Martin of bravecaptain and Boo Radleys!

22/02/06

Martin Carr aka bravecaptain and former Boo Radley answers our Questions of Doom about bravecaptain, the making of Everything’s Alright Forever, the iconic-ness of Giant Steps, My Bloody Valentine, his relationship with Alan McGee, the after-effects of a number one single and whether or not he’s Ed Ball and much more in our Questions of Doom!

Who are you Brave Captain?

I am the sound of thirty seven years of this.

You’ve taken your name from a Mike Watt song… why?

It was a song that I’d loved since it came out. My brother used to play it all the time and it was a band favourite.

Tell me a secret about yourself ... I promise I won’t tell anyone.

I’m Ed Ball.

When you started the Boo Radleys ... did you achieve what you set out to achieve?

I think so; it was all over so fast that it’s hard to remember everything that happened. It’s all about the next thing; I used to think that if I could just release one record with my name on it then I would be happy and I could give it up and go get a job but when that happens you want to release an album and then you want it to be played on the radio etc but I think after ‘95 it all got a bit samey and a bit predictable.

With Everything’s Alright Forever ... were you foreshadowing ‘shoegazing’...or was it a Carr-approved psychedelia?

We had finished with the MBV thing and wanted the album to be something else. We didn’t how to produce so we got one in and he thought we wanted to sound all washy and see through which we didn’t want at all but we were too young and stupid to tell him so we just picked on him instead. He, Ed, was a really nice guy but that album is the only one of ours that I can’t really listen to because it doesn’t sound like us and I wouldn’t have bought it if it was someone else.

You mentioned in the liner notes to the recent Sanctuary compilation that if you were producing Everythings Alright Forever that you would have done it differently ... how would you have prepared it?

No idea.

Was Love ‘Forever Changes’ an influence?

Very much so. The arrangements and instrumentation on that album are breathtaking.

Alan McGee said that he signed the Boo Radleys to demonstrate to Kevin Shields that he could take a similar group like My Bloody Valentine to number one...

I’ve never heard that. There is no way that a group similar to My Bloody Valentine could get to number one. They were so unique and leftfield. Sure they had great songs but the sounds were not sounds that you will ever hear coming out of daytime radio. By the time we had hits we sounded nothing like that, that’s why we had hits. We were nothing compared to MBV, they were out of this world.

With your next album ‘Giant Steps’ ... it was branded a classic by the press and people alike ... did you thnk at the time ‘bloody hell ... we managed to get in the canon?’

Not really, it kinda crept up on everyone months after it came out. I think it’s only sold about 30,000 copies so I don’t know where all these people are hearing it. I knew it was different from everything else at the time, that was enough for me.

Have you listened to Giant Steps recently and do you think that it aged well?

I listened to it a couple of years ago. It sounds good, I’d love to mix it again.

How did you find celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Giant Steps?  Was it strange?  Did you look back in anger?  Or happiness?

Happiness definately, it made me a bit sad that those days are gone. I don’t feel a part of that world anymore which is, for the most part, a relief but I miss those times, the things we shared.

With Wake Up Boo!  ... were you shitting it as popstars?

Was I what? It was the same thing as usual except we had to get up earlier.

I find one of your most affecting numbers to be ‘Blues For George Micheal’ ... how was your treatment of George taken by others?

Nobody has ever asked me about the song that I can remember. I don’t know if he ever heard it. It was basically sticking two fingers up to sony. 

What were your feelings on writing a number one pop song whilst hung-over from an acid bender?

A bit sick probably.

Around the time of Wake Up Boo! people were discussing your songwriting abilities in the terms of pop and pop music.  Did you think ‘woah .. hold on this isn’t going to plan’...

No, I love pop music. I thought everything we did was pop music and I still do. I thought MBV and Dinosaur Jr were pop music. I got into because of pop music. People try and make out that it’s beneath them and it’s used as some kind of putdown but if you’re in a band and you’ve signed a deal then you’re already part of a system so cut the fucking outlaw act and do what the man tells you like a good drone. innit?

