BBC Radio 2 in the Park - Haircut One Hundred interview - video Dailymotion

Lancashire Post

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...

Transcript

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.

02:36You 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.

07:19Something'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.

07:54Yeah.

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.

BBC Radio 2 in the Park - Haircut One Hundred interview

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