Skewed pop music marrying the gentleness of acoustic blues and beat-pop, with some spirited electronic action. A lot of invention is shown on this LP, and there’s a lot to like, and I’ve a feeling this could turn into love if you take the time to develop a meaningful relationship with Merchandise. While the electronica removes a shade of the normal warmness you might expect, in places, such as ‘Winter’, there is an intimacy in which you can comfortably wrap yourself up. Skif
Maybe it’s because Bolton Wanderers played a fairly good season in the Premier League. Maybe it’s because Brad B. Wood and Conrad Astley, the masterminds behind Merchandise, successfully resisted in forming a goth rock band back in the day. Maybe it’s because whimsical is the new tough. Whatever it is, fact is that the third album from Bolton hailing duo Merchandise, is combining luscious acoustic loveliness with the wonders of the electronic (r)age. Although they’re adoring Ian Mackaye and Fugazi, “Lo-tech Solutions to Hi-tech Problems” is sounding part Marcus Acher, part Damon Gough, part Richard Brautigan. Gorgeous. Pure. Pop. Indeed, Summer is finally here.
I find it pretty unusual, that Merchandise somehow seems to work as a trio, because Roger Williams is responsible for (nearly) all the lyris. How does this work out? Are you doing the music first and he’s coming up with some lyrics that fit the vibe?
It’s really more the other way around most of the time. We’ve tried working with Roger in a few ways but the usual method is just to collect his lyrics and when we come up with musical ideas go through them and see what fits the mood. Recently though Roger said he wanted to try to write to a tune so I gave him a new guitar led idea and the results are sounding really good - should be a catchy one.
Please tell me a little on how and when you started Merchandise… what about that early plans of starting a goth band?
The early plans to form a goth band were short lived and ill-advised! We met at university in York and got drunk together at a band jam session which led to more drinking and listening to music. We’d met a guy and his girlfriend who wanted to form this band with us, so when me and Con had a rehearsal to see what we could put together for them we discovered we just didn’t really want to do that sort of stuff. So we decided to just experient and see where that took us. We’ve got the early tapes somewhere but there’s no way you’re hearing them!
You named your band after a Fugazi song… seems to be quite a step between the DC-school of hardcore and your lush but brillaint Pop tunes.
Great music is great music and it would be a sad old world if we only listened to bands that sounded like us .
Fugazi were one of the bands that bonded us in the first place and I think that one of the first times Con came over to Manchester was to watch Fugazi. Roger’s also a massive fan and the name was his suggestion as is Alan who drummed on 14:53.
I really like the fact, that it is almost impossible to pin your sound down to a specific genre… from Jazz to Electronica to Indie to whatever. Would you say that this is a result of living in Bolton where you are allowed to just be yourself instead of trying hard to belong to a certain scene?
I’d say that we’ve always had a willingness to let ourselves make the music we want to without worrying too much about where it’s going until it’s got there. Both of us love all kinds of music so it’s pretty natural for that to shine through. We’re not the sorts to do all this for a fashion or lifestyle statement so you can forget the matching sharp suits and sound alike songs, we’ll just write what we think sounds good and what we want to listen to.
I was surprised that you already released two albums before. How would you say did your sound evolve over the years?
We’ve only released one album and two singles before. It all started off with a 10″ of dark instrumental electronica that I put out on Cityscape before we even had a name - it back fired a bit as catalogue numbers aren’t so memorable! Once we’d settled on Merchandise though we spent a fair while putting together the first album This is . . . Merchandise which, looking back on it, was probably a little too varied and lacked focus in parts. It helped us decide on the direction we wanted to go in and there are some good tunes on there, but they did tend to be a bit harsher - more like Sunday Song on the new album which was the first song started for Lo-tech Solutions and the last one finished.
By the time we did the Swallowing Curses single we had really started to find our voice and were sounding as we wanted. We’d started to use acoustic guitar, piano and sampled drum loops a lot more and I’d settled on a vocal style I was happy with. That was the stepping stone to the new album which took a long time to make but I think we can say we’re really happy with how it’s turned out. What’s even better though is the new stuff we’re working on now which is even more catchy so we’re really excited about that at the moment.
I really love the title of your new album… so what exactly are the ‘Lo-tech solutions to Hi-tech problems’ you are referring to?
The idea came from a conversation Roger and I had where I was going on about the story that during the space race NASA spent loads of money trying to develop a ball point pen that would work in zero gravity and the Soviets had got around the problem by using a pencil. I don’t know how much truth there is in that but Roger said words similar to the album title and we rang Con and he also liked it so that’s what it became.
We just felt that it fitted in with the whole way we make the music and I suppose it could be an attitude to life if you like - not to be taken too seriously though, we always like what we do to have an element of tongue in cheek just so we don’t disappear too far up our own arses.
‘I Hate That You’re Living’, ‘Beautiful Morning For A Bad Day’… would you say that the album somehow tells a story (for example, on how to deal with a fucked up relationship)?
It’s fair to say most of the songs are about relationships or the consequences of them - we should probably get a bit more imagination! It’s also fair to say there are a few different girls who’ve inspired the songs so it’s not themed around one relationship. Hopefully you can listen to each song and relate to the feelings and ideas though I don’t think we can offer any advice about how to deal with it. As we put it together we noticed the theme - but it wasn’t intentional, we probably know more about failed relationships than we do about dragons or drugs or super models or whatever other bands write about, and I’ve got a hunch that most folk feel the same.
As for the titles - all of them have a story and if anybody really wants to know any particular ones they can feel free to email us through the site and I’ll bore them to death with them. They weren’t intentionally themed but like the lyrics they seem to work together - so we liked that.
Brad and Con Interviewed by Sven Fortmann