BELLE & SEBASTIAN ON…
WORKING WITH LEGENDARY PRODUCER TREVOR HORN
DRUMMER RICHARD COLBURN: we were ready to do an album, so we had three or four producers in mind. For a fifth, just a giggle, we said, 'Oh, we'll pitch Trevor.' And he was the only one who ended up responding to any of it. He came up to Glasgow to hear us rehearse a few times, just to get a rough idea of what we're all about. I think at first maybe he had a plan in his head to record us one way, and then when he actually met us and he saw the way we work, he probably had a radically change it.
TODD SOLONDZ CUTTING HALF THEIR MUSIC FOR STORYTELLING
VIOLINIST SARAH MARTIN: we actually put a lot of work into it before it turned out a little differently - six minutes of our music in the film. We'd all written quite a lot of instrumentals and songs, and we'd recorded everything, and we played it to Todd and he would pick what he wanted for the film. So I think we sort of felt that we could do things justice by actually finishing them off and releasing it as our own album.
COMPLAINTS THAT TOO MANY BANDMEMBERS WRITE SONGS
SINGER/GUITARIST STUART MURDOCH: I don't really care. I know for a fact that it's been a tremendously positive thing. I'm not in this band for the fans; I'm especially not in the band for the critics or the record company. The band makes a records because we like to do it and we must do it and we're interested in pleasing ourselves. This might sound harsh, but it's true: if we can't develop and try things out and have a bit of fun, then there's no point in doing it.
Interview by Mikael Wood
Belle and Sebastian can be heard courting graying Buggles fans and teenaged lesbians on their new Dear Catastrophe Waitress (Rough Trade).
CMJ #118
(Nov 2003)