the no-fi "magazine" interview
with ALAIN WHYTE of
interview and photos by Chris Beyond, conducted November 30th 2005
The first time I saw Alain Whyte on stage may have been when he played at the Los Angeles Forum as Morrissey's guitarist. The show was great and while I can't guarantee that the tiny little dot on stage was indeed him (as our seats were at the furthest scientific point from the stage as possible) I was very impressed at how this band was able to transform Morrissey's newest album at the time, "Kill Uncle" - which is one of his mellowest - into a jumpin' neo-rockabilly live show.
After that I saw them play many times. The most memorable being at The U.C.L.A. Pauley Pavilion. There we were...in the very back on the side of the auditorium. The show is great, everything is going pretty smoothly, and Morrissey is obviously in a good mood, chatting up, and joking with the audience. Four songs into the concert, Morrissey says, "If you want to stay in your seats you can,...but if you don't want to stay in your seats, you don't have to." And much like that moment if Quentin Tarrantino's script for "From Dusk Till Dawn" halfway through when he typed the words "And then all hell breaks loose"...all hell breaks loose. It was if all of the audience, at once, mistranslated his words to say "Please come as close to the stage as possible. Don't worry. There is plenty of room." So during the song "King Leer" my friend Tony Pavich and I made our way from our seats...down the steps, being knocked over some chairs (which contained some very annoyed people) and over the short barrier that led us to,...yes,...a few people back from the front of the stage. Oh, wait, did I say a few people? Yes, just a few people...and everyone else.
Meanwhile several rows back (did I mention that there were metal fold up chairs set up on the floor? More on that later) another friend of mine was watching two girls have sex with each other in the seats next to her when they asked her to join in. Red Herring. Sorry.
Anyway, the band made it through a couple more songs and then left the stage. The front row audience was having problems. All of the seats that were once there were now below us and people were getting caught in between them. The sounds that were rising from that crowd sounded a lot like what hell would sound like if it existed. The show was canceled and parts of the audience decided that it was time to destroy merchandice booths. As we left the Pauley Pavilion, we looked back to see smoke rising from one of the merch booths.
Why do I have such a clear memory about this show? Ask any Vietnam vet if he's ever forgotten being trapped in the jungle fighting an enemy he didn't understand. Also I was bootlegging the show at the time and I listened to the tape several times afterwards. I've seen them play several times since then, but oddly enough that was still my favorite. Flash forward to a couple months ago. I get an e-mail saying that I could interview Alain Whyte for his new band RED LIGHTNING and I had to personally do this one. I had heard recordings of some of their songs online and they sound great. In fact, they don't sound all too distant from Morrissey's songs. Just add a bit more of a punk edge and you're there. Alain writes a lot of Morrissey's music so that isn't really so strange. If you like Morrissey, you are going to like RED LIGHTNING. That's just that. So I was sent to The Knitting Factory in Hollywood where RED LIGHTNING was getting ready for their show that night and the following interview was what took place backstage in their dressing room.
A = Alain White (singer / guitarist)
J = John DiMambro (bass / backing vocals)
C = Chris Beyond (the guy with the tape recorder and silly questions)
C: I wanted to keep the first question nice and simple for the start of the interview so where were you born and how did you get here?
A: Um, I'm born...(laughs) I'm born...I AM BORN... (laughs) I was born in London, England in Charing Cross Hospital, but I grew up in an area called West Hampstead...and I pretty much lived there most of my life. And how did I end up here?
C: Yeah.
A: Originally, I had an American girlfriend and I was living on and off in Los Angeles and unfortunately it didn't work out. I live in England, BUT I have friends here in L.A. and I decided the best place for a band was here in Los Angeles. I met John the bass player through mutual friends, one being the lead singer of THE POLECATS who befriended an Australian rockabilly singer. Actually she's got her own punky sort of band right now. She's great, by the way! Her name's Bridgette Handley. And we were really close, really good friends and she suggested that I should hook up musically with Gretsch this guy John. I met John and we got on like a house on fire and we started networking and sorting out gigs and had a show under my own name originally in L.A at The Knitting Factory.
C: The acoustic one?
