Manchester-based prog-folk troupe Starless and Bible Black won over a host of fans with their sumptuous self-titled debut album, and a 7″ single on Static Caravan. Set to appear at Moseley Folk Festival at the end of the month, Cul-de-Sac spoke to band mainman Pete Philipson to find out what to expect.

CdS: What attracted you to playing at the Moseley Folk Festival?

Pete Philipson: It seems like a great line-up and city festivals tend to have less mud! We played The Cross in Moseley last year and had a great night so we were mighty pleased when Carl asked us to play.

CdS: How did your 7″ release on Static Caravan come about?

PP: Darren at Cargo Distribution first got in touch and asked ‘Would you be interested in releasing a single with a fiercely independent label?’ and we were quite honoured when it turned out to be Static – and we said yes almost immediately! Geoff has been a great support.

CdS: How do you feel about playing live? Do you consider yourself more as live performers than studio musicians?

PP: Playing live is always good fun, especially as we never quite know what Raz will get up to on stage – both musically and physically! And you definitely get to meet more interesting people at gigs than you do in a dark studio, but saying that I have to confess I’m a bit of a home studio head for most of the year.

CdS: How would you describe your music?

PP: Mostly verses and choruses…with a few drones for good measure.

CdS: What do you make of the ‘folk’ tag? Acoustic music seems to have undergone a big renaissance of late.

PP: I still don’t really know what exactly constitutes ‘folk’ music. Surely all popular music is folk music of one form or another. I suppose in terms of music that uses predominantly traditional acoustic instrumentation, I agree there has been a rediscovery of this by much of the listening public, although it was all happening beforehand anyway. So the audience for this music has grown and the mainstream media seems to have picked up on it all – which is really good as in turn more people are picking up instruments instead of computers to make music. The really interesting music is made when artists mix up some of the old traditional ideas with some of the new technology and hopefully we do a bit of that in Starless. I like computers too!

CdS: Where do you draw your inspiration from when writing songs? Are there certain themes which you revisit?

PP: Inspiration is not something we necessarily think about when writing but it is obviously there in various forms, and we’re not in the best position to judge this. Themes? Just the usual ones – death, pain, misery, you know?! And minor chords, though we’re trying to avoid those these days.

CdS: Are there any other artists who you feel an affinity with, in terms of their approach to making music?

PP: No one in particular, but anyone who makes music deserves a pat on the back for just getting out there and doing it. That’s a cop out really isn’t it? But I mean it.

CdS: What are you currently working on?

PP: There’s always something going on. Raz, Helene and I run a small label called Timbreland and we put out a few things each year. Paul and Brian play with other bands including Edgar Jones, Jim Noir and Aidan Smith so they are playing out a fair old bit. And this is all around our day jobs!

CdS: How easy is it for a band such as yourselves to get your music heard? Mainstream music radio doesn’t seem to be particularly conducive to giving airplay to acts outside the charts.

PP: It depends on what you mean by ‘heard’. Local radio has always been good to us and we’ve had some airplay on the nationals. We all have to remember that there are so many good acts out there now and only so relatively few airplay hours. Big radio is big business and big business often means competition, so it’s often airplay of the fittest if you understand my meaning. As far as I’m aware stations like BBC Radio 2, 3 and 6 all have good specialist programmes for non-chart music, and internet radio is pretty much limitless. When relaxing at home in Manchester we listen to ALL FM and Revolution as they play what they like and the stations are mostly run by volunteers who just have a great passion for non mainstream music.

CdS: Have you got any heroes/influences, musical or otherwise?

PP: For me I suppose I’m really into the sound of guitars and certain records, so mine tend to be well-known guitarists and producers. Off the top of my head the obvious ones are Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Jimmy Page, Johnny Marr, Robbie Blunt, Mark Hollis, Phill Brown, Joe Boyd, Robin Guthrie, Henry Lewy…..the list goes on and is constantly in transition. The other Starless people would probably say Sandy Denny, Delia Derbyshire, Danny Thompson and Billy Childish among others.

CdS: Your name comes from Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood – does literature play a big, part lyrically or thematically, in your music?

PP: Not especially but we all read books and sometimes it slips in – our song Up With The Orcadian Tide is partially about shipwrecking and that came from a book that was lying around on a table in my house.

CdS: What are the band’s individual music tastes like?

PP: Across the board. Helene listens to quite bit of everything from Klaus Nomi to Cocteau Twins via hip-hop and heavy metal. Raz always plays me some dub and experimental drone records but he’s really a Californian country rock gent circa 1968 at heart! Paul knows his hip-hop and jazz inside out. Brian is mostly into classic rock and indie stuff. At the moment I listen to mostly singer-songwriters and some psych stuff. I don’t think any of us pretend to be that academic about it all.

CdS: What other interests do you have?

PP: Well someone once called us pastoral urban folk so our interests are naturally hay-baling and car-jacking!

CdS: Where do you stand on the debate surrounding digital music formats and physical formats? Are you a vinyl junkie or avid downloader?

PP: Recorded music has continually shifted formats ever since Edison’s phonograph, so it would be ignorant to dismiss digital online music formats. Digital allows the whole musician to listener path to be shortened both in terms of hours and miles and anyone with broadband can amass a huge collection of just about anything really easily – legally or illegally. The downside is that it can maybe devalue an artistic statement in music as it becomes more throwaway. I can speak for the whole band and say that we all buy some vinyl, some CD and some download, so there’s no huge devotion to any particular medium. Having said that receiving your own album on vinyl is amazing! And bring back cassette!

CdS: The internet and especially sites like MySpace are instrumental now in terms of bands reaching their audience. Do you pay much attention to it?

PP: For us the internet is most important as a meeting place and as I just mentioned it can make everything so much shorter and faster. If you want to find out about a bizarre Danish psych band from the 70s you can be reading about them and listening to a track within minutes, or if you want to locate and contact a promoter in Glasgow you can do this without even shaking your ass. How did we survive before?!! So yes it’s important, but still nowhere near as important as the vis-à-vis and voice-to-voice doings that gets things moving in the first place. In terms of reaching a wider audience, the internet is essential.

CdS: What’s been your greatest achievement so far?

PP: Er….getting the first album on vinyl!

CdS: What’s in store for the future?

PP: More records, more gigs and possibly light sabres!

Simon Harper

No related articles