The Glitterati
By Holden DeForgeWe catch up with The Glitterati at their Leeds show supporting Wildhearts to talk about local music scenes, rock and roll, and record deals...
Rock and Roll. Whilst music trends swing and sway throughout the years it seems that the daddy of them all refuses to lie down for too long. When the synthesisers and electronica of the 80's came along bands such as Van Halen and Kiss embraced and adopted it, styled their hair higher, slipped on some even tighter spandex and just kept on rocking. In the 90's it seemed that grunge would spell the end but Bon Jovi and Aerosmith re-invented themselves and came back stronger than ever. Now with the world under threat from a legion of karaoke singers backed by a man unsure where his waist actually is rock and roll is back fighting again. Pinning a pounding heart bursting with love for rock bands from the past 4 decades firmly on their sleeve are The Glitterati. After years of sweating it out round Leeds, vocalist Paul Gautrey, guitarist John Emsley and drummer Billy James recruited Nic Denson on rhythm guitar and London-based Jamie Snell on bass. A decision was made to move to the capital and with a clean slate of new material and shiny new name the band set about getting themselves noticed. With support slots with Jet, The Killers, Powderfinger, The Wildhearts and Therapy? already under their belts, not to mention poodle haired, high kicking 80's star David Lee Roth, it would seem that things are going to plan.
LMS: So where have you guys been for the last couple of years since you left Leeds?
Paul Gautrey (Vocals): Basically the reason we moved to London wasn't a plan to get away from Leeds, it was just we had Jamie in the band and he was living in London so it was either him coming up here or us going to London and we just fancied a change of scenery. It wasn't like us moving to London, get rich, get signed or anything there just wasn't much point him coming up here and playing the same venues all the time and we had nothing to lose by giving it a try, we could always have moved back. When we got down there we realised we didn't really have any idea, we just got lucky and things worked out for us. It was more just for us to get in the same house and be together all the time instead of playing a gig once in a while in the same place.
Jamie Snell (Bass): The whole thing was new, like starting from scratch and we thought we may as well use this point to join up, if everyone jumps in at the deep end you have to make something of it.
PG: You've gotta decide if your band's worth concentrating on 24 hours a day on.
John Emsley (Lead Guitar): I mean what else are you gonna do?
LMS: You then got a publishing deal quite quickly?
JE: That basically meant we could be a fulltime band so that was the most important, or the most significant thing, although we were all living together we couldn't afford to rehearse all the time, so the publishing deal gave us the opportunity to live and be a fulltime band.
PG: There were a lot of people telling us "don't take it, you can get double the money or three times the money", but it was more a case of us having enough money to get to the next place, we already knew we would get there and we had enough interest. We could have held off and we could of got more money and people were saying wait for the record deal then you'll double the money but the way it worked out we got a really good publishing deal and because of that we got a really good record deal. They gave us everything we needed to have in place by the time we signed the record deal.
JS: We got a PR company on board and that was really helpful and we did an indie single and it all kinda contributed to us getting a really good record deal. That time was really important for us to get everything sorted out.
LMS: So then you had the single release on Poptones before you signed the major deal with East West/ Atlantic?
PG: That could have really backfired on us 'cos at the time we already had offers from labels. There are two ways of looking at it and the way we saw it was that it could only help us 'cos we thought people would like it and that it would go well. The other way of looking at it is if people didn't like it and slagged it off then those labels that were interested may have lost interest. We felt that it would do well, we backed ourselves when we moved down and we backed ourselves putting out an indie single, it all seems to be working out pretty well.
LMS: So what's it like coming back to Leeds now? Do you feel part of this Leeds scene with all the bands from up here signing deals and stuff? When Feeder made the move to London and you had Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals etc all coming out of Wales it never seemed that Feeder got classed as being part of that Welsh rock revolution. Do you feel like that at all?
PG: We don't want to be grouped in with anything. We're a band that were born in Leeds that moved to London. I don't know anything really about the bands from Leeds that are doing well, I've not really heard them to be honest. Good luck to them you know, but I don't want us to be seen as part of a group. We're not a Leeds band and we're not a London band, we're just a band. We're just doing what was best for us; if anyone thought we should have stayed in Leeds or we should have gone to London sooner, well we were just doing what felt right for us. You can do it here, you can stay in Leeds and get signed, but for us we just felt that if we moved to London we needed that kick, we needed to be a band 24 hours a day. There wasn't really that much to lose 'cos fuck, we coulda come back.
JS: We see ourselves as being a much bigger band and to do that you can't pigeonhole yourself in any group or bracket yourself in with other bands.
PG: Good luck to them, if it's working for them then great but we couldn't do it that way, we knew what we needed to do.
JE: With any scene it becomes like a support system for the bands within it but we never felt like we needed more support than we could give ourselves, it's a really tight unit.
LMS: You've got a new EP out today. It has 4 tracks so it's not chart eligible, was that a conscious decision?
PG: It's just the way that the record company are not putting any pressure on us at the moment. It's been available to download for free so they're not just trying to make money out of us at the minute. For us right now it's just about trying to get as many people to know about us, whether they download it or they buy it, it doesn't matter, as long as they come down to the gig. People have got to know about a band first and we're confident enough that once they come down to a gig they'll like it.
JS: We've got an album to record yet, there's no need to make a big statement we just need to get people to know about us.
PG: We're just building on everything we do, this single has had more pre-release sales than the last and we've had a video so we just want things to progress. If the next single sells more copies than this we'll be well on track for where we want to be. We're not setting any goals; we just want a progression with each little thing. One of the reasons we signed with the label is that they see that as well, they don't just want to get us in the charts, we need to play as many gigs as possible. We've been playing with everyone and hopefully stealing a few fans from other bands. We're not in a position to be worried about whether we're in the charts. We're gonna be judged on whether our albums great and whether we're a good or a shit live band. I think we're gonna record a great album and I think we're a great live band so it's good.
LMS: OK, finally. The video: who said "lets just stick a shot of a fit bird in her underwear at the end!"?
PG: Ha ha, well she's supposed to be shagging us. What do you want: a twist at the end? Us to be shagging a fat cameraman like we actually were?
The Glitterati are currently touring with The Wildhearts and Therapy? and 'Here Comes A Close Up' is available to buy now on Atlantic Records. They will be performing at the Download Festival this summer before heading to the USA to record their debut album.
