or: Everything you could have ever wanted to know about 1990s from one of the nicest drummers ever

On Tuesday, November 20, 1990s return to DC, following up on their wonderful gig in August at the Rock’n'Roll Hotel. This time, they’re playing the 930 Club with DC-favorites and mates of the band, Art Brut, and American indierockers the Hold Steady. Since August, they’ve lost their original bassist, toured Europe, played their first dates in Australia and Japan, and have toured the States extensively. In anticipation of their triumphant return to DC, BYT’s William Alberque interviewed drummer Michael McGauhrin.

BYT – Thanks for talking to us. How are you doing today?
1990s – I’m doing good, yeah. We’re really looking forward to playing Washington, DC again. We had a really good time there over the summer playing at the Rock’n'Roll Hotel.

BYT – [Ed: Stunned at the quality of the 1990s memory] That must’ve been thirty gigs ago! What do you remember from that gig?
1990s – I remember the food being really good at the venue, and they were really nice to us there. It was a Friday night [Ed: he's right! August 3!], and a very mixed crowd, but they were bang up for it. I also remember we had Ethiopian food earlier that day – I know I’m going on about food and all – but it was great. I don’t remember the name of the restaurant. You do get a lot of Ethiopian food in Washington, don’t you?

BYT – That we do. How are things in Chicago?
1990s – Yeah, they’re really good here. We’re just eating Mexican food. It’s really quite good…I’m going to stop talking about food now. But it’s a breakfast place. And it’s really good. We’ve not really seen a lot of Chicago this time through. We drove in late the other day, played the gig, left, did an in-store outside the city, so we didn’t really see a lot of the city. Hopefully now we can go for a bit of a wander. It’s quite a grand looking city.

BYT – And the weather? Is it cold?
1990s – No, really, it’s not bad – and, just for the record, it’s not windy either.

BYT - How’s the tour been so far?
1990s – Well, we’ve never been away so long before. So far, on this leg, we’ve been up in Canada, and a good bit of time in New York and the West Coast. I’m really looking forward to going to New Orleans and Alabama. We just heard that our New Orleans date’s been cancelled, so we’ll end up spending the day wandering around the city. I’m looking forward to that.

BYT - How have your opening acts been so far?
1990s – Well, we’ve not joined Art Brut yet; we’ll be meeting them in Kansas. We’re quite good mates, so I’m looking forward to joining up with them. Then we join the Hold Steadys, and I like what I’ve heard of theirs, so this should be great. This is the final leg of the tour, and we’ve been laying off the drink in anticipation of it – a good way to finish with a series of do’s.

BYT – I understand you lost Jamie, your original bassist, back in September. Why did he leave the band?
1990s – Well, fair play to Jamie, but he didn’t want to be away from home so often, and with all the touring, he was quite missing home. I understand why he left – sometimes it gets a bit too much, three people in a van together, every day. I feel the strain of it as well some times, but I don’t mind it nearly as much. In fact, I’m still quite enjoying myself. And I understand he’s got a band together back in Glasgow, so I think he’ll get along just fine.

BYT – Was there any acrimony in his departure?
1990s – Well, we’ve been on tour, so I haven’t had a chance to see him since he quite the band, but he’s my flat-mate and a really good friend. I don’t think it’ll affect our friendship.

BYT – Losing a bassist so close to such a massive tour – it must’ve been quite a blow.
1990s – Well, with the time we had, it was hard getting someone else in. Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub filled in for our European leg. He was our first producer and was going to manage that leg of the tour anyway, so it worked out. We hardly had time to practice, and he played the songs perfectly from the start. He had played bass quite a bit with the Pastels, and, obviously, guitar for the Fanclub, so it was just great to hear him play.

BYT – I understand you have a new full-time bassist now?
1990s – That’s right - Donald Bardot – he likes to be called “Dino” – joined the band in Australia, and didn’t have a chance to get a single practice in before he took the stage with us in Perth. He played brilliantly, but couldn’t get into Japan in time, so a fella named Takashi filled in for us for that date before Dino joined us again for our North American leg of the tour. He’s been singing a lot, which is something Jamie didn’t do as much. I think you kind of need to fill out our sound a bit with additional vocals, so it’s worked out brilliantly. We might just stick with him. Before he joined us, he had been sitting in Glasgow just getting drunk because he wanted to get away. He’d never been out of Britain before he joined the band. Now, he’s traveled quite far in the last couple of months.