A: No no no! This was, you know, the three piece band and originally we tried out drummers or DRUMMER I should say. There was one guy who was possibly going to be doing the drums and he just didn't cut it, you know? I said to John, he's not cutting the mustard and we had a week and a half to get it together and do this show and we started panicking. So we decided to audition another drummer that John knew and he said, "I don't know what he's like these days cuz I worked with him when I was in a band called DOWN BY LAW." His name was Milo Todesco. I said to him, look, we should audition this guy Milo. I said, "You'll know if he's the right drummer within four beats in. It's just a feeling...you'll know. I can't explain it. You'll just know. Click (clicks fingers), you know? In rolls Milo with a Gretsch drum kit and I was, "That's a really good drum kit. I think he's gonna be good, this bloke." And so he starts off. He's learned up all of the stuff. John gave him CDs of the songs. He was just in there like Flynn. It's incredible. He was just on the money and me and John, literally, were just laughing and smiling. I couldn't believe that we stumbled on this guy. That was it!
C: That's how it works.
A: Yeah! We made a three piece. I like the rawness of it being a three piece band.
C: Raw, but in a good way.
A: Yeah, there's a lot of ground to cover.
(John leaves the room)
C: The band sounds really good, by the way. I've only heard clips on the internet. Do you have, like a full...
A: Oh, we've recorded sixteen songs. 12 will be on the forthcoming album which is titled "Ignore All Alien Orders" and uh, people will have to try to work that one out.
(I don't get it at the moment)
A: It's from a famous thing. It's interesting and that'll be a nice...
C: So now people'll be googling it all over the place.
A: Yeah, that'll be a nice trivia question. It's to a legend I pay respect to, so... There's a clue.
(I prattle on like a schoolgirl about how I like his new songs)
C: That song "The Two Of Us" especially. I like that song a lot.
A: That's the album closer. I guess it's in that tradition of a song building up and building up. The outré crescendo. I appreciate your comment.
(I talk about their sound in the Knitting Factory specifically. They sounded great.)
A: We're very fortunate because of being a three piece. It allows for a lot of space to be covered. So the bass player John and I have to cover a lot of ground and then you've got solid drumming by Milo... Um, we know our sounds. We're quite quick at setting up. We're quite lucky, you know, and I kinda know roughly what suits my voice and the soundman tonight's been really really good. I hope it sounds like that when we play tonight.
C: Ok, tell us one good thing about each of the major bands you've played with.
A: When I was younger I was in a group, like a rock and roll / rockabilly covers band, called THE MEMPHIS SINNERS and that was with Gary Day and Spencer Cobrin and the three of us managed to wind up be Morrissey's band. Which was quite uncanny because I never thought it would go anywhere because Rockabilly's a very limited form of music. But we were very good at what we were doing and it was just fun. I also had several rock bands. There was one band I was fronting before I joined Morrissey that was really really good and I was just singing so it's not like it's new to me to be a front person and just sing, y'know? So, uh, there were great aspects to that. I think the best thing about working with Morrissey is that it taught me how to become professional and he really stretches musical boundaries with the musicians. He really makes you stretch, y'know? Changing key of songs right off the bat. (clicks fingers)
C: And you wrote a lot of those sings too.
A: Yeah I'm lucky that I've been the majority songwriter for the last 15 years. He's been very good to me and I love and respect Morrissey. He's been very nice about this project and has given his thumbs up, which has been great, y'know? He's been like a mentor and brother and father figure.
(we laugh)
C: All in one! Ok, I have read that you were one of the friendliest people in a major band to meet. So tell us something about yourself that would make people think otherwise.
A: Ah, well I just... I'd better bring out the knuckle-duster, shouldn't I? (laughing) Joking! No, I try to be...uh... I know it sounds cheesy. I don't want to come across as a cheesy sort of uh... I can't mention main stream people, but they come across as really cheesy. I don't think I'm cheesy. I just like to be real...because I've done the worst jobs...along with a lot of other people in the world so I know what it's like to come from a rough background doing laboring. Doing...
C: I grew up in a bad neighborhood.
A: I was lucky. I didn't grow up in a bad neighborhood, but I just had really rubbish jobs. Y'know really horrible jobs. They weren't bad, but they were just mundane. I was a welder's laborer and that was really heavy work. Lifting up a lot of heavy steel. I really wanted to make it as a musician and I was so close to giving up until I found Morrissey and got in there. I was very very fortunate to be there at the right place at the right time. That's that's... (laughs) Sorry, my words are rolled up. (laughs)
C: (laughs) It's alright.
A: That's kept my feet on the ground. If it wasn't for the fans, we wouldn't be RED LIGHTNING. It wouldn't be Morrissey. So you have to give them respect. I suppose sometimes it's difficult when it gets a bit crazy and there's a lot of people wanting your autograph at the same time.
(John the bassist walks back into the dressing room)
A: (To John) You're alright, mate. You can stay here if you want to. I'm gonna answer some questions.
J: I have stuff to do still, sorry. I'm multi-tasking.
A: Alright.
