Twisting My Melon (21 page)

That autumn we went on a big UK tour, our biggest yet. The second date was Newcastle, and me and Muzzer turned up late. The band had set off without me to do the soundcheck, as I was waiting to score, so me and Muzz had to get a train up later and then get a taxi to the venue.

We’d just made the jump to bigger venues, so we were playing some place we’d never played before. We weren’t sure where it was – we didn’t have any itinerary, and this was before mobile phones, so we just asked the taxi driver to take us to the local gig venue, and we pulled up and saw a queue of people outside, so we jumped out the taxi. We ran up to the door and Muzzer was giving it, ‘We’re the band, we’re the band … we’re late’ and the bouncers just let us through and we legged it in. We walked straight through the auditorium, and should have clocked then that it was quite a civilized crowd, not our usual crowd with everyone off their faces, but we didn’t. We just jumped on stage, and as I was walking across the stage I clocked the instruments and thought, ‘We haven’t got a saxophone,’ but it still didn’t click, and I just thought it was the support band’s or something. Then we saw the dressing room door and Mick Hucknall was standing there with the rest of Simply Red and I suddenly realized. ‘
Fuck! Wrong fucking venue
!’ We had turned up at a Simply Red gig. We were actually playing the Poly, which was just round the corner, so we did one sharpish.

The Manchester date on that tour was at the Free Trade Hall,
which
we filmed and later released on video as
One Louder
. There was a bit of trouble at that gig, as Salford had decided they weren’t paying and rushed the door. The doormen were just overwhelmed. I don’t think they had ever seen anything like it. They probably clocked some of the heads that were coming in as well, and realized that it wasn’t wise to try and stop them or have a go at them.

We had to cancel the Leeds date on the tour so we could do
Top of the Pops
for the first time. That was a real turning point for us. It was one of those moments. Once you’d done
Top of the Pops
back then, things changed for you. I also thought it was fucking great that it was our first
Top of the Pops
and the Stone Roses were on the same show, so it felt like Manchester was taking over. The Roses also had a double A-side out – ‘Fools Gold’ and ‘What the World Is Waiting For’. People still talk about that
Top of the Pops
to me – it’s one of the main things that people bring up, so it obviously hit a nerve. I get blokes in their forties coming up to me saying, ‘I was at college when you and the Roses first did
Top of the Pops
and it was fucking brilliant!’ Even Dom Joly, when we were in the jungle, was banging on about it, about being at uni and watching it with his pals.

There was absolutely no rivalry with the Roses from my side. They did used to go round giving it, ‘We’re the best band in the world’ and all that, but I’d just think, ‘Right, okay. If they like saying that, fine.’ Personally, I would never have said something like that, but it was fine for them to say it. The Roses were a great band. Our Paul would sometimes moan to me that my songs were shit, and I should write more like Ian Brown, but that was just Our Paul. He just had a downer on my songs sometimes. I always knew, at the time, that we were getting on and making a name for ourselves because we were different, and the Roses were making a name for themselves because they
were
different. Our Paul contradicted himself really, because I think part of him did want to be in the Roses, but then he would turn round and say, really bullishly, ‘
We’re
the better band.’

The Roses were all good lads. Reni was a top lad, Mani was a top lad, Ian I’d known for ages since we used to meet for our tea at the drive-thru McDonald’s in Fallowfield, and John Squire was another good kid. We were pretty pally with them, but you didn’t really see them out in town that much. Mani was a big party-head, and he’d go to the Haçi and The Kitchen and that, but you didn’t see the rest of them much. Ian went to the Haçi a bit, but not that often; neither did John. I always thought their great move was bringing Mani in. They were always a good band, but Mani seemed to be the final link, when it all really gelled. I didn’t see them live much, because we would be off doing our own thing, but I did go to their huge gig at Spike Island the following year, 1990, and I had a top day out, although I can’t really remember it. Like everyone else down there I was off my face. I think I watched the gig from the side of the stage, but I can’t even be sure of that.