BYT – Do you have any new songs?
1990s – Yes, we’ve been managing pretty well so far. It’s hard to write songs on the road, but we’ve got seven or eight songs demoed at the moment. I think the label is pretty happy with them. We have a month off after Christmas, so we’ll have time to record then. I think or American label wants us to go to New York to record, and that could be very nice. The songs are sounding good, and Donald has been doing his bit.

BYT – We talked a bit about Norman Blake, what about Bernard Butler? How was it working with an icon of Britpop?
1990s – He was brilliant. He got the best out of us. To be honest, none of us were Suede fans. When Jackie [Ed: McKeown, lead singer] originally talked to him about producing us, he confessed that to him, and Brendan said that he wasn’t either. So that was sorted, then. He hadn’t done a lot of production work before us, but we’ll record with him again in a second. He was brilliant at cutting out all the rubbish to make concise pop songs. It was a really good experience. He’s not that much older than us, either, so we have a lot of the same cultural reference points. We had such amazing equipment in the studio – we were recording in Edwyn Collins [Ed: Former singer from Orange Juice] studio and I got to play on Paul Cook’s [Ed: Sex Pistols drummer] drum kit. While we were in the studio, we were watching a video of Edwyn Collins on Top of the Pops, singing “Rip It up” on this amazing guitar; Jackie was sitting there, strumming a guitar and I suddenly noticed it was the exact same guitar from the video.

BYT – How does it feel to be on such a prestigious label like Rough Trade – with that kind of history: Delta 5, Television Personalities, the Slits, Young Marble Giants…
1990s – Yeah, and the Smiths, the Strokes – everyone on the label, really. It’s amazing. We played a gig for Geoff Travis [Ed: Legendary founder of Rough Trade records and pushing 60] and Jeanette Lee, who runs the label with him, and we made him dance! They got back to us over the weekend and offered to sign us. It was great! There were probably another couple dozen labels after us, but we were really excited to sign with Rough Trade.

BYT – What are you listening to at the moment?
1990s – Well, there’s this band called the Royal We (http://www.myspace.com/theroyalweee). They just split up – or they keep saying it’s their last gig, and supposedly, they just played their last gig. They’re quite good. Then there’s this band called Baby Teeth (http://www.myspace.com/babyteethmusic) from Chicago – they opened for us in Minneapolis and they were probably the best band we’ve ever played with. And I’ve heard Vampire Weekend (http://www.myspace.com/vampireweekend) and they sound very good as well.

BYT – Do you enjoy doing videos? Have you had a favorite so far?
1990s – I quite like doing videos. I think “You’re Supposed to Be My Friend” is my favorite. We got all our pals down from Glasgow and ran around like mad and sang and drank and danced – so just a normal day out, then.

BYT – What’s on the 1990s tour-van DVD player?
1990s - Jackie’s pretty big on European art movies, but it’s quite hard watching films on the van. Someone’s always playing music or making really loud snoring noises. Maybe this time next year we’ll have a really big touring bus and we’ll all have our individual sound-canceling headphones and a big television.

BYT – Do you miss home?
1990s – I miss my girlfriend, and she’s back home. I miss her a lot. I was lucky, though, and got to see her in LA when we played there recently, but it’s not all amazing. Still, the pros definitely outweigh the cons and I’m really lucky to be doing what I’m doing. We’re pinching ourselves and definitely not blasé about it. Sometimes we run into other British bands in New York and they act like it’s no big deal to be a British band in New York. We’re definitely not and just walk around with our jaws dropped at it all. I hope we’re never that blasé.

BYT – Is there any question you really, really hate to get asked in interviews?
1990s – Yeah, “How’d you get your band name?”

BYT – All right, we’ll leave it there. Thanks for your time.
1990s – Right, tah!

 Send to a Friend