(John leaves)
A: Sometimes it can be quite full-on and you have to sorta' say, "I'm sorry, man. I really gotta go. I can't stay here for an hour and a half signing two hundred autographs." ...If I'm lucky. (laughs) Other times... There was one time...I wasn't nasty and such but me and Gary Day were having a bite to eat. I think it was in Ventura. And there were loads of fans in this diner and we're like "Oh, god."
C: Was that recently? Like a few years back?
A: Yeah, that might have been '99 actually.
C: Yeah, I think I was at that show.
A: Yeah! That was one of my favorite gigs. The sound was really really good in there. And some fan got on stage and unplugged my whole pedal board.
C: Oh good.
A: ...which really bummed me out all night. And so everyone had to stop and we plugged in and just carried on where we let off...or just started the whole song again. I can't remember. Yeah, so we were in this diner and these guys came up while we were eating, "Oh could you sign and autograph" I said, "Listen man. We're just having a quiet bite to eat, but once we've finished, we'd be happy to sign stuff." That's just the way to do it, just being civil. There's no point to being a fucking jerk. There isn't. I can't see why anyone would be like that towards someone. It's just not worth being like that. Sometimes everyone goes through bad points or bad situations where you're like "Oh man, I need a break." You know? There's no point in being an asshole to anyone. I don't like that. I don't like people that are like that to people.
C: It is kinda silly. Like I understand when there are a lot of people you gotta get through in a day. But at least they're coming up to you because they like you.
A: Yeah. There's a way of being civil. You don't have to be nasty. That's my take on it.
C: And you'll always be in town again, so they can catch you next time.
A: That's it, you know? I was taught a lesson, "You never knock anyone on the way up cuz you don't know who you're going to meet on the way down." You know what I mean?
(In hindsite, I should have pretended to never have heard that phrase before. Another classic comedy moment lost for all time)
C: Well, you failed to tell me how horrible you are so I'm going to have to go to the next question. I'm sorry.
A: You haven't seen my hands around your neck yet. (we laugh)
C: What is the strangest record you have in your collection?
A: Strangest record?!? Ooo, that's a really good question.... Strangest record... I think somewhere I've got a Kim Fowley record...
C: (starts laughing) Of course!
A: I think it's that song "They're Coming To Take Me Away! Ha Ha!"
C: A lot of people don't know he was involved with that.
A: I know! It's such an insane record.
C: That whole album... I grew up with that album and it was one of my favorites. Which probably explains a lot about how I turned out.
A: I think it belonged to my brother and it's somewhere in the record collection. Maybe he's got it or I've got it. I don't know.
C: For the readers, I highy recommend this by the way. (look it up... NAPOLEON XIV)
A: It's totally insane, that record. It really tripped me out.
C: Have you met Kim Fowley yet?
A: No, I've never met him.
C: One of my friends had dinner with him and said he's was just like you'd imagine. The strangest man ever.
A: I think he's a bit of a nightmare towards women, isn't he? He's always trying to get on with them and stuff.
C: That's what I heard from THE RUNAWAYS documentary. Which is the bigger influence to you? The film Light Of Day starring Michael J Fox of Back To The Future where he plays a struggling musician and brother to Joan Jett's character, trying to make it in the big city or the film Crossroads where Britney Spears travels across the country and learns that she is not a girl,...and yet not a woman?
A: Oh, it'd have to be the first one even though I haven't seen it. (laughs) I'm not knocking Britney Spears. I'm sure she's very good at what she does. Not my cup of tea.
C: A lot of people are good at what they do. They don't HAVE to do it, but anyway... Who are your favorite more local and up and coming bands?
A: Well, local,...uh... In England... That's a hard question. ACTUALLY, there's a really interesting band called TEST ICICLES in England.
C: I just heard about them.
A: Yeah they're really strange. I can't work out whether they're bad or their really great. That's what's so cool about them. You know, they're so off the wall...that they're really really facinating and really really interesting, so... I like them, anyway. I also like BLOC PARTY. I LOVE COLDPLAY and I know everyone's shouting, "Boo! Boo!" To me they're so consistant. They're for real. I don't know. I really like them. I think they have something special.
(I recommend to him that he check out KAITO when he's back in the UK. I describe them as SONIC YOUTH meets ELASTICA)
A: They're so many bands I like. I like PLACEBO. Not many people hear much about them. They're a really great band. I love GREEN DAY. I think they're really good, really tight and exciting. They're last album was excellent.
C: That's a tour I can imagine you guys on.
A: Awww, I don't know. They'd kick our ass. They're so good.
