Ranter Clause
You might not remember them, but a couple of years back, there used to be an indie band with massive brains called the Cooper Temple Clause. They had hair like a shocked badger, and were fusing rock and rave when the Klaxons were still just tiny little kazoos. Now they are back, but their hair is not. So ChartBlog asked them what they have learned in their years as indie's brainiest cranium-rockers.
ChartBlog: Your first album contains the song 'Let's Kill Music', to what extent do you think you've succeeded?
Ben: I guess the sentiments behind 'Let's Kill Music' wasn't "let's kill ALL music" so that we'd turn into a 1984-style one party state, it was just we got very kind of upset and disappointed in the late '90s by the dearth of new and exciting music that was coming out.
We felt that a lot of people weren't singing with honesty and passion and they were just doing it for the sake of appearing on the cover of a magazine or being famous as opposed to really writing songs that were easy to relate to and weren't plastic pop. So that was more of a statement of dissatisfaction, and that we'd try and make music that was 100% passion and 100% honest.
ChartBlog: And it also contains the line 'before it kills us all'. Did you have anyone in mind at the time, and if not, is there anyone who fits the bill now?
Dan: Ah there's always going to be pop acts around and there's always going to be dull, dull music...there's always going to be dull, dull PEOPLE around...But the whole sentiment behind that song was about tearing it down and starting again and trying to do something new and experimental and challenge people again. I think at the time, the new acoustic movement had grown out of the ashes of Britpop and it was a very staid and very safe time for music.
ChartBlog: That doesn't sound massively different to right now though...James Blunt comes to mind...
Dan: The irony is that programmes like X Factor and Pop Idol have actually managed to kill pop music, you know, the traditional boybands and girlbands and things like that, because now the general public has seen how manufactured they all are. This process that you now see live on TV previously happened behind closed doors and in record company audition suites beforehand. I don't think anyone is interested in boybands or manufactured pop acts unless they come from that TV show. But now you have a far healthier thing where pop music is now considered things like Kaiser Chiefs and the Kooks. Guitar music has become the new pop. And although that singer-songwritery, very earnest, acoustic, honest...crap is now getting very big, at least pop music is getting a bit more like it was in the '60s where the Beatles and Stones were pop. You've got decent guitar bands again, all over the place, and people are getting excited about it.
ChartBlog: People are also getting excited about the X Factor though...
Dan: But it's not really part of the music industry, in a way. It's like a circus, more than anything. And these people are very lucky if they manage to come out of it alive. I mean Girls Aloud managed to do it, through a combination of looking pretty good, I guess, and for a pop band they had a couple of alright songs, y'know? That very first single they released dwarfed the boy's one, I can't even remember what it was...but these people end up in rehab, and end up with failed careers, or on Coronation Street. [NOOO!! - The World] These people are not musicians, really. It's something that hasn't really happened before, it is just like a circus and these people are very lucky if they come away with their sanity intact.
ChartBlog: Is there pressure on you now to play any of those games, like doing Celebrity Big Brother or anything? It didn't do the Ordinary Boys any harm...sort of...
Dan: No I don't think so. There's always pressure from anyone to be successful. I think any label would like to push you in a certain direction if it means you're going to be more successful. But we've never really played that game and we don't think we ever will. I'm sure Mr Preston from the Ordinary Boys will soon rue that decision. It's all very well in the short term, it's like throwing your song all over an advert, you soon lose any sense of integrity afterwards. But you never know, he may prove us all wrong. But I don't think you'll be seeing Ben on I'm A Celebrity anytime soon. Ben, what do you think?
Ben: I ain't going on that programme. I'm going on Grandstand.
ChartBlog: Or Top Gear?
Ben: No.
Dan: I'd do Top Gear. Even though I can't even drive. See, I'd like to do the one where they go around the track and time it, even though I can't drive. It'd be like when they got the blind man to go around. I really hope I'd beat the blind man. I wouldn't mind, so long as I beat whoever was bottom.
Ben: It's about the taking part though, Fish...
Dan: Yeah...and winning.
ChartBlog: When you're starting out, is it better to fit in to what's already going on, or be totally different and hope people catch on?
Ben: What we always said, right from the beginning of the band - and the same thought we have now - is that it's always best to be individual and true to yourself, and not try to adapt or conform. That's the principle we've had to making the music we make, and we've seen so many scenes come and go, and we've seen so many bands try to fit into a scene and try to adapt their sound so that they do fit in with the latest fad.
We won't ever adapt, and that's part of the reason we left our old label, because we weren't willing to play the game, we weren't willing to be stylised and we weren't willing to have stories fabricated about us to make us appear in a certain light. That's not what we are. The songs are 100% honest and passionate, and I think people have always seen us as being outsiders. I guess that's what we are, we're not a scene band and we've never grown up with other bands around us. We've been in isolation.
ChartBlog: It's interesting you would say that about being stylised, because the big 'hype' band of the moment are the Horrors, and they've got your old hair on...
Ben: Yeah they've got big hair, but I'm sure they dress like that because they want to dress like that. I've read interviews where they've said "why should we have to change because people are having a go at them?" and that's exactly what we felt a few years ago. Certainly the NME printing stickers of our haircuts was...surreal, I guess. They never seemed to focus on the music, it was always about the hair. If people can get paid to write about other people's hair then fair enough, I spose...
ChartBlog: Can you IMAGINE such a thing? Now, it seems to me pop music has got cleverer recently, with yer Lily Allen and yer Girls Aloud and so forth. Is clever better?
Dan: A lot of it started when hip hop got huge. And then a lot of the big hip hop producers like Timbaland and Neptunes started working with American pop act artists, from Justin Timberlake and Gwen Stefani and things like that. And obviously when Kylie Minogue wrote 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' [with some help from Cathy Dennis - FactMan] it raised the bar a bit. And I think pop songs do have to be more innovative these days. I just think the whole Westlife power ballad thing has run its course now, and I think people are wising up to the fact that you need to have great melodies, but they need to be innovative as well. So it's a far better way for pop music to be going than the way it was.
There's also a medley of some of the interesting sounds they've put on their new album 'Make This Your Own'. Click here for the selected highlights...
