* A Little Head Music *

Guitarist Richard Oakes reflects on the hiccupped evolution
of englands sexiest band
 

Suede have had the tiresome label of Britpop pioneers lumped upon them on more than a
handful of occasions and they don't like it. Who would? What does it mean? If Oasis are
Britpop, then were the Beatles Britpop too? My computer's dictionary doesn't recognise
words like rockabilly or glam, but it does recognise the word 'Britpop', as it does 'grunge'. That
says it all really.

Suede formed in 1991 as a trio consisting of singer Brett Anderson, bassist Mat Osman and
original guitarist Bernard Butler. They used a drum machine to keep the beat until they met up
with Simon Gilbert and later, Elastica's Justine Frischmann joined up as second guitarist.
Since the eponymous debut album, Suede have been legends. Frischmann left the band and
boyfriend Brett eariy on in the history of the group and in 1994, a then 17 year-old Richard
Oakes replaced Butler. A keyboard player named Neil Codling kind of pushed his why into the
band by hanging around the studio during the recording of the third album, Coming Up.
Richard says, "I don't think that we were pioneers, but that whole thing (i.e Britpop) sprung up
before I joined the band. I could see from the outside that Suede were a band who showed
people how to write a song again. No guitar bands were really doing anything exciting in the
eariy 90s. It was all hiding behind effects pedals and no-one was paying any attention to the
structure of a song and how if you can make a three minute pop song affect someone's life,
then it's really good... Suede showed people that you don't have to play ten minutes of rubbish
to get your point across. You can do it in two verses, two choruses and a middle eight or
whatever."

The latest album, Head Music (recorded by Steve Osboume who Richard believes is
responsible for turning The Happy Mondays "from a bunch of gangsters into indie-dance
crossovers") has had five UK Top Ten singles already and it is deserving of more.The keyword
in the Suede philosophy appears to be honesty. In the beginning, their shows didn't go down
too well but they persisted, knowing that what they were doing was what they wanted to do and
it paid off. Richard has a lot to say on most matters I bring up with him. In fact, he's downright
chatty.

"Everything we've done has been totally down the line. We've never done anything and then
denied having done it. You know the way a lot of bands make a certain album and then when
people challenge them and say it isn't very good, they go 'well we never meant to do that,
you've got it completely wrong'. We've never said that. The albums are honest, the covers are
honest, the titles are honest, the lyrics are honest and that's it really.

"Lyrically, Brett's always been very honest about the things he writes about, especially some
of the narrative and observing songs that he does, for instance, She's In Fashion, Savoir Faire
or Can't Get Enough. They portray certain images. Can't Get Enough portrays an image of a very
hedonistic person. She's In Fashion portrays an image of an 'it girl'. It's not one particular 'it
girl', it's just that type of woman who is always appearing on the front cover of magazines with
a bikini on and the next minute she'll be appealing on behalf of children in need or saying 'be
nice to animals'. It's just the people who are in the media. Those are purely observational
songs. They're not condemning but they're not commending either," Richard explains.

With Steve Osboume producing, it's little wonder the songs on Head Music are so finely tuned
and dotted with lots of little effects like loops and layers and all that sort of dancy stuff, but
Suede are still a rock band and their live shows are reputed to be among the best you could
come across. The art of performance is very Important.

*Our live shows are something that we try very hard with. We strip it down to its bare bones and
we just play the songs in a raw rock translation because some of the songs are very studied
on the record. We pay attention to the records we've got out and we make sure that they're as
perfect as they can be at the time, but when we play live everything has to be stripped down to
five parts because there are five people in the band. It's through that that we find our best
angle for direct communication with people. You can't just stand at the back with your arms
folded. We grab everyone's attention from the beginning and hold it and we take them up with
us and we take them down with us. I think we're possibly one of the best live bands in the
country at the moment. We always try to win the crowd over no matter what."

When Bernard Butler, who wrote a lot of the - earlier music, left the group after two albums,
there was never any doubt that whatever came next would have to be different and Richard, as
the replacement, sees it as almost having to look at the 1994 line-up as a new band having to
learn to play together. "We had to start almost from the beginning again so that's why Coming
Up sounded very much like a debut. It didn't actually break any ground musically. The songs
were quite traditionally written.

I think when we did Head Music, even though it's the band's fourth album, it feels like our
second album. It's kind of opening the doors again and being ambitious again. It's by no
means a defining album at all. I think it's like a comma or colon in a sentence. It shows people
what we can do and will do in the future. We're going down a corridor. The next album will have
strong evidence of the diversity and the instinctiveness of Head Music," Richard predicts.

Richard says that the band used a good mix of older synths for Head Music like Wuriitzers as
well as Neil's "strange modern synths" to create a more interesting sound. They used a lot of
practice amps and vintage pedals for the guitars and ran them all through small circuits for a
retro touch, but although they were open to experimentation, Richard stresses that "we have
not made an experimental album".

This tour is Suede's first visit to Australia and, what with having relatives to visit in Sydney, I'd
say Richard is looking forward to it about as much as I am. They play Glenworth Valley on the
Sunday the 3rd of October and at The Metro on Oct the 4th (SOLD OUT). Head Music is out now
through Sony.