C: (thinking the opposite) I don't knoooow.
A: We're very different. We're probably in the middle of GREEN DAY, ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN, and COLDPLAY or something. I don't know. (laughing ensues) We have a bit of influence. Like U2 are a great band... I really like the early CULT stuff..."Dreamtime" and the "Love" album...and I kinda went for that big guitar sound. Goth... There's so many influences from old to new. Like 50's, 60's stuff. I was into Hendrix, THE DOORS, THE BEATLES... I love Elvis. There's so much stuff, it's endless. Current bands? I think I've mentioned them. THE KILLERS, STROKES....
C: I saw THE KILLERS open for you guys. (Morrissey) Actually one of my friends' bands opened for you; DIOS (aka DIOS MALOS) ...um, at The Wiltern.
A: I didn't catch them. That's the thing, you know. We were so... It was a shame. Loads of bands supported us, but we were so in the zone of coming backstage, running through our stuff...just so we were (clicks fingers) on the ball for getting on. I caught a little bit of FRANZ FERDINAND at the Manchester Arena. I really like them. They're great.
C: A lot of people are remixing them.
A: Are they?
C: A lot of bootleg remixes. Mixing them with other bands... Do you think that Tony Blair would be prime minister if he said that Jesus talks to him?
A: (pause) He shouldn't be a prime minister. Not anymore. I don't knock people's religions. I have an open mind. I'd say I was agnostic, BUT heeee... Unfortunately there's no politician that would run New Labor better than he did. And the Conservative would be like the Republican party and they're outmoded and I've never been a supporter of them. I mean, politics are so corrupt now. There's no definition between the two parties. And the parties that you would like to vote for...don't have enough votes to get in. It's terrible. I'd rather vote for the Socialist Party or the Green Party.
C: A lot more of us would if we thought they could get voted in over here.
A: Yeah, but maybe we should change our attitudes. Maybe everyone should go, "You know what? Let's rebel." This is the best way of rebelling. Let's all vote for them. Instead of doing tactical voting and getting like two parties in either way, y'know. It needs to change There needs to be a change.
C: Well, hopefully... I always look at the bright side. The eighties... You had Thatcher and we had Reagan, but some really good music came out of bad times.
A: Oh absolutely!!! The amazing thing was...was that SEX PISTOLS... Oh, I shouldn't have mentioned the SEX PISTOLS... They were absolutely frightening. I was very young when they came about and it was a shock. I was, "What is this? My God!" They were completely, utterly hated...up and down the country. They were so antagonistic...and THAT was what was fantastic about them! That was IT! They antagonized the right wing! They antagonized the old fogies. You know?
C: I do actually. We need more of that now.
A: The religious people were in an uproar! We do! People should be able to voice their opinion regardless in what they believe in. SEX PISTOLS were utterly liberating. They really were.
C: They kind of cleaned the slate musically.
A: They did! Long haired hippies were dead! The leftovers of the sixties died overnight. The conservatives were horrendous. Back in that day Margaret Thatcher ruined so much good things in the country, broke the miner's union, sold off British steel. We were hardly exporting anything...cuz everything got sold off...privately. It's just really really bad. The new Labor party is probably going to make everything even worse. I was a Labor voter my whole life. It's just not the same party anymore. I don't know who to vote for. I'd rather not vote for anyone. Maybe I'm gonna vote Green. Maybe I'll vote Socialist. I'm Left anyway. Always have been.
C: I'm sure most of my readers are.
A: I like being on the side of the rebels. I don't believe in corporate things running the world. There should be more voice. We ARE the majority. That's the crazy thing. Twenty of the world's richest people, or maybe more... I don't know. ...probably run the way the world is...and they LOVE to divide and rule. They LOVE it. They love it when racism's going on, when people can blame unemployment on other people. They love that because it defers from where it's really coming from.
C: It goes in their pocket either way anyway.
A: EXACTLY! Maybe the system will never change, but if we really opened our minds, we are the majority. We can make big change if we really wanted to. Bono tries, bless him. At least he tries.
C: I think people don't realize that they have a voice. We have so many tools now that... Technology invented by all these people that was invented just for us to be able to get out there and vote. I think they are getting there. When you have a system that for so long, so much goes into so little, it's gonna crash.
A: Well yeah! That's why, in the eighties, the stock market crash that happened. It was really funny...to me when I was young. I feel sorry for the people that lost everything and stuff. That must've been hard, but something had to fucking change. You can't just be a champagne swiggin' yuppie in a swimming pool riding on other people being ripped off. Something had to change. That's why it's quite interesting now. Major record companies are having trouble selling stuff because of internet downloads...and bands can now get a big fanbase now via the internet. It's great! It's become the new underground.
