Q&A: STUART A STAPLES, Tindersticks frontman and Beatle-basher
Tindersticks have been together almost 20 years. Had you any inkling starting out that the band might last this long?No, I don't think we've ever thought any more than a few months ahead. But Neil [Fraser], David [Boulter] and I grew up together and I suppose we've always felt that collective need to create things. There have always been ideas coming through that have inspired us to take the next little step. And the next. And the next.
The band went on hiatus for much of the past decade. Did you ever worry coming back whether you'd still have an audience?We hadn't played together for five years. So we were stepping into uncharted waters to a degree. I think a lot of people around us were nervous. But that only made it a more pleasant surprise when we discovered that our audience had not only survived, but grown, while we were away. It was a very nice experience.
The band has enjoyed critical acclaim, but you're hardly household names. Is the acclaim something you can derive satisfaction from?It's always nice if people have kind things to say about you. But the reality is that it's only when you're onstage that you can get that direct feedback from an audience. But if reading about us helps people find us, then it helps that audience evolve. I remember how important it was to me when I was young to discover an artist like Tom Waits and to begin to get a grasp on his work.
The future for independent record shops looks pretty bleak at the moment. What are your feelings about that?I worked in Rough Trade record shop in London. For anybody to survive these days, they've got to be really good at what they do. It's about having a sense of theatre, about making the people who walk into your shop feel that they might come out knowing something they hadn't known before. Times are tough, but I still think the best shops will survive. I'd be more worried if I were HMV.
You're based in France now.Yes, I moved there with my family a few years ago. My wife and I had been in London for 17 years and we were ready for a change of environment. The kids felt the same way.
In Europe, of course, Tindersticks are a concert-hall act. But in the US you play "spit and sawdust" joints. Is that an odd transition for the band? We like variety. If we played too many clean concert halls in a row that would probably get us down. By the same token, if we played too many scuzzy clubs in a row, that might get us down too.
Which do you prefer?I couldn't say. We recently played a bar in the US that was basically a dive. But the people who organised the event had very strong ideas about what they were doing and why the show had to be there. It ended up being a really great night. There are often special nights like that when the boundary comes down between an audience and a band. It becomes about people in a room creating a feeling together. And those nights can happen anywhere. It doesn't happen every night by any means. But when it comes, it's a powerful thing.
Is there anything you know now that you wish you'd known earlier in your career?The looser you are with something, the lighter you hold it in your hand, the more powerful it can be. I think that, in periods of making music in the past, I tried to hold things too tightly and ended up restricting them. I wish I'd been aware of that sooner. But it's a nice thing to have now – a willingness to have people come in and change things and not try to pin everything down.
Irish singer David Kitt is in your touring band now. David is a friend. He toured Europe with us on his second album and we've known him since then. It's one of the things I like about the way the group has evolved. In the past we were quite insular. The core of the band still exists, but we're surrounded by an extended family. We have our ideas, but we're able to let other people come in and change things around. And David would be an important part of that.
Finally, did I read somewhere that you consider the Beatles the most overrated group of all time? That's sacrilege, isn't it?Yeah, I stand by that. It's not to say that they're not a good band, although there are a lot of other bands from that era that do more for me. It's more about the way they're treated in the English music press.
You mean those magazines like 'Mojo' that have a 'new' John Lennon interview on the cover every month?Exactly. It's like, come on, there must be something else more exciting going on out there.
Tindersticks play St Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny tomorrow at 8pm as part of the Kilkenny Arts Festival. Kilkennyarts.ie
