Exclusive Post Reunion Pulp Interview

November 15th

Showroom Cafe

Sheffield

Thanks to the ineptitude of Northern Rail, I arrive at the Showroom Cafe in Sheffield an agonising 15 minutes late. It’s been a 2 and a half hour journey from my house in Wakefield and all had run smoothly, until I got about 500 yards from the station at which point the train decided to stop, and refused to move for a good half hour. As if I wasn’t nervous enough; this meeting had taken over a year to set up and the interviewee was (allegedly) notoriously media unfriendly. Would he even bother waiting for me to turn up?

Cut. Almost a year to the day previously I had returned from holiday in Japan to the news that Pulp had reformed. I was thrilled; perhaps slightly more than most, as prior to my embarkation I had arranged an interview with guitar / violin player Russell Senior. Before the announcement, no one was really that interested in Pulp anymore – despite how most periodicals tried to rewrite the fact after the event. They were well regarded, of course, the general view being that history now declares them as one of the only credible bands to emerge from / survive Britpop. But the mountains of work they compiled either side of that momentous non event? Barely a blip.

And not even the fans expected it. I certainly didn’t when I devised a run of articles for Rhubarb Bomb which would focus on their 1994 release ‘The Sisters EP’, a personal favourite of mine. I was only 17 when they released their final album, ‘We Love Life’, yet I spent most of my university years hunting down their more obscure releases, with especial fondness for ‘His n Hers’ era electro pop gems and those disintegrating descents into ‘This Is Hardcore’ despair.

‘The Sisters EP’, released between His N Hers and Different Class was, for me, a perfect moment in their history. It was everything I wanted it to be. It mixed the dark, desperate vicious nature of ‘Razzmatazz’ with the stretched, slightly sinister pop structures they had found success with on His N Hers. It was the Jarvis of ‘Deep Fried In Kelvin’ and ‘Inside Susan’ honed down to a white hot razor of indignation and exasperation. The music was heavy, emotionally heavy. Most of their work had light and dark, moments of wit and sarcasm amongst the dissections of ‘ordinary people’s lives’, yet ‘The Sisters EP’ was what I wanted; for them to push that darker side even further with no submissions, no backing out, no joke at the end to lighten the mood. That it was wrapped in a perfect pop package made it all the better. Genius.

And so the plan was to try and meet each member who played on the EP (Jarvis Cocker, Candida Doyle, Steve Mackay, Nick Banks & Russell Senior) in turn and try and find out what made that particular record so special. That the record is rarely mentioned in interviews or critical appraisals made it all the more exciting to me and I thought it might be something they would go for; no questions about Common People or Brit Award ceremonies. Something only a ZINE would cover.

Naturally, the dramatic cycle of the articles would mean Jarvis would have to be last. But who would I try speak to first? I chose Russell. He left Pulp after Different Class and is regarded as the more… militant member of the band. Full of ideology with a thirst for experimentation. As my good friend Rob Dee said as we watched them at Hyde Park this summer ‘You’ve got to have a cool fucker on guitar haven’t you?’ So that was Russell; ‘the cool fucker’. He was also furthest from the band and I thought I would have the best chance of hooking up with him.

So in September 2010 I got in touch. To my great surprise he was more than happy for a meet up. Initially we couldn’t find the right time; trips away, bouts of flu getting in the way. Then, towards the end of October it looked like we had it. But then I received an intriguing email.

He told me that if I needed to get the interview done ‘soonish’ it would have to be via email. However, if I could wait a couple of weeks we could hook up in Sheffield and speak in person. Tantalisingly, I was told it’d be ‘worth the wait’.

So naturally I waited and flew off to Japan. Upon hearing the reformation news I was excited, yes, that one of my favourite bands was back together. I was surprised too that Russell was part of it. But I couldn’t help it – inevitably it crossed my mind; did I have some kind of massive scoop here? Would I have the first interview with a member of the reformed Pulp? Or did this mean the interview was off? I was a heavy mix of emotion, but it’s those kinds of moments the zine writer lives for, I reckon.

Cut back to November 2011. It may have taken me 2 and a half hours to get here today, but this interview's been nearly a year in the making. As it turned out, Pulp as a whole decided there would be no interviews at all. Russell had hoped they would speak exclusively to small fanzines akin to Rhubarb Bomb. But the band vetoed the idea. They wanted to maintain an air of mystery. If you wanted to experience it, you’d have to come to the shows. Russell was apologetic when breaking the news, but did promise when it had all blown over, he would still meet with me. So after a year, surely another 15 minutes wouldn’t make any difference?

