Wide Open Space

EmptyNet recently caught up with Weird Space (Tommy) and Old Space (Yorkie) before a gig in Preston as Everton Space, Ginger Space and Moaning Space took a pre-performance nap on their tourbus (rock and roll hey). They were in town to play the University of Central Lancashire’s Christmas Ball, one year after their last visit to the same venue resulted in fisty-cuffs with the support band Octopus…  

Tape rolling. Interview begins at twenty three hundred hours. All present for the reopening of the ‘Octopus case’. Okay, you two that stand before me are charged with a very serious offence. It is alleged that you, along with your colleagues from the popular music combo Space, did on the night of Monday October 7th 1996 make after your support band, Octopus, with the full intention of kicking seven shades of shit out of them. Tonight you return to the scene of the crime. So go on, explain yourselves. 

Tommy: "They were just idiots, like. They should have been lucky that they were just playing with us, but they had this cob on because they only got a short soundcheck. What happened was that they swapped the CD ROM for ‘Growler’, which Franny uses as backing when we do it live, for a copy of their own LP. They acted like a bunch of pricks" 

Were your actions not a bit harsh though, for what was essentially meant as a bit of fun? 

Yorkie: "I think it was meant as a joke, because the person that did it put it where we could find it, but then someone else in the band put it somewhere where no-one could find it. So it’s a joke that backfired, because everybody basically tried to kill them (laughter)." 

Tommy: "When they’d f**ked off we had a ritualistic drive over all the CDs they’d given us and gave away all their T-shirts for free. The best thing about it was when they came to play in Liverpool. We’d well got it out of our systems by then, but they thought something was going to happen. They were shitting themselves. They had security there and everything, and no-one turned up (more laughter). I don’t know what they were expecting, like. It’s something that’s worked against them though. I mean, where are they now?" 

The Space boys are back in town to play the Christmas Ball, one year after their last visit to Preston, and they’re on a roll. They’ve survived what’s been for them a pretty painful year, to come bounding back with a leering monster of a return single and album. So what went wrong in 1997 then? 

What about stories that things all went a bit pear shaped in the supposed land of opportunity, the final musical frontier, America? 

"It was just madness, like. Jamie got ill and wouldn’t turn up, I lost my voice for two months, David (Yorkie) lost his mum. Everything just went wrong, it was a bad year for us. When we were out there it was like a heat-wave and we were driving through these deserts and the air conditioning broke down on the bus and everyone got ill. We all ended up really pissed off and fighting." 

Not letting the small matter of a missing band member put them off, the ever persistent record company drafted in a new guitarist who they met the very day they left for the States. This new guitarist had, helpfully, learnt a good number of songs, it just happened that they weren’t doing any of the songs that he’d, helpfully, learnt. At times like these, don’t they feel that they’re just puppets on a string, their every last movement controlled by whichever fat cat bosses are sat around the record company boardroom table at the time? 

"Yeah, but it wasn’t our record company, it was the American record company. They’re a different breed of people. They want more , because you’re only over there for like six weeks and so they have to try and cram a year into that time. They just push you and push you. And now we’ve got to go back in May! Our record company respect us though. They give us total say in our LP and our songs. They know that we’re so different that they couldn’t tell us what to do anyway, because they don’t know what’s coming next." 

This imagination and freshness is one of the things that separates Space from all the other misguided wannabes floating around the industry at the moment. Like a spaghetti junction motorway pile up of influences or a musical bric-a-brac store, they have direction just from not having direction. Where does their inspiration come from? 

Tommy: "I don’t really have much inspiration from these days. It all comes from growing up, listening to different styles of music. Listening to Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis, things like that and watching loads of films, movies, and other stuff." 

Yorkie: "I like new bands that are trying something different even if they’re unsuccessful, as long as they strive to get somewhere. Everyone’s basically got their own thing they’re into. It’s the five element that knits together well, because no-one’s told what to do on each song. It’s whatever someone comes up with that fits and takes it somewhere else. If Franny thinks it needs techno keyboards for example, he’ll put them in, or if it needs big string arrangements he’ll put that in. It’s whatever the song needs rather than whatever people’s preconceptions of the band are." 

In the same way that their musical taste is anything but straight forward, Space’s lyrical output isn’t particularly close friends with the ordinary dullness of the ‘Supersonic/gin and tonic’ school of lyricism. On one hand their lyrics ooze with light humour and intelligent sideways social observation and on the other hand they just seem to be plain screwed up and taking the piss. 

Tommy: "I don’t think any of them are taking the piss. I can understand people saying that, but they’re all deadly serious. It’s real issues. It’s humour, but dark humour. If you’ve ever watched Midnight Cowboy, it’s a really sad film, but the saddest parts are the funniest parts. That’s the way I see our lyrics." 

So your lyrics don’t take the piss? Try this random sample on for size then: ‘Mr Major’s got a pager because he sells Es. to the Russians who crush and snort them, but they never seem to sneeze.’ 

Tommy: "That’s one of Jamie’s. It’s not political, he’s just taking the… er yeah, that one is taking the piss! You’re right about that one. It’s just like anyone taking the piss out of politicians." 

Does Tony Blair sell Es now as well? 

"He’s just as bad isn’t he. They’re as bad as each other. They’re all idiots, they haven’t got a clue." 

They may have proved themselves with the ‘Spiders’ album and all the praise that’s been showered on them may be true, so far. But what’s going to stop Space becoming another nobody in a long line of one album wonders? 

Yorkie: " Everyone’s just dead proud of it, because it’s more us than the first one. We haven’t gone through the middleman of a producer, we’ve done it all ourselves. I think it’s the best stuff ever, because after all the shit we’ve had to deal with, like Tommy losing his voice and maybe never singing again, at the end of the year we finished the LP and it sounds brilliant. So now we’re looking forward to a carefree 1998, hopefully where we can go away and do what we’re supposed to be doing without any illnesses or deaths or whatever." 

So where do you see yourselves this time next year? 

Tommy: "Probably all dead! If it goes as bad as last year we will be. If it goes good then hopefully another LP, and then that’s it. We don’t want to do more than three." 

So you heard it here first. You’d better make the most of them while you can. But what lies after Space? 

Yorkie: "It’ll always be music. Franny’s main love is dance music, so anything he did outside the band would still be pure dance music. I was a taxidermist originally, so I might go back to that, but dabble in music as well." 

Tommy: "And I’ve always fancied painting and decorating as a career." 

And on that positive note over their future, we leave Space to go and play another blinding live gig in Preston. This time, thankfully, the support band leave in one piece.