C: You get to make more money from people who come to your shows where you make the real money anyway.
A: Definitely.
(two writers from an Alain Whyte fanzine called "No One Can Hold A Candle To You" come in. They give me a copy later.)
C: Have you ever held a monkey?
A: (silence) That is ridiculous. (everyone laughs) Only a sock monkey that was given to me from a fan. ...cuz, uh, these fans had made these sock monkeys. One was Morrissey. One was me. One was Gary...
C: Ok, that's frightening.
A: (laughing) Yeah, yeah. It was a bit silly. No, I haven't held a real monkey, no. So when do you check in to the madhouse?
C: Actually when I get back. DANGER MOUSE or DANGER DOOM?
A: Danger Mouse or...Danger Doom? Is the world going to head to Danger Doom? God, if Jeb Bush gets in after George Bush then America is heading towards Danger Doom. The way things are going, it's crazy. We've got the middle east uprising. There's tension with North Korea...and China, meanwhile,... Their economy is absolutely booming...and it's getting quite scary. The whole Iraq was a total fiasco.
C: And a farce.
A: And it was completely about oil. And it's caused MORE hatred towards the West. It's actually created more terrorists. So I'd say Danger Doom.
C: (laughing) I think that DANGER DOOM would be happy you said that. (I explain that there is a musical artist/producer called DANGER MOUSE who collaborated with hip hop artist MF DOOM and the cartoon network to create the new DANGER DOOM album.
A: I had no idea! Sorry DANGER DOOM! (laughs) ...and DANGER MOUSE.
C: We have a lot of readers who are also Morrissey fans that would kill me if I didn't ask a few Moz questions. So...that being said...would you say that he is a morning person or an evening person?
A: He's definitely not a morning person. He rises up, I'd say, at one or two o'clock at the latest so... He's an afternoon person, I guess. Afternoon tea and cakes.
C: Is it true Morrissey once killed a man just for staring at him.
A: (silence) No, that's absolutely ridiculous.
C: That's what I thought.
A: He'd be in prison, wouldn't he?
C: Do you have an opinion regarding the whole Mike Joyce versus Morrissey thing?
(former SMITHS bassist Mike Joyce has won several legal cases against Morrissey for royalties and some say he may have, in effect, gained most - if not all - of the royalties from the Smiths albums.)
A: Ohhhh, I don't know. I don't really know about all that stuff. I'd rather not get involved. It seems like a bit of a joke. That's all I know.
C: Why should people listen to your upcoming album when they could listen to the next Gwen Stefani record?
A: Well, they could listen to both. I met Gwen Stefani. She was actually really really nice and, uh, I think she's a talented performer. She has her own unique voice. Um, we're totally different so it's really hard to compare, y'know? Well if people listened to us, I'd like to think they'd really like our music. But they'll probably like Gwen Stefani's stuff too, you know?
C: I actually liked her EARLY stuff.
A: Yeah, I liked the NO DOUBT stuff. I like some of the stuff she's done solo. She's great at what she does.
C: But are you a '"Holla' Back" guy?
A: I'm sorry?
C: Sorry, it's a line from one of her songs. Her latest single or whatever.
A: Oh, sorry...
C: (embarrassed for myself) No,...dont...be. Ok, what's the one question that you always wanted people to ask, but they never did?
A: (laughing) Just don't ask. I don't know.
C: That's works for me. (laughing) I wasn't going to ask it anyways. This is actually the end of the interview and thank you very much...for doing this. ...meeting me backstage here at The Knitting Factory. So what are your closing words of wisdom for our No-Fi readers?
A: I s'pose...like Joe Strummer said, 'If you're forming a band and you've got a good thing,...stick with it. Don't change it. Work with it. Develop it...and hone the craft. Try and learn as much as you can'...and that's it. Really, if they're ambitious people. If not.; try to lead life with as much ease as you possibly can and try to be happy...which is impossible. (everyone laughs) No, I'm only kidding. That's basically it really.
I thank Alain and leave feeling good. Alain seemed to have a good time during the interview and so did I. Before the interview I was also treated to seeing them perform a soundcheck where they performed a cover of THE SMITHS' "Bigmouth Strikes Again". I came back that night to watch the show and take more pictures. We talked about the possibility of doing a live No-Fi "Radio" session so who knows. Check out RED LIGHTNING's Website for more info on their upcoming record or to check their tour schedule.
Special thanks to It's Alive Media and Alain's tour management for setting this us with us. Cool people all around.
"The End!"