I fall through the front door of ‘The Showroom’ and glance around. I see a few tables taken but don’t spot Russell. I begin walking up to the counter when I get a wave from the back of the room. He’s there waiting patiently as I walk over. ‘I’d recognise a fanzine writer anywhere’ he says and I sit down, shaking and slightly out breath. But I’d made it.

Dean Freeman

The full interview between Russell and Rhubarb Bomb will appear in Issue 3.1, due to be released at the end of February. Follow RB on Twitter / Facebook for updates, if you are that way inclined.

Wireless Festival (Pulp) Review

Wireless Festival
Hyde Park, London
3rd July 2011

Wireless Festival was a 3 day festival; RB could only afford to make it for the last day, though with Pulp headlining the final night, was there any real need to waste 2 days waiting for the greatest band ever?

I heard that Aphex Twin were amazing on the Saturday and I regret not getting to be art of that. However, Sunday is where we were and thus the review begins.

I don’t recall going to Hyde Park before. I’m not a big London lover. I can manage 2 days tops, but even then I get a bit stressed by it all. I don’t like busy places, I don’t like things noisy and hot and sweaty and I don’t like the fact that you have to get the tube everywhere, randomly popping up in some suburb not knowing where the hell you are. I also don’t like how expensive it is and the fact it loves itself a bit too much.

HOWEVER. We managed to get a hostel right on Hyde Park for just £20 each a night. We could see The Albert Hall out of our Window. The Natural History Museum was a 3 minute walk. And being in upmarket South Kensington made us feel all fancy. Hyde Park itself was a good venue, it was great to sit in the park and chill before the festival itself started. It also meant you could have a few cheeky beers before hand to save on dollars as once you were in, YOU WERE IN. No re-admissions.



Getting in was a problem as the queues were massive, meaning we missed Yuck and all but the end of Metronomy, pretty much the only two bands on the day time bill I cared about. The tailend of Metronomy was excellent though, amazing I saw them in The Hop, Wakefield just a few months before. Admittedly they have intentionally got a hell of a lot more accessible with recent album The English Riveria, but it was the right move. They sound great in the mid afternoon sun.

We find a good spot to perch and sit on the grass. The festival isn’t too busy and there are plenty of spots to sit and drink and chat, near enough to hear the bands, but far enough to be heard over the noise. It makes the best of being in a park basically. Although it is busier by the end, it never gets too busy.

Bands come and go – The Horrors surprise me as I thought I pretty much despised them. I hated them when they arrived but I’d heard good things about the 2nd album. Not enough to listen to it, but from what we get here I’m really impressed, swarming walls of noise with a Primal Scream penchant for dirtiness and euphoria in equal measures. Cool. The Hives, who we are all surprised to hear still exist, arrive next. They are entertaining, front man Howlin' Pelle Almqvist spurting odd and humorous asides between songs. They are exactly as we remember them sounding. Pleasing background music to the pints.



TV on The Radio, another band I never got into, pop up next and again I’m surprised that I’m actually liking what I hear. The sounds are dense and interesting but the atmosphere of the festival, or at least the space around us, is geared more towards socialising and I’m not paying a great deal of notice.

For the first time we leave the main stage and head over to catch Foals. It’s almost as if this festival was made up of bands I’ve heard loads about but know nothing. The tent is full and again the sound is good. But we stand outside and let the fans squash in. Around us are plenty of food stalls, offering plenty of variety. Price wise we are talking £4 a pint and about £6/7 for food. Pretty pricey if it were a northern festival but in London it’s close to a bargain. There are plenty of security staff around, some of them even monitoring the toilet queues to makes sure people don’t jump ahead.

The overall festival vibe surpasses what I expected would be overly corporate. It’s inclusive and, I guess, relatively family friendly. Amusingly, the big screens by the stage between bands show vox pops taken with the crowd and interview sections hosted by a T4 wannabe and Huey from Fun Lovin Criminals. The festival they are showing on screen seems to differ wildly from what I see around me – talks with Skins like teenagers about all the hot boys and girls and getting drunk and Huey spouting like he’s at some California frat beach party. Weird, because the festival was a lot nicer than the image they were seemingly trying to project.