With the album after Wake Up Boo ... did you intentionally go back to the avante-hardness of art-rock of Giant Steps?

I wanted to make an album with just the four of us, no horns or strings or choirs. We had a great time making that record. Every record I’ve made has been intentional, I was awake at that time.

Are you still obsessed with Oasis?

I think that finished when I heard the third album. I did make a bit of a fool of myself over them but they blew me away when I heard them. I hear the odd thing now and again, some things I like and some I don’t really care for. I always really liked Noel, I saw him last year in Cardiff, he’s always got a hug ready, I wish I’d been sober enough for intelligent conversation.

When you released Kingsize ... I felt at the time it was the sound of a band delievering their last message.  Was that the feeling like whilst recording it?  That you took the Boo Radleys are far as you could go ...?

We were pretty postive when we started but it soon became apparent that Creation weren’t interested and we couldn’t find whatever it was that had kept us together and half way through I thought ‘that’s it, I’m finished’; I didn’t even want to complete the record but Mark Bowen at Creation convinced me that I should and he was right. The music we were making wasn’t really music that I was listening to and I just wanted out.

People have questioned whether or not Kingsize was your version of Bob Dylan’s Saved with subtle references to Christianity… true or false?

Any references to christianity would have been negative in intent. ‘Closer to God’ was about some kind of allusion to drug induced metaphysical states rather than some happy clappy lets go kill people in the name of our faith thing that i was brought up with.

With the release of Brave Captain ... you continued the symphonic space-pop of the Boo Radleys ... how do you think that the Brave Captain sessions were treated in the press?

I’m not sure if I’ve ever been in the press! I don’t recall any reviews, my memory is shot to shit.

There is always a sense of agoraphobia and claustrophobia about your music and a desire to be released.  Is music that ultimate catharsis for you?

Yeah, nothing can touch it when it’s good.  It’s almost like a mask that I wear, where I can be anything or anyone that I want to be. Without it life is pretty unbearable, so flat and grey.

Is music a drug?

Can it be addictive? Yes. Does it make you euphoric then bring you down? Yes. Does it make you lock yourself in a toilet on a transatlantic flight and start crying for no reason? No.

Your relationship with Alan McGee has always been caustic… do you think that the effects of that relationship gave you something to fight against?

We always got on ok, I didn’t see him that much. We have different ideas about things and we were both stubborn and influenced by whatever substances we are relying on at any given moment. He said some things and I tried to ignore it and besides I was suddenly back in the real world and there were more important things to worry about like paying bills and stuff. We’re back in touch now and we’re friends and that makes me happy.

One thing that I’ve always enjoyed about your interviews is your obsession with the canonical terms of rock’n’roll—from praising The Verve’s Northern Soul, Creation Records, Aphex Twin ... do you still obsess over the rock’n’roll canon and the sense that music is important?

I still think it’s important but I don’t recognise it in terms of canons and classics. Too many people try to impose their ideas upon you. ‘This is rock’n’roll and that isn’t so you’re not’, such bullshit. There are no rules, nobody is in charge. I don’t need VH1 or channel 4 or Radio 2 telling me what albums I should own. I had a guy tell me that I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the Clash! Eh? What does that even mean? Yes, you were young once and now you’re old, that’s not my fault. Clinging to the Clash as a totem of your rebellious youth is like going around with yr dummy still in your mouth. All these old punks telling you what you should listen to and banging on about the old days, they should come with a laugh track.

Alot of your inspiration during Kingsize was Archway. I live near Archway.  Was it the brutalist concrete head fuck that is the Archway Towers that inspired you?

Yes, and the smell and violence.

What’s been rotating on your stereo?

Lilly Rose, Akira the Don, Richard James, Mothboy, Televison Personalities, Bert Jansch, Blim and Dogtown Clash

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