BBC Radio 2 in the Park - Haircut One Hundred interview
The Lancashire Post spoke to veteran rockers Haircut One Hundred at BBC Radio 2 in the Park about playing in Preston, new music, touring America, and being lifelong friends. Here's what they had to say...
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00:00Hi, my name's Jack Marshall. I'm a digital reporter with the Lancashire Post and Blackpool
00:04Gazette newspapers and recently I was at Preston's BBC Radio 2 in the park. I was getting horrendously
00:11soggy on the Sunday in the inclement weather but I was there to see some incredible acts,
00:15soak up the atmosphere, really get a feel for what the festival was like on its final
00:19day and like I say to catch some of the musical superstars who were performing on the Sunday
00:24and one of those people who I saw performing who I got a chance to speak to afterwards
00:29was the kind of legendary band who've been together for four decades now, Haircut 100
00:34and yeah, had a lovely chat with them. Here's what they had to say.
00:37Well just to kick us off, how did you find that as an experience?
00:40That was great. Yeah, we just came back from America so we just flew in pretty much the
00:45night before, straight into...
00:47Got off stage, didn't we? Straight off stage, into the cab, off to the airport, to here.
00:53Yeah, and went straight on stage there. So no soundcheck, nothing.
00:57Straight on.
00:59Well I didn't realise the voice would go dry as a bone. Because it does after flying, doesn't it?
01:05Well yeah, it's the air in the cabin, isn't it? It's proper hard.
01:07You're never too late to learn these things. It's like, don't fly and sing, children.
01:12We trust ourselves, the three of us, because we've known each other, not just musically
01:16but as friends. So we can read each other really, really well. So that's never a problem.
01:20Yeah, we just go into old school literature.
01:23We're in a position where we're using totally different bands in every territory that we
01:26go to. So there's going to be a little bit of, you need a couple to warm up.
01:30But once you're off and running, everyone remembered everything.
01:33Well everybody saw the soundcheck, they saw us warming up and then they saw us go like
01:37the clappers at the end of the set. So they saw a kind of transformation of real reality,
01:43live people playing live on stage and this is human experience here we're having.
01:48It's not perfect.
01:49It's not perfect. You have bits and bobs that go wrong and we're, you know, we're elderly
01:55gentlemen now.
01:56We're getting on a bit, you know.
01:59I'm really young.
02:01We've been in America all this time. We've had to adapt and live with different people
02:05on a tour bus for the last two or three weeks.
02:08Yeah, like we've just done a funky set, haven't we, in the States. It's been pure funk.
02:13Pure funk. And then you come back and it's like, you know,
02:17loads full of completely different songs that we haven't played for a year.
02:20Really.
02:20And a different audience as well.
02:22Yeah.
02:22Yeah.
02:36You always go out and give it the same band performance.
02:39Yeah.
02:40But obviously if you're looking at the audience and they're on their feet straight away going
02:45like that, that's, you know, it spurs you on. You think, oh my God.
02:48Yeah, it's kind of overwhelming, isn't it?
02:50And then your performance just takes off.
02:55Some performances, the crowd are slow to start.
02:58Yeah.
02:58And so it takes you a bit more work to go.
03:02It's playing together. That's the thing of it. The songs are a bit overwhelming.
03:05You just plug into the songs.
03:07Desperate is not a great fragrance to wear.
03:09Right.
03:09You know, and that's that thing of come on everybody. You can't will it to happen.
03:12Yeah.
03:13You've got to be good in order for people to come on board.
03:16Yeah, you've got to earn it.
03:18Yeah, you've got to be good yourself and you've got to be, and people do notice
03:22when you're not enjoying it. They do. They pick up on that. Why wouldn't they? We're humans.
03:26Yeah, exactly.
03:26You know, we know, we can sense when people are feeling, you know, uneasy.
03:31You know, it's just a thing, isn't it? We're all made of water.
03:34Yeah.
03:34And thankfully the water turned up today.
03:36Well, I was going to bring it on to Preston next. What's it, have you played Preston before?
03:40What's it like playing Preston?
03:42No, we haven't, have we?
03:43No, no.
03:43No, we've played nearby, I suppose.
03:45Yeah.
03:45But no, never Preston.
03:47So how's the Preston experience been for you? Aside from the weather,
03:50which obviously we have to mention, but...
03:52It's been excellent, yeah. First bent on.
03:56Yeah.
03:56Maybe pulling up a little bit, but right from the word go, I think.
