fan, and he saw the whole punk thing as a springboard to
something else, which we all did … he wasn't like a real punk, he wasn't that
interested in it. He just wanted to be Bowie .
What
about your swastika backdrop …
We had swastika
everything. But that was only for two gigs.
I
think you went over that whole swastika thing in the 2001 interview.
Yeh, at the time
obviously we should have known better, but at 16, 17 you're not supposed to know
better, and that whole National Front thing, we'd never heard of the National
Front. That whole Nazi thing hadn't happened yet. It's kind of obvious really,
but it wasn't obvious to us, because we could see the swastika for what it was,
it was just “a thing”, it meant Cabaret, Salon Kitty and all that. We just
thought it was decadent, and stylish, we didn't know about concentration camps,
and we certainly didn't know about National Front skinheads, they didn't exist
yet. But we just took it literally for what it is, and expected everyone else to
take it for what it is, but we were dealing with like a very small circle of
people, we all knew what our influences were; once it went outside that circle,
it was misunderstood. People don't really understand the irony of Salon Kitty,
skinheads from Bradford weren't listening to Salon Kitty for the same reasons we
were.
Moving onto the question of violence in 1976 and 77; that's something that's
come up a lot particularly with regard to the early Ants, before your time, but
you know they really had a hard following .. the soldier ants ..
Lots of bands
had a hard following in those days. We're talking about the middle of 77, aren't
we, and I hate to go back to Jimmy Pursey, because he thinks I have it in for
him personally, and I don't actually, it's not what he meant to do at all, it
just backfired … everything was taken literally and everything was taken at its
most simple value, the most simple basic thing and it didn't really mean that,
what it did mean I can't really describe to you but … and it was that thing …
people from 76 didn't know what they were involved in, they didn't think they
were involved in anything, they were doing what they did.
Do
you think the 70s were just a violent time anyway? That's something we've had
much debate about, whether there was just general violence or was it
specifically aimed at punks. My experience was that it was specifically aimed at
punks.
Yes, definitely,
definitely. |
