the NO-FI interview with CLINIC

CB: We would like to know who you are, where you came from, and how CLINIC got it's start.
CT: Well, two of us went to school together. Um... Ade and Hartley went to school together with each other. Ade and Hartley have always been playing in bands. Me and Brian have as well. Brian joined them in the late eighties and then they went on and did a single and played a few gigs around and it developed into something further. The drummer left and I joined and Hartley bought this really dangerous keyboard and the CLINIC sound came out of that with this, sort of, distortion. More sixties - BEACH BOYS - type harmonies, girl groups, Phil Spector, sort of, wall of sound...taken in that direction. Stripping everything down to a very basic formula. Keeping a, sort of, relentless drive to it. That's the point we've arrived at now.
(Kelly and I are speechless as he has just managed to really sum up the whole backstory without any prodding. We all laugh.)
CB: Why should people listen to your music... mister?
CT: I think they they should listen to it because it's uh... I think it's the sort of music, in my opinion, you can go back and listen to again and find something completely different than the time you listened to it before. I think it works on lots of different levels. The vocals for example... they are purposely sunk into the track in places. They're purposely ambiguous so you aren't being spoonfed any kind of themes. There are snippets of things that are like chopped together or cut together. So I think every listener can bring something of themselves to it and somebody could hear what they want to hear maybe.
CB: Would you describe the works of Britney Spears and Robbie Williams as "inspired genius?"
(editors note: this came out of a bio-CD of BLUR that Holly-Tron and I got in London last year, where the narrator un-cynically says "the genius of Britney Spears"!)
CT: Um...not inspired genius. Uh... Manufactured pop-songs. Very business orientated. There's a definite agenda there. I don't know if it's for money or power, but I think it's the opposite of what CLINIC is all about and with us wearing the masks we're just stripping down our egos. It's all about the music rather than the individual. Britney and Robbie are more like stars, aren't they? Star-quality rather than musical quality. They're like actors, aren't they?
CB: So in summary, you're saying that they are the best musical artists ever.
CT: (laughing) Oh,...yeah, yeah, yeah! The best musical ACTORS ever!

CB: (laughing) That was a good one! Ok, I'm going to throw this all out at you... What do J.O., I.P.C., D.P., D.T., C.Q., and T.K. stand for? (these are all song titles or parts of song titles by CLINIC)
CT: Um...
CB: Or are you just lazy typists?
CT: Lazy typists. Um, all sorts of weird things meant to be unexplained. Ade's got some strange ideas running around his head.
CB: Well, 'I.P.C. Subeditors' almost sounds like something...
CT: Well, I.P.C. is a big media tower in London where N.M.E., Melody Maker, and all the music mags come out of and it's just a little tongue-in-cheek joke about how "I.P.C. Subeditors Dictate Our Youth." So there's a funny side of it. It was meant to be a little carrot dangle in front of them, but... they didn't bite.
CB: I heard that's the song that follows you around the most.
CT: Yeah,...it was getting all this attention. Obviously the N.M.E. had something to say about it and they replied in very good nature and obviously saw the funny side of it.
CB: Ok, situation test... You've just washed your hands after visiting the loo, but you've splashed water on the front of your pants... What do you do?
CT: Um... I'd probably have some sort of weird position by the dryer. See if I can get it together, maybe stand on a stool or something. I'd be paranoid walking out with the old "wet patch."
CB: HAPPY MONDAYS or BLACK GRAPE and why?
CT: HAPPY MONDAYS definitely. Cuz they were just so fresh. BLACK GRAPE's just the diluted, watered down version of what HAPPY MONDAYS were all about... Crazy drugged up dance fiends who were playing instruments like nobody else. It was really exciting. I was well into that stuff at the time.
CB: What's the biggest lesson you've learned while on tour? ...other than not talk to me.
CT: The biggest lesson I'm starting to learn now is try to sleep more. Don't drink...
CB: You do look really tired.
CT: Yeah, after the gig we start drinking. We play late. I don't drink before the gig. I can't handle playing while I'm drunk. I have drinks afterwards and it's just taking it's toll on me. Getting up early and going to bed late. Don't do it.
CB: Plus time zones...
CT: Well jet lag is...
CB: well coming from isn't...
CT: Yeah, on the way back... I reckon when I get home, I'll be suffering...big time.
KJ: Do you sleep walk?
CT: I have sleepwalked twice and both times I was heavily drunk. So, it's more of a... I don't do it very often.

