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14th May 2002, BayDomain.com
Cranes are a UK band often remembered for touring the USA with The Cure in 1992. Since then they have acquired a loyal fan base around the world, who seem to find perfection in everything they do – whether it be fierce, sometimes stark guitar sounds of early albums like Wings of Joy, or more recently the softer folk-inspired Future Songs release. Whatever their preferences may be, new listeners are sure to find a piece of the treasure to take home with them.
Baydomain.com recently chatted with Alison Shaw about her band, Cranes. You can catch them live at the State Theatre on Saturday May 25th. Come one, come all ! [Baydomain.com DJ "Miss Select-A-Lot" will be spinning a fine selection of indie-electro rock...]
BayDomain: Population 4, your last album was released in 1997. We’ve missed you - what have you been up to since then?
Alison Shaw:
I spent a couple of years studying drama in London. I really enjoyed it. It felt like the right time to do something other than music for a while. It was great to read a lot of plays again and learn about other kinds of performance. I really like when you find a character you sort of disappear into it, it's fun.
BD: You have a totally new line up for this album, how did that come to be, and what happened to the original band members?
AS: Me and Jim are brother and sister. Mark and Matt who were the original band members left the group to get married in 1997 (Mark moved to Norway and Matt to New Zealand) and now we have Jon Callender who is our drummer, and Ben Baxter who is the new bassist, and Paul Smith who plays keyboards and guitars. It's kind of nice to have new people in the group and we have had some time to get to know each other as they joined in 1999/2000 when we were asked to play some festivals in Europe. We all met in Portsmouth where the group is based (Jim plays guitars now instead of drums that he originally played.)
BD: Are you currently working on any other projects? Any plans for the future?
AS: Jim and I started our label, Dadaphonic in England last year www.dadaphonic.com We're hoping to release stuff by other people sometime soon as well as our own albums and things. I recorded a song with a French producer called Dimitri Tikovoi last year for a future project. Also sang some backing vocals on a new album by Micheal J. Sheehy, which comes out in September. We have a couple of long term film music projects which we have been asked to work on and Jim has also been approached about writing the music for a British film. We had three songs used in a film called 'Wicked' last year, which has Julia Stiles in it and have had a few other songs placed here and there. We're beginning to write some stuff for a new cranes album sometime soon. Also we just finished an EP of remixes called 'Submarine' which is to be released in April on Instinct. It contains remixes of songs from Future Songs by 8 different people !
BD: When was the last time you played in Tampa? Are you looking forward to it?
AS: We last played there with the Cure in 1992 ! Yeah, we're really looking forward to it, thank you so much for inviting us. The Tampa and Orlando shows were only added after you mailed me about it ! So it's all down to you !
BD: You seem to be influenced artistically by a lot of theatrical elements and concepts. What are you influenced by as far as current music that’s out?
AS: I've been listening to some electronic stuff over the past few years. I really like Squarepusher. I was just listening to 'Budakhan Mindphone' which is brilliant ! I really like Boards of Canada and Funkstorung are brilliant too and sometimes I like more sort of acoustic guitar based stuff like Neil Halstead's album 'Sleeping On Roads' which i think is really nice or Hope Sandoval, something a bit country sounding ! Jon our drummer likes Mercury Rev and Stereolab and Jim likes guitar based music like Mogwai and he also listens to a lot of film music and classical stuff. I like things that totally create an environment that you enter into to when you play the record.
BD: What's the best thing about touring? Any gritty horror stories to tell us?
AS: The best part is playing music, which can be fun, and getting to see amazing scenery go by the window as you drive and getting to visit places you could used to only to dream of ! The worst thing is getting so tired from lack of sleep that you could pass out at any minute and also, it's not that great if you have to shower in the venue and share one towel with several people...which happened once !! (But they were gentlemen…I got it first !!)
BD: What is the most interesting thing a fan has done for you?
AS: We've got a brilliant audience. A lot of them are involved in visual things, film and design and other kinds of media they say that listening to music helps them with their work, which is always nice. People have included our songs in their films, one person at a studio has written a screenplay which he says was inspired by our sound. The guys who designed our album sleeve and the website were originally fans from Denmark who contacted us and we became friends...we were just given some photos by a really nice (and brilliant) photographer. He spent two days with us taking pictures and then made us some beautiful prints
BD: What odd jobs did you guys have before making music your sole income-generating profession?
AS: We had pretty bad jobs...Jim worked in a warehouse when he was really young. He also had a job cleaning rubbish off the beach. I worked in the bar of a venue for a while before we started cranes and in a shop. I worked as a film extra when I was at college sometimes. I had to report a dead body to the cops once in a TV drama series. I was the sister of Lord John Russell at an execution scene in something called "Lorna Doone" and had to weep as he got beheaded ! I've been a nurse a few times usually in some sort of mad Victorian costume
BD: How does Future Songs compare to your past albums?
AS: I think it might be a bit more complete than maybe the last album. We produced it ourselves at home, so the songs came along over a long period of time and we just worked on it when we wanted to. I think it has it's own atmosphere and it's quite personal. We've probably changed a bit in the last few years, so maybe it shows what has been going on in our heads but it really feels like a cranes record I think.
Interviewed by Cindy
© May 2002, BayDomain.com
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