So we caught the last 5 minutes of Grace Jones. I don’t know anything she’s ever done, except play MayDay in ‘A View To A Kill’ and was probably right to assume her music wouldn’t be up my street. But she astounded us all by performing her entire closing number whilst hula hooping non stop. And she weren’t just stood there. She walked around the stage introducing the band. Like she’d forgotten it was there. Then she walked off, hula hoop still going. Nice work.

And so the wait began. For the mighty Pulp. I had had mixed feelings about the reunion. In general I viciously disapprove of band reunions for the sake of it. I’ve seen a couple. I saw The Pixies at Leeds Fest. I had a great time during the gig. But it was wrong, and I knew it (and proved very unpopular when stating it). If they’d got an album out I wouldn’t mind. But we’re still waiting.

With Pulp I was excited because Russell was back. For me that seemed to give it the stamp of approval it needed. And hearing they’d got together due to a mutual friend passing away and them realising life was too short – I can deal with that. I think if anything I perhaps felt a little jealous as I had made the effort to attend their ‘last ever gig’ at Magna in Sheffield which had been amazing. I couldn’t say that anymore.

The festival seems Pulp’s natural home now though. Come on and play the hits… except they don’t have a massive amount of ‘proper hits’. And the excitement of seeing ‘I Spy’, ‘F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E’ and ‘This Is Hardcore’ again, alongside the singalong favourites was the perfect combination of feel good and subversive.



As expected they opened with ‘Do You Remember The First Time’ which seemed slower but more driving than I remember, Jarvis’ opening line of ‘You say you want to go home…’ sounding so strong and alluring – exactly as if the last 17 years had not passed. As ever Jarvis is the greatest thing going here. With this reunion in particular, it all rested on him. The band sound tight and perform efficiently if not without any particular flair (stylish Russell aside). Jarvis is the key. If there had been any sense from him that he was going through the motions it would have fallen apart. But from the very beginning he was back, putting ever ounce of passion and playfulness into his performance.

He introduced every song and it was good to hear him reminisce about his years in London – though very much a northern band, most northerners do forget that it was London that made the band when it counted, or as Jarvis puts it; ‘the clash of Sheffield and London’. Pleasingly they illustrate this with ‘Mile End’ which though played a lot during the Different Class tour I’d not heard live before, only available on the Trainspotting Soundtrack.

The set continues with great song after great song. 9 of the 12 Different Class tracks get an airing, leaving 3 from His N Hers, 1 from This Is Hardcore and 1 from We Love Life and Mile End. I expected more from His N Hers but it seemed they ran out of time, with Jarvis asking the time and then playing Common People. I reckon they wanted to play Lipgloss of Razzamatazz, which would have been amazing and probably preferable to Bar Italia. But, it has to be said, it was a festival and the festival favourites naturally got the best reaction; ‘Disco 2000’ was immense, ‘Something Changed’ got a huge singalong and ‘Babies’ got people bouncing around like it was 1995.



‘I Spy’ was a highlight. Jarvis started on the floor on his back with perverse callings of ‘I’m coming to get you… I know where you are’ as the band built an unnerving wave of sound. He then came down to the audience with a camera and stuck it in their faces, to great comic affect. Once the beat kicked in it thrust into life, much greater than the record. ‘Pink Glove’ had a fantastic propulsion to it as well and it was good that the band had clearly worked on some of the tracks, tighten them up for the festival audience.

There wasn’t a track that didn’t satisfy. ‘This Is Hardcore’, a personal favourite, soared over the park. It was those moments that justified the reunion for me. Such a crazy, conceptual piece of devastating music being fed to the Disco 2000 ‘masses’ was a triumph. It also made me realise that I had mellowed some in the years since Pulp left us in that I happily sit in both of those camps now.

But that was the overriding feeling – it didn’t feel like they had ever left. Officially they never split, but it felt right for those songs to be part of NOW. They didn’t feel like relics, it didn’t even feel like nostalgia. Of course I hope they make another record. But if not, any excuse to get Jarvis back in front of a field full of people is worth it. It’s where he belongs and it makes the world a better place. Jarvis closed the gig by saying ‘see you again, maybe in another 10 years’ but I’ve got a feeling it’ll be sooner than that.

As a festival, it was a good experience; the trip to London with friends felt like enough of an adventure to warrant to cost and it was something new and different. I’d have been less impressed I had just popped to Leeds for the same thing. The atmosphere was good and the organisers seemed to care that you had a good time, though ultimately it is just another corporate festival.


Dean Freeman

Photography by Joel Rowbottom