Alex McDonal
Well I was never really a drummer. We got hold of a drum machine for Hypnohole and I was the only one boring enough to read the manuals and work out how to program it up. The only time I ever sat behind a drum kit in public was on Top of the Pops and I was miming. I didn’t even know you could mime drums. I just pulled stupid faces so nobody would pay any attention to what my arms were doing. And because I was off my face a bit. I’m pretty sure I carried on playing after the track had finished and it cut back to Kid Jensen or whoever.
So we should stick with Singer Songwriter?
I don’t really like that either, to be honest. It sounds a bit worthy and fiddledidee. But I write songs and I sing them so it’s a bit hard to deny the genre, you know? I don’t know what I’d prefer to be called. A balladeer or a troubadour. If I was French I could just be a chanteur but I’m not so I’d sound like a right pretentious twat. And I think part of me just doesn’t think I write good enough songs to call myself a songwriter.
Brian Eno must have thought you were pretty good?
Ha. That was mental. I’d lost like I don’t know how many years to drink and I’d just gone absolutely straight, vegan, yoga the lot and not making any music and suddenly I’m having a conversation about working with Brian Eno and I was like “well this is completely normal”. And it’s definitely not. I just wish I hadn’t been so blasé and professional about it. The music was amazing obviously because it’s Brian Eno but I sort of wish I’d just spent the time in the studio screaming “fuck I’m in a studio with Brian Eno I’m in a studio with Brian Eno”. Appreciated how crazy it was, you know? The record would probably have been just as good to be honest.
Was that your first sober record?
It was my first sober anything really as an adult. I didn’t really know how to do sober. I’m still sober now but I’m not so uptight about it. I’ve got over myself a bit, I think. I don’t really recognise the bloke from those first couple of years on the wagon. He was a bit of an arse really.
Worse than the drunk?
Ha! Well no. I don’t know really. I don’t really remember the proper drunk first hand. I just remember the hangovers and the bollockings from friends and women the next day. I used to tell a few stories about those days but they were made up to show me as funny and a bit tragic and not the horrible angry idiot that I really was.