Because we were on the same
Top of the Pops
as the Roses, and the wider general public didn’t really know who we were, I wanted to mix it up a bit. I wanted Ian to front my band, me to play bass in his band, Mani to play the drums with the Mondays and so on, just all swap over and mix it up a bit. It would have been really funny, because only fans of the Mondays and Roses would have noticed and got the joke. But it was the first time we had all been on
Top of the Pops
, so the rest of them weren’t really up for it. Only me and Bez were up for it in the end.

I had a bit of a run-in with the bloke who was in charge of the
Top of the Pops
studio that day and he told me that I would never work in that studio again, and never do
Top of the Pops
again
. Which was funny, because by the time I went back to do it again,
he
was the one that had been fired. I wasn’t even really misbehaving. He was just a pompous arse, a stuck-up TV type who tried ordering me about and I just said, ‘
Fuck off, knobhead
!’

He was giving it all, ‘
I’m
the boss, I’m in charge here!’ and I said, ‘I don’t give a fuck who you are, you silly little cunt.’

‘
You
will
never
work here again.’

‘Fuck off, you dick.’

Nick Kent came down to
Top of the Pops
to do a big piece on us and the Roses for
The Face
. That was supposed to be a big deal, Nick Kent coming down, but I couldn’t give a fuck. All I knew about Nick Kent was that Sid Vicious had whacked him once, so I asked him about that and he told us that story and said it was a set-up by Malcolm McLaren. He seemed an all right geezer, I suppose. I think he was on smack at the time. There was a bit of kerfuffle when the piece came out because he quoted Wilson as saying, ‘I have absolutely no problem with any of these guys dying on me. Ian Curtis committing suicide is the best thing that ever happened to me. Death sells.’ I know Tony was upset, and I think the editor of
The Face
eventually admitted that they didn’t have him on tape saying it, but it never bothered me. He might not have said it, but even if he had – and it
was
the sort of thing that he would come out with – we wouldn’t have had a problem with it. If Tony denied it, then he didn’t say it. I believe Tony. But it
does
sound like his sort of humour. He had a similar sense of humour to us, and I know from experience that it doesn’t necessarily come across right in print. But, like I say, none of us would have had a problem with it. It was the sort of thing we would come out with ourselves.

You could tell with certain journalists that they were desperate for some sort of controversial quote, and we’d usually give it to them, because we didn’t give a fuck. I can’t
read
a lot of interviews that I did back then now, because we were just off our heads and coming out with all sorts. The wackier and more outrageous the better. We didn’t care. The only thing that bothered me was when they used to write ‘fuck’ as ‘fook’. That used to wind me right up. Oh God, that really did my fucking head in. Not my fookin head in. I can see how posh southerners might read it, but to us, ‘fook’ or ‘fook-in’ looked fucking ridiculous. Knobheads. We had long discussions about that in the Mondays, and pure hated it.

What was ridiculous was we got a slight bit of resentment from some early fans when we did
Top of the Pops
. You’d get the odd dick who thought you had sold out. We used to laugh at those sort of pricks. I’d seen it years before with bands like Adam and the Ants. All the cool kids and the students were all bang into Adam and the Ants, and thought they were the greatest band ever, all dressing up like them and wearing the make-up and everything. But as soon as they went on
Top of the Pops
, the same kids decided they didn’t like them any more. What a bunch of pretentious knobs. Bands want to make a living. They want to be successful so they can continue making music, because that’s what they love doing. It’s all right for you fucking students in your long macs, studying whatever you’re pretending to be studying, not having to work, and wanting to keep them as ‘your band’.

Our mates, all our lot, and everyone from round our way, were made up that we were on
Top of the Pops
. They were like, ‘
Yes! Go on lads
!’ How often would you get a band from Salford on
Top of the Pops
?