04:01Yeah, we wouldn't say it hasn't been difficult because we've, you know, because we've been
04:05travelling a long time to get here from Heathrow up to here to the hotel to here on, you know,
04:11we've kind of...
04:12I didn't sleep on the plane at all.
04:15I'm not going to sleep either. It's tough.
04:17I just thought I'm not going to even bother to try.
04:19You've just released some new music for the first time in quite a while.
04:22How exciting is that? Do you feel reinvigorated by the whole process?
04:26Yeah, it was a great track. It's a wonderful track and it was just
04:29taken us by surprise that it's been picked up by the industry so quickly because we,
04:34originally, it was just a demo.
04:35It is a demo. That's the sound of it. It's just been mixed, but that's it. That's us just in the
04:40studio in London playing it and recording it. So it's like, oh, we want something like this.
04:48Yeah.
04:48A pop song like this. Let's just do our stuff. So we did our stuff and that pops out.
04:54And it was like, oh, well, that sounds like a pop song.
05:02It sounds like almost like a silly question, but is it fun? It must be great fun doing
05:06something like that.
05:07Doing something you love.
05:08Yeah, well, yeah.
05:09And this is our dream. We were just, when we met, we met in our teens, you know, like
05:13when in punk time, like Graham and I, Graham was going out with Alison Glower, my ex-girlfriend,
05:20and we met outside the Wimpy in Beckingham High Street and just really got on.
05:24We were all just friends at school that knew each other and started a band with a dream
05:29of maybe like becoming something like your favourite band. At that particular point,
05:36it was as big as Talking Heads or XTC or Graham, it was The Clash.
05:45You just never think it's going to actually happen.
05:47Yeah, yeah.
05:48You aspire to it.
05:51Does it ever hit home? Does it ever really set in as like, this is reality?
05:56It did in America.
05:57It did? Really? What makes it set in like that in America?
06:00I don't know. It's 42 years later, so none of us thought we would be in this position.
06:05Everything's happened so far in the last 18 months.
06:08Yeah.
06:09We haven't done anything. It's all come to us.
06:12It's amazing, yeah.
06:12It's incredible how it's just all fallen into place. And when we got to America after 42 years,
06:19we just, at one point, we all looked at each other and thought, oh my god, this is like,
06:23this is really happening.
06:24Don't, don't, don't.
06:25Don't complain.
06:27We literally, some of us welled up.
06:29Yeah.
06:30There were tears.
06:31Yeah.
06:32Because we would see the audience and they were literally crying when we played some of the songs.
06:38Yeah.
06:39We thought we'd lost our friendship forever, didn't we?
06:41Yeah.
06:42We thought that was it. It was gone.
06:43Yeah.
06:44And the band had gone and everything was gone.
06:46Because originally, fundamentally, we're the best bands.
06:49Yeah.
06:49And that's the-
06:49Yeah, that's the basis, isn't it?
06:51We lived together and lived and breathed being the band.
06:53Yeah.
06:54And then it happened and we were, it overwhelmed and it, it just got,
06:58sort of, everybody jumped on board, we had managers, it was a mess and it split up.
07:03And that was it and it was a terrible time and then,
07:06so then it's just gone and we couldn't get it back together and, you know, it's lost.
07:10Yeah.
07:11Lost at sea.
07:11You've got the Mary Celeste just floating out there.
07:14And then, and this has happened, it's just like-
07:17Along comes the RNLI.
07:18Yeah.
07:18Yeah.
07:19Something's happened but, amazing.
07:22Yeah.
07:22I suppose, like we say, given that the foundation is friendship and, you know, experience,
07:26having done it together for the amount of time you have, that's as strong a foundation as anything.
07:31So the fact that it is, onwards and upwards and you're achieving things like this,
07:33that just goes to show, it's, you know, it's where you should be, if you see what I mean.
07:37Yeah.
07:37Yeah, it's a strong, it's a strong foundation of friendship and good musical backgrounds.
07:43Yeah.
07:43From all of us that we're, kind of, putting into the music and that sort of, and it's all,
07:46when it goes well, it just comes out-
07:49Amazing.
07:49Yeah.
07:50It just comes out really well.
07:50Yeah, we just can't be a band without music.
07:52100%.
07:53Yeah.
07:53Yeah.
07:54Yeah.
07:54Well, it's bad with music, it's not the same thing, that much better.
07:57It's funny, but the success probably split us up as friends.
08:00Yeah.