Tindersticks frontman Stuart Staples tells Tony Clayton-Leawhy the band's music - gorgeous, deep-voiced and emotionally charged - is also so terribly sad
THE NOTION of every member of Tindersticks being as miserable as a wet afternoon in Duleek has been put forward since the band formed in late 1991. This perception - based, not inconsiderately, on the fact that their music is a dolorous mixture of apparently inconsolable grief and string-laden, slow-burn melodies - has continued through the years with the release of some of the most gorgeous, emotionally charged and sad music you'll ever hear.
The mainstay of Tindersticks - notwithstanding former member Dickon Hinchcliff, whose name neatly matched the Dickensian nature of the band's Bleak House-like image - is the rather vampiric-looking Stuart Staples. The owner of a baritone voice that is as much an element of the band's sound as the instrumentation (which includes such non-rock contraptions as bassoon, trombone, glockenspiel, vibraphone and violin), Staples is the person behind the lyrics and music. He is inevitably part of, if not all, the package. Imposing, gently humorous, yet unavoidably exuding a maudlin streak, Staples is devoid of the kind of mannerisms that bedevil your average rock star. Now living in rural France, where his family have peace of mind and space to roam, Staples oversees Tindersticks' activity through quiet and busy periods. Not the most prolific of bands, they are nonetheless loved by a large amount of devoted fans. In quite the perfect trade-off, band and followers seem tailor made for each other.
"Everything is about one idea that drives you at any given moment," says Staples when asked where the creativity stems from. "Then it becomes realised and then another one comes along. Before you know it you've written a series of these things and they form to become an album. It's always about small thoughts that grow - the excitement that presents itself when an idea comes to you. They are precious things, those thoughts, and fragile. Yet I understand the essence of what they are, and it's a chase to finish them to the end.
"I've never had a situation where that has stopped. My biggest frustration is when, if I end up touring up too much, I feel that I'm not making something. I'm happiest when I'm making something new, and so far there has always been too much to do."
Is it easy to maintain that level of workload? It is, says Staples, the hardest of tasks. "The thing that drives you is getting to the end and feeling that you're still really close to what inspired you at the beginning. The easiest way to describe it is for an artist to remove the distance of their arm to the tip of their brush; that way you can connect immediately with anything in the way. Anybody that creates strives for that. It's almost like finding your own language."
The lolling language of Tindersticks (so named after Staples found a box of German matches on a beach) changed after a membership purge in 2006. Three longstanding members (Hinchliffe, Alasdair Macauley and Mark Colwill) left, resulting in a more streamlined approach. Staples had taken the solo route a year previously, perhaps a pointer that things weren't at all well in the camp. Earlier this year, the band's seventh studio album, The Hungry Saw, was released to critical acclaim, which itself centred around the way that the band - even a stripped-down version - was still as beautifully morose as ever. Is Staples as downbeat or as miserable as the music he makes?
"I think I have my moments," he laughs, before mulling over the question and coming up with a better answer. "If I were to look back on what we have done - if I can ever be detached, of course - I would say that part of the reason for my music and the way it sounds is that I lost someone very close to me, and lots of things with losing her were left unresolved. There was a lot of guilt, anger and grief about that, and I think those early albums reflect that sense of loss.
"For me, writing is a way of dealing with stuff and finding an understanding of certain things that have taken place in my life. So, yes, I think people get the wrong idea of Tindersticks - they might listen to one song from one album and then decide that it's misery all the way.
"After making records for over 15 years, there are all manner of elements about them. Sad? Perhaps, but there is nonetheless always a joy in making music, and I think that comes across in the way we sound. It's always been fun for us, a discovery, an adventure; we did lose that around the time of Waiting for the Moon, but that's when we took a break. Now, it's back to a group of people in a room experimenting with things."
And living in a rural part of France - is that conducive to creativity? "So far it has been fantastic. We have a spacious studio there that feels full of possibilities . . . That was the biggest thing, to be honest. It wasn't about a dream to live in rural France, it was more a pragmatic decision to find bigger space, quite literally."
"So far, however, it has felt like freedom rather than anything else. It was a big risk to take - cities take care of you, in a way. You build up a support system, don't you? The main point is that it's all exciting, and for me it still is."
The Hungry Saw is on release through Beggar's Banquet. Tindersticks play Dublin's Vicar Street on November 23.
www.tindersticks.co.uk
Why iTuned out
Kid Rock is one of the last remaining high-profile iTunes refuseniks, joining AC/DC, Garth Brooks and The Beatles in boycotting Apple's download store because of how they operate.
Rock says he was disappointed by the fact that the old record-label system transferred in full to the internet.
"I thought selling music on the internet was an opportunity for the fan and the band to be treated fairly and get paid fairly, but it didn't fall out like that in the end."
He knows he'll be in the iTunes fold before too long ("I don't think you can avoid it," he says), but he wants to take a stand and make a point. Then again, he's probably done that by selling two million copies of Rock'N'Roll Jesuswithout any need to go baseball cap in hand to Apple.
As long as the kids keep coming to the gigs and singing his songs - no matter how they find out about him - Kid Rock will be happy.