CB: Um, what's the strangest thing that happened to you when you were a kid?
CT: That's a weird one. I'll have to go back into the dark corridors of my childhood.
CB: It's ok to cry.
CT: (laughing) Yes, it's all come back to me now... All the details... I've blanked it out.
CB: It's obviously something very very scary.
CT: Fear of getting lost. You know when you go out shopping with your parents and being in the supermarkets and turning around and they aren't there.
CB: That always happened to me and I would find them in the parking lot starting the car.
KJ: I got lost in a mall in Ecuador.
CT: That must have been a nightmare. You get weak in the knees and think, "I have to fend for myself now."
CB: What is something in England that you hope never makes it to the U.S.?
CT: Like it's too good and we don't want to give it to you?
CB: Or it's so bad that you can't.
CT: I was gonna say there's like horrible real-life docu-soaps or whatever. You know these horrible things like Survivor, but I heard on the radio you've got it. It's there.
CB: They just did their third season.
CT: Terrible! "Big Brother!" "Pop Stars!"
CB: I just watched Survivor in France.
CT: Did you?
CB: Yeah.
CT: Do you have "Pop Stars"?
CB: I think we have a variation of it...
KJ: Yeah we do. It's all UPN.
CT: You're getting all these horror-show things.
KJ: Horribly enough, it originated here.
CT: Unlucky. Very unlucky.
KJ: What's the most horrible thing about America that you hope never comes to England.
CT: Dear me... Don't bring those enormous long roads. They're just FLAT! Nothing! Just looking out the window just drives me insane. We drove last night from Dallas to Los Angeles.
KJ: Miserable.
CT: Abe's like paying a stripper, last night apparently, $3.00 to talk to him. To keep drinking beers just so we could have a conversation with somebody. Nightmare. Yeah don't bring or send over any long highways or streets.
CB: ARE there any straight streets in England? Because when I was there every street had a curve.
CT: It's pretty windy. Even the motorways curve around. You can get anywhere in England worth going to in about three hours so don't export distances over.
CB: (laughing) We'll try to keep them to ourselves. What are you going to do with your first million dollars?
(thoughtful long pause)
CT: Wow, that's a difficult one, isn't it?
CB: How about the second million?
CT: Second million. Be careful of the debts accumulated after the first million.
CB: Um... HAVE you ever held a monkey?
CT: No I have never held a monkey. It's an ambition of mine. I've always wanted a monkey. From a very young age...I've always wanted to have a monkey. I was probably heavy into Tarzan or something like that. I always liked the idea of having this monkey on your shoulders.
CB: First million dollars!
CT: There you go, yeah.
CB: But then the second million...you have monkey bills.
CT: Monkey bills... or monkey family!
CB: (laughing) That's true! (Getting all serious) Um,... what was it like for you driving to New York on September 11th?
CT: It was weird. It was a bit like War Of The Worlds. We were tuning into the radio... We saw it all on a diner TV, but then we had to drive. I think one of the worst ways to experience a tragedy is through the radio cuz it's all in your head and you can't get any more horrific than what you can conjour up in your own mind? Even though watching it on the tele was even more horrific. We were imagining that war was going to be breaking out and we're driving and we see helicopters going and we're just thinking, "what's going on?" and that we're just gonna die any minute now. Horrible.
CB: I was shakin' in my bed. I heard you guys the next day or so on the radio...
CT: Well we did no gigs in New York obviously. All canceled. We managed to play in Chicago and it was a good release, because everyone was dying to get out...and get back to some kind of normality in some sense. Go and see a band, go have some beers and just relax. Everyone was just freaked out by it. It made everything easier for us and made it easier for everyone else to just go out and do a gig and just get on with it.
CB: It's so hard to come back from that kind of question... Where is the weirdest place to have a show?
CT: It's just brilliant this one. The weirdest place comes to mind straight away. We played in this park in England that was like a family park where families go on a Sunday afternoon and walk their dog. There was a bandstand in the middle of this park. It was some kind of public festival. I don't even know how we ended up playing. It was just ridiculous. Deck chairs all around the grass and families sat there. We found out a group of lads had gotten together and were trying to gather a gang to try to come and stone us onstage. "Stone us off? Lucky you didn't tell us BEFORE we got on!" So we just piled in this car and people we're just like "Boo!" with things in their ears. Bad choice.
CB: You're CDs are like collections of short stories,...Do you hate it when people change the subject in the middle of a statement?
CT: (silence) Uh... (silence) Yeah.
(Chris and Kelly laugh)
CB: Just making sure.
CT: Yeah, but the songs are like that though. They are basically just snippets of things cut together. I think that's what makes it all the more endearing. Cuz you can make it up yourself. I hate being spoonfed anything and I know Ade hates that very literal lyric writing. I know he's a big fan of American writers like William Burroughs. He likes the sound of words. The contrast between two conflicting stories.
CB: Who are some of your idols and why?
CT: Me personally I fulfilled a great ambition last night as I got to see SONIC YOUTH in Los Angeles. Look here.. I'm in Los Angeles. Well, at UCLA. I've seen them a couple times already. My next ambition is to see them in New York....on their home ground. I've always admired them over the years as being the great do-it-yourself band that's gone out there and blazed a trail across Europe and broke a lot of barriers down and set up a lot of friends and networked around the world. I love that way of doing it. Don't throw money at something and hope a lot of it sticks. You go around at grass-roots level and meet people and become friends with people who share a common interest...same music. Want to go and see the same bands, but just don't know where to see them.
CB: Did you see their documentary "The Year Punk Broke"?
CT: Yeah, yeah. Amazing. It showcases all those bands that they took on the road with them.
CB: Back to the September 11 thing, did you hear that one of the engines landed RIGHT in front of their studio doors?
CT: I heard it was all smoked out, but I didn't realize that.
CB: If Ghandi were here right now, what would you say to him?
CT: I don't know. I'd say, "what the hell are you doing here? I thought you were dead!"
CB: Can Kelly and I be in your band?
CT: Certainly, yeah. What do you want to play?
CB: Um, guitar and...
KJ: I do a great Patsy Cline impersonation.
CT: (laughing) Yeah, you'll have a Patsy Cline moment, yeah.
CB: We're in CLINIC! Yay! What's your favorite song on the new album?
CT: I really like "For The Wars" because it was one of the most enjoyable ones to do. It's the loosest one on the album. So me being the drummer it was the one time I was actually laying back a bit on the song.
CB: Wow! we're at the end already! What are your final words of wisdom for our No-Fi "Magazine" readers?
CT: Words of wisdom... Don't talk to strangers.