It was a different era then though. A lot of bands would also get offended if someone wanted to use their song on an advert. ‘
What
? You want to use
my
song to
advertise cheese
? You want to give me £500,000 to
advertise a Ford Fiesta, with my music
?’ I never understood that. The Mondays wouldn’t have
had
any problem with it. We never had any problem speaking to any of the tabloids either. Again, that was frowned upon. You weren’t supposed to speak to the red tops because it wasn’t cool; you were just supposed to speak to the
NME
. People would warn us, ‘They’ll just twist what you say and spit you out.’ Bollocks. Once you get on
Top of the Pops
and you’re in the tabloids, then you’re actually getting somewhere. Any dick can be in the
NME
. Any fucking student can get their ugly mug in the
NME
. So we’d welcome speaking to the tabloids and people like Piers Morgan, which other bands wouldn’t do at the time.

I think that attitude has changed over the years, partly perhaps because of the Americanization of British culture. I remember they used to say if someone saw a nice car over here they’d scratch it with a key, but if someone saw a nice car in America they’d think, ‘I’m going to make something of myself so I can get a car like that one day.’ No one is afraid to be a success in America, which they could be over here – it’s a very British thing. British kids were never schooled in that way; they weren’t encouraged to think they were going to be successful, that they could do this or that, or build a successful business. But that has changed, and kids’ expectations are probably too high now. You ask a kid nowadays ‘What do you think a decent wage is? Ninety thousand a year?’ and they’ll say ‘Ninety thousand a year?? That’s fucking shit. I can’t live off that. I want to be on at least half a million a year, because P Diddy earns this, or Man United players earn this.’

So it has changed, and people are less likely to scratch that car now, but their expectations are often unrealistic. It’s good to have big ideas, but you need a bit of realism as well.

I didn’t mind being associated with the Roses, but I wasn’t into being lumped in with a lot of the other Manchester bands. I
always
thought James were OK; we’d known them for ages and played with them quite a bit. But I was pretty fucking horrible about the Inspiral Carpets back in the day. I remember watching them early on at the Boardwalk when they had a singer with big ears, and then they got rid of him because his girlfriend was moaning about him getting a proper job, and replaced him with a singer that looked exactly the same. A couple of them were quite young, but they had this old man with a bowl haircut on keyboards who whipped them into shape. Clint Boon, who was their keyboard player, is great. He loves the whole Manchester scene and he’s a lovely fella. He does a radio show on XFM now, which I’ve been on, and does a great job. But back then I was pretty horrible about the Inspirals because I didn’t want to be roped in with them. I remember sending nasty faxes over to their office, saying ‘You bunch of tossers …’ and stuff like that. Then we started getting quite naughty faxes back, saying ‘You bunch of dicks …’ I couldn’t fucking believe it when those faxes came through! It was fine for us to give them shit, but I didn’t expect the cheeky fuckers to give it back. We were like, ‘The cheeky bastards, we’ll have them put in a box!’ Then I found out, years later, that it was actually their roadie who was sending all these faxes. A certain Noel Gallagher.

Noel learnt a lot from the Inspirals about the way the industry works, which he maybe doesn’t give them credit for. Maybe he didn’t want to be too closely associated with them, but now we’re all blokes and in our forties, I think you can drop the childishness. I’ll now admit I was a real knob with the Inspirals. They were just a bunch of nice lads who were trying to make it in the music business and they had a real good shot at it. They actually made some good tunes, which I slagged off at the time, but that was me being a dick, and a child. I was just up my own arse and got drawn into all that nonsense.

I just didn’t like getting roped in with all these other bands.

I didn’t think we had that much in common. Back then, I would even have preferred to be roped in with Take That than Inspiral Carpets, the Mock Turtles and the High. Just because it would have been different to make that association with Take That rather than the bands people expect you to be lumped in with. It wouldn’t bother me nowadays to be associated with those bands, because it wouldn’t seem like a matter of life and death, but back then it did.

I remember being in Muzzer’s house and this kid called Dermo came round. I think he was a painter and decorator, and he was into karate. I chatted to him for a bit and I think he left thinking, ‘He’s just normal. He’s just like me. If he can do it, I can do it.’ Next thing, he’s formed a band called Northside and they’ve signed to Factory. I probably did make it look more achievable to people, but I would also say that if you’re good at something, anything, then you